Wüstenschiff

Die Nationale Bewegung für die Befreiung Azawad (MNLA), säkulare Bewegung und Hauptbestandteil der Rebellion, und Ansar Dine nahmen an dem Angriff teil, neben den üblichen Schmugglern und mehr oder weniger identifizierten Gruppen, aus denen die Rebellion besteht.
Aber Stunden später vertrieben die Männer von Ansar Dine und ihrem Führer Iyad Ag Ghaly die Touareg der MNLA aus den Straßen der Stadt und errichteten die islamische Ordnung.
"Sie kamen mit 50 Fahrzeugen. Sie nahmen die Stadt, vertrieben die Leute der MNLA und verbrannten ihre Flagge, um die ihre über dem Militärlager zu hissen", sagte Moussa Haidara, Kameramann, der die Ankunft des Konvois in der Stadt gefilmt hatte.
Iyad's Vize, der französisch sprach, sagte laut dem gleichen Kameramann, dass Somalier, Nigerianer, Tunesier unter den Männern von Ansar Dine sind, "und alle sind für den Islam".
Figurder der Tuareg-Rebellion der 1990er Jahre, kämpft Iyad Ag Ghaly nun für die Anwendung der Scharia in Mali durch "bewaffneten Kampf".
Als er Timbuktu betrat, wurde er anscheinend von einem der historischen Führer der AQIM, dem algerischen Mokhtar Belmokhtar begleitet, sagten regionale Sicherheitsquellen.
Spitznamen "Belawar" (oder "Louar", der Einäugige), hat Mokhtar Belmokhtar seine Reputation mit unzähligen Waffentaten, Anschlägen, Entführungen von Westlern und verschiedenen Formen des Menschenhandels begründet.
Laut der mauretanischen Agentur Online-Informationen Al-Akhbar, zog auch ein weiterer Anführer der AQIM, Abu Yahya al-Hammam, in die Stadt.

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"Iyad AG Ghaly traf gestern Abend (Montag) die Imame der Stadt. Er erklärte, dass er nicht für die Unabhängigkeit, sondern für die Anwendung des islamischen Rechts kam", so der oben zitierte Beamte.
Die Delegierten der Ansar Dine hielten Predigten in zwei Stadtteilen, um die "Vorteile" des Islam zu preisen, nach einem Zeugen, der zwei Nigerianer unter den Predigern identifizierte.
"Mein Vater ist einer der Imam, die von Iyad und seiner Delegation empfangen wurden. Es war die Rede vom Islam (...) Sie sagten, sie würden 'bis zu Tode' gegen diejenigen kämpfen, die über die Gründung einer Republik reden. "
Die Männer von Ansar Dine und AQIM starteten eine Operation, um Plündergut zurückzuholen, und luden die Besitzer ein, es abzuholen, nach einem Zeugen.
Sie hatten einige Erfolge bei der Festnahme der Plünderer und zogen sie gefesselt durch die Stadt, junge Leute, die gerade das Energie-Unternehmen von Mali (EDM) niederbrennen wollten.

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IRIN hat geschrieben:.
MALI: Looting halts aid work in chaotic north
03.04.2012 - IRIN

BAMAKO/DAKAR - Malians in the northern towns of Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu are hiding in their homes in fear following the weekend takeover by rebel groups, during which hospitals, health clinics, government buildings, and most NGO and UN offices and warehouses were looted, and in some cases destroyed, leaving the bulk of humanitarian operations suspended.

After decades of failed Tuareg secessionist rebellions, the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) has suddenly taken over most of northern Mali - with significant help from the Islamist group Ansar Dine [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/95186/Br ... -the-cycle ] - a barreling advance that culminated in the capture of Timbuktu on 1 April.

Issa Mahamar Touré, president of the youth association in Gao, said total chaos reigned after widespread looting of government offices, NGOs, banks and hospitals in his town. "People are hiding at their homes unable to leave.no trucks are arriving with further supplies...what will we do when our stocks run out? The hospital is closed and doctors have fled.It is complete desolation, despair.We can only turn to the international community for help."

Ansar Dine has claimed control of Timbuktu where they say they will impose Islamic sharia law, banning alcohol as well as Western clothes and music. Several residents told IRIN they wanted them out.

"We are against this takeover," said Amouhani Touré, a teacher who had just fled the town. "These Islamists want to impose their rules on us.we're in the 21st century, you can't impose sharia [law] on peaceful citizens. The authorities, if we have any still, must fight these Islamists with all their might.Timbuktu is a holy site, a tourist town; UNESCO-protected, we will say no to all forms of separatism."

An under-equipped and demoralized Malian military put up little resistance against the northern rebels, despite a promise by Captain Amadou Sanogo, who led a military coup ousting President Amadou Toumani Touré on 22 March, [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/95127/MA ... -president ]that a reinvigorated army would fight back.

Humanitarian operations suspended

Julia McDade, head of the Malian office of Norwegian Church Aid (NCA), told IRIN: "Everyone [in Gao] is in hiding, everyone's vehicles have been stolen . every single office has been ransacked." The NGO works with partners on agriculture projects, women's rights and humanitarian response in Timbuktu and Gao.

All the aid agencies IRIN spoke to have had their equipment stolen and have been forced to suspend operations, in the middle of a food emergency. Offices of the World Food Programme (WFP), which provides the bulk of food aid in the north were looted, and the organization has halted its activities in Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu, as well as the central town of Mopti, according to its head, Nancy Walters.

Catholic Relief Services (CRS), Oxfam, and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) all repeated the same story. "Our cars, aid materials, offices and staff residences - were all looted [in Gao]," Jurg Eglin, head of ICRC for Niger and Mali told IRIN. "We are still trying to take stock of what we have lost."

Ultimately by looting, the rebels have further punished the drought-hit region, said McDade. "Their relatives are dying in the field, and now we can't do the paperwork required to distribute the food.the rebels have hurt themselves," she said, adding they are trying to set up systems with WFP to re-start food distributions once security is clearer. This puts an already slow emergency response - because of months of conflict, complications related to increasing numbers of displaced, and sluggish donor funding - in further jeopardy, warned the agency heads.

"We were already late on the food insecurity response, and now things will be even slower," said McDade. ICRC has been able to carry out only one major food distribution in Kidal over recent months. Some three million Malians are estimated by the UN to be at risk of hunger this year. [ http://reliefweb.int/disaster/ot-2011-000205-ner ]

Aid workers need to create some sort of "humanitarian space" in order to operate, but negotiating this is near-impossible at the moment as the situation is changing by the hour, said ICRC's Eglin. "You speak to one person and the next day someone else gives a different answer. It's a mess."

Reports of rape

While the rebel takeovers were for the most part free of widespread civilian killings, according to the ICRC, several sources - one of them a staff-member with NCA -reported that rapes have taken place in Timbuktu, while others reported incidents of rape in Gao.

An NGO trainer in Gao, Adama Konipo, told IRIN he had seen rebels taking women away from the health centre, "to who knows where", in recent days. After seeing one young woman in tears in the street, family members told him she had been raped by five MNLA soldiers. Others reported two rebels raping a young woman in the market place, firing their guns when anyone dared to approach them.

"It is impossible for any young women to leave their houses for fear," Konipo told IRIN.

"The MNLA is supposed to be liberating its people - not raping them. Ansar Dine are supposed to be religiously correct.some kind of moral law must be applied here," said NCA's McDade, adding more investigations are needed to confirm these reports.

Mopti

Many now fear that Mopti - the southernmost town in northern Mali - will be the next to be targeted by the rebel groups, with UN security statements reporting rebel movements in the northernmost parts of Mopti region, and reports of rebel activities in Hombori, Youwarou and Tenen Kou.

A number of agencies, including CRS, are already shutting down their offices in Mopti and sending staff to the capital, Bamako. The degree of vandalism that took place has people worried about such opportunism spreading, said McDade.

"There are opportunists here -not just rebels - and what if they said look, we can do the same thing in the south?"

Meanwhile, on 2 April, Mali's neighbours agreed to shut their borders as part of tough sanctions imposed by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which has also imposed trade and financial embargoes, as part of a set of measures to persuade the military junta to restore constitutional law.

Coup leader Sanogo has confirmed the junta is ready to discuss a transition of power, but has not set any dates. Some banks are already running out of cash. Government staff will not be paid from April once sanctions take hold, said Moumini Kamaté, an agent at the national Budget Office, who added that some of the tax offices in Bamako were pillaged in the coup. "If liquidity runs out, the economy will grind to a halt," he told IRIN.

This could mean government services collapsing, as well as a complete lack of direction on the humanitarian response, said Stephen Cockburn, West Africa advocacy adviser at Oxfam.

The looting of some 16 ministries means administrative services have largely stopped already, according to Lamissa Bengaly, Secretary General for the Ministry of Energy and Water, who told IRIN most of their office equipment was looted within 62-hours of the coup. "We can't do anything because we don't have any of our work materials. In reality, administrative services have more or less stopped."

Some aid agencies such as Oxfam are negotiating deals with their banks to set aside minimum cash flows.

Bamako-based hospitals are generally continuing to function, while schools were on break when the coup occurred so were not directly hit, said Adama Waigalo, adviser at the Education Ministry, though he is worried they will not be able to re-open following the Easter break.

The trade embargo and border closures are already causing shortages, and prices - high to begin with - are rising further still, say traders.

A kilo of rice in Bamako is US$1 versus US 60 cents last week; a litre of oil is $2.40 rather than $2 pre-coup, according to market-seller Ousmane Traoré, who says he has no choice but to up prices as his goods are stuck on the Senegal and Cote d'Ivoire borders and cannot be sold.

Long queues of cars cluster around most petrol stations, with pump prices shooting up over the past week to $5 a litre from the official price of $1.20.

Border closures will also affect the movement of people, and "another coping mechanism will be lost", Cockburn told IRIN.

Kuno hat geschrieben:Wenn auch nur ein Teil von dem wahr ist, was IRIN da berichtet, dann sollte in Zusammenhang mit den Tuareg nie mehr jemand die Worte 'edel' und 'Ritter' verwenden. Gerechtfertigt waren diese Attribute wohl eh noch nie - und ich glaube, sie wurden in Zusammenhang mit diesem Volk auch nie verwendet, bis ein westeuropaeischer Kundenstamm sie fuer sich entdeckte.

The Tuareg rebels want an independent state while Ansar Dine which has seized Timbuktu wants to impose Islamic law and has linked up with Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Foreign Minister Alain Juppe told AFP the two were "closely tied" and Ansar Dine's "goals are not clear, but it may be to install an Islamic regime across the whole of Mali." Three of the four leaders of Al-Qaeda's north Africa branch, Abou Zeid, Mokhtar Belmokhtar and Yahya Abou Al-Hammam, were in Timbuktu on Tuesday, security and religious sources in the city said.

Im Gefolge von Ansar Eddines Chef Iyad ag Ghali sollen auch die drei wichtigsten algerischen Al-Qaida-Führer nach Timbuktu gekommen sein: Mokhtar Belmokhtar, Abou Zeid und Yahya Abou al-Hammam. Die drei „nahmen an einem Treffen zwischen Iyad ag Ghali und den Imamen der Stadt teil“, berichtete die Nachrichtenagentur AFP. Es wäre das erste Mal, dass die AQMI-Islamisten eine dauerhafte städtische Basis bekommen.

The junta on Wednesday accused the rebels in Gao of "grave rights violations". "Women and girls have been kidnapped and raped by the new occupants who are laying down their own law," said junta spokesman Amadou Konare - pointing the finger at the MNLA, Ansar Dine and AQIM. Elected lawmaker Abdou Sidibe said panicked residents in Gao were being stopped from fleeing, amid reports of widespread looting. "Public buildings, private offices, banks, NGO headquarters, food banks, everything has been vandalised," by the marauding rebels, said an employee of a humanitarian orgaisation. "There are no more cars, equipment, material. There is no hospital, no dispensary, no health centre. They removed even the beds, the doors of the hospital," he said, adding electricity was expected to be cut soon.

Die malische Militärjunta wirft den Rebellen im Norden Vergewaltigungen von Frauen und Mädchen vor. Die Afrikanische Union schließt sich derweil den Ecowas-Sanktionen gegen Mali an.

In Mali haben die Tuareg-Rebellen der Nationalen Befreiungsbewegung von Azawad (MNLA) ihre Kampfeinsätze für beendet erklärt. Die MNLA habe beschlossen, ein ab heute geltendes Ende ihrer militärischen Einsätze auszurufen, hieß es in einer gestern auf der Website der Bewegung verbreiteten Erklärung.

Diese Entscheidung sei nach der „vollständigen Befreiung“ der Region von Azawad und angesichts der Bitten der internatonalen Gemeinschaft getroffen worden, hieß es dort weiter. Das Schreiben war unterzeichnet von MNLA-Generalsekretär Bilal Ag Acherif.

Azawad nennen die Tuareg-Rebellen ihre Heimatregion, die sich in Mali vom Westen bis in den Norden erstreckt und auch Teile Nordnigers und Südalgeriens umfasst. Die Tuareg kämpfen für die Unabhängigkeit dieser Region.

Kuno hat geschrieben:Wenn auch nur ein Teil von dem wahr ist, was IRIN da berichtet, dann sollte in Zusammenhang mit den Tuareg nie mehr jemand die Worte 'edel' und 'Ritter' verwenden. Gerechtfertigt waren diese Attribute wohl eh noch nie - und ich glaube, sie wurden in Zusammenhang mit diesem Volk auch nie verwendet, bis ein westeuropaeischer Kundenstamm sie fuer sich entdeckte.

Der französische Außenminister hat einen Militäreinsatz gegen den Aufstand der Tuareg in Mali ausgeschlossen. Es müsse eine politische Lösung mit den für einen eigenen Staat in Westafrika kämpfenden Rebellen geben, sagte Alain Juppé am Donnerstag in Paris. Die Länder der Region müssten außerdem zusammenarbeiten, um das Vordringen der Al-Kaida in der Region zu bekämpfen. Die Tuareg-Rebellengruppe MNLA hat am Donnerstag ein Ende ihrer militärischen Operationen angekündigt. Sie forderte internationalen Schutz für die von ihnen eroberten Gebiete [...] Juppé sagte, er stehe in Kontakt mit der MLNA, die er für einen vertrauenswürdigen Gesprächspartner halte. Es gebe eine klare Trennung zwischen den Tuareg, die für ihre Unabhängigkeit kämpfen würden, und der von Al-Kaida infiltrierten Islamistengruppe AQIM.

Walter hat geschrieben:Die Frage ist nun, wie groß die Schwierigkeiten für die nicht-sympathisierenden Tuareg werden (Kollateral-Geschädigte) werden.