Denial and propaganda: The denial of decades of documented crimes.
This article by Khamidoune Ag Toumast is a response to those who denies the truth about the conflict between Mali and Azawad (northern Mali).
It`s a response to the many attempts of burying historical truths – documented by the UN, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and even by internal Malian reports. Therefore, this is not a matter of perspective, but a matter of truth and justice.
He meets the Malian propaganda with thorough explanations of the real truth, no matter if it`s not the kind of truth that suits them. The truth is the truth and cannot be buried.
- STATEMENT – “The Tuareg are historically Malian”
REPLY – History cannot be rewritten to serve propaganda. Before 1960, there was no state called Mali governing Azawad. The Tuareg had their confederations, their territories, and their social structures.
Azawad was forcibly incorporated into modern Mali by a colonial border established without consulting its people. This is a historical fact, not a fabrication.
- STATEMENT – “The problem stems from your leaders being manipulated from the outside.”
REPLY – The massacres committed against the Tuareg did not begin yesterday, nor with any foreign interference. They began as early as 1963, then in 1990, 2006, 2012, 2023…2024…2025.
Always the same pattern:
Civilian populations collectively accused
Summary executions
Villages burned
Women raped
Children killed.
These are not “external manipulations.”
These are atrocities committed by Malian units, acknowledged in public reports. A drop of a child’s blood cannot be justified in the name of “unity.”
- STATEMENT – “Tuaregs have been ministers, members of parliament, generals”
REPLY – Having a few decorative faces in a system does not mean that the system is just. Co-opted individuals do not represent oppressed peoples. Disguised political apartheid cannot be presented as evidence of inclusion.
- STATEMENT – “You are a small minority.”
REPLY – People do not obtain their rights through the size of their community, but through the legitimacy of their suffering. Even a single massacred village is enough to demand justice.
And if we’re talking numbers:
The Tuareg, Arab, Fulani, and Songhai populations who have suffered at the hands of the Malian army all speak of the same system of repeated abuses. This isn’t a “minority” saying this, but entire traumatized communities.
- STATEMENT – “Mali is one and indivisible”
REPLY – This statement is not an argument. It is a political slogan.
Unity cannot be decreed: It is earned through justice, equality, respect, and an end to impunity. When a state attacks a portion of its citizens for 60 years, when it uses bombings, executions, and enforced disappearances, when it treats entire populations as internal enemies, then it is no longer “national unity.”
- STATEMENT – “We are all brothers, all Malians.”
REPLY – Brotherhood is not proven by words, but by stopping crimes.
A brother does not justify mass graves.
A brother does not deny suffering.
A brother does not trivialize the tears of mothers.
I am willing to talk about unity, but not a unity built on the graves of our children.
I am willing to talk about peace, but not a peace that asks us to forget our dead.
It is not the truth that divides Mali: it is the unacknowledged injustices and the unpunished crimes.
- When justice is served, peace will come.
- But as long as the pain is denied, the country will remain fractured.
Khamidoune Ag Toumast
11-12-25