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96 CHAPTER 2luctant to send their children to school in the first place. The same held forBathily, who was of slave origins himself. 60 The local administration finallymanaged to get Bâ and Bathily replaced. The US-RDA and Bâ did not give uptheir efforts to win Kidal for the US-RDA through the ‘bellah question’, but[T]he small number of servants diminishes their propaganda opportunities. They trynevertheless. Mr Bâ Amadou, who is no longer in service in Kidal, neverthelessreturns each year by airplane to Tessalit, from where he travels on camel to thecentres of Aguelhoc, Kidal, Ménaka and perhaps Ansongo. He also visits the campswhere he tries to bring up the “servant question”. 61In the Niger Bend, the campaigns of the US-RDA had more impact, since thenumber of slaves who could be emancipated lay much higher. In 1955, at the adventof the 1956 elections for the Assemblée Territoriale, the US-RDA made the bellahquestion one of its main campaign themes in the Cercle of Gao.Even before the start of the electoral campaign [the US-RDA] seems to orient itsactions on two issues in the central Subdivision: (...) A strong interest in the nomadictribes in general and in the bellah question in particular. The current policy of theadministration in this matter is closely scrutinised. 62An illustrative example of the ‘bellah question’ was the ‘Norben affair’ in1955 in the Cercle of Gourma Rharous. 63 The Norben are a community of iklanwho practiced agriculture and tended the herds of their masters, the Kel Gheris,but did not live in their masters’ camps. Under the influence of the US-RDAcampaign, the Norben claimed that the herds under their custody actually belongedto them and consequently appropriated them. The Kel Gheris did notaccept this behaviour and raided the Norben to reclaim their animals. It came toa trial in the traditional court of Gourma Rharous, which ruled in favour of theKel Gheris. However, the Commandant de Cercle overruled its judgement. Hedecided that the Norben would no longer be part of their former masters’fraction, but would form an independent Norben fraction from then on. Furthermore,he awarded them more than half of the herds they had taken from the KelGheris. The success of these liberation policies could be debated. The allocationof land to bellah fractions, as well as the general increase of land under culti-60616263Inspection des Affaires Administratives du Cercle de Kidal, 1937-1957. ANM – FR2D-20/1954. According to Eghlese ag Foni, former pupil of Bathily, he was aMarka. With regards to his first teacher, Eghlese ag Foni remarked that he ‘étaitméchant, naturellement méchant, il n’aimait pas les Touaregs, il était atroce’. agFoni, E. 1991: 117.Inspection des Affaires Administratives du Cercle de Kidal, 1937-1957. ANM – FR2D-20/1957.Sahara, Soudan, Mauritanie, administration et maintien de l'ordre – les confinssahariens – rapports politiques 1955-1956. Rapport politique 1955, Cercle de Gao.ANSOM – FM 1affpol/2173/1.Based on Winter, M. 1984.