End Tuareg revolt, says Gaddafi
2008-08-18 17:28
Tripoli - Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has urged an end to Tuareg revolts in Mali and Niger, saying more war will hurt the impoverished states and plunge a region unsettled by security and smuggling problems into turmoil.
Africa's fourth largest country, Libya wields influence in parts of the Sahara and the Sahel region on its southern fringe thanks to its oil wealth and tribal links between its own population and those of neighbouring states.
Speaking in the southwestern Libyan town of Ubari on Sunday evening, Gaddafi said: "I hope the insurgent leaders understand that they are playing around with a dangerous and sensitive demographic area. They are playing around with, and harming, the Islamic area."
"Do not waste time and cause hardships for children and women in the Sahara without need," he said. His comments were broadcast on state television and Libya's Jana news agency.
In both Mali and Niger, whose territories protrude into the Sahara, rebels seeking more autonomy have attacked government and army garrisons and convoys over the last year in what appears to be a repeat of similar Tuareg uprisings in the 1990s.
In recent months, clashes between government troops and the desert rebels have intensified and casualties have increased.
Negotiate with the rebels
Malian President Amadou Toumani Toure has offered to negotiate with the rebels. But neighbouring Niger's government has ruled out talks with its own Tuareg-led insurgents in the uranium-producing north unless they first lay down their arms.
Mali's army, backed and trained by the US as part of Washington's "war on terrorism", accuses the rebels of trying to control cross-border smuggling routes for arms and drugs.
Aghaly Ag Alambo, leader of Niger's Tuareg-led rebel movement, said his Niger Justice Movement (MNJ) has said it wants up to 30% of uranium revenue to be allocated to Niger's mainly Tuareg northern region.
Gaddafi suggested that Tuaregs, a nomadic people who live in many Saharan and Sahelian states, should recognise the Islamic heritage they shared with the region's other populations.
He said Niger, Mali, Mauritania, Chad, Libya and Algeria were Muslim states and represent "the Islamic weight of Africa, so why destroy it?"
"Why destroy the people who are with us? This is not imperialism or a foreign invasion. I tell my brothers, that if there was a benefit and a need to carry arms, I will be the first to arm you, train and fight along with you."
He called on Tuareg to take part in elections in the countries they are in and criticised smuggling and banditry in the Sahara.
Regional governments and analysts are divided over the extent to which the Tuareg revolts in Niger and Mali are driven by genuine political grievances or whether they are fighting to control lucrative drugs, arms and migrant smuggling routes.
Mali's government and Tuareg rebels reached an Algerian-mediated ceasefire last month intended to ensure that both sides respect a 2006 peace accord, also brokered by Algeria, to end fighting in the Kidal region in northeast Mali.