Reply #7: Gaddafi and the Touareg: Love, hate and petro-dollars [View All]

GADDAFI AND THE TOUAREG: Love, hate and petro-dollars
Touareg attitudes to Gaddafi vary wildly, depending on country of origin and history (First published by Monocle Magazine - Online only, March 2011)

After his usual upbeat greeting, Ahmed, my Touareg musician friend from Kidal in northeastern Mali, changes his tone abruptly. “Things are really hard at the moment,” he says in a dejected voice. “There’s no work. There hasn’t been for ages. All I do is go to the bush to look after the animals and then come back here to town.” Then he adds, “We’re watching the news about Gaddafi on the TV. Nobody is happy about it. If Gaddafi goes, then the Touareg will be in great danger. But Gaddafi hasn’t been recruiting in Kidal. I don’t think so anyway.”

Despite Ahmed’s claims, it now seems certain that up to 800 young Touareg have been lured north from Mali and Niger to go and fight as mercenaries for Gaddafi since the start of the Libyan uprising. This is unsurprising perhaps if you consider the dire state of poverty and joblessness in the southern Sahara. Decades of drought, under-development and ethnic conflict have recently been exacerbated by the presence of Al-Qaeda In the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) whose kidnappings have put an end to tourism and foreign investment in the region. Gaddafi’s promise of arms and petrodollars represent a pill of hope, albeit a bitter tasting one. Some Touareg youth feel they have no option but to swallow it.

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Akli Sheika, a Libyan Touareg living in exile in Britain, was imprisoned for teaching Tifinarh, the ancient Touareg alphabet, in Libyan schools. “I consider Gaddafi to be the enemy number one of the Touareg people,” he told me. “Most of the Touareg in Libya want Gaddafi to leave. Gaddafi is recruiting the Touareg by force and threatening them with violence if they don’t fight with the protestors. Many Touareg from Ghat and Ubari in the south have actually fled to Djanet in Algeria.”

When I speak to Abdallah, a Libyan Touareg who is virtually imprisoned in his family home in Tripoli by all the violence going on in the streets outside, his views are unequivocal. “Countries like Mali and Niger who have been killing the Touareg for over forty years, now want to exploit the situation by saying that the Touareg are supporting the regime here,” he says in an anxious voice. “But this is false. About 200 Touareg have been killed here because they refused to obey orders to shoot innocent protestors. And now the Touareg youth have joined the revolution against the regime…” Abdallah was only able to speak for a few more minutes before insisting he had to hang up because his mobile phone was being tapped.

more... http://www.andymorganwrites.com/gaddafi-and-the-touareg-love-hate-and-petro-dollars/