Photo: A child from Tinzaouatène injured by the drone attack. He is called a “terrorist” by the Malian putschist government. (as well as their supporters, the AES). Wagner doesn’t care, they kill for money.)
In an excellent article from Dijonctr.info regarding the recent demonstration that took place in Dijon on August 31, they also explain the complex and urgent situation in Azawad.
The article was written in French, but with their permission we are now publishing it here on this blog in French, English, Arabic and Portuguese.
Because it is in the interest of the international community to know what Azawad is and what is causing this situation where thousands of Azawadian civilian populations are forced to flee and are being exterminated by the #terrorist duo of the Malian armed forces and their Russian mercenary auxiliaries of #Wagner violating all human rights that exist.
Silence is no longer an option! Read the article below.
While a rally in support of the Tuaregs of Azawad is being organized in Dijon, Bilal – a French-Azawadian Tuareg living in Dijon – explains the situation there in a long interview and calls for broad support for the national movement for the liberation of Azawad.
Could you explain what Azawad is?
Bilal: Azawad is the northern region of Mali. It is a vast area in which several ethnic groups live, in particular the Tuaregs, but also Songhay, Moors, etc. There have been many political changes in recent years, since the rebellion of the Tuaregs and other populations of Azawad in 2012. It is a rich area (in oil, gold, uranium, etc.) but abandoned by the Malian state to traffickers, with no development and no authority to manage the area. In 2012, there was a revolt by the MNLA – the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad – many important things happened, with external interventions by France and the African Union forces to fight terrorism.
Who were also fighting against the Azawad militants?
Bilal: It’s more complicated than that. These forces are all against the independence of Azawad, but they mainly intervened to fight terrorism. In 2015, after many negotiations, there was an agreement between the Tuareg independence movement and Mali, with the mediation of Algeria, which was to be the guarantor of this agreement. The agreement provided for broad autonomy for Azawad: the Azawad forces would be mixed with the Malian forces, while keeping central power in Bamako. The agreements were signed, the Tuaregs accepted them, but Mali did not respect them. A few points were worked on, but half of the agreement was not implemented.
And there was a military coup in 2020?
Bilal: There have been several coups, but the last one took place in 2020. The first thing the military did was take the agreement and throw it in the trash. They chased away all the international forces that were there to maintain the stability of the peace. They asked them to leave, and they left. Algeria, which was supposed to be the guarantor of the agreement, did not denounce what was happening. The #independence movement was surprised and found itself facing an army that wants to eradicate it, without negotiation, with the complicity of the Wagner militia.
Mali has shown that it no longer wants peace, but simply the eradication of all those who do not agree with it. Mali’s leaders speak of the independence fighters as terrorists, any Tuareg who disagrees is treated like a terrorist. While before all these stories, Mali helped to install terrorists in the Azawad area. Because with each revolt in Azawad, terrorist trafficker movements allied themselves with Mali.
Do terrorist movements prefer the instability created by Mali?
Bilal: Yes, exactly. This area is a passage that connects Morocco, Western Sahara, and East Africa, mainly Egypt. It is a passage for drugs, for everything you want. The traffickers have no interest in this area being secure. And that suits Mali, which does not want Tuareg independence. The Malian state says it is waging war on terrorists, but that has never been the case. It is a rogue state that is always there to repress, thanks to alliances like today with Russian mercenaries.
Since November 2023, the entire population of Azawad in disagreement with Mali has left for neighboring countries, Algeria and Mauritania, because people are attached to their independence and autonomy, they want to manage their lives and they know that they will be massacred if they stay. It has already happened in history: in 1963, Modibo Keïta, the first president of Mali, did the same against the Tuaregs. The independence movement therefore abandoned the areas it controlled. There is this novelty of drones, which Tuareg history has never known… Drones, you can’t… You have to take cover, because if you don’t have anti-drones, you will be crushed. Suddenly, the military junta and its mercenaries advanced and began, city after city, village after village, to kill all those who do not obey. They see everyone as rebels.
What happened in Tinzaouatène the week of August 25?
Bilal: #Tinzaouatène is the last pocket controlled by the Azawad separatists, it is a border town with Algeria. A column of the Malian army and Russian mercenaries was tasked with occupying this last town. It was surprised by the resistance and was decimated. The entire army was decimated, except for a few prisoners among whom were Russian mercenaries. When the soldiers and mercenaries arrive at a camp, they ask people if there are rebels, they look for information and they humiliate people so that they talk. Except that people have no information, the rebels are not going to give information to a shepherd. But they do everything to make them talk.
When there were these mercenary hostages, the Tuaregs recovered their phones and found videos of looting and theft. In one video, we see a poor Tuareg woman being asked for information. She says she doesn’t know, that she doesn’t move from where she lives. They forced her to undress and filmed it. In these phones, there is evidence of the humiliation and repression of poor populations.
Right now, there is a pause in the fighting after Tinzaouatène, but they are preparing for revenge. The plan is to eradicate all those who do not agree with them. That is the situation at the moment, but there is resistance. There is resistance despite the differences in military means.
In any case, these are people who have the advantage of the terrain, they are at home.
Mali is going to be humiliated, it will be a shame and it will catch up with them because what is happening right now is the last line for the cause of Azawad. There has never been so much resistance from Azawad, and so much hatred from Mali. This is the final fight, with a winner and a loser at the end.
Is there some kind of coordination between the Tuareg rebels and the radical Islamist movements?
Bilal: There has never been any coordination. What is happening is that there are many different movements in the region: there is the JNIM, the movement for the support of Islam and Muslims, which has its own objectives that I do not know. You have the Islamic State, you have Daesh, there is everyone. With the JNIM there is no hostility at the moment, on the other hand the other movements are worse than Mali for the Tuareg movement. The Tuaregs do not want to ally themselves with them, but since they are very powerful movements they impose themselves, and the Tuaregs have no interest in making war on everyone. The main enemy is Mali.
To be clear, Azawad is not just Tuaregs, is it?
Bilal: Today, the Tuareg independence movement is made up of many different people, especially Fulani and Moors. The Moors are people who speak a dialect close to Mauritanian.
In fact, the name “Tuareg” covers just about everyone. When we say “Tuareg”, they are turbaned people, with dress codes shared by everyone in the region. So I would say that the name Tuareg covers everyone, but if we wanted to be precise we would say the Kel Tamasheq, that is to say the people who speak Tamasheq; the Moors speak Hassanya; the Fulani speak Fulani or Fulfulde as they say; the Songhay speak Sonhrai.
The definition of the Tuareg people is a bit complex. The position of the Songhay is a bit neutral, they are fishermen who live on the banks of rivers, like for example in Gao which is their main capital. While the Peuls, the Kel Tamasheq and the Moors have always been more involved in the struggle.
Can you tell us what connects you to this struggle in Azawad?
Bilal: Everything. I was born there and I grew up there. My whole family is from Kidal, the region in the far north, but there are other regions: the regions of Ménaka, Gao, Taoudenni and Timbuktu, so Azawad is a bit divided like that. In the region of Kidal that I know well, I have many relatives, many parents who sacrificed their lives for the cause of Azawad, killed by Mali or its allies.
And what also connects me is that today we are in the 21st century and people live in a terribly rich area, in extreme poverty. My duty is therefore to fight so that we can live with dignity on this land and benefit from these resources, without Mali, under the cover of a so-called State, having these resources exploited by foreign powers, without agreement or sharing with the original populations. This is something that I will never accept.
So Russia would like to exploit the resources there?
Bilal: Of course, all those who went there had the goal of exploiting these resources. And Mali is like an intermediary. It is a worker in the service of foreign powers, to give authorizations, while it is not at home to give that. It can be there temporarily, because it is the law of the strongest that applies today.
It is always with the help of a foreign force that it manages to position itself in the Azawad zone. Except that today, we are no longer like in the 1960s when the Tuaregs were locked in this zone.
Today there are Tuareg intellectuals who are everywhere on the planet. The Tuareg diaspora, in America, in Europe, works so that this zone regains its autonomy. And the day when allies are willing to work with them, Mali will leave, it will leave as it came. It came by force, it will leave by force.
Why is it important that there are gatherings in France? We are far away…
Bilal: We are far away, but it is here that the Tuareg, Azawadian community is the largest. The history of Mali and Azawad is linked to France, to colonization. France is in it up to its ears. It is the first colonizer and France always hopes to come back. Today there is a big geopolitical change, there is a big war of powers. Ten years ago Russia was not in Africa and France was everywhere. In all of history Russia has never come to North Africa. So there is a war of interests.
I have the impression that French foreign policy always hopes to return to Mali as before. It always hopes that one day the Russians will leave and France will come back. I think this because I have not seen any French intellectual or any statement from the French government denouncing what is happening. They denounce the military junta, but you have to know that this junta still represents Mali today. Even if the population does not agree with the arrival of this junta in power, today there is pride in the countries of Sub-Saharan Africa to have freed France. It is as if they felt liberated.
I do not care, whether it is France or Russia in Mali, it is the same to me. What I hope is that France and the European Union in general look favorably on the Tuaregs. The Tuaregs need allies, they are good partners, we can work with them. It is time to seize this opportunity.
Today there is a rally in support of Azawad in Dijon, why in Dijon?
Bilal: In January, we participated in the first Tuareg demonstration in Paris, in response to a call from the Kabyles. We were asked to all come to support the cause of Azawad. We went there from #Dijon, from all over France, we had a great demonstration that was a success. When we left, we thought about how to do something like that again. We immediately thought of Dijon, because there is a good Tuareg community here that started arriving in 2012.
It is one of the big communities in France, which was helped by collectives and associations and in particular the Quartier des Lentillères. There was this meeting with the Lentillères that encouraged the Tuareg to settle in Dijon. Because there was this crossing of the spirit and the way of life between Tuaregs and the inhabitants of Lentillères, it’s true!
The Tuareg community has therefore grown, which makes it easier to organize a gathering here than elsewhere. With the support of the collective soutien asile 21 as well, without forgetting the Human Rights League which made the declaration of the demonstration to the prefecture.
What would you like this gathering to look like today?
Bilal: I would like there to be people, and not just Tuaregs. People from Dijon who would come to denounce the situation and stand alongside the Tuaregs because now is the time, the Tuaregs need support now. There are also Tuareg intellectuals who will come from Paris, Lyon, Strasbourg, who will speak.
And at the end of the demonstration there will be a meal shared with the Tuaregs at Lentillères. We wanted to do a Tuareg music concert at the end of the day, but not everyone agreed because there have been many deaths in Azawad in the last 20 days, so it is a period of mourning and Tuareg music is a celebration music… But it is only postponed!
Do you want to add something?
Bilal: I am a simple Franco-Azawadian, and I prefer to say Azawadian than Malian because I have never felt Malian. It is not that I feel superior to Malians, because I have a light skin tone or whatever, it has nothing to do with that. The truth is that there is nothing that connects me with Mali, the history, the language, the culture, nothing. It is black and white. Simply, when French colonization stopped, it left us with Mali.
I would like to say that we need to look for information, that we need to be interested in the situation of the Tuaregs and try to find out what is really going on. Because there is strong propaganda from Mali to make the Tuaregs look like Islamist terrorist movements.
The Tuaregs are a people held hostage between Malian terrorism and international terrorism, we need to know that. The Tuaregs need allies, ready to support them publicly. We need to be interested, we need to get closer to the Tuaregs.
Published by Dijonctr.info on 08/31/2024 | Updated on 09/01/2024
Published here by permission by Dijon Center. Azawad Support Group 01-09-24
EN_GB 
FR 
AR