"I want to tell you that I am ready to sacrifice all my blood to defend the Sahara, and I want all the tribes to unite: the Arabs, the Tubu, the Sungai, the Bambara, and especially the Tuareg."
With these words, the late Libyan President "Muammar Gaddafi" addressed a number of African presidents and political and religious officials one day in April 2006, expressing his passion for the Amazigh African people.
The passion of the ousted Libyan president did not come out of nowhere. Gaddafi knew that his dream of leading Africa would not be fulfilled for him without the group that spreads in the Sahara and belonged “geographically” to a number of countries in the region, including Algeria, Mali, Niger and Libya.
In the end, Gaddafi left, but his ideas about the Tuareg did not lose their usefulness. They played a major political role in West Africa, and participated in writing a conception of the balance of power in the region so far.
France's hopes and Gaddafi's ambitions
The idea of geographical borders did not appear in the minds of many before the colonial era, and perhaps it was more vague among the nomadic tribes that spread around the world from the Turks of Central Asia to the Tuareg of the African Sahara.
For the Bedouins alone, the solid boundaries of places and countries disappear, and maps are limited to accurate knowledge of important sites, and men mix with sand and tamed the cruelty of nature in order to preserve their lives.
According to the laws of this open world, the Tuareg lived, a Berber human group that spread from southern Libya and Algeria to northern Mali and Niger, with a limited presence in Burkina Faso.
Historians and researchers differed about the reason for calling them Tuareg. Some said that the origin of the name came from the word "Tarka", which means land rich in water, in reference to the Libyan oases of Fezzan, while others attributed the Tuareg to Tariq bin Ziyad, the Arab Muslim leader. Famously, a third group believed that the word “Tuareg” came because they knocked on the sprawling gates of the Sahara Desert.
The Tuareg attended fierce opponents of French colonialism, and hindered the progress of its forces in a number of African countries, as they were able to spread in a vast geographical area.
(European news agency)
It is difficult to obtain accurate statistics on the number of the Tuareg, but some estimates have stated that their number is close to 3.5 million people, and that the majority of them inhabit the regions of northern Mali and Niger.
This wide geographical distribution imposed on the Tuareg a political and social ambition, despite their small number, which made entering into some confrontations with a number of countries inevitable.
At a time when this group lives quietly inside Libya, its relations are characterized by a continuous clash with the political regimes in Mali and Niger since the two countries’ independence from France, after many years of resistance in which the Tuareg themselves participated.
The Tuareg attended fierce opponents of French colonialism, and hindered the progress of its forces in a number of African countries, as they were able to spread in a vast geographical area that extended from the city of "Ghat" (on the Libyan-Algerian border) to "Tassili-Najer" (Tassili-n-Ajer) and the mountains Hoggar in the west, and from the Algerian “Herakla” in the north to the Niger border in the south.
France worked with great effort to dispel the ambitions of the rest of the European countries that nearly hampered their steps to control many African regions by concluding many agreements to determine each party’s share of the spoils of the colonial countries. Then, with the early fifties of the nineteenth century, France began sending exploratory missions to the desert.
Contacts between France and the Tuareg began during these missions, as Paris tried to play the role of a friend who wanted to provide services to the residents of the region, while its real goal was to spy and acquire information about the wealth of the region and its inhabitants.
Gifts, approximations, and granting important positions to notables of tribes helped France achieve its goals, and its efforts culminated in the conclusion of the Ghadames Treaty in February 1862 with the Tuareg leader at the time, Sheikh Enochhen, which provided for the opening of trade routes for the French towards Sudan with a pledge to repair the road.
It was not late in the emergence of the real intentions of the French presence, which was revealed with the arrival of the first military division to the "Hoggar" region in 1880 under the leadership of Lieutenant-Colonel "Flatters".
Therefore, the Tuareg quickly met, coming from all over the region, and unanimously agreed on the need to confront French ambitions.
The "Flatters" campaign tried to start an exploratory operation aimed at extending the road from Algeria to Niger to Chad, but the French lieutenant colonel made a strategic mistake by insisting on carrying out the expeditionary operation accompanied by a military squad that ensures the security of the mission, which aroused the suspicion of the "Hoggar" Tuareg, who attacked The campaign killed 36 French, including "Flatters".
The second round of the confrontation was not delayed, as it set out to follow the survivors of the first ambush, and the Tuareg killed a French first lieutenant named "Dianos", who was the commander of the military force.
The colonial forces continued their attempts to penetrate, but they clashed repeatedly with the resistance of the Tuareg, who besieged the movements of the French army over and over again, and none of them succeeded in escaping until after the help of some local residents.
(communication Web-sites)
The confrontations did not end there, but the incident led to the outbreak of hostility towards everything that is European (and especially French) among the Tuareg.
And then the assassinations of Europeans continued in the Sahara, while France tried to avoid passing through the lands inhabited by the Tuareg.
But the reality changed somewhat after the delegation of the monk "Michel de Foucault" in the "Hoggar" region, who played the role of a spy and provided Paris with information about the conditions of the region and its residents to help his country's forces develop an integrated strategy to subdue the population.
Despite this, the military confrontations against the French did not stop, most notably the Battle of Tet in 1902, after which the French authorities concluded an armistice treaty with the Tuareg tribes.
In turn, the treaty did not end the French ambitions in the region, and the colonial forces continued attempts to penetrate, but they repeatedly clashed with the resistance of the Tuareg, who besieged the movements of the French army over and over again, and none of them succeeded in escaping except after the help of some locals through encouragement and intimidation at other times. Some of them were forced to enlist with the French army.
Eventually, things were relatively settled for France by 1920.
With the beginning of waves of liberation from occupation in the Third World, French colonialism withdrew from many African countries, leaving behind unhistoric borders that kept conflicts between the peoples of the region.
The areas in which the Tuareg lived have known events and confrontations that did not help them to settle as they used to in the past.
The situation became more difficult after drought hit some areas of northern Mali in the seventies and eighties, and many of them left for the eastern neighbor of Libya under the rule of its leader at the time, "Muammar Gaddafi".
Some Tuareg received military training from the Libyan army, which used them in several wars, then some of them returned to their countries of origin and took up arms against their governments, especially Mali and Niger, by joining armed groups, while some remained in Libya loyal to Gaddafi.
Some Tuareg reached prominent positions in the ranks of the Libyan army, such as the officer "Sidi Al-Amin" who fought during the nineties in the "Revolutionary Army for the Liberation of Azawad".
Some sources mentioned that about 600 Tuareg people helped Gaddafi hide and escape from the rebels in the Libyan desert, and provided protection to the Libyan leader and helped him carry some money and gold.
(French)
When the Libyan revolution erupted in 2011, it was not surprising that Gaddafi used the Tuareg to confront the revolutionaries, as the "general" recruited many young people to fight the Libyan revolutionaries, a matter that complicated the relationship of the new Libyan Transitional Council with the Tuareg who rebelled against the new revolutionary regime.
Moreover, as a result of their “logical” loyalty to Qaddafi, some sources reported that about 600 Tuareg helped Qaddafi hide and escape from the rebels in the Libyan desert, and offered protection to the Libyan leader and helped him carry some money and gold.
Despite this, not all Tuareg owed loyalty to Gaddafi until their last breath. There are those who declared their disavowal of his regime and loyalty to the Revolutionary Transitional Council, such as Moussa Kony, the former Tripoli consul in Mali, and one of the group’s spokesmen in the post-Gaddafi regime.
Staying in Libya was not the only choice for the Tuareg, but some of them returned to the countries from which they came, thus opening a new chapter in their history focusing this time on “demanding a national homeland.”
(1)
Tuareg after the Arab revolutions
In January 2012, Tuareg rebels overran the municipality of Aguilhoek in northern Mali using heavy weapons looted from the military arsenal of Gaddafi's army.
The weapon was not the only thing that the Tuareg rebels brought back from Libya, but the combat experience as well. During the operation, they were able to surround a base of the Malian army with four-wheel drive vehicles on which they installed a group of automatic weapons. They were also able to destroy the facilities of communication with the local army, and they prevented communication between the towers mobile.
Meanwhile, the rebels also cut off the water supply, ambushed the army, and, with the testimony of the Malian soldiers themselves, demonstrated their military and logistical superiority beyond any doubt that they would be a tough thorn in the side of "Bamako".
This was not the first episode in the series of rebellion led by the Tuareg in northern Mali. “Azawad” and “Bamako” experienced similar episodes that began in 1960 after the departure of the French colonizer, and the situation remained between ups and downs until 2008, but the data changed after 2011. This time the rebellion was armed with SA7 and SA-24 missiles and the Milan portable missile system.This good military equipment discouraged the rebels from fleeing to the desert, as it had done in previous times, so they opened fire on the army on three fronts, and they were able to resist it. fiercely, which prompted Malian Defense Ministry officials to come out with statements saying that the Tuareg rebels have military capabilities comparable to the Libyan army, as their arsenal includes heavy machine guns, four-wheel drive vehicles, anti-tank missiles and aircraft, without forgetting light weapons, said an official at the Mali Defense Ministry in an interview with Reuters".
The founding statement defined the "National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad" as an Azawad political organization that represents the peaceful approach "to reach the legitimate goals and restore all the usurped historical rights of the Tuareg nation."
(Reuters)
The Libyan revolution directly contributed to the restoration of the military ambition of the Tuareg, which is not new.
The desire of these tribes to attend as a political unit was crystallized by announcing their demands in 1963 in Mali, as they demanded the right to own land to preserve their cultural and linguistic specificity.
And "Bamako" faced these demands for repression, and put opposition figures in prisons.
The demand for "independence" was the only way for the Tuareg to register their political presence, as their ranks did not include a large number of holders of higher degrees who could occupy high political or administrative positions in the countries in which they were located, as they were usually concentrated in semi-remote areas far from central cities.
The situation in Mali calmed down for nearly two decades, then re-ignited in the nineties with the resurgence of the rebellion, but the Malian governments faced demands for repression again, while in Niger the situation was completely different, as the country’s Tuareg took up arms by establishing an armed movement called the “Niger Movement for the Liberation of Niger.” Justice.”
The movement also targeted the Nigerien army, killing dozens in its ranks, and the country recorded damage to government facilities that were attacked by the movement.
And soon the contagion of the rebellion spread to the western neighbor Mali again, in which the Tuareg announced a new strategy that included the kidnapping of some soldiers in the remote areas of the north of the country.
These operations were only the beginning of what happened next.
When the “National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad” was founded, demanding the right of the Amazigh people to self-determination, the founding statement announced in November 2010 defined the movement as an Azawad political organization that represents the peaceful approach “to reach the legitimate goals and restore all the usurped historical rights of the Tuareg nation.”
The movement demands that it be recognized as an international representative of the "Azawadi" people who live in the states of "Timbuktu", "Gao" and "Kidal" in northern Mali.
After the "National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad" put its hand in the hands of the "Ansar al-Din" movement, the agreement soon turned into internal fighting with the Islamic movements that turned against the "Tuareg".
(Reuters)
The movement did not delay in organizing organized attacks on the Malian government, which faced the rebellion by means of the air force, but the battle was not as easy as it had hoped for in Bamako, especially after the defection of a number of the Malian army Tuareg, and the reinforcement of the rebel ranks with fighters who worked for Gaddafi.
Therefore, kidnappings and killings of Malian soldiers increased in the north, which raised fears of the possibility of losing the region permanently in light of the apparent military deficit.
These events were partly caused by the March 22, 2012 coup, which, according to the "upsiders", came to protect the unity of Mali that the government had failed to defend.
Things did not improve for Mali despite the change in the political system. The Tuareg declared the independence of the Azawad region on April 6, 2012, and then there was no longer talk of revolution or rebellion, but of a new state separate from Mali bordering Algeria to the south, and extending over an area of up to to 827,000 square kilometers (more than half the area of Mali) bearing the slogan "Unity, Justice, Freedom".
The Tuareg tried to play the "right of peoples' right to self-determination" card to gain international recognition, but they did not succeed. The Economic Community of West African States "Cediao" rejected their move, and threatened to intervene militarily if necessary to preserve the unity of Mali.
Likewise, the European Union, the United Nations and France announced their assistance in Bamako in retaking the north, motivated in part by the legitimacy of the "war on terror" after the "National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad" placed its hand in the hands of the "Ansar Dine" movement, as the two parties concluded an agreement stipulating the application of Islamic law in Northern Mali, and the merger of "Ansar Dine" into the "State of Azawad".
Soon, the agreement turned into internal fighting with the Islamist movements that turned against the "Tuareg" and declared their control over northern Mali before France intervened in 2013 and restored the balance in favor of the central government in "Bamako". Therefore, the dream of "Azawad" quickly evaporated.
France..again
France is constantly present in most of the conflicts of the African continent, and therefore it is not possible to talk about a conflict in West Africa specifically (which was previously colonized by France itself) without looking for the role of Paris.
At the beginning of the new millennium, the French diplomacy tried to maintain good relations with the Sahel countries, but it worked in parallel with the French intelligence to extend the threads of communication with the separatist movements that took up arms starting in the 1990s in Mali and Niger, and these relations sometimes resulted in direct French support for these movements. .
Despite its historical enmity with them, Paris retained a certain respect for the Tuareg, for their remarkable courage, patience, and remarkable military performance.
While Nicolas Sarkozy, the former French president, was persuading the United States and Britain to intervene against Muammar Gaddafi, French intelligence worked to persuade the Tuareg to abandon the ousted Libyan leader and return to their countries.
Some political and military officials in Mali even confirmed that Paris instructed the Tuareg to establish the "National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad", and that it pledged to them that it would support them in their demands for independence if they left Libya, which cast a negative shadow on the relations between Mali and France during this period.
After France entered Mali militarily to "help" the government to re-establish control over the north, the French showed great caution in dealing with and distinguishing between "jihadists" and "Tuareg", and thus provided a kind of protection for the Berber tribes.
(Reuters)
The Malians were convinced that the strong return of the Tuareg in Libya was supported by France, after the Malian fighters were given freedom to leave the Libyan soil armed with weapons and equipment, and Paris - according to "Bamako" - assured the defectors of Gaddafi that they would never be a target for NATO bombs. NATO".
According to Malian military sources in this regard, between 500-600 men arrived in northern Mali in January 2012 on board 20 trucks loaded with weapons.
The Malian authorities were astonished that they had not been notified by the Algerian, Nigerian, or even French authorities of this number of "fighters", knowing that Mali does not have any direct borders with Libya.
After France entered Mali militarily to "help" the government to re-establish control over the north, the French showed great caution in dealing with and distinguishing between "jihadists" and "Tuareg", and then provided a kind of protection for the Berber tribes, as Paris knew for sure that they would need They are desperate to track down and resist jihadist groups, especially since these groups have become an explicit opponent of the Aouzad Liberation Movement after it seized the northern region after the coup against the government in northern Mali, especially after the movement’s cooperation with France became evident.However, the tactical partnership between France and the Tuareg did not last long. The local fighters learned that the French army uses them only in order to reach its goals without endangering its French personnel, as the first bullet in most battles often hit one of the Tuareg, not the French, and therefore many withdrew From the Berbers of the French military project to preserve their lives and the lives of their relatives.
The rebels were then able to reach a historic agreement for the "Coordination of Azawad Movements" with "Bamako", which aimed to vent the tension in northern Mali and put an end to the long years of military conflict between the two parties.
The agreement provided for granting local councils wide power by appointing councils elected by universal and direct suffrage, in return for not raising any demands for autonomy or a federal system, in addition to Bamako's recognition of the name "Azawad" that the Tuareg call the north of the country.
The agreement was widely welcomed internationally, but it remained fragile for a number of reasons, including the French withdrawal from Mali, which upset the balance of power in the region, and the end of the "jihadist" threat that still threatens the region and the interests of "Azawad" and "Bamako" together.
At the same time, the ropes of trust began to shake again between the two parties due to the faltering implementation of the 2015 agreement, which turns the region into a time bomb that could explode and scatter everyone’s papers at any moment, and put the Tuareg issue in the spotlight in an unprecedented way in a region that is dominated by talk as A stronghold of jihadist groups, without regard to other groups that carry on their shoulders ambitions, history, and tribal and social entanglements that are more profound and entrenched.