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274 CHAPTER 6ponsibility for the mixed patrols was formally in the hands of the CommissionMonitoring the Cease Fire (CCF), also provided for in the National Pact, andmanned by MFUA members. In practice, control over the mixed patrols wastotally unclear and so was their deployment. In fact, the mixed patrols formedan extra army that could be played out by all players in the field. The creationof the mixed patrols and the CCF were long the only measures of the NationalPact to be applied, to the dissatisfaction of all: the rebels, who wanted more; theArmy who wanted less integration of, and more combat against the rebels; theMalian general public who thought this was giving state means to the rebels;and the Tamasheq population, who did not see much improvement in security.Nevertheless, as ag Youssouf and Poulton conclude, the mixed patrols and theCCF “managed to buy a year of (relative) peace for Mali”. 35 Despite the Army’sresistance and the general disapproval of the Malian public, the MFUA keptinsisting on rebel integration. In May 1994, the MFUA and the Malian Governmentrenegotiated the implementation of the National Pact. The discussionsfocused entirely on rebel integration as the MFUA demanded integration of3,000 men into the Army, and development projects leading to the reinsertion incivil society for another 4,000, which outraged the Malian negotiators. 36 Theinsistence on the integration of rebels in the Malian Armed Forces from the sideof the MFUA was probably their worst public relations campaign in the wholeconflict. It gave many Malians the impression the rebels were nothing but abunch of unemployed mercenaries from Qadhafi (which they had been said tobe from the start) demanding employment from the Malian state.The National Pact has never been fully implemented. The significance of theNational Pact lies in the road leading to it; and in the consequences of itsstructural non-application on the internal development of the rebel movement,Tamasheq society in general and their relations with the Malian state. It led firstto two years of structural negotiation by a group of men, the MFUA, who hadless and less contact with the communities or state bodies they formally represented,and could therefore hardly be considered as representative in realterms. Its non-application finally led to the outburst of severe interracial, interethnic,and intertribal violence in early 1994. The creation of the MFUA and itsrole in conducting negotiations meant a shift in importance within the movementsfrom the ishumar towards the évolués. The MFUA’s first secretarygeneral and spokesman was Zahaby ould Sidi Mohamed, the newly electedpolitical leader of the FIAA. Before Zahaby joined the FIAA, he had been adevelopment consultant to the AEN, the Norwegian Church development3536Ibid.Poulton, R. & I. ag Youssouf 1998: 70.