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CREATING MALI 71rally, were arrested as well. Despite its dissolution after the 1959 elections,support for the PSP was still strong in Mali, especially in the Dioula community,and not all of its party structures had dissolved. 136 The Keita regimetook the opportunity the Dioula riots presented to rid itself of these potentialopposition leaders. On 24 September 1962 a ‘popular trial’ commenced againstthose arrested who were accused of conspiracy against the state. Sissoko andDicko were the main defendants. They were accused of organising the rally andof being in contact with such former colonial top brass as Max Lejeune andMarius Moutet, which was taken as evidence of French support for Sissoko’santinational conspiracy to topple the Keita Government. 137 The tribunal announcedits verdict on 1 October 1962. Seventy-seven merchants received sentencesranging from one year of imprisonment to twenty years of forced labourin Kidal prison. The main defendants, Fily Dabo Sissoko, Hamadoun Dicko andKassoum Touré, the organiser of the Dioula rally, received death sentences,which Modibo Keita changed to life sentences of forced labour in the Kidalarea. 138Although probably the largest forms of organised protest before the 1963rebellion in the Adagh, the Dioula riots and the mass exodus of the Bandiagaraarea were not the only forms of resistance against the Keita regime. Morepassive forms, such as simply not being a member of the US-RDA, tax evasion,disregard for communal fields and human investment, or other disobedience togovernment instructions, were commonplace. 139 These forms of resistance willhave contributed to a heightened awareness within the new regime that itscontrol over the country was still to be consolidated. The Keita administrationconsisted largely of educated urbanites with no small amount of contempt forthe villagers, as its ‘Return to the land’ policy destined for lazy, free-ridingurban migrants, demonstrated. The elite was determined to develop thepopulation, even against its own will, but it was well aware of the possibleresistance and reverted to harsh reprisals such as the deployment of the army inthe Dogon area and the trial of the Dioula. However, one could develop theargument that the US-RDA needed resistance in order to consolidate the Maliannation and its control over that nation. In depicting resistance as unpatrioticexpressions of hostility, or even as a plot against the nation – imagined or real –the regime could inculcate an acute sense of national danger and launch an appealto defend cause and country. The colonial history, ideology and organisationof the US-RDA showed the party that it needed enemies both outside and136 For PSP support and its remaining structures after 1960, see Hopkins, N. 1972.137 L’Essor, 27/09/1962.138 L’Essor, 02/10/1962.139 Based on: Ernst, K. 1976; Jones, W. 1972; Gary-Tounkara, D. 2006; Zolberg, V.1976.