The Touareg have had enough, says Eva Dadrian Fleeing fighting between the army and Touareg fighters in northern Mali, hundreds of citizens have fled to Burkina Faso since April. According to the Burkina Faso national commission for refugees (CONAREF) more are expected to arrive if the fighting continues. Violence between the Malian armed forces and the Touareg fighters has been escalating over recent months and nothing indicates that the government of President Amadou Toumani Touré is ready to give in to the mounting pressure to negotiate. Last month the bubble burst when the Alliance Touareg Nord Mali pour le Changement (ATNMC) of Ibrahim Bahanga launched a series of swift and deadly attacks against government troops in a number of locations. According to an ATNMC spokesperson, this is "just the beginning and will continue" until the government enters into negotiations over political and economic autonomy for the Touareg-dominated north. For observers the Touareg issue is back to square one and the Alger Peace Accord, signed in 2006, is dead and buried. The ATNMC blames the government for not honouring the accord, which stipulated that the Touaregs would renounce their claims for autonomy and in exchange the government would step up the development of northern Mali and withdraw its troops from the region of Kidal. The lack of progress on these issues means that the guns are out again. Today, according to Hama Ag Sid Ahmed, spokesperson for the Touareg Alliance of Northern Mali, the rebels' demands to end the crisis are very clear. The Touaregs hope that the Malian authorities will "quickly get together with the country's technical and financial partners, the politicians, and international mediators to start a dialogue that takes into account the widening of this conflict to other regions of the north." These threats may not carry much weight with the Malian government, but next door in Niger, the Touaregs have also taken up arms, as the Touareg fighting tradition requires when it comes to defending "the Touareg Sahara". Observers are adamant that an immediate solution to the Touareg crisis in Mali should be found, so the Sahel region is not transformed once again into the battlefields of the 1990s when both Mali and Niger were rocked by Touareg rebel movements. According to Issouf Ag Maha, a Niger Touareg rebel leader self-exiled in Paris, there is no "direct coordination" between the two rebel movements. "On the terrain, explained Ag Maha to Al-Ahram Weekly, the two movements have their own fighting methods without any political or military coordination between them." In fact, says Ag Maha, who is the elected mayor of the town of Thirozerine, the two movements have also very distinctive and different "interlocutors" (meaning the Malian and the Niger states) and while he believes that the problems are similar, their solutions are "independent from each other". Contrary to former Niger Touareg rebellions, especially the one led by Mano Dayak -- the Coordination de la Résistance Armée -- which was ended in 1995 by a peace treaty, the Mouvement des Nigériens pour la Justice (MNJ) is different, both in its composition and its claims. First, the MNJ counts amongst its fighters non-Touareg Niger miliataries who have joined the rebellion. The MNJ is asking not only for a better "integration" of the Touareg people and more political representation, but it demands, in the name of the Niger people, justice, equity, an end to corruption and a decentralised government. The MNJ also says that the government's failure to implement fully a 1995 peace agreement is the reason why they have again taken up arms. But let's call a spade, a spade and a cat, a cat. Deep down the Niger Touaregs' demands have always been the same: a greater share of revenues from the uranium, the strategic mineral that is mined in the part of the country they call home. This was confirmed by the declaration made by a representative of the movement in France "The government extracts all the uranium without asking permission of the nomadic people and without giving anything to the people." Uranium was first discovered at Azelik in 1957 by the French Bureau de Recherches Geologiques et Minières. Ironically the French were looking for copper and it was only in 1959 that further discoveries were made following studies initiated by the French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA). Niger became independent of France in 1960. Landlocked and arid, Niger is ranked as the world's poorest nation by the UN but at the same time Niger is the world's fifth-ranking producer of uranium and its uranium exports count for eight per cent of global uranium production. Areva, the French nuclear-power company is the main investor, explorer and beneficiary of Niger's "yellow cake" In 2006 alone Niger exported 3,500 tonnes at $135 per pound, none of which trickled down to the needy population. Recently prices have dropped and new business partners such as China and India started flocking to Niamey. Areva lost its monopoly to China Nuclear International Uranium Corporation a subsidiary of China National Nuclear Corporation. Indian companies and Rio Tinto have also obtained exploitation licences in northern Niger, but Areva remains the main partner of Niger. Neither the French nor the Chinese have remained passive bystanders in the unfolding conflict and both have excelled in destabilising the region. Last year, Areva was accused by the Niamey authorities of backing the rebels "in order to deter" competitors and its managing director was declared persona non grata. Tit for tat, the MNJ accused China of offering military support to the government in exchange for mining licenses, claims which were immediately dismissed by the Niger government. France and China are not the only master puppeteers on Niger's uranium stage. Between the former colonial power and the new economic partner lurks Libya. In the past, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was accused of training and backing the Touareg rebellion. Today, Libya continues to maintain territorial claims on parts of northern Niger and is accused of supporting the MNJ. The government in Niamey suspects that Libya may be the instigator of the recent attacks and desertions. Gaddafi denies destabilising the situation and has offered to act as peacemaker between the government and the MNJ. Yet, even with Gaddafi's proclaimed best intentions, the long-running dispute between the Touaregs and Niamey is not to end so soon. Thanks to a new presidential decree, the six month-old state of emergency in the north granting exceptional powers to the army to repress the movement has been extended for another three weeks. A much deeper crisis may be looming in the entire Sahel region.
