Background
He was born on December 30, 1929, in Bamako, Mali.
He was born on December 30, 1929, in Bamako, Mali.
He was educated at the Bamako Ecole Normale Superieure, before going to the University of Montpellier, in France, where he graduated from the Faculty of law and later took a diploma in political economy.
Having started to work at the Overseas Scientific and Technical Research Bureau, in Paris, he went back to Mali after one year to become Chef de Cabinet at the Ministry of Public Works, at the same time that he entered the Bamako Administration School as a professor of Political Economy and Public Law.
In 1959 he was appointed Secretary of State for Labour and Social Affairs, then Secretary of State for Public Works and Labour, President of the Fourth Session of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (1962), President of the Commission on Apartheid (1964) and vice-president of the African Regional Conference of the International Labour Organisation (Addis Ababa) 1964, later becoming chairman of the board in 1965-6 and the first African ever to be elected to this position. His experience of labour matters at international level had actually started back in 1959 when he took part in the Mali delegation to the ILO.
At the moment of the military coup in November 1968, he was Modibo Keita’s Minister of Public Service and Labour.
His ability to adapt himself to new situations comes from his wide experience' as an international civil servant during the Modibo Keito regime. Though he was not the only old-time politician to find himself at ease among the young officers who led the November 1968 coup d’etat, his knowledge of antechamber manoeuvring propelled him immediately to a vicepresidency of the Military Committee of National Liberation (CMLN) for which he was appropriately made a lieutenant of the Malian army at the rather late age of 39. If one day the power of the Malian military junta relaxes. Captain Diarra, as he was later promoted, will be the man to make the best possible use of the new situation. A great friend and admirer of Colonel Afrifa of Ghana.