Plusieurs chemins: how different stakeholders at different scales in Malian society are fragmenting the state

The Republic of Mali, at the start of 2002, held much promise and hope in Africa as well as the international community. The country showed recovery from famines that displaced many families (particularly in the north) in the 1970s and 1980s and a revolt in the 1990s that started over regional disparity but shifted into ethnic violence between neighbouring groups (Claudot-Hawad 1995, Chataigner and Magro 2007). To heal the country, a new constitution, efforts at decentralising some federal powers, the integration of ex-rebels into the police and the military, and popular elections with presidential term limits were introduced (Baque 1995, Drisdelle 1997). Malians in 2002 witnessed the first voluntary step down of a national leader after decades of military power and dictatorship. Alpha Konare, Mali's first democratically elected president, served two terms before passing the office on to Amadou Toumani Toure, or ATT, an advocate of many of the 1990s reforms (Poulton and Youssouf 1998). Ten years later, however, Mali is dividing. Adapted from the source document.