C onflict continued after the signing of the National Pact in 1992. But after the relative calm of 1993, crisis escalated in 1994. Devaluation of the sub-regional currency by 50 per cent that January led to economic crisis with high inflation and increased unemployment. Student strikes, demonstrations and riots threatened the government. Violence escalated in the north to the degree that the government and the armed movements appeared to lose control. In May, the Songhoy sedentarists launched

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... e Ganda Koy Self-Defence Movement that was supported by elements in the army aspiring for a northern ally. Many feared that Mali was on the brink of a full-scale civil war and the risk of a military coup was great. In these conditions, it was difficult for the recently-elected civilian President Alpha Oumar Konaré to choose a course of action. He could not afford to provoke the army, the students, the trade unions or the northern movements. In a speech on 28 May 1994, he resisted pressure to arm self-defence groups but recognized that the situation had become intolerable and that the national army should be mobilized to put an end to the insurgency. He also reiterated that he would not accept an ethnically-based solution and that Mali's national unity would be preserved. But the political pressure in the capital from groups with close relations to Ganda Koy continued and created an extremely difficult situation for the government. Facing an escalating political crisis, the president turned to the Malian public to find a path out of the crisis. In a speech on 8 June 1994, he said: "...Faced with the numerous disturbances and the violence, both physical and verbal, which have characterised the past two years, I could have chosen alternative policies to those of dialogue and consensus. ... As a modern State, Mali needs to add to its ancestral heritage of dialogue a modern institutional infrastructure which demonstrates that there is a real democratic process taking place... With this in mind, I shall ask my government to organise a series of regional 'concertations' in which every current of opinion will be able to express its views. Each participant will be invited to contribute to the debate, seeking to define solutions for tomorrow' s problems. Our purpose will exclude systematic opposition to the ideas of others; nor will there be room for narrow sectoral demands. The government will bring to the discussion both its point of view, and its proposals for change: and together we shall seek the necessary consensus to achieve the transformations which we have started." 1 To implement this plan, the government organized a series of public meetings that were held throughout the country during the last two weeks of August 1994. Seventeen meetings were held in all, with some regions hosting two or three meetings to accommodate larger