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The Bellah Question: Slave Emancipation, Race, and Social Categories in Late Twentieth-Century Northern MaliAuthor(s): Baz LecocqSource: Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue Canadienne des Études Africaines, Vol.39, No. 1 (2005), pp. 42-68Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of the Canadian Association of African StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25067450 .

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The Bellah Question: Slave Emancipation, Race, and Social Categories in Late Twentieth

Century Northern Mali

Baz Lecocq

R?sum? Cet article esquisse le processus d'affranchissement des Touareg, autre

fois esclaves, que l'on nomme g?n?ralement bellah, dans le Mali du nord, de la fin des ann?es 1940 ? nos jours, et les relations actuelles entre les

anciens ma?tres et les anciens esclaves. L'affranchissement des esclaves a

?t? mis en avant pour la premi?re fois au cours des ann?es 1940 sous la

pression des hommes politiques africains. Apr?s l'ind?pendance, ces

derniers, contrairement ? leur discours politique radical, ont poursuivi des politiques coloniales. Les s?cheresses du d?but des ann?es 1970 et

1980 ont aliment? la dynamique interne au sein de la soci?t? targuie qui a alors relanc? sa campagne pour l'affranchissement des esclaves. Cet

article accorde une attention toute particuli?re ? la nouvelle perception des notions de travail et de comportement social appropri?, et aux trans

formations dans les relations sociales et poHtiques durant et apr?s la

r?bellion targuie. Durant toute la p?riode d?crite, ces relations ?taient

color?es par les notions internes et externes de race, de caste, et de

comportement appropri?.

Introduction

One day in Kidal, Northern Mali, I announced that I wanted to

wash my clothes. My hosts replied, with some amazement, that I

This article results from research in the Gao and Kidal regions, conducted

during a number of visits from November 1996 to July 1999, on the causes

and origins of the Tuareg rebellion in Northern Mali, funded by Amsterdam

University and NWO. I am greatly indebted to Caroline Angenent, Annemarie Bouman, Anneke Breedveld, Amber Gemmeke, and Bruce Hall

for their stimulating comments, as well as the extra information they

provided.

42



Lecocq: The Bellah Question 43

should not be bothered. There were two "family members" present in the household who could do this for me. My hosts were Kel

Tamasheq, a people better known as Tuareg, of free descent. In a

discourse used locally, as well as by Europeans ever since they first

met the Tuareg, they were also characterised as "white." The two

household members who could do my laundry for me and who had

been introduced to me as "relatives" were of unfree origins and,

thus, defined as "black." Despite being called family members, their black and slave origins meant that they were to perform certain tasks deemed unfit for guests. Both the servant and my host

referred to each other as "relatives" or "family," as long standing custom dictated.

This article sketches the emancipation process of former

Tuareg slaves, generally called bellah, in Northern Mali from the

late 1940s to the present, and the current relations between former

masters and former slaves. I will first describe the development of

discourses and subsequent practices on race, caste, and hierarchy in

Tuareg society, followed by a discussion of the relative merits and

successes of the emancipation policies of the colonial and post colonial state. Slave emancipation was first promoted seriously at

the end of the 1940s by the colonial government under pressure from African politicians. Once in power after independence, the

latter, contrary to their radical political discourse on slave emanci

pation, simply continued the policies of their colonial predeces sors. The droughts of the early 1970s and 1980s boosted dynamics internal to Tuareg society that further promoted slave emancipa

tion, with the tacit support of international donor agencies. In

outlining the internal dynamics of emancipation and the relations

between people of free and unfree descent since the 1970s, I will pay

particular attention to the changing perception of both free and

unfree towards work and appropriate social behaviour. During the

Tuareg rebellion of the 1990s, an unknown number of bellah took

sides against their former masters, which inaugurated new politi cal balances and more tense social relations in the post rebellion

period, expressed in party politics. While political and social

tensions between bellah and other Tuareg remained low key in

Mali, they became more pronounced in neighbouring Niger.

Throughout the period described, these relations were informed by notions of race, caste, expected qualities, and appropriate behav



44 CJAS / RCEA 39:1 2OO5

iour, as well as by attitudes of the colonial and post-colonial state

towards slavery in Tuareg society. This article is mainly based on research in the Kidal and Gao

regions. The situation described here might not be representative of other parts of the Tuareg world, stretching from Libya and

Algeria to Burkina Faso, where relations between freeborn and

former slaves might well be different, shaped by varying local

micro-level dynamics. Neither is this article inclusive of all aspects of free and unfree relationships, which show wide variety

? from

classical dominance by masters over slaves, to frank and open collaboration based on equality.

The Historical Construction of a Casted Feudal

Society Colonial rule did not only reshape Tuareg society. Colonial ethnog

raphy also shaped a powerful image of what Tuareg society was, and

this image still holds sway over many researchers. It has been espe

cially influential in the thinking of both colonial and post-colonial

regimes on Tuareg society, as well as on their subsequent policies towards them. Ideas on Tuareg society have always evolved around

four characteristics: nomadism, warfare, hierarchy, and race. The

latter two will be the main focus in this article.

Initially, European knowledge of Tuareg society was obtained

through missions of exploration and colonial reconnaissance.

Exploring travellers only had contacts with local elites under

whose protection they travelled. The structure and nature of these

first contacts influenced views on the organisation of Tuareg soci

ety in two ways crucial for this article. The first is that information

was provided almost exclusively by free men, mostly of the ruling elite. The second was that the French colonial understanding of

Tuareg social hierarchy was a mixture of both colonial and local

ideas on race, which influenced each other during the colonial

period. Thus, over the twentieth century, European explorers,

ethnographers, and colonial administrators came to construct an

idea of Tuareg society. They did so in close collaboration with the

Tuareg elite that they encountered and created themselves under

colonial rule, and in exclusion of other social categories. This idea

then shaped the reality of Tuareg society through colonial practice.

Tuareg society is, first of all, based on a set of fixed social strata




into which one is born and which early ethnographers described as

"feudal" or "casted." At the top of society stood the imajeghen or

noble warriors, referred to as a noblesse d'?p?e, which was

perceived as racially "white." They were followed by the inesle

men ? a group of free or noble, racially "white" people who

specialised in religious affairs. They were, therefore, classified as a

noblesse de robe. The imghad formed the third group of free,

racially classified as "white" people who were not noble, but who

aspired to live to the behavioural standards of the nobles (Bourgeot

1990). The imghad were often described as dependent on the nobles

for protection, rearing their cattle for them. Thus, they were

referred to as "vassaux" to the nobles. The inadan or craftsmen,

simply referred to as blacksmiths, form a less clear group, classified

as racially "black," but free and placed outside the strict hierarchy.

They did not live according to the noble code of conduct. At the

bottom were the racially "black" iklan or slaves, who behaved, or

were supposed to behave, according to a model defined for them by the free strata of society.

This hierarchical pyramid became more refined through colo

nial experience and ethnographical study. Its essential points of

reference remained steady: race and bondage. The extreme poles were amashegh (noble) and akli ([former] slave). Both were a

mixture of social status and racial categories. Between these two

extremes stood the ellelu, the free, but not strictly noble (including the imghad and ineslemen statuses); the ibogholliten of mixed

slave and free origins; and the ighawelen, the manumitted slaves.

That the French translated abogholli as mul?tre is revealing for

French racial conceptions of Tuareg society. Being of mixed slave

and free descent, the abogholli was perforce of mixed white (free) and black (slave) descent, hence a mulatto.1

The Construction of Status and Race

The colonial conquerors saw the upper strata of Tuareg society as

white and, according to some, even of European descent. They have

been portrayed, among other things, as the descendants of the

Vandals, lost crusaders, or even a Caucasian-populated sunken

Atlantis (Henry 1996). Meanwhile, the lower strata of Tuareg soci

ety, the slaves and blacksmiths, were seen as racially black. Thus, in colonial European presentations of African history, the Tuareg




elite was presented as an alien invader which had subdued an

indigenous African population, an image that would resurface at

various times after independence. In the colonial mind, Tuareg

society and its historical white European origins mirrored the colo

nial project itself. This may have been at the root of the positive

appreciation of Tuareg society by French colonial rulers.

To the Malian administration, the Tuareg elite was just as

white as it had been to the colonial administration. However, where the latter appreciated their whiteness positively, the Malian

Government saw it as a sign of otherness and as a threat. In the

1950s and in the first years after independence, the Malian political leaders made it quite clear that they perceived the Tuareg

? their

whiteness and their way of life ? as a problem (Lecocq 2002). In the

vision of ruling US-RDA politicians, the Tuareg had been colonial

favourites because of their whiteness, which had given them a

misplaced superiority complex. As for the Tuareg themselves, their own concepts of race have

slightly more sophisticated nuances, but they are nevertheless

important in classifying people. Three physical categories are

perceived: koual, black; shaggaran, red; and sattafan, greenish or

shiny black. Social status is connected to these categories. Koual is

the appearance of the blacksmiths and slaves,- shaggaran is associ

ated with the free, but not the noble,- and sattafan is the colour of

nobility. Finally, we could note the specifically racial denominator

esherdan in the Air and Hoggar dialects, which means mulatto of a

"black" and a "red" parent ? black and red here meaning African

and Arab-Berber, not slave and master (Alojaly 1980).2

Thus, local terms to describe racial and social status cannot

easily be translated into Western racial or racialist concepts as the

French conquerors did. Yet, that is what happened. In 1951, a

French Commander could still note about the Tuareg nobility of

the Niger Bend, which would most likely be qualified as sattafan, that "many are black and generally do not have the noble appear ance of the inhabitants of the [Algerian] Hoggar."3 Through their

own racial bias and despite fifty years of colonial presence, the

French commanders translated shaggaran (red) as "white" and

"white" as nobles. Indigenous Tuareg physical distinctions have

gradually incorporated these more European notions. When speak

ing French, a Tuareg will now translate koual as "noir. " However,




both shaggaran (red) and sattafan (greenish black) will be translated as "blanc."

Although hard evidence is lacking, this French colonial equa tion of white with noble, together with efforts to curtail the politi cal military power of the imajeghen nobles in the early colonial

period (1910s and 1920s), has probably helped the upward social

mobility of some "red" imghad or non-noble groups. At present, some groups formerly described in colonial ethnography as imghad now stress that the term ellelu, which originally meant "free,"

simply means "noble." By collapsing the terms sattafan, the color

of nobility, and shaggaren, the color of the free and changing the

meaning of the word ellelu, they effectively efface the distinction

between nobles and non-nobles.4

This does not mean that a racial discourse did not exist in

Tuareg or Southern Malian society prior to colonial conquest. On

the contrary, the suggestion made by Amir Idris (2001) and others

might well be true: that, in the fifteenth century, European racial

discourse developed from North African Arab Muslim discourses

on race and blackness. Exploring the historical interconnection

between race and slavery in the Maghreb, Chouki El Hamel (2002) notes that, although a major impetus for this connection was given

by the creation of a black slave army by Moulaye Isma'?l in 1705, the connection between blackness and slavery is much older.

Referring to Mezzine, El Hamel notes that the term ahardan or

achardan (esherdan), now meaning mulatto in Tamasheq, origi

nally meant "dark colour" in Tamasheq, and "slave" and/or "black

person" in the Tafilalt Arabic dialect. The term was already in use

by the Sanhaja Berbers prior to the Banu Hassan invasions. If the

term was indeed known in Sanhaja Berber, it might well have been

used by the Lamtuna, the Masufa, and the Lamta, who are all seen

as the direct ancestors of the Tuareg. That it might well have been

used in this way is indicated by its existence in Tamasheq,

although it has another, albeit strongly connected, meaning: a

"mulatto" of black African (but not a Tuareg slave) and Berber

descent.

But racialist ideas changed over the colonial period in the

Sahara, as they did in the Maghreb under Moulaye Isma'?l. They have again been changed under the pressure of political situations

in the late twentieth century. This is reflected in present day ethnic



48 CJAS / RCEA 39: I 2OO5

terminology in Tamasheq. The Tuareg call Arabs Araben and the

Songhay Ihetan. Members of various ethnic groups in Southern

Mali are known as Bambaraten, Bambaras. Hence, more or less

appropriate ethnonyms are in use. However, the more generic and

racial terms koualnin (blacks) or even iklan (slaves) were also in use

to denote any Malian or other African of historically unknown

origins. This might well have been a result of the 1990s rebellion

that pitted the Tuareg against all other Malians.

In Northern Mali, race is certainly a created identity, ascribed

on cultural bases. This becomes evident in the indiscriminate use

of the terms "nomads" and "whites" by the government and popu lation in talking about the Tuareg and Arabs whose "whiteness" is

directly linked to their nomadic way of life. Nomad and white are

interchangeable ascriptions of Tuareg identity, used by the political elites that ruled Mali. On the other hand, black and slave seem

interchangeable derogatory terms used by the Tuareg from the

upper strata of society to denote all who are not their kind of

people.

The Bellah Question: Decolonisation After formally abolishing slavery in its African colonial territories, the French denied its existence in Arab and Tuareg society, thus

perpetuating its existence (Klein 1998). They denied the persis tence of slavery in certain areas of the empire by voiding indigenous terms related to slavery of their meaning, using them without any relevance to social practice. During the colonial conquest of

Northern Mali, the French took up the Songhay term gaa-bibi,

meaning "black person," but which they believed to mean slave, to

denote all sedentary populations of the region. Thus, they even

reversed local terminology on race and slavery to denote all inhab

itants they did not see as white. Exceptions were made only for the

white Tuareg and Moors, and for the Songhay Arma, who claim

descent from the Moroccan army conquering the Songhay Empire in the late sixteenth century.5 By the 1930s, the term gaa-bibi had

been replaced with proper ethnonyms. French administrators

avoided the term iklan (slaves) when possible, replacing it with

such euphemisms as serviteurs or travailleurs coutumiers. The

term bellah, originally a Songhay word for all Tuareg of lower social

status or a derogatory term for all Tuareg, quickly gained adminis




trative and political acceptance to denote slaves, which turned

them into a social category just as meaningless as gaa-bibi had

been. This use of the term bellah was countered in the 1950s and

after independence by Malian politicians, who used it to explicitly describe Tuareg slaves whom they sought to liberate. During the

Tuareg rebellion of the 1990s, a small group of intellectuals of

unfree origins started to use the term bellah to refer to themselves

as a separate ethnic group (infra). It still unclear if this process of

ethnification has continued after the rebellion.6

In 1946, the first elections during which Africans could vote led

to a process of emancipation in Northern Mali. Since they were

officially free, slaves had the right to vote. This was first brought to

their attention in the Menaka area by both the Parti Soudanais

Progressiste (PSP) and the Union Soudanaise ? Rassemblement

D?mocratique Africaine (US-RDA). As a result, many slaves

reached the ballot box with a clear understanding of the purpose of

voting:

Voting RDA equalled a vote against the master, it meant filing a freedom paper. On 17 June 1951, 712 bellahs in Gangaber, 59

at In Tillit, 26 at Chunkaye, and 203 at Indeliman have voted

against their master. The results at the ballot box of In Tillit are

especially interesting: a particularly isolated post, people untouched by propaganda, and yet 59 freedom papers.7

The direct effect of these elections was that many slaves left

their former masters, taking part of their former masters' herds

with them. The end result was twofold. First, the colonial admin

istration finally took the issue of servitude seriously and began to

promote the social and economic emancipation of the bellah.

Second, the US-RDA took la question bellah as its battle horse in

the North, not dismounting from it until the fall of their regime in

1968.

The persistence of slavery in Soudan fran?ais gave the US-RDA

an argument to call the French presence into question. After all,

continuing French rule was publicly justified by the mission civil

icatrice fran?aise. The abolition of slavery was part of that mission.

The open failure to put this practice to an end undermined the colo

nial raison d'?tre. Sure enough, servile conditions persisted (and still persist) in most societies of the Sahel.8 But continued servitude




was (and is) literally most visible among the Moors and the Tuareg.

First, the difference in physical appearance between former

"black" slaves and former "white" masters could sometimes be

seen. Second, in the Sahara, the colonial administration had not

created the infrastructure or social institutions that helped to

emancipate the slaves in other parts of French West Africa. There

were few villages de libert?, liberty villages and those that did exist

were all situated in the Niger Bend (Bouche 1968; Mariko 1993). Further up north, however, they were entirely lacking. Third,

pastoral existence and ownership of herds made it difficult for

former slaves to leave their masters, while remaining in their

region of origin. This is particularly true in the extreme North, where agriculture is virtually impossible. Nevertheless, it was less

valid in the Niger Bend, where agriculture is possible and where

many slaves, the so called iklan n eguef or slaves of the dunes, lived

a sedentary life, removed from, but under the control of, their

masters, who took part of their annual harvest. Finally, colonial

policy towards slavery in Tuareg society had been based on politi cal interests from the start. During World War I, a number of Tuareg

federations, such as the Ouillimiden Kel Ataram and Kel Denneg, the Udallan Logomaten, and the tribes of the Air, revolted against colonial domination. After these rebellions were crushed, the

defeated noble clans were deprived of their slaves. Collaborative

groups who had helped to defeat the rebellious tribes, such as the

Kel Hoggar and the Kel Adagh, were allowed to keep their slaves

and even to acquire some more by trade (Klute 1995).9

Thus, the efforts of the US-RDA to abolish servitude focused on

Tuareg and Moorish society, where it hoped to gain the electoral

support of the "liberated" slaves. After all, the bellah constituted the

majority of the nomadic population in the Niger Bend. This hope

proved not to be in vain. One can observe that the percentage of unfree

within the total Tuareg population rises the more one descends

towards the South. Whereas in the Kidal area, the number of unfree is

estimated at less than ten percent, in the Udallan in Burkina Faso, this

number is about ninety percent. Efforts in the Kidal area in the 1950s

by US-RDA adherents and local schoolteachers Amadou B? and

Cheick Bathily to promote the bellah cause failed.

The small number of servants diminishes their propaganda

opportunities. They try nevertheless. Mr. B? Amadou, who is no




longer in service in Kidal, nevertheless returns each year by

airplane to Tessalit, from where he travels on camel to the centres

of Aguelhoc, Kidal, Menaka and perhaps Ansongo. He also visits

the camps where he tries to bring up the bellah question.10 In the Niger Bend, the campaigns of the US-RDA had the most

impact, given the number of slaves who could be emancipated. In

1955, at the advent of the 1956 elections for the Assembl?e

Territoriale, the US-RDA made the bellah question one of its main

campaign themes in the Cercle Gao.

Even before the start of the electoral campaign, [the US-RDA] seems to orient its actions on two issues in the central

Subdivision.... A strong interest in the nomadic tribes in

general and in the bellah question in particular. The current

policy of the administration in this matter is closely scruti

nised.11

The reaction of the colonial government to the bellah question and its politicisation was the gradual development of a policy of

social and economic emancipation. Most of this policy was based

on the practical measures taken by the Commandant de Cercle in

Menaka to resolve the problems after the 1946 elections. These

consisted, first of all, in regrouping dispersed slave families and

providing the household heads with a proper identity card.

Formerly, slaves were often registered on the identity cards of their

masters as part of the family, congruent with local discourses and

anthropological analysis, which stressed the use of family and

kinship terminology between slaves and masters. The reunited

families were then administratively separated from their former

masters' fraction or tribe and united into separate bellah fractions, often taking the name of their masters' fraction with the extension

"ouan iklan, "

the slaves. These new fractions were provided with

means of existence of their own. In the case of the iklan n eguef,

they were given the cultivated land in communal possession, while

masters were prohibited from collecting the khamast, a share of

the harvest. With the growth in local markets and the mon?tisation

of Northern Mali in the 1940s and 1950s, these newly liberated

communities found an outlet for their surplus production, with

their former masters forcibly as new customers (Winter 1984). Pastoral slaves were apportioned a minimal part of their former

masters herds, fixed at three heads of cattle and thirty goats. For




those bellah who remained with their former masters, labour

contracts were drawn up with a relatively generous yearly remu

neration in livestock: a three-year-old camel for herding thirty

camels,- a heifer for each twenty head of cattle,- and ten sheep for

every hundred herded.12 Given the extensive herds of the period, these salaries meant that in a few years of labour, a herder would

earn a larger herd than the small herd given upon immediate depar

ture, which was most likely the whole idea. These measures were

copied by the Governor General in Dakar and dispatched as a basis

for the emancipation policy of all bellah in 1949.13

An illustrative eyxample of the bellah question was the

Norben affair in 1955 in the Cercle of Gourma Rharous. The

Norben are a community of iklan n eguef who practiced agriculture and tended the herds of their masters, but did not live in their

masters' camps. Under the influence of the US-RDA campaign, the

Norben claimed that the herds under their custody actually

belonged to them and consequently appropriated them. Their

former masters, the Kel Gheris, did not accept this behaviour and

raided the Norben to reclaim their animals. It came to a trial in the

traditional court of Gourma Rharous, which ruled in favour of the

Kel Gheris. However, the Commandant de Cercle overruled its

judgement. He decided that the Norben would no longer be part of

their former masters' fraction, but would form an independent Norben fraction from now on. Furthermore, he awarded them more

than half of the herds they had taken from the Kel Gheris (Winter

1984). The success of these liberation policies could be debated. The

allocation of land to bellah fractions, as well as the general increase

of land under culture in this period in the Niger Bend created new

conflicts between the pastoralists and their former sedentary

dependants over access to pasture and water around the temporary wallows and the river bank (Marty 1993). Neither did the former

masters accept the loss of control over their former slaves. In

October 1957, the Sudanese Minister of the Interior, Madeira Keita, visited the Cercles of Goundam, Timbuktu, and Gao. His report on

the bellah question was alarming. In Gourma Rharous and

Goundam, former masters had raided the herds of their bellah and

pillaged their villages. In Rhergo, a tribal Chief had publicly insulted the Territorial Counsellor for the US-RDA, forbidding him




to speak in public and finally challenging him to a sword duel.14

Nevertheless, the scant evidence seems to indicate that the

emancipation policies were successful. With regards to the Norben, Winter has provided evidence from one camp. In 1951, the camp at

In Ahara consisted of four imghad tents and ten bellah tents. By

1960, five of these bellah families had left (a sixth had died out). Of the fifty-six descendants of the four tents remaining in 1960, only

eight still inhabited the camp, while seventeen lived in a separate bellah camp and another thirty-one lived in Gao or elsewhere in

West Africa (Winter 1984).

Postcolony: A Continuation of Policy On 22 September 1960, the independent Republic of Mali came

into being. In the early 1960s, slavery was still believed to exist in

Mali, despite the US-RDA's bellah question campaigns in the

1950s. One of the government's main objectives in the North was

to end this state of affairs. But, as former colonial officers before

them had not already pointed out, mostly in justification of their

lack of action, slavery did not so much exist legally, as it did

psychologically and socially. Former slaves who had wished to

leave their former masters had largely done so by then under the

policies inaugurated in the 1940s. This held true for the more

Southern Tuareg groups in the Niger Bend, where former slaves had

easier access to new ways of existence, such as farming or selling their labour in the cities. Also, in these areas, the bellah question

had played a bigger role, for both the colonial administration and

the US-RDA. However, the same could not be said for the Adagh and Azawad regions, where former slaves had no opportunities to

earn a living by farming, and where infrastructural conditions did

not make migration easier at the time.

Much still needed to be done, therefore, to emancipate the

former slaves in the Adagh, which the government saw as a major

goal, but which could not be hastened as the Adagh was seen as a

region prone to rebellion. Indeed, in 1963, a rebellion did break out, which was crushed only in August 1964. The government attempts to emancipate the bellah was not the most important issue of the

revolt, but it did play a part. One captured rebel answered the ques tion as to why they had revolted:

The reasons are numerous, but the main ones are:




1. We nomads of the white race can neither conceive nor accept to be commanded by blacks whom we always had as servants

and slaves.

2. We Ifoghas, do not accept or conceive of the equality between

races and men Mali wants to impose on us, starting with taking our imghad and bellah away from us....15

Before the 1963 rebellion in the Adagh broke out, the new

regime, wary of further straining the already fragile relations had

done nothing to alter the social relations between former masters

and slaves. In 1962, the Governor of Gao, writing to the

Commandant de Cercle in Kidal, analysed the situation with

regards to slavery in the Cercle Kidal as follows:

It is beyond doubt that the people, the party and the

Government of Mali have abolished slavery once and for all.

Nevertheless, as the President of our Government has put it so

well, there can be no standard solution in this vast country of

Mali.... A political education is needed, since it is necessary

that, at the end of the day, the population itself understands the

necessity to liberate the bellah. It is rather a national problem and in waiting for a solution, we will be compliant and full of

tact, as I have said above. In any case, our desire to emancipate the bellah should not form an occasion for [the former masters] to manifest their discontent beyond reason.16

This attitude of compliance and tact changed after the first

rebellion was crushed in August 1964. The US-RDA regime was

now resolved to settle the bellah question once and for all. But the

actual measures the administration could take to promote bellah

emancipation were limited. The US-RDA Government actively

promoted the s?dentarisation of the nomads, trying to encourage horticulture in order to improve their standards of living. One

policy was the support of former slaves in their horticultural efforts

by giving allotments to the few who had settled in the towns and

villages of the Cercle. A second measure was the creation of bellah

fractions, as their colonial predecessors had done before them. But

even this process was slow and evidence on the creation of special bellah fractions is scarce. The first mention of the creation of a

bellah fraction in the Kidal area by the Malian Government dates

from 1966.17 From the available data, this first creation of a bellah

fraction seems not to have been followed by many others.18




Another more indirect measure to emancipate the bellah was

formal education. From colonial times until quite recently, free

Tuareg were reluctant to send their children to school. It was gener

ally believed that French education would turn children away from

Islam and thus on the road to hellfire (Litny 1992). Many reacted by

sending their slaves' children instead, who were seen as unable to

understand or properly practice Islam in the first place. This has

resulted in the overrepresentation of Tuareg from slave origins in

administrative and educational posts. All of this implies that, at

present, in formal circumstances (such as getting documents), the

unfree hold power over freeborn in ways that provoke shame:

answering questions, pronouncing the name of ones' parents, and

generally being told what to do. Stranger still, a free person might

depend on a former slave's protection in cases of trouble with the

authorities, which puts the "natural order" of who protects whom

upside down (Brock 1984, chapters III, IV). At present, most free

Tuareg set high hopes on education, but this means entrusting their

children to teachers who are often of slave origin.

Changes from Within In the early 1970s, and again in the early 1980s, the Sahara and

Sahel were struck by severe droughts, leading to rapid ecological

degradation, which forced the nomadic Tuareg to change their way of life just as rapidly. The almost total loss of herds led many young

men to migrate abroad to look for work. Most migrants went to

Algeria and Libya, but many also sought employment in Ivory

Coast, Nigeria, and other West African countries.

During this period of rapid social and economic change, exist

ing differences between Tuareg of slave origins and those of free

descent, especially with regards to labour, became more relevant

and strongly pronounced. First, the opposition between free and

slave is relevant in expected social behaviour and labour ethics,- and

then, there are notions on the mentality and ways of thinking

perceived to be innate in free and unfree persons. Using the Tuareg notion of intelligence (tayite in Tamasheq), Berge (2000, 204-05) has argued that free Tuareg see the mind frames of free and slave as

naturally given and not as cultural constructs. Both free persons

and slaves have intelligence, but of a different nature. These ideas

on innate differences in intelligence and behaviour are not specific




to the Tuareg, but are found in large parts of West Africa and beyond

(Botte 2000). Furthermore, a free or noble person knows shame and

honour, which restrains his or her conduct. Slaves, by contrast, do

not know shame or honour and behave, by nature, in an unre

strained way. This becomes apparent in a person's bearing, for

example, in the way in which one dances or sits. Free persons dance

rather stiffly and slowly, while slaves dance unrestrainedly with

more movements. Slaves, male and female, sit on their heels (a shameless posture as it is associated with defecation), whereas free

men proudly sit upright and cross- legged, and free women lie

elegantly on their sides. But free persons also believe that slaves are

unable to understand religious duties, (being by nature thievish and

deceitful), lack endurance, and cannot fend for themselves. Hence, slaves need to be cared for and protected.

Of course, people do not always behave as expected, nor is intel

ligence distributed as the former masters expect. The effects of this

discrepancy between perception and reality cause social tension

between the free born and former slaves. I will, here, give a few

examples.

First, with regards to work, many free Tuareg still believe that

hard manual labour is unbefitting for a free person. A free man

should occupy himself only with pastoral affairs, trade, religion, or

warfare. Depending on region and caste, free women should not

work at all or engage only in pastoral activities, religion, or the

household. However, due to the droughts, pastoralism is now seen

by many as a hazardous and even impossible occupation. The

preferred present-day professions, however, are derived from this

labour ethic (Klute 1992). Being a car driver or mechanic is seen as

a modern equivalent to being involved in pastoral affairs.

Commerce, especially transnational smuggling, is seen as a logical

follow-up to the caravan trade, and the 1990-1996 rebellion gave

young men ample chance to prove their warrior skills. However, these occupations and jobs are scarce (even that of warrior during the rebellion), which leaves many free men no other choice than to

take up other (manual) professions, which are seen as degrading. These occupational restraints do not hold for former slaves

who are free to take up any job available. At present, for instance, a

community of bellah (and some imghad) is successfully retailing fish in Abidjan, an unimaginable occupation for other Tuareg




(Bouman 2003). For this reason, many freemen argue, slaves have

suffered less under the economic circumstances than they have,

especially as they had no cattle to lose in the droughts. This argu

ment, if true, contradicts the results of the emancipation policies of the 1940s and 1950s. True or not, it does reflect a persisting

worldview in which slaves have no cattle.

After the droughts, the urge to s?dentarise the nomadic Tuareg

put the emphasis on agricultural development. The state, NGOs, and most specialists agreed that nomadic pastoralism contributed

to ecological degradation and the droughts. Development

programs, therefore, aimed first of all at farming communities,

including the sedentary iklan n eguef, as well as at former nomads

who were encouraged to take up farming. Those who wanted to

remain nomads and to reconstitute herds were partly left aside.

Thus, by 1988, 288 s?dentarisation sites had been officially recog nised in Northern Mali (Berge 2000, 171). According to the percep tions of freeborn Tuareg, many development projects were aimed

solely at reaching the former slaves who were, in the minds of

Western NGO workers, the poorest. Former slaves, already having an economic advantage over them after the drought because of

their ability to take up every job, were also pampered through

development aid. Inversely, bellah and other sedentary communi

ties in the North saw particular favours being given to the white

nomads. Despite the political and economic emancipation of the

bellah from the 1940s onwards, it is still commonly believed by scholars and NGO specialists alike that bellah are not herd owners

or pastoralists. The nomad is still seen as the "white free nomad," a vision concurring with the vision of freemen. Therefore, develop

ment programs aiming to rebuild herds have focused on this cate

gory to the detriment and anger of pastoral bellah and sedentary livestock holders.

As for shame and honour, since free persons perceived manual

labour to be dishounouring, they therefore saw themselves forced

to ask their proteges for economic assistance, thus involuntarily

reversing social relations and still dishonouring themselves. In the

eyes of the deprived free, the choice was between dishonour

through accepting menial jobs, which would mean public humilia

tion, and privately asking their former dependents and slaves for

assistance, which was a private humiliation that could be person




ally justified as "enforcing one's rights over one's bellah." However, former slaves perceived this strategy of their former masters as

trying to live on their backs, something they had done in the past.

They believed that free people should take up work as they had

done. Thus, the discourse on the absence of honour and shame was

turned to the advantage of the unfree in a circular way. Their lack

of honour and shame ensured their economic survival, and the free

should take this example, abandoning their honour in favour of

work, instead of dishonouring themselves by living at the expense of their former slaves (Tidjani Alou 2000). According to their chief, after the drought of the 1980s, the subsistence of the bellah inhab

itants of the village of Em Elher ... no longer depended on the kindness of their masters. And

then, in Mopti, they were in the country of the blacks and the

other, free blacks, did not miss an opportunity to tell them that

they were the lowest of men. In the beginning, some slaves

begged for their masters. But they ended up doing it for them

selves when they understood that their masters could not force

them to do so.... And then, the government proposed that they come and build this village. Houses were constructed for them;

they were given a plough to each two families and half a hectare

of land to each family to cultivate millet.... Today, they live and

work for themselves (Konan 1992, 10).

Despite the emancipation process, it is still very hard for

former slaves in Tuareg society to hide their origins and, therefore, to move upward on the social ladder of Tuareg society itself.

Although, at present, people of slave origin might hold high official

positions, they are still seen as "slaves" without any prestige or

status outside their personal achievements and qualities. Those

unfree who have not had the opportunities offered by education or

development aid after the drought might still live in conditions akin to those of their unemancipated parents and grandparents,

although their numbers are few. However, all this ensures that

notions of free and unfree status still exist in Tuareg society and

still form a major divide.

The Rebellion: Masters and Slaves Opposed The outbreak of the Tuareg rebellion in June 1990 immediately

provoked strong reactions from the Malian population towards the




Tuareg community, both in the North itself and elsewhere. The

rebellion started as an armed uprising against the Malian state, and

as a revolution to change the hierarchy and caste structure of Tuareg

society itself. But by 1994, after two failed peace processes, the rebel

lion had degenerated into a small-scale civil war between the rebel

armies on the one hand, and the army and the sedentary population

organized in the vigilante movement Ganda Koy on the other.

It is no wonder that the sedentary population in the North was

not sympathetic to the rebellion. The rebels, mostly former migrant workers who had lived in the Maghreb, had never included sedentary

peoples in their movement, but they pretended to fight in the inter

ests of the North, which had been neglected by the Malian state.

However true this neglect may have been for the Adagh and Azawad

regions, it had never been the case for Gao or the Niger Bend.

Particularly after the droughts, development projects had flourished

there, which had brought hope of a more prosperous future. Now

these organisations had to retreat from the area under the threat of

violence from both the rebel forces and the army. Teams negotiating with the government only included representatives of the rebel

movements. Other groups within Tuareg society were excluded, not

to mention delegates from other communities in the North. The end

result of all negotiations with the Malian state was that agreements involved only the Tuareg of free descent. This left other communi

ties in the North feeling left out.

The vigilante movement Ganda Koy, created by Songhay inhabitants of Gao and deserted army officers, had a clear-cut goal:

protecting the sedentary populations from rebel attacks and

banditry, as well as chasing the "white nomads" from the land of

the Songhay. According to its adherents, the army did not, or could

not, provide security in the North. Therefore, Ganda Koy would do

so in its place. Protection of the sedentary population would be

delivered at all costs, and Ganda Koy adherents did not make a

secret about what the price was:

Fellow citizens of the North, let us sweep away all nomads

from our villages and cities, even from our barren land!

Tomorrow the nomads will install themselves there as domina

tors. Black sedentary peoples, from Nioro to M?naka, let us

organise, let us take up arms for the great battle that awaits. Let

us send the nomads back to the sands of the Azawad.19



6o CJAS / RCEA 39:1 2OO5

The process of creating "the other" in conflict situations

emphasises the essentialised features not only of that other, but

also of the othering group (Horowitz 1985, 143). The Ganda Koy could claim traits that were opposite to those of the Tuareg rebels.

They were "black" (whether this self-ascription was taken from

Tuareg rebel discourse or not remains unclear) and sedentary, and

they lived along the banks of the Niger. The emblem of the Ganda

Koy consisted of a pirogue boat, crossed with a hoe and a harpoon,

representing the Niger, sedentary life, and defence.

These traits were shared by the bellah of the Niger Bend, the

iklan n eguef or slaves of the dunes. Despite being part of Tuareg

society and culture, many bellah adhered to or supported the

Ganda Koy10 The unfree and free Tuareg had a different view on

their experiences from the 1940s to the 1990s. The independence

struggle had brought the unfree emancipation. The droughts had

brought them hunger and exile too, but had also furthered their

emancipation. Hardly any bellah were part of the organisations that had prepared the rebellion in exile in the Maghreb, and their

community suffered just as much under rebel attacks as the

others.21 Support for the Ganda Koy by the bellah community meant that Ganda Koy discourse could not be simply anti-Tuareg. To this day, most bellah see themselves as part of the Tuareg

community, but as second-rank citizens. On the other hand, opting for racial discourse had become less problematic and one of two

options left for the Ganda Koy to define the Tuareg as "the other," the second option being the also largely exploited opposition between sedentary and nomad. But as we have seen above, these

two categories ? "white nomad" and "black sedentary"

? had

effectively been linked long before. To the bellah in general, many

other options stood open to define the other Tuareg: centuries of

exploitation, which, after an interlude of a few decades, seemed

now to return with the rebellion. Logically, this needed to be

stopped and if, along the way, the opportunity arose for some direct

revenge for the past, this was apparently not missed.

With the rising animosity against white Tuareg during the

rebellion, many felt they had three choices: to flee, to join the

rebels, or to fall victim to pogroms. The bellah community suffered

less under pogroms than from rebel attacks.22 Many bellah had

become internally displaced people within Mali as they were forced




to leave their homesteads. Their fate was harsher than that of the

refugees outside Mali (as the latter at least had some support from

international organisations). Few had the chance to integrate into

the movements. Preexisting animosity towards their former

masters also made many bellah join in the repression of white

Tuareg by the army and the Ganda Koy. When the army attacked

the Tuareg and Arab community in L?r? in 1991, killing an esti

mated fifty of its Moorish and Tuareg inhabitants, many bellah

joined in, guarding the survivors who were more or less interned

outside the village for more than a year: The bellah took our possessions, engaged in trade in our place, set up shops almost everywhere in the South, and killed our

cattle. Others lived with our herds in the bush. They also killed

people in the bush and looted their camps. During the last dry

season, we had neither access to the wells, nor to the market

because of the problems. The bellah were charged to survey us.

Some we knew, others we didn't. At night, military vehicles

patrolled to prevent our escape. They threw stones at us when

we tried to leave.23

In June 1994, bellah intellectuals attempted to create a special bellah movement, the Mouvement pour V?veil du Monde Bellah.

Considering the reigning climate of distrust between white and

black in the North, between integrated rebels and the FAS

(Malian Armed Forces); considering that the few erring bellah

(there are less than ten) who found themselves in the rebellion

have been killed, in a cowardly way, by the red, the assassina

tion of Colonel Bilal Saloum by the imghad of the ARLA forms a notorious example,- considering that the Songhay have

created the Ganda Koy movement; considering that the Malian

Government and people have been let down by the manipula tors of the [National] Pact [peace agreement],- ... considering that thousands of bellah have been removed from their land by the rebels and armed bandits; considering the marginalisation of the bellah community.... The Mouvement pour l'?veil du

Monde Bellah ... informs national and international opinion that a bellah is different from a Tuareg and that a Haratin is

different from a Moor (Arab). The Mouvement pour l'?veil du

Monde Bellah fights against the new Western apartheid which

the MFUA and the Commissaire au Nord want to put in place




in Northern Mali ? a white, armed minority, controlling

power and economic means to the detriment of the Malian

state and people, and dominating a black majority.24 In Niger, under parallel circumstances, a pamphlet of similar

content was written by a certain Agga Alhatt. This document, far

more elaborate and balanced in content than the writing of the

Mouvement bellah in Mali, would eventually lead to the creation

of the Association Timidria, which is now a powerful organization

actively promoting the emancipation and "liberation of slaves" in

Niger.25 This movement, internationally acclaimed and supported, is not without controversy in Niger. In a recent report causing some

international upheaval, Timidria stated that there were over

800 000 slaves living in Niger (Galy 2003). According to Timidria, these slaves are exploited, humiliated and physically assaulted by their masters in ways for which there does not exists historical

proof of practice in the past. Timidria also regularly embarrasses

the government and the free Tuareg community by announcing the

liberation of slaves. In March 2004, Timidria announced the ritual

liberation ceremony of a group of 7 000 slaves in the village of In

Ates. According to Timidria, their owner, a Tuareg tribal chief, had

agreed to the ritual liberation. The Nig?rien government, embar

rassed by the ceremony and the international attention, forbade the

ceremony. Timidria proceeded nevertheless, after which Timdria's

president Ilguilas Weila was arrested on charges of embezzle

ment.26 The activities of Timidria cause anger among most free

born Tuareg, who perceive the organization as yet another attempt to tarnish their reputation and to give ammunition to other ethnic

groups or the Government to discriminate them.

But contrary to Timidria in Niger, the Mouvement pour V?veil

du Monde Bellah never got off the ground. However, the attempt to

create a movement, as well as the reasons invoked in the article

announcing its birth, do give insight into why some bellah joined the Ganda Koy against their former masters.

Post Rebellion Party Politics

The rebellion ended in March 1996 with the Flamme de la Paix

ceremony at the market of Timbuktu. All movements were

dissolved, heralding a gradual return to peace. Two positive develop ments in Mali are, to some extent, credited to the rebellion: the fall




of the dictatorial Traor? regime in March 1991 and the installation

of a multi-party democracy, as well as the decentralisation of the

administration. Despite the failure of the Mouvement pour V?veil

du Monde Bellah and the integration of bellah in the Ganda Koy, bellah political organisation did get off the ground. During the run

up to the presidential elections of 2002, the bellah community of

Gourma Rharous created an association in support of the candidacy of current Malian President Amadou Toumani Tour?. This associa

tion was explicitly framed within the idea of bellah political inter

ests. According to the association's spokesman Bachat Ag Biha,

[Amadou Toumani Tour?] is a man of his words who does not

make a difference between Malians, while some only see

Tuareg and Songhay in the North. The promoter of the group insists that from Modibo, via Moussa Traor? to Alpha, with the

exception of ATT, the leaders always gave the other classes in

the North more than their due part....27 The political participation of the bellah in local politics took off

seriously with the founding of a regional political party in Menaka

in April 1991, the Union Malienne pour la D?mocratie et le

D?veloppement (UMADD). The UMADD was often seen as the

bellah party although many of its adherents came from the imghad

population of the Cercle. Its two main leaders belong to the same

clan, one of which is a bellah, the other a free man. During the

communal elections of 1999, the UMADD managed to gain ten of

twenty-one seats in the Menaka council, thus forming a political force to be reckoned with at the local level. However, the UMADD

remained a regional party, active only in the Menaka Cercle. For

strategic reasons, the party merged with former Prime Minister and

presidential candidate Ibrahim Boubacar Keita's Rassemblement

pour le Mali (RPM or Alternative 2002) in January 2002.28

Fifty-three years after they first filed their freedom papers at the

ballot boxes of Menaka, some bellah now sit in council meetings. However promising this is, the sketches at the start of this article

show that the path is not at an end.

Conclusion

This article has tried to dissect the intricate relations between local

and external conceptions of race and social status in Tuareg society in northern Mali, a phenomenon common to all of the Sahel. It does



H CJAS / RCEA 39:1 2OO5

so through a description of the political and economic emancipa tion of former Tuareg slaves in the colonial and postcolonial period.

While it is hard to define the origins of, and historical changes in, local conceptions of race in the pre-colonial period, they can be

easily assessed for the colonial and postcolonial periods. We have seen that, despite a difference in rhetoric, ideology,

and political goals with regards to slave emancipation, colonial and

postcolonial policies were similar. They were characterised by hesitance and even reluctance to interfere in a barely controlled

society, and they were only partly effective. As for the relation

between race and social status, the regimes had different perspec tives on racial discourse, but the content of this discourse did not

change. It was only from the 1970s onwards that local dynamics, under the influence of ecological disaster and civil war, altered the

social, political, and economic relations between former masters

and former slaves.

However, these changes were again set in racial perceptions of

self and other, which reached a high point during the conflict

between Tuareg rebels and Ganda Koy in 1994. The following equa tions remained the point of reference in perceptions of Tuareg soci

ety and its relations with neighbouring peoples and the

government: first, Tuareg = noble = nomad =

white,- second, black =

sedentary = not noble = Other. These equations were shared by both

colonial and postcolonial governments, local populations during times of distress, and sometimes even by foreign experts and NGO

staff. Unfortunately, whether the equations hold any truth or not

seems to bear no relevance to these relations. But that is a common

denominator in all racial discourse.

Notes 1 In the Adagh and Azawad, the term eghawel is hardly used, in favour of

abogholli, there meaning "manumitted." In the A?r and east of these

mountains, the term eghawel is more generally used to denote manumit

ted slaves. There exists a proper term for mulatto in the Tamasheq dialects

of the Hoggar and A?r, uesherdan, " which is not in use in the Ouillimiden

and Adrar dialects (infra). 2 Alojaly (1980) gives this only for A?r dialect. It was brought to my atten

tion by El Hamel (2002), who notes it for Hoggar dialect and Tafilalt Arabic. 3

Barth?, Les Touaregs du Gourma, CHEAM, no. 1911, Paris 1951. The

Centre des Hautes Etudes pour l'Administration Musulman (CHEAM),




later Centre des Hautes Etudes sur l'Afrique et l'Asie Moderne, closed

down in December 2000. Its m?moires are here considered as archival

documents, which can now be consulted at the Centre des Archives

Contemporaines in Fontainebleau. To consult them, one needs to have the

original CHEAM classification code here given. 4 Based on discussions with members of the fraction Ishidenharen Kel

Ashu, cercle Menaka, who claim ellelu (which they are) to mean noble, but

who were described by Nicolaisen as imghad in the 1960s (Nicolaissen and

Nicolaissen 1997). Similar claims are made by the Ifoghas and Idnan in the

r?gion Kidal. Although these groups were not noble in pre-colonial times, and dominated by the Ouillimiden imajeghen, their exact status is less

clear.

51 thank Bruce Hall for providing me with this information on gaa-bibi. 6 "Les Belahs r?clament une gestion partag?e du Pacte National," Le

R?publicain 1 juin 1994. 7

Schmitt, Le probl?me des serviteurs ? une solution, CHEAM, no. 2449, Paris 1954. 8 For their present persistence, see Mann (2000, 220-75). In recent years, a

few scandals over the enslavement of children in Southern Mali, sold to

the plantations of the Ivory Coast, have been revealed in the Malian press

(Diabate 1999). 9 In 1909, for example, eighty-three slave families were detached from their

masters. After the 1916 revolt of the Ouillimiden Kel Ataram, the iklan n

eguef families under their command were separated and regrouped as a

fraction under the name Zambourouten (Schmitt 1954). 10

Inspection des Affaires Administratives Kidal 1937-1957. Archives

Nationales du Mali (ANM) ? FR 2D-20/57.

11 Sahara, Soudan, Mauritanie, administration et maintien de l'ordre

? les

confins sahariens ? rapports politiques 1955-1956. Rapport politique

1955, Cercle de Gao. Archives Nationales Section Outre-Mer (ANSOM) ?

FMlaffpol/2173/1. 12

Forgeot, La soci?t? nomade touar?gue ? son ?volution, CHEAM, no.

2577, Paris 1955; Forgeot, Monographie r?gionale de Menaka, CHEAM, no. 1990, Paris 1952. 13 Haut Conseiller, Directorat G?n?ral Interieur no.730 INT/ AP2 aux

Gouverneurs Mauritanie, Soudan, Niger, 17/08/1949. Archives de Cercle

de Kidal (ACK). 14 Ministre de 1 Int?rieur et de l'Information Madeira Keita ? Chef du

Territoire du Soudan fran?ais, 06-11-1957. Archives du Minist?re de

S?curit? et de l'Administration Territoriale du Mali (AMSAT) ? Dossier

35 ? OCRS. 15

Questions pos?es par le Capitaine Diarra, Commandant la CSM et le




Cercle de Kidal, au rebelle Amouksou ag Azandeher. Kidal, 04/10/1963. ACK. The list included three more reasons: taxes, chieftaincy, and

maltreatment by government employees. 16 Gouverneur de Gao ? Commandant de Cercle de Kidal. Gao, 02/06/1962.

ACK. 17 Notes of an untitled speech written by Commandant de Cercle de Kidal.

Kidal, 07/05/1966. ACK. 18

Repertoire des villages et des fractions, Cercle Bourem, 1971. ACK. 19 "Extrait du no 00 de La Voix du Nord ?

organe de combat des peuples

s?dentaires," nd, np. 20 This argument is derived from research in the Menaka area. Bruce Hall

has found that, in the Timbuktu and Goundam area where he did research

among Songhay and bellah communities, Songhay do not accept that their

black identity can include the bellah. This is because in their use or

construction of a black identity, they rely much less on race than their

terminology suggests. Race becomes meaningful in confrontation with the

white nomads or rebels, but black should be understood to be an alliance

with southerners. It is quite possible that the alliance suggested by my informants in the Menaka area was forged as the Songhay community in

that particular Cercle forms a small minority and could not do without

bellah support. Further research on this subject in the Menaka and Gao

areas is needed. 21 The second in command of the most important rebel movement MPA, Bilal Saloum, an Ifoghas of unfree origins, was an exception who was often

presented by the rebels to show the involvement of bellah in the rebellion.

Bilal Saloum was killed by a competing rebel movement, ARLA, in

February 1994. 22 It has to be noted that Tuareg of bellah origins also fell victim to pogroms in Bamako, if it was known that they were Tuareg. 23 Mauritania. Association des R?fugi?s et Victimes de la Repression de 1

Azawad. 26 May 1992. "T?moignage de Fati Wellet Hamomo, retenue en

hotage ? L?r? de mai 1991 ? mai 1992." Bassikounou: Unpublished docu

ment, personal archives. *

24 "Les Belahs r?clament une gestion partag?e du Pacte National," Le

R?publicain 1 juin 1994. 25

Agga Alhatt, Document-Cadre de la Communaut? Touareg de Souche

Noire. The identical text was published as: Alhatt Agga, "La communaut?

touar?gue de souche noire ? que personne ne parle en Notre nom," Le

D?mocrate 7 mars 1991. See Alou (2000). 26

"Niger cancels vfree-slave' event" <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/ ?frica/ 4321699.stm> and "Niger anti-slave activist charged" <http://

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4515857.stm>.




27 Elections 2002, ATT le candidat du Gourma, Malieco 2 March 2001.

http://www.malieco.com/journal/0203.html. 28 Premier Congr?s Ordinaire du Parti, Congr?s Constitutifs de l'UF-RPM et de l'UJ-RPM, Bamako, le 13 janvier 2002. http://www.promali.org/

rpm/motiongenl .htm.

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