Main Niger Tuareg rebel groups, government agree peace

TO BE NOTED: From ReliefWeb:

"Niger's government, Tuareg rebels pledge peace

Source: Reuters Foundation

Date: 07 Apr 2009

- Main Niger Tuareg rebel groups, government agree peace

- Rebel group says formal peace deal should follow

- Libyan-sponsored talks are first in two-year rebellion

TRIPOLI, April 7 (Reuters) - Niger's government and main Tuareg rebel groups have agreed at Libyan-sponsored talks to make peace in the country's uranium-mining north, Libyan state media and a rebel website said on Tuesday.

The joint peace declaration late on Monday was the most inclusive yet between Tuareg rebels who launched an uprising two years ago, and the government, which had dismissed them as smugglers and bandits for most of that time.

Nomadic Tuaregs launched uprisings in the Sahara in the 1960s and 1990s, and renewed rebellions since early 2007 against the governments of Niger and neighbouring Mali have increased instability in a region where al Qaeda cells also operate.

Government and rebel leaders declared peace in the presence of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, current chairman of the African Union, the Libyan state news agency Jana reported.

"Two days of talks ... were crowned by an announcement in front of the brother leader of the Revolution and African Union Chairman that they commit themselves to keep up total and comprehensive peace in Niger," Jana said.

Niger's Interior Minister Albade Abouba, who led the government delegation, met representatives from three Tuareg rebel groups, one such group, the Niger Patriotic Front (FPN), said in a statement posted on its website.

"All the delegations spoke in favour of peace and national reconciliation. The two sides took the guide of the revolution, and through him the whole of Africa, as witness to their real and sincere desire to work for peace," the FPN said.

"All those taking part in this mission now have the historic responsibility to overcome their differences and realise these commitments, which must now be transformed into a formal peace agreement," the FPN said.

DIVIDED REBELLION

The FPN split in March from the Niger Justice Movement (MNJ), which launched the armed revolt in Niger's northern Saharan region in February 2007, since when over 300 rebels and some 80 government soldiers have been killed.

"We are very happy for having reached this outcome today and at this place after meeting several times," Jana quoted MNJ leader Aghaly ag Alambo as saying on Monday.

Last August, Alambo dismissed reports by Niger's state media that his fighters would lay down their arms and join a Libyan-mediated peace process. But some Tuareg fighters did surrender then, and the MNJ has been riven with in-fighting.

The FPN said when it split from the MNJ that it wanted a negotiated peace.

Later in March a group calling itself the Front of Friends of Niger, which said it represented several armed Tuareg groups, said it planned to surrender arms following a call from Gaddafi to Tuareg rebels in Niger and Mali to abandon armed struggle.

"The Sahara is polluted by all these groups. The situation in the Sahara concerns me. I have resolved that peace will prevail in the Sahara," Gaddafi said in March, vowing to rid Africa's biggest desert of drug traffickers, arms smugglers and Islamist rebels.

Al Qaeda's North African wing has heightened insecurity in the area where international resources firms such as Areva and Cameco have operations.

Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has said it is holding four European tourists seized on the Niger-Mali border in January, and two Canadian diplomats taken in southern Niger in December.

Previous hostage releases have been helped by negotiations with local Tuareg community leaders, security sources say. (Additional reporting by Abdoulaye Massalatchi in Niamey and Lamine Ghanmi in Rabat; Writing by Lamine Ghanmi; Editing by Alistair Thomson and Tim Pearce)"

Niger - General Map

• Date: 24 Feb 1999
• Type: Reference - Political
• Keyword(s): Reference
• Format:
  GIF, 24k

• Source(s):
  - United Nations World Food Programme (WFP)

For more than a year Tuareg fighters have attacked army posts and convoys to demand greater rights for their people

Exactly how many conflicts like this are there? From Reuters:

1 of 1Full Size

BAMAKO (Reuters) - Tuareg rebels in eastern Mali abducted a group of European tourists on Thursday, a senior Malian military officer said.

He told Reuters the tourists, whose precise number and nationality were not immediately known, were abducted at Menaka, near the border with Niger.

"The tourists were in three vehicles in Menaka when they were intercepted by a group of rebels," the source said. "We know (the tourists) are European."

The abducted tourists were driven away in two of the vehicles, which the Malian army began to pursue when alerted by eyewitnesses, he said, while another vehicle escaped.

The website of German magazine Der Spiegel reported on Thursday that a group of Europeans including a German woman and a Swiss couple had been abducted near the Mali-Niger border.

Last October, two Austrian tourists were released in Mali after being held hostage in the Sahara for months by Islamic militants.

Thursday's abduction was the worst such incident in the West African desert state since an Islamic rebel group kidnapped 32 European tourists in the Sahara in 2003, holding some of them for six months.

In a separate incident on Thursday, 31 Tuareg rebels were killed when the Malian army attacked a base at Kidal, around 200 km (125 miles) to the north of Menaka, the Defence Ministry said.

The base was under the command of insurgent leader Ibrahima Bahanga, whose group Malian authorities accuse of trying to control smuggling routes in the Sahara.

"One of Bahanga's bases ... has been destroyed by our armed forces," the ministry said in a statement.

In late December, the Malian military said Bahanga's men attacked an army post close to the border with Mauritania, only months after Algeria brokered a ceasefire between Mali's government and Tuareg rebels.

For more than a year Tuareg fighters have attacked army posts and convoys to demand greater rights for their people( AGAIN AND AGAIN ), but doubts persist about the participation of veteran chieftain Bahanga, who is seen as a rogue element( AND THERE ARE ALWAYS ROGUE ELEMENTS ) in the Malian Tuareg armed movement."

"Yet the good news shows that we will lose the battle against poverty and misery only if we give up "

Jeffrey Sachs with some good news in the Guardian:

"Good news in bad times

"Let's celebrate the global successes in fighting poverty, disease and hunger

Comments (20)

• Jeffrey D Sachs
• guardian.co.uk, Sunday 21 December 2008 14.00 GMT
• Article history

At a time when the headlines are filled with financial crises and violence, it is especially important to recognise the creativity of many governments in fighting poverty, disease and hunger( GOOD IDEA ). The point is not merely to make ourselves feel a little better, but rather to confront one of the world's gravest threats: the widespread pessimism( IT MIGHT BE REALISM, BUT, YOU'RE RIGHT, WE SHOULD TRY, IN ANY CASE ) that today's problems are too big to be solved. Studying the successes gives us the knowledge and confidence to step up our shared efforts to solve today's great global challenges.

Hats off, first, to Mexico for pioneering the idea of "conditional cash transfers" to poor households. These transfers enable and encourage those households to invest in their children's health, nutrition and schooling.

Mexico's opportunities programme, led by the president, Felipe Calder, is now being widely emulated around Latin America. Recently, at the behest of the singers Shakira and Alejandro Sanz, and a social movement called Alas that they lead, all of Latin America's leaders have committed to step up the region's programmes for early childhood development, based on successes that have been proven to date. ( SOUNDS GOOD )

Norway, under the leadership of prime minister, Jens Stoltenberg, is maintaining its tradition of creative social and environmental leadership. The government has put together a global alliance to prevent maternal death in childbirth, investing in safe delivery and the survival of newborns. At the same time, Norway launched an innovative $1bn (£0.66bn) programme with Brazil to induce poor communities in the Amazon to end rampant deforestation. Cleverly, Norway pays out the funds to Brazil only upon proven success in avoiding deforestation, compared with an agreed baseline.( GOOD IDEAS )

Spain, under the leadership of the prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez-Zapatero, has given a major stimulus to helping the poorest countries to achieve the UN millennium development goals (MDGs). Spain created a new MDG fund at the United Nations to promote the co-operation needed within the UN to address the various challenges of the MDGs. ( WORTH A SHOT )

The Spanish government rightly proposed that true solutions to poverty required simultaneous investments in health, education, agriculture and infrastructure, and then the Spanish put up the funds to help make that integrated vision a practical reality. Spain will host a meeting in January to launch a new fight against global hunger. Once again, Spain is proposing practical and innovative means to move from talk to action, specifically to help impoverished peasant farmers to get the tools, seeds and fertiliser they need to increase their farm productivity, incomes and food security. ( WE NEED TO SEE IF THEY WORK. IF SO, FINE )

The Australian prime minister, Kevin Rudd, has similarly surged to the forefront of global problem solving, putting forward a bold action plan on climate change and proposing new and practical( A KEY CONCEPT ) means to address the MDGs. Australia put real money on the table for increased food production, along the lines that Spain is proposing. It also champions an increased programme of action for the poor and environmentally threatened island economies of the Pacific region.( FINE )

These efforts have been matched by actions in the poorest countries. The landlocked and impoverished country of Malawi, under the leadership of President Bingu wa Mutharika, has doubled its annual food production since 2005 through a pioneering effort to help its poorest farmers. The programme has been so successful that it is being emulated across Africa( GOOD ).

Mali's government, under President Amadou Toumani Touré, has recently put forward a bold challenge to the world community. Mali is eager to scale up investments in agriculture, health, education and infrastructure in its 166 poorest communities. The plans are detailed, thoughtful, credible and based on proven successes that the government has already achieved. The rich world has promised to help Mali, and now Mali has led the way with its creativity( GOOD FOR THEM ).

There are countless more cases that can be mentioned. The European Union has launched a €1bn (£0.93bn) effort to help peasant farmers. The Gates Foundation, Unicef, Rotary International and many governments have succeeded in bringing down polio deaths to one-thousandth of the rate a generation ago, bringing the disease to the verge of eradication. Similar efforts are under way on many other fronts: the control of worm infections and leprosy, and a major global effort to bring malaria deaths nearly to zero by 2015.( VERY GOOD )

All of these successes, and many more, share a similar pattern. They address a well-defined( KEY ) and serious challenge, for example, low food production or a specific disease, and are based on a well-defined( KEY ) set of solutions, such as the supply of agricultural equipment and inputs needed by peasant farmers or immunisations.

Small-scale demonstration projects prove how success can be achieved; the challenge then becomes taking the solutions "to scale" in nationwide or even worldwide programmes ( TRUE ). Leadership is needed within the countries in need as well as among the rich nations that can help to launch and finance the solutions. Finally, modest amounts of money, directed at practical problem solving, can make an historic difference( I'M FOR IT IF IT'S ASSESSED FOR SUCCESS ).

Bad news can crowd out good news, especially in times of serious financial crisis and political unrest. Yet the good news shows that we will lose the battle against poverty and misery only if we give up and fail to heed the intelligence and goodwill that can be mobilised today. And perhaps next year, the US will rejoin the global effort with a new and remarkable force, led by a young president who has rightly told Americans and the world that "Yes, we can"."

No more about Bush. I'm begging you. I'm counting the seconds.