Mali's turbulent history - Telegraph The Tuareg tribe's independence movement, with major uprisings in the 1960s, 1990s and 2000s, had died down in recent years after the signing of various peace accords. But a resurgence of separatist sentiment in the north came in mid-January, as Tuareg soldiers returned to Mali from Libya. Thursday's military deposition of President Amadou Toumani Toure, nicknamed "the soldier of democracy," is just one in a series which saw Mr Toure himself overthrow Lieutenant Moussa Traore in 1991. Democratic elections were held one year late. Lieutenant Traore himself had been the victor in a coup which ousted the previous Malian ruler in 1968. By 1995 a peace agreement was signed between the tribal rebels and Malian authorities, allowing thousands of refugees to return to the war-torn north. Amadou Tomani Toure took the presidential office in 2002, winning in a landslide election. But throughout his period of rule, when drought and a plague of locusts brought about widespread famine, the Tuaregs remained convinced that they lacked equal rights, and rose up again in 2007. That same year President Toure won a second five-year term. It was two years until peace returned to Mali, when 700 rebels surrendered their weapons in February 2009 to mark the armistice. This lasted almost three years, until January 2012, when the Tuareg fighters returning from Libya attacked northern towns in a new bid for an independent north. Amnesty International said the fighting was the worst human rights crisis in northern Mali in 20 years. Army bases also came under assault from the Tuaregs, forcing the government forces out of several towns. This has led to condemnation of the president for not supplying troops with enough weapons, and the army's malaise has culminated in yet another coup being marked in Mali's turbulent history.