ASC-075287668-2887-01

REBELLION: AL-JEBHA 295many bellah participated in the Ganda Koy, which is less surprising than itseems. Elsewhere, I have described the differences between the bellah and thefree Kel Tamasheq in their experience of the period between the 1950s and1990s. The politics of the late colonial period and the Keita Regime broughtthem emancipation. Alfellaga did not concern them. The droughts brought themhunger and exile too, but to different places in Africa. Barely any bellah werepart of the Teshumara or Tanekra and their community suffered just as hardunder rebel attacks as the others. In June 1994, bellah intellectuals attempted tocreate a special bellah movement, the Mouvement pour l’éveil du MondeBellah. 77 This movement never came off the ground. Most bellah simply joinedthe Ganda Koy. But the attempt to create a movement, and the reasons invokedin the article announcing its birth, do give an insight in the reasons why bellahjoined the Ganda Koy.Considering the reigning climate of distrust between white and black in the North,between integrated rebels and the FAS [Malian Armed Forces]; considering that thefew erring bellah (there are less than 10) who found themselves in the rebellion havebeen killed, in a cowardly way, by the “red”, the assassination of Colonel BilalSaloum by the “imghad” of the ARLA forms a notorious example; considering thatthe Songhay have created the Ganda Koy movement; considering that the MalianGovernment and people have been let down by the manipulators of the [National]Pact (Commissioner for the North and Malian rank of the MFUA); considering thatthousands of bellah have been removed from their land by the rebels and armedbandits; considering the marginalisation of the bellah community (...) The Mouvementpour l’éveil du Monde Bellah (...) Informs the national and internationalopinion that a bellah is different from a Tuareg and that a haratin is different from aMoor [Bidân]. The Mouvement pour l’éveil du Monde Bellah fights against the new“Western apartheid” which the MFUA and the Commissioner for the North want toput in place in Northern Mali: A white, armed minority, controlling power andeconomic means, to the detriment of the Malian state and people, and dominating ablack majority. 78Due to army repression and some results made by the movements in negotiatingwith the state, the rebel movements attracted more recruits. Most of thesenew recruits either joined in search of protection, or because there was somethingto gain. With the rising animosity against ‘white’ Kel Tamasheq, manyhad no choice. Either they fled, or they joined, or they fell victim to pogroms.The bellah community suffered less under pogroms, but in their turn suffered7778‘Les Belahs réclament une gestion partagée du Pacte National’, Le Républicain,01/06/1994.Ibid. The Comissariat au Nord mentioned here is an inter-Ministerial office, createdunder the National Pact, to implement its social and economic terms.