Mali junta lifts curfew amid international pressure

Mali’s military junta has lifted the curfew, five days after renegade soldiers seized power in a coup that has drawn international condemnation. “The curfew is lifted across national territory this Tuesday, 27 March 2012,” it said in a text read out on public television. “The country's land borders will be open to traffic from 00:00 this Wednesday 28 March 2012”, AFP reported. Businesses reopened and children returned to school Tuesday as Malians heeded a call by the junta to return to work. Mali junta leader Captain Amadou Sanogo had said after the coup on March 22 that their move was prompted by the government’s “inability” to put down a Tuareg-led insurgency in the north of the country. The West African regional bloc, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), declared after an emergency meeting in Abidjan on Tuesday that the Mali military junta had no legitimacy. It called for the reinstatement of the ousted President Amadou Toumani Toure and said that the constitutional order should be restored in the capital Bamako. ECOWAS said it would send a delegation of six heads of state to Mali within 48 hours. The President of Burkina Faso, Blaise Compaore, named as the mediator in the crisis, said, "If the movements do not respect this decision, the bloc will take all measures to put an end to the rebellion and preserve Mali's territorial integrity, including by the use of force." Toure was due to step down after the April 29 elections, as he has served the constitutional limit of two terms. He is credited with ushering in democracy after overthrowing the country's last dictator Moussa Traore 21 years ago.