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REBELLION: AL-JEBHA 285on the crowd and in its halls on the hospitalised patients, the thieves killedeleven people. 56The massacre in the Gao hospital was the event that led to the creation of theMouvement Patriotique Ganda Koy. Ganda Koy had a clear solution to theproblems of the North and a clear-cut goal: Protecting the sedentary populationsfrom rebel attacks and banditry and chase the ‘white nomads’ from the land ofthe Songhay. According to its adherents, the Army did not or could not providesecurity in the North. Ganda Koy would do so in its place. Protection of thesedentary population would be delivered at all costs, and Ganda Koy did notmake a secret about what the price was.Fellow citizens of the North, let us sweep away all nomads from our villages andcities, even from our barren land! Tomorrow the nomads will install themselvesthere as dominators. Black sedentary peoples, from Nioro to Ménaka, let us organise,let us take up arms for the great battle that waits. Let us send the nomadsback to the sands of the Azawad. The existing social balance cannot be modified.The social economic problems of the North need to be solved for all citizens withoutdiscrimination. Why are there development projects for the nomads? Why are therearmy posts for the nomads? Why are there seats in parliament for armed rebelbandits?Because they took up arms and killed? That is inadmissible. The Gandakoyemovement is born. Signed without us, the [National] Pact is against us. Therealities in the North show this. We should create insecurity for the nomads as theyhave created it for the sedentary populations. 57In this quote from the Ganda Koy pamphlet La Voix du Nord n° 00,announcing its foundation, we find almost all reasons for the creation of themovement, as well as its basic interpretation of the Tamasheq rebellion andsociety: Insecurity; exclusion; racism; nomadic versus sedentary existence; nationalism;and the economy.Although some of the Ganda Koy’s founders were civilian inhabitants ofGao, its most prominent leaders were a number of army officers, members ofthe elite airborne division or ‘red berets’, the unit Amadou Toumani Touré hadcommanded until his coup d’état in 1991. The military commander of theGanda Koy was Captain Abdoulaye Mahamahada Maïga, a red beret of Songhayorigins who deserted on 9 May 1994, together with Lieutenants LamineDiallo, Abdoulaye ‘Blo’ Cissé and part of their company. These men wouldform the core of the Ganda Koy, leading most attacks against the Arab andTamasheq populations in the months to come. They did so in uniform, and5657‘Les populations sédentaires doivent assurer leur auto-défense’, Le Républicain,26/05/1994; and ‘Nord: la vraie fausse paix’, Le Républicain, 18/05/1994.Anonymous I, ‘Extrait du no 00 de La Voix du Nord: organe de combat des peuplessédentaires’ (n.p. n.d.). Although generally referred to as La Voix du Nord, there isno text known outside the Extrait de la Voix du Nord.