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REVOLUTION: TESHUMARA AND TANEKRA 201therefore no wonder that some indicate the position of Colonel Moussa Traoré’s regimetowards the Tuareg as ‘the final solution to the Tuareg problem’. 21The CDC commission cited above reached similar conclusions and impressionsof existing ‘traditional enmities between nomadic and sedentary populations’.The conclusions might have been exaggerated, but a few things cannotbe denied. The conclusions of ‘traditional enmities between nomads and sedentarypopulations’ made by the CDC were not totally unfounded. In times oftension the division between nomads and sedentary populations becomesstronger. The drought and its effects on the Kel Tamasheq might not have beenunwelcome to the Traoré Regime at the time.The drought of 1973 meant a near total collapse of the pastoral economy inNorthern Mali. Anything that was left was then taken away by a second periodof severe drought in the early 1980s, culminating in 1984. If the Adagh was hitless hard this second time, the onslaught was even heavier in more Southernregions. This time the wave of refugees came particularly from the Azawad andmoved mostly to Algeria and Libya. Otherwise, an almost identical devastatingpattern repeated itself. The second drought of the 1980s brought more and moreeffective relief aid to the Niger Bend. Many NGOs, such as the NorwegianAEN, set up lasting and large-scale development projects. However, in the perceptionof many of these NGOs, development could only be brought to sedentarypeople. As in 1974 the reaction from all sides, including the Kel Tamasheqévolués, was that pastoral nomad existence was no longer feasible, and especiallyundesired. Sedentarisation facilitates the control over the nomad populationsby the Government and relief work to their benefit by the NGOs. As forthe Kel Tamasheq themselves, many tried to pick up nomad pastoral existencewith their depleted herds as good as possible, repleting their animals by importsand traditional systems of mutual aid, such as borrowing livestock under variousconditions. 22 Their success was marginal and to hardly any avail, especiallyafter the drought of the 1970s as it was followed by that of the 1980s, againdecimating the still precarious herds.The number of people who died in both catastrophes cannot be estimated,but they were in the hundreds of thousands. Even if Philippe Decraene’s accusationsto the regime in Bamako were incorrect, they very likely expressed thethoughts of those Kel Tamasheq who witnessed their children die of malnutritionand disease in the aid-abandoned camps. Unsurprisingly, many left thecountry with no intention to return even after the drought was over.2122Decraene, Ph. ‘L’Afrique subira les effets d’une sécheresse plus dramatique’, LeMonde, 06/02/1974.Bourgeot, A. 1975.