Soldiers declare coup in Mali

BAMAKO, Mali -- Drunk soldiers looted Mali's presidential palace hours after they declared a coup yesterday, suspending the constitution and dissolving the institutions of one of the few established democracies in this troubled corner of Africa.

The whereabouts of President Amadou Toumani Touré, 63, who was just a month away from stepping down after a decade in office, could not be confirmed.

The soldier heading the group of putschists gave an interview on state television late Thursday, saying Touré is "doing well and is safe."

Capt. Amadou Haya Sanogo refused to say where the Touré leader is being kept; it was not clear if they are holding him.

The scene in the normally serene capital was unsettling to those proud of Mali's history as one of the few mature democracies in the region. Soldiers smelling of alcohol ripped flat-screen TVs, computer monitors, printers and photocopiers out of the presidential palace. Others in pickup trucks zoomed across the broad avenues, holding beer bottles in one hand and firing automatic weapons with the other.

The mutineers said they were overthrowing the government because of its mishandling of an ethnic Tuareg insurgency in the country's north that began in January. Tens of thousands of Malian civilians have been forced to flee.

The soldiers sent to fight the separatists have been killed in large numbers, often after being sent to the battlefield with inadequate arms and food supplies, prompting fierce criticism of the government.

The coup began Wednesday, after young troops mutinied at a military camp near the capital and spread to a garrison thousands of miles away in the northern town of Gao.

By evening, troops had surrounded the state television station in Bamako. At dawn yesterday, some 20 soldiers huddled behind a table, facing the camera. They introduced themselves as the National Committee for the Reestablishment of Democracy and the Restoration of the State, known by its French acronym, CNRDR.

"The CNRDR . . . has decided to . . . end the incompetent and disavowed regime of Amadou Toumani Touré," they said. "We solemnly swear to return power to a democratically elected president as soon as national unity and territorial integrity are established."