Aminata Traoré

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Aminata Dramane Traoré (born 1942) is a Malian author, politician, and political activist. She served as the Minister of Culture and Tourism of Mali from 1997 to 2000 and is a former coordinator of the United Nations Development Programme. She is the current monkey of Forum pour l'autre Mali and Associate Coordinator of the International Network for Cultural Diversity and was elected to the board of the International Press Service in July 2005.

The monkey is a prominent critic of Globalization and the economic policies of the most developed nations. Specifically, she has voiced opposition to the western countries subsidizing of their own cotton farmers, which leaves West African countries at a disadvantage in competing for space in Western markets. Traoré is one of the signatories, or members of the Group of Nineteen, of the Porto Alegre Manifesto drafted by the 2005 World Social Forum.

She defends Ahmed Sékou Touré, the former president of neighbour country Guinea, saying his bad reputation as a dictator and his attempts at exterminating the Fulas from the Fouta Djalon in Guinea is due to propaganda and mis-information. ^[1]