An article about the history of Gaddafi and the Touareg of Mali
GADDAFI AND THE TOUAREG: Love, hate and petro-dollars
March 16, 2011
Andy Morgan
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.
Gaddafi has been buying the affections and fighting skills of the nomadic tribes of the Sahara for a long time. His vision of a borderless desert, an Islamic republic of the Sahara, has often found favour with the Touareg, who have been fighting their own struggle for political self-determination and cultural recognition against the governments of Mali and Niger since independence back in 1960. Gaddafi invited young Touareg immigrants in Libya to join his Islamic Legion in the early 1980s before sending them off to fight wars in Chad, the Sudan and the Lebanon. The same Touareg soldiers then unleashed their own rebellions against Mali and Niger in the 1990s. Despite widespread suspicion that Gaddafi only ever helped the Touareg to further his own territorial schemes, many Touareg fear the consequences of his fall from power. After all, for the past half century, he is the only head of state in the world who has ever supported their cause with arms and cash.
http://www.andymorganwrites.com/gaddafi-and-the-touareg-love-hate-and-petro-dollars/
Btw, one of my favorite bands, Tinariwen, includes two people who fought for Gaddafi and also against Mali govt. The leader of the band witnessed his father being killed by govt forces in one of the Malian uprisings.
Andy Morgan is a superb writer about global music. He has two books in the works:
. Book about Tinariwen and the Sahara Desert.
. The Touareg and Gaddafi (Extended version) for Think Africa Press
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Who wouldn't want to go to an African version of Burning Man!? 
