Niger asks Saharan states to pressure Tuareg rebels
16 Jul 2007 11:11:00 GMT Source: Reuters
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Tuareg tribesman walks alongside camels as a caravan of nomads travels north through a remote region of southern Niger, July 2005.
REUTERS/Finbarr O'Reilly
By Nick Tattersall
NIAMEY, July 16 (Reuters) - Niger's President Mamadou Tandja has asked neighbouring states in the Sahara to persuade Tuareg-led rebels in his country's remote desert north to lay down their weapons.
The nomadic insurgents, who have raided army garrisons and mining targets since February, will face military operations against them if they refuse, officials said.
Tandja had called on Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and other neighbours to intercede with the Tuareg-led rebel Niger Movement for Justice (MNJ), Communication Minister Mohamed Ben Omar said.
He told Reuters Gaddafi had been the first port of call because of his role as mediator for the Community of Sahel-Saharan States (CEN-SAD).
"He (Tandja) has (also) had contact with Algeria, with Nigeria, with Chad, with Mali, all of our neighbours, to ask each of them to intervene where they can," he said.
The light-skinned Tuaregs launched a rebellion in 1990 in retaliation for a brutal security crackdown by the black African-dominated government.
The two sides reached a peace deal in 1995 but the MNJ says the government has not implemented terms of the deal, a charge Niger officials deny.
Niger refuses to recognise the MNJ and has ruled out direct negotiations, dismissing the group as bandits and drug traffickers.
The rebels have killed 33 soldiers and taken dozens more hostage in Niger's vast northern region of Agadez, where Chinese, French, Canadian and other foreign firms are active in uranium exploration and mining. Niger is one of the world's top producers of uranium, from which radioactive fuel is made.
To push demands for a bigger share of the region's natural resources, the MNJ this month kidnapped an executive from China Nuclear International Uranium Corp. (Sino-U), which it accuses of funding government arms purchases.
MNJ leaders, who accuse the security forces of extrajudicial killings, have since said Zhang Guohua has been freed and handed over to the Red Cross. The government has assured investors it is securing the zone.
"There will not be negotiations with them. They must: one -- lay down their weapons; two -- free the hostages; three -- return to the desert," Ben Omar said in an interview in the capital Niamey.
"We cannot wait for ever. ... Either they give in or it is the military option. There is no other choice."
DESERT LAW
Tandja's appeal for help from his desert neighbours is part of a long tradition in the Sahara, where local knowledge and information from tribal leaders and traders is often the most valuable form of military intelligence.
When Algerian rebels kidnapped 32 European tourists in 2003, the group responsible was hunted with satellite tracking equipment but eventually captured by a Chadian rebel group using just Kalashnikovs and local experience.
Security sources say they believe the MNJ is financed by trafficking drugs and cigarettes and is being supplied with weapons smuggled through markets such as the one at the Salvador Pass, north of Agadez on the Libyan border.
"We know among ourselves how the MNJ was born, who is driving it, where they go when they are wounded, who is giving them fuel, who is feeding them, who is providing their logistics," Ben Omar said.
"The Sahara is a no-man's land. ... All these countries have the same problems. Drugs, ammunitions and weapons are the flourishing trade. States can use their connections to make (the MNJ) put down their weapons."
The rebels say Niger's security forces have been arbitrarily arresting and killing members, a charge the government denies.
The government also denies rebel charges it has failed to integrate former fighters and increase powers for local officials as called for under the 1995 peace deal.
The government says more than 8,500 former fighters have been through army school or been given civil service jobs, while 265 local communes have been created and municipal elections held in 2004 as part of a decentralisation process.
