On March 26, 1991 Lieutenant Colonel Amadou Toumani Toure led a military coup in Mali that overthrew and arrested the longtime dictator Moussa Traore, at the climax of a popular uprising that Traore's forces had violently suppressed. Traore had ruled Mali since a 1968 coup. By early 1991 the pro-democracy movement, centered on the Alliance for Democracy in Mali, was demanding an end to one-party rule.
In late March 1991 mass demonstrations in Bamako were met with lethal force; scores and by some accounts well over a hundred protesters were killed. Amid a general strike and the bloodshed, on March 26, 1991 army officers led by Amadou Toumani Toure arrested President Traore and suspended the constitution. Toure chaired a transitional council that led Mali to multiparty elections in 1992.
Traore was detained and later tried.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Target identified in Coup Atlas research: President Moussa Traore, overthrown and arrested on March 26, 1991 by Amadou Toumani Toure amid the popular uprising.
RESEARCHED NAME
Key figures
Moussa Traore (dictator overthrown and arrested)
Amadou Toumani Toure (officer who led the coup)
Sources
The 26 March 1991 Malian coup resulted in the overthrow of President Moussa Traore after over two decades of dictatorship and eventually led to multi-party elections, and in 1968 Traore had himself led a military coup ousting the first president Modibo Keita.
Government soldiers fired on peaceful demonstrators killing 28 and setting off days of rioting, with sources varying as to the toll (the opposition claimed 148 killed while Traore said there were 27 deaths), a general strike was called for 25 March, and Lieutenant Colonel Amadou Toumani Toure launched a coup that deposed Traore, after which the National Reconciliation Council chaired by Toure was set up to run the country temporarily.
On 25 October 1990 opposition to Traore's decades-long rule had coalesced into the Alliance for Democracy in Mali, an umbrella for opposition groups, as unrest grew with people blaming the regime's corruption and mismanagement and IMF austerity for their economic troubles, and ADEMA and other pro-democracy groups demanded the end of the one-party state.
In Mali, military officers led by Amadou Toumani Toure arrested President Moussa Traore and suspended the constitution in late March 1991, part of the wider wave of change in that year.
Fate coding: the deposed president Moussa Traore was arrested in the coup, matching the dataset's arrested-or-jailed fate; he was later tried and imprisoned and eventually pardoned, and was not killed in the takeover. Coding note: the dataset labels this a military coup, accurately, led by Lieutenant Colonel Amadou Toumani Toure; it came at the climax of a popular pro-democracy uprising, so it combined a mass movement with a military intervention. Mass-violence context handled with care and cited: in the days before the coup, Traore's forces fired on demonstrators, and the death toll is disputed (official figures cite around 27 to 28 while opposition sources claimed about 148, with further deaths in the surrounding violence); these conflicting figures are recorded rather than resolved, and revenge killings after the coup are noted per the source. Historical weight recorded: the coup ended Traore's rule since his own 1968 coup, and Toure led a transition to multiparty democracy in 1992 before handing power to an elected civilian, an unusual voluntary transition. Neutrality maintained on a contested subject.
Cross-Reference
Datasets agree. At least two of the three reference datasets we check against carry this event, and none of them disagrees about its date or its result.
Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: President Moussa Traore, overthrown and arrested on March 26, 1991 by Amadou Toumani Toure amid the popular uprising..
Baseline coding: Incumbent executive removed from power. Recorded leader fate: deposed; arrested or jailed. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.
Baseline Dataset Citation
Cline Center Coup d’État Project Dataset, v2.2.2
Peyton, Buddy, Joseph Bajjalieh, Michael Martin, and Andrea Gerald. 2026. Cline Center Coup d’État Project Dataset. Cline Center for Advanced Social Research. V.2.2.2. February 17. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. doi: 10.13012/B2IDB-9651987_V10
“President of Mali Reported Arrested,” March 26, 1991
“Mali’s Dictator is Overthrown in Coup,” March 27, 1991
“Coup leaders in Mali Agree to Share Power,” March 31, 1991
This is the citation trail carried by the baseline dataset, grouped by outlet and rejoined from the line-wrapped original. Coup Atlas has not independently re-checked every document; read the original before citing a specific claim. URLs the import damaged beyond safe repair are shown as plain text and listed in citations-report.md. How this list is built →