Alabama And Mississippi Were Forced To Give Up Slavery... But Mali's Tuaregs Weren't

I don't know... maybe it's because my distant ancestors were slaves in Egypt, but to me slavery is the most horrifying thing that can be done to another human being. And when I was in Mali I saw it close up and personal. I've been wondering why there hasn't been anything in the western press about how the Malian rebels-- the Tuaregs-- were at least in part motivated by their unwillingness to stop using other human beings as slaves. The French, Brits and the U.S. just did not want that to be part of the conversation. There was speculation that the reason was because they had hoped the turn the Tuaregs against the al Qaeda Islamists by looking the other way on the slavery thing.

And then, out of nowhere, USA Today, of all places, blows the whistle on Tuareg slavery this week. They trumpeted that the Tuaregs fleeing the advancing French and Mailian troops have been "taking with them some of their most important possessions-- slaves." Until now all the coverage has been about how the mean Malians have been killing the poor innocent Tuaregs they get their hands on. No context whatsoever-- NONE. That might be just fine for the NY Times but USA Today just put the paper of record to shame.

The Tuareg tribes that overran Mali's military with the help of Arab extremist groups aligned with al-Qaeda have long held slaves and many of the captives are from families that have been enslaved for generations.

"It's no way to live, without your freedom," said Mohammed Yattara, a former slave who ran away from his Tuareg masters years ago.

"You depend on them for everything. If they tell you to do something, you have to do it, or they will beat you," he said as he sat with the chief of the village of Toya and among men and women who were descendants of slaves or former slaves.

"You can marry, but if the master wants to have sex with your wife, he will. Everything that's yours is theirs," Yattara said.

Tuaregs are a semi-nomadic people of North Africa's Sahara desert whose traditional land was divided into several nations, the borders of which were drawn by European colonialist powers.

They predate the Arab tribes that moved into the region centuries ago and in Mali, a former French colony, Tuaregs lived primarily in the north part if the country.

But in March, armed Tuaregs took control of the north from the Mali government and marched south with Islamists aligned with al-Qaeda. They took over the city of Timbuktu and threatened the capital of Bamako. The Islamists imposed strict shariah, or Islamic law, on inhabitants it controlled.

Some Tuaregs took advantage of their newly won control to reclaim freed or runaway slaves, mostly black Africans.

The French military arrived in January and retook Timbuktu from the Tuaregs, who fled into the desert or refugee camps in neighboring Burkina Faso and Mauritania, some taking slaves with them. Tuaregs and Arabs who failed to escape have been summarily killed, activist groups have said.

Human Rights Watch said the Malian army and black African civilians are holding all Tuaregs and Arabs responsible for the recent months of terror and human rights abuses, whether or not they participated in the crimes.

Yattara is one of the few accessible witnesses who was willing to discuss slavery under the Tuaregs.

Like many other residents of his village, Yattara is a farmer in the rice and hay fields in the river's surrounding wetlands.

Each of Mali's dozens of ethnic groups has a traditional occupation, and Yattara is one of the Bella ("slave" in the Tuareg language), the black Africans who have inherited their slave status.

Though slavery was outlawed in 1960, Mali is one of the countries in the world where the practice of human servitude flourishes, with as many as 200,000 Bella living a life of hereditary enslavement.

Not all Tuaregs own slaves, and not all slave owners are Tuareg. There are also black Malian ethnic groups who own Bella slaves.

But in the Timbuktu region, only Tuaregs own slaves. Not only were the Tuareg seen as supporters for the Islamist rebels' harsh rule over the last ten months, but their slave-owning ways fanned racial animosity in northern Mali.

Like all other slave children, Yattara never went to school, and to this day he is unable to read and write. "But my son is in school now," he said proudly.

Yattara said he believes he is in his early 40s but is not certain of his exact age because Tuareg masters do not file birth certificates. He fled his masters as a young man and during his travels to Senegal and Ivory Coast he discovered that slave-owning was in fact illegal.

"In my father's generation, slaves weren't thinking to be free," Yattara said. "But now there are many slaves who want to be free, and they try to find a way, but they are afraid."

In the Timbuktu region, slaves work on farms or as household servants or shepherds. Deeper in the vast desert of the north, inhabited by Tuaregs and Arabs, the slaves mine salt, a back-breaking task done under the Saharan sun.

Salt is the north's main economic product and black slaves deliver the giant grayish slabs by boat or truck to the black Africans, who then take it to markets in the south.

Yattara and his companions agreed that Tuaregs were the worst slave-masters in Mali.

..."In my life I will never forget what it feels like to be a slave," Yattara said. "Whenever I see Tuaregs I will be angry."

And, as we said a few weeks ago, it still isn't time to start planning a vacation in Mali. Seriously, I'd wait. A guerilla war looks likely... and, at least in the north, long-lasting.

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Timbuktu Liberated... But Don't Book A Trip Quite Yet

Bassekou et moi à Bamako... better days

Roland and I capped off a month in Mali with a trip to the city that had lured us to the country in the first place: Timbuktu. And it was worth the grueling drive in a jeep over dirt "roads" to get there. We both loved this throwback of a city to ancient times. The city has gone through-- to put it mildly-- some pretty hard times, first at the hands of barbaric Tuareg slavers and then at the hands of just as barbaric Islamic religious freaks, since we were there. Now the town has been, let's say liberated by the Malian Army and their French allies. But I wouldn't book a flight in yet-- even if there are already sparks, miraculously, of a tourist industry revitalizing. Today the President of France, François Hollande is visiting the city, although I doubt he'll be staying in any hotels.

The Hotel Colombe in Timbuktu closed its doors at the end of March last year. In Mali's capital Bamako an army mutiny had begun while in the Saharan north, the town of Kidal had fallen to rebels using arms looted in the aftermath of Libya's civil war. The Colombe's energetic manager Mohamed Toure thought the death knell had sounded for tourism in Mali.

With no money coming in, he was reduced to one meal a day. "I didn't think I would ever see another European again." He was proven wrong this week as the jihadis fled in advance of the French troops in Mali's fabled city. Now Mr Toure's crumbling hotel is back in business. After one of the darkest years in its long history Timbuktu is coming back to life.

The artisans' market, a hive of weavers, tailors and jewellers, has reopened. Ben Ali, a jeweller, was already back working on a silver ring. Most of his business came from the traditional ceremonies that punctuate Malian life. He pointed to an ornate silver headdress in the display box behind him: "They stopped our women from wearing traditional jewellery," he said. "This is nonsense, they just came in with their sharia. These guys knew nothing about religion, they're just gangsters."

DJ Ali Biko was also back in action across the street. A young looking 19-year-old, his speakers had come out of hiding to blare reggae through the market area. "When the Islamists were here I was really stressed," he said. "We couldn't listen to music."

Me & Mohammed in downtown Timbuktu

He chose to play music in this store because it had belonged to Arab traders, whom locals accused of backing the al-Qa'ida affiliates who occupied Timbuktu. With Malian rapper Milles Mots at full blast, Ali joked that seeing his friends dance in the looted wreck of the store was his revenge.

Me and Mohammed again-- still downtown Timbuktu

Such small acts of defiance are visible everywhere in a city that was famed before last year for its diversity. In the warren of stalls behind the artisan market, Abou Bakry Moussa was selling things he wouldn't have dared to display one week before. Obama belts featuring the stars and stripes and a grinning American President are outselling Chelsea hats and Real Madrid socks. "We had hidden them before," he said. "People had to ask for them." Upstairs, Radio al-Farouk has become the first station in northern Mali to go back on air. The DJ, in clear defiance of the jihadis who ruled the city until last week, relaunched by playing tracks from the legendary Malian musician Ali Farka Touré. The station should be back in full operation within a month. Four days after the first French soldiers swept into the city, cigarettes and alcohol have also made a comeback.

Alcohol is back too and the airport was captured by the French. Obviously it's working well enough for Hollande to have flown in today. When we were there there were two airlines, Air Mali and Air Timbuktu, flying ancient prop planes from to Bamako via Mopti. Leaving Timbuktu, I flew on one and Roland flew on the other and they both left at the same time. I recall them disarming a tribesman when he boarded but giving him back his sword once the plane took off. Air Mali is grounded until September and Air Timbuktu is out of business entirely. Today Hollande's plane flew from France to Sevare. The NY Times reports that "life is certainly a long way from returning to normal. Shops owned by Arab tradesmen have been looted. Some residents have fled, a foretaste of ethnic strife that many fear will roil Mali for years to come. Electricity and running water are available only a few hours a day. The cellphone network remains down."

Many of the residents who left-- first to escape the occupation, then to escape the French airstrikes-- have no way to return. Always remote, the city remains dangerously isolated: the dusty tracks and rivers leading here wind through forbidding scrubland territory that could still provide refuge for the Islamist fighters who melted away from the cities.

Those who remained told stories of how they survived the long occupation: by hiding away treasured manuscripts and amulets forbidden by the Islamists, burying crates of beer in the desert, standing by as the tombs of saints they venerated were reduced to rubble, silencing their radios to the city’s famous but now forbidden music.

“They tried to take away everything that made Timbuktu Timbuktu,” said Mahalmoudou Tandina, a marabout, or Islamic preacher, whose ancestors first settled in Timbuktu from Morocco in the 13th century. “They almost succeeded.”

The occupation of Timbuktu, a center of learning for centuries, was the latest in a long historical list of conquests-- by Arab nations, by the Songhai and Maasina empires, by France. Once again, powerful global forces were in play in this fabled city: a network of Islamic extremists, the armies of France and West Africa, and to a lesser extent the United States, which has flown in French forces and refueled French warplanes during the campaign.

Through it all, the city’s residents, whose ancestors endured such ravages for the better part of a millennium, have adapted as best they could.

On April 1, the day rebels arrived in this city, Mr. Tandina had just returned from the first, predawn prayer of the day. He made bittersweet tea to the murmur of a French radio broadcast. The news was bad: Gao, the largest city in northern Mali, had fallen to Tuareg rebels, the nomadic fighters who had been battling the Malian state for decades.

His hometown was almost certainly their next target. When shots rang out in Independence Square, just behind Mr. Tandina’s house, he knew that Timbuktu’s latest conquerors had arrived.

“The barbarians were at our gate,” he said with a sigh. “And not for the first time.”

The Tuareg fighters took control of the city, and for two days they looted its sprawling markets, raped women, stole cars and killed anyone who stood in their way.

“Then the man with the big beard came,” Mr. Tandina said.

Barrel-chested and dressed in a blue tunic, the leader of Ansar Dine, an Islamist group with links to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, arrived with several truckloads of fighters. The new rebels called the city’s people to a public square and made an announcement.

“They said, ‘We are Muslims. We came here to impose Shariah,’” Mr. Tandina said.

At first, Timbuktu’s people were relieved, he said. Beginning a hearts-and-minds campaign, the group garrisoned the fearsome Tuareg nationalists outside of town, which stopped the raping and pillaging.

They did not charge for electricity or collect taxes. Commerce went on more or less as usual, he said.

Then a mysterious group of visitors came from Gao, heavily armed men riding in pickup trucks, trailing desert dust.

“They told us they were here to establish an Islamic republic,” Mr. Tandina said.

It started with the women. If they showed their faces in the market they would be whipped. The local men grew angry at attacks on their wives, so they organized a march to the headquarters of the Islamic police, who had installed themselves in a bank branch. The Islamists greeted the protesters by shooting in the air. Many fled, but a small group, including Mr. Tandina, insisted that they be heard.

A young, bearded man came out to meet them. Much to Mr. Tandina’s surprise, he recognized the Islamic police official. His name was Hassan Ag, and before the fighting began he had been a lab technician at the local hospital.

“When I knew him he was cleanshaven, and he wore ordinary clothes of a bureaucrat,” Mr. Tandina said.

Now he was dressed in the uniform of the Islamist rebellion: a tunic, loose trousers cut well above the ankle, in imitation of the Prophet Muhammad, and a machine gun slung across his shoulder.

“I told him our women were being harmed,” he said.

Mr. Ag was unmoved.

“This is Islamic law,” he said, according to Mr. Tandina. “There is nothing I can do. And the worst is yet to come.”

Soon it came. They began destroying tombs of the saints venerated by Timbuktu’s Muslims. Armed with pickaxes and sledgehammers, they reduced to rubble the tomb of Sidi Mahmoud, a saint who, according to legend, protected the city from invaders.

Venerating saints, an ancient practice here, was considered un-Islamic in the austere version of the faith proclaimed by the occupiers.

Mr. Tandina said he tried to use his decades of Koranic education to argue with the Islamists, citing verses about respecting the burial places. They would not listen.

Before long, he said, amputations started. Then came the executions. Again he said he tried to intervene, going to the Islamic court with stacks of Islamic law books under his arm.

“Islam was whatever they said it was,” he said. “They did not respect the holy book. They respected nothing but their own desires.”

For hundreds of years, Timbuktu was one of the world’s most important centers of Islamic learning. The city has dozens of mosques, and it is famous for the ancient, handwritten manuscripts that city residents have collected for generations, preserving them against waves of invaders and creating a priceless trove of knowledge about the Islamic world and beyond. Many families have long traditions of Islamic learning, passed from father to son.

So many here bristled when the Islamists called the population to lecture them about the proper practice of the religion in which they had been raised.

“What they call Islam is not what we know is Islam,” said Dramane Cissé, the 78-year-old imam at one of the city’s biggest and oldest mosques. “They are arrogant bullies who use religion as a veil for their true desires.”

But like many Muslims here, he hid away his amulets, prayer beads and other banned religious items. In his mind his faith remained the same.

How soon before Timbuktu's famous Festival au Désert is back in business? Well... no time at all! They're kind of sponsoring a desert caravan of artists this year-- a Peace and Unity event-- with concerts in Morocco, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Burkana Faso. The Islamists sacked the regular site of the Festival, destroying the water systems, looting the generators and electrical equipment, and "crushing all that had appealed to the promotion of culture and tourism." So this year-- starting February 7 in Bamako, the Caravan of Artists for Peace and National Unity heads off to Kobeni in Mauritania on the road to Nouakchott (the capital) and play two nights of concerts, February 8 and 9 sponsored by the Al Hawa Cultural Foundation of Mauritania. They'll partner with the Festival on the Niger in Ségou on February 14 and two days later at the Festival of Mali in Bamako. A second caravan will leave Tamanrasset, Algeria and travel through the Tuareg heartland to Niamey, Niger and on to Burkina-Faso and the two caravans will hook up in Oursi 350 kilometers from the capital of Burkina Faso, Ouagadougou for the Festival in the Desert 2013 (on February 20, 21 and 22). The last stop in at the Festival International of Sélingue in Mali on March 1, 2 and 3. The artists participating are primarily Malian, although the Festival's press release says other international artists will also play to show their solidarity. None have been named yet and I suspect Robert Plant and Bono won't be making it this year.



Unesco has pledged to help rebuild Timbuktu's destroyed cultural heritage. My friend Sophie runs an awesome hotel in Djenne, Djenne Djenno, which is-- amazingly-- still open. She blogs about her life in Mali and it's a great place to check out what's really going on there.

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Religious Fanatics Destroy Timbuktu's Cultural Heritage

Far right "Christian" fundamentalist Bryan Fischer is one of America's noisiest and most virulent anti-Islamic hatemongers. Barely a day goes by when he isn't tweeting some crap about how Islam is not a religion of peace because some crackpots do something outrageous in the name of Allah. Fisher's rage against religionist excess, he never seems to understand, is what lumps him and his followers in with the loathsome Muslim fundamentalists and extremists he derides. He is them; they are him.

A few years ago, Roland and I spent a month traveling through Mali, a unique and edifying experience. Since then, the country has fallen apart... literally. The northern two-thirds of the country have been taken over by the Islamic version-- but religiously and politically-- of Bryan Fischer and his thuggish crowd. And what has ensued should give Americans warning of what would happen if radical right sociopaths like Fischer and the politicians he supports ever get their hands on the levers of power in our own country.

Aside from a couple of superficial mentions by Mitt Romney in the foreign policy presidential debate that doomed his campaign, few Americans have ever heard of Mali. They confuse it with Bali and Maui. No one I tell I went there has a clue where it is, let alone anything about how significant it was historically-- in terms of providing the gold that helped fuel Europe's Renaissance and the music that created American rock'n'roll. But when I mention "Timbuktu" there's usually a glimmer of light behind the eyes-- not that anyone knows where that is either. But at least they've heard of it, usually as some legendary place like Atlantis.

Sunday The Telegraph reported on the latest news in the on-going the Bryan Fischerization of Timbuktu. This is what religion always devolves to:

The rebels' ruthless implementation of their version of Islamic law comes just days after the United Nations approved a military force to wrest back control of the conflict-ridden area.

"Not a single mausoleum will remain in Timbuktu, Allah doesn't like it," Abou Dardar, leader of the Islamist Ansar Dine group, told AFP. "We are in the process of smashing all the hidden mausoleums in the area." Witnesses confirmed the claims.

Anything that doesn't fall under Islam "is not good. Man should only worship Allah," Mohamed Alfoul, a member of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), said.

The vandalism of the Muslim saints' tombs in the UNESCO World Heritage site came a day after other Islamists in the northern city of Gao announced they had amputated two people's hands.

The continued strict application of sharia law is seen as a sign that the armed Islamist groups are unfazed by the UN's green light for the African-led military operation.

Planners have said any intervention cannot be launched before September next year. French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian however told Monday's edition of La Croix newspaper that he thought it could be launched in the first half of 2013.

In July, Islamists destroyed the entrance to a 15th-century mosque in Timbuktu, the so-called "City of 333 Saints."

"The Islamists are currently in the process of destroying all the mausoleums in the area with pickaxes," one witness said.

"I saw Islamists get out of a car near the historic mosque of Timbuktu. They smashed a mausoleum behind a house shouting 'Allah is great, Allah is great'," another resident told AFP.

As well as in cemeteries and mosques, the revered mausoleums are found in alleyways and private residences of the city, an ancient centre of learning and a desert crossroads.

Catherine Ashton, the European Union's foreign policy chief, condemned the Islamists.

A statement from her office said she was "deeply shocked by the brutal destruction of mausoleums and holy shrines in Timbuktu...

"Their destruction is a tragedy not only for the people of Mali, but for the whole world."

Ansar Dine began destroying the cultural treasures in July.

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The 3 Scariest Things I Ever Did On My Travels

For those who think hopping on a plane for a trip to London or Paris or Mexico City is adventurous and dangerous, this post may be hard to relate to. I started hitchhiking across America when I was 13. I hitched from Brooklyn to L.A. when I was 15 and stowed away on ship so I could make a new, simpler life for myself on Tonga. I celebrated my 21st birthday in my home-- a thatch-roofed bungalow steps from the Arabian Sea in Goa. But this morning, after reading about the latest deprecation in war-torn Mali, I tried to recall what the most dangerous stunts I had pulled on my travels.

Because I was swimming when I was thinking about it-- and because I get really scared of crocodiles and alligators-- one that popped into my mind was a trip to Esteros del Iberá a swampy section of northern Argentina where Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay all come together. They call it the Serengeti of Latin America because of the abundance of wildlife and, as I noted at the time, "the most important thing was to get the idea of "swamp" out of my head. This was easy because the place is not only gorgeous, it is fresh and even cooler than everyplace around it. The water is so beautiful that if it weren't for the alligators, pirhanas, capybaras and anacondas, you'd want to jump right in-- as many of the folks who live around there do anyway (and have the missing fingers and toes to prove it)."

Alligators-- they call them Yacare Caiman in the neighborhood, like the fella in the picture-- are something I usually go out of my way to avoid. So, for me, the scariest moment came when I agreed to go with a local in a dugout canoe for an afternoon of caiman, capybara (word's biggest rodent) and anaconda watching. And for hours that's all I saw... not anacondas, just a billion alligators and giant prehistoric rats.

Years earlier I had a run-in with an even scarier creature. I was bumming around Afghanistan in 1969 and found myself captured by a militia up in the mountains. I didn't understand a word of Pashtun at the time-- I learned a few months later when I got snowed in and stranded in a tiny Pashtun village for the winter-- but I sure understood the universal motions and grunts for "put your hands over your head or I'll unload this Kalashnikov into it." So I did. Maybe they wanted to go for a Ripley's Believe It Or Not Record, but they just had us keep our hands over our heads for hours. Eventually some Australian hippie who was with me-- and peaking on acid-- just started laughing and lowered his hands. At first the Afs all started screaming menacingly and made like they were about to shoot us. Then I started laughing and lowered my hands too. And then everyone else did-- and soon we were sitting around the campfire drinking tea with the militia all laughing away and smoking opiated hash like we were all best friends.

Most recently though, Roland and I went to Mali and wound up in Timbuktu on the outskirts of the Sahara Desert. It's not really the outskirts anymore; the desert is encroaching rapidly and the streets get covered in sand all the time. One night we decided to go with Mohammed, our Tuareg guide, into the Sahara itself. It's trackless; there's nothing but sand dunes and the light is the moon and stars and our flashlights. Our destination: a Tuareg encampment a few miles away where some nomads had come down from the desert to trade. We were leaving for America in a few days and there was plenty of stuff to trade-- from my high-end REI walking sticks to cans of sardines Roland had brought... and toilet paper, airline shaving kits, bits and pieces of clothes... all kinds of stuff we didn't want to schlepp back to L.A. It went pretty well. It might not have. As I've been writing in the last few months, a Tuareg rebellion was brewing and it's boiled over... big time. They've seized two-thirds of the country. And these are bad guys; they believe slavery is condoned by their religion, for example. And in the name of their primitive and ignorant concept of Islam, they are destroying Timbuktu, ironically a centuries-old center of Islamic learning.

Armed fighters of Mali's al-Qaida-linked Ansar Dine Islamist group on Saturday destroyed mausoleums in the ancient trading city of Timbuktu, classified as a UNESCO World Heritage site, witnesses said. 

The attack came just four days after UNESCO agreed to a request by the West African state to place Timbuktu on its list of heritage sites in danger following the seizure of its northern two-thirds in April by separatist and Islamist rebels. 

"They have already completely destroyed the mausoleum of Sidi Mahmoud (Ben Amar) and two others. They said they would continue all day and destroy all 16," local Malian journalist Yeya Tandina said by telephone of the 16 most prized resting grounds of local saints in the town. 

"They are armed and have surrounded the sites with pick-up trucks. The population is just looking on helplessly," he said, adding that the Islamists were currently taking pick-axes to the mausoleum of Sidi El Mokhtar, another cherished local saint.

Roland is protesting because I didn't include the time I was stranded on a coral reef in Sri Lanka and the time we almost drove over a cliff in the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco south of Marrakech.

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