Soldiers in Mali Kill 22 Anti-Regime Protesters

Soldiers fired on anti-government protesters in Bamako on Friday, killing at least 22 people, witnesses and doctors said. The slayings set off widespread rioting in the Mali capital.

The riots in this impoverished West African country were the bloodiest in a wave of pro-democracy protests that have been sweeping Africa.

President Moussa Traore declared a state of emergency and announced an overnight curfew in the main towns of Mali, a nation of 8 million people. Violent demonstrations on a smaller scale were reported outside the capital.

Witnesses said students with firebombs set government buildings ablaze and looted and burned gas stations, shops and cars belonging to senior officials of Traore’s ruling party.

Students demanding the resignation of the education minister were joined by tens of thousands of people shouting for multi-party democracy and an end to Traore’s rule, said Demba Diallo, president of the Malian Human Rights Organization.

The president, in a radio broadcast announcing the state of emergency and curfew, said, “The current situation demands that security be stepped up. . . . No grievances . . . can justify the violence we are witnessing.”

He expressed “total readiness” to discuss protesters’ grievances and said his party would consider demands for a multi-party system within days. Critics demand an open conference and inclusion of pro-democracy leaders.

The general seized power in the former French colony in a 1968 coup, then installed himself as president of a one-party state in 1979. His Mali People’s Democratic Union is the sole legal party.

The Assn. of African Jurists condemned Friday’s “bloody repression” in a statement from Dakar, Senegal. It urged authorities “to put an end to the cycle of violence.”

Diallo said Friday’s protest was peaceful until soldiers attacked with submachine guns.

“They used their arms of war before they fired the tear gas. It is horrible. They (authorities) have gone mad,” he said.

Armored cars and cannons were deployed, witnesses said. By afternoon, streets were deserted except for soldiers, scattered shoes abandoned by fleeing demonstrators and smoldering tires. Later, traffic slowly returned to streets littered with stones and glass.

A doctor at Gabriel Traore Hospital said the city’s two hospitals reported 22 deaths and 249 people suffering from bullet wounds, many in critical condition. Diallo said he counted 25 bodies.