Mali's Tuareg rebels, Islamists restart talks after unity pact fails
Tuareg MNLA rebels restarted talks Saturday with Islamist group Ansar Dine after withdrawing from a deal made last week. The MNLA says the Islamists' insistence on establishing sharia law goes against their secular principles.
By News Wires (text)
REUTERS - Senior members of Tuareg-led Malian
rebel group MNLA have ditched a week-old pact with al Qaeda-linked
Islamists to turn the desert north of the West African country into an
Islamic state, saying it was against their secular principles.
The separatist MNLA, which wants an independent state it calls
Azawad, seized the north of Mali in early April with the backing of
local Islamist group Ansar Dine, whose goal is to impose sharia, Islamic
law, across all of Mali.
“The political wing, the executive wing of the MNLA, faced with the
intransigence of Ansar Dine on applying sharia in Azawad and in line
with its resolutely secular stance, denounce the accord with this
organisation and declare all its dispositions null and void,” said a
statement issued by Hama Ag Mahmoud, a senior MNLA figure.
The emailed statement said it was issued in the name of the MNLA as a
whole but it was not immediately possible to verify whether this was
now the official stance of the rebel group. The dea was also denounced
in a separate statement by Magdi Ag Bohada, another senior member of its
political wing.
The MNLA and Ansar Dine had reached an often tense accommodation
carving up control of key regional centres such as Gao, Kidal and the
ancient trading city of Timbuktu.
Locals who for centuries have practised a moderate form of Islam have
protested against efforts by Ansar Dine to enforce a strict dress code
and to impose sharia punishments on those found drinking alcohol or
watching television.
Ansar Dine’s ties to local al Qaeda agents who have been responsible
for a series of kidnappings of Westerners in the region have raised
wider fears of the emergence of a new “rogue state” acting as a safe
haven for terrorist activity.
The MNLA’s declaration of Azawad independence has been ignored
internationally – although before the tie-up with Ansar Dine, countries
such as France recognised a need for dialogue on some of their
grievances against the southern capital in Bamako.
Even there, Mali’s body politic remains in confusion more than two
months after a March 22 coup. Caretaker civilian president Dioncounda
Traore was physically attacked by protesters in his palace last month
and is recovering in France. He has not said when he is due to return.
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