African Solidarity for Democracy and Independence

African Solidarity for Democracy and Independence (French: Solidarité Africaine pour la Démocratie et l'Indépendance) is a communist party in Mali. It was founded by Cheick Oumar Sissoko and Oumar Mariko in 1996; Sissoko is the party's President and Mariko is its Secretary-General, the top post in the party. The party is Pan-Africanist in ideology, is affiliated internationally with the International Communist Seminar, a grouping organised by the Workers Party of Belgium, and is in part an outgrowth of the 1991 demonstrations against the military rule of President Moussa Traoré. Mariko was head of the Association of Students and Pupils of Mali (AEEM) during the 1991 protest movement which overthrew the government.