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100 CHAPTER 2Government. It will be argued here that, whatever the true events around thistrade might have been, the media scandal that ensued and the attention paid tothis subject by the US-RDA leadership came from their vision of the KelTamasheq as slavers, and reinforced this vision. Perhaps the desire to effectivelyremove a powerful opposing politician from the political scene played arole in the denouement as well.In 1948 Mohamed Ali ag Attaher Insar, until then chief of the Kel Intessarand PSP councillor in the Assemblée Territoriale, left to perform the hajj and totravel extensively throughout the Middle East and the Maghreb. 72 With himtravelled some of his family members, whom he wished to enrol in educationalinstitutions in the Middle East, and also some of his servants. Among these wasa certain Awad or Awatan, a bellah from the Igouadaran tribe, who had previouslyworked as a cook for a Tamasheq officer of the goum corps in Goundam.73 Mohamed Ali was replaced in all his functions by his younger brotherMohamed Elmehdi ag Attaher Insar. After his hajj he travelled between Mecca,Egypt, Libya and Morocco, but he was back in Soudan Français in 1953, wherehe did not reclaim his old functions, although he was appointed as honorarytribal chief. In 1953, information came from the French consul in Jeddah thatWest Africans naturalised as Saudis were active in West Africa as slave traders,who offered to organise the pilgrimage overland, after which these pilgrimswere sold. 74 The Consul was especially worried about a group of about fivebellah from the Goundam and Gourma Rharous Cercles, three men and twowomen and their children, who had travelled with Mohamed Ali. Inquiries weremade with Mohamed Ali about who exactly these people were and what mighthave happened to them. With some embarrassment, Mohamed Ali explainedthat most of them had left him in 1952 in Khartoum, where they had foundemployment, on their way back to Soudan Français. Awad el Djouh, or Awatan,was among these five missing servants.In March or April 1954 Awad el Djouh arrived in Niamey, where he filed aformal complaint to the Chief of Police against Mohamed Ali for having soldhim in Saudi Arabia. 75 From Niamey, Awad continued to Bamako where hiscomplaint was brought before court. The rumour about the slave trade organisedfrom Soudan Français quickly spread in Bamako, and from there it reached thedesks of the local press. The weekly Afrique nouvelle, a Catholic newspaper run72737475ag Attaher Insar, M.A. 1990.Cdt. Cercle Goundam à Gov. Soudan Français, 26/02/1953. ACG.Miers, S. 2003: 348.Affaires Politiques Confidentiels et Secrets: 1956. Correspondances secrets et confidentielsau départ du Gouverneur du Soudan à tous les Cercles, Subdivisions etCommunes mixtes: 1954. ANM – RNIII B-1229. And Gov. Soudan Français auCdts. Cercles Gao, Tombouctou, Goundam, 29/04/1954, no 216/C. ACG.