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EPILOGUE 317from the Gulf and Saudi Arabia came back for one of their favourite hobbies:hunting with heavy arms and vehicles in the Saharan desert. More recently still,Northern Mali is at stake in the new scramble for Africa between various petrolcompanies in search of hydrocarbons. Since 2005 the Australian-Malian jointventure Mali-Petroleum SA is exploring the Taoudennit Basin for reserves inhydrocarbons, while the Canadian Centric Energy Company is doing the samein the Graben field north of Gao. 1 At the turn of the Christian millennium, theSouth-Asian Muslim grassroots organisation Tablighi Jamaat reached NorthernMali, taking the region into a global network of religious movements. However,the peaceful South-Asian Tablighis were followed by the militant AlgerianSalafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC). Their activities in the Sahara,in turn, led to US military presence and intervention. The post-rebellionperiod coincided almost neatly with the post-9/11 world of ‘War on Terror’,leading to a continuation of military violence in the Sahara, although this timethe local civilians were not targeted by either side. From the 1950s onwards theMalian Far North and its inhabitants had gained a sinister reputation as lazyanarchist nomads, racist slavers, and dangerous rebels. In the new century, inthe international setting of ‘War on Terror’, the ‘Clash of Civilisations’ and the‘Global Village’, they were framed in yet another stereotype: the potential‘Muslim fundamentalist terrorist’.It is not my intention here to deal extensively with all these topics. For themost part I have done so already elsewhere. 2 I will here give a short presentationfitting these events, as far as possible, in preceding histories andsocial-political structures.In the late 1990s, peace and prosperity reigned to some degree in NorthernMali, but it remained a heavily armed peace. 3 Despite general global warming,the Saharan climate turned milder in the last years of the 20 th century, withabundant and well-spread rains in 1997 and 1998. Although 1999 was lessaffluent, the rains remained good until the middle of the first decade of the 21 stcentury, when hunger and famine reemerged, albeit on a far smaller scale thanin the 1970s and 1980s. 4 Those Kel Tamasheq who were still living as nomadsrediscovered that life could be good, and thanked God’s blessing and mercy. In1999, two small local factories were opened in Kidal to produce pasteurisedmilk and yoghurt (natural, vanilla and banana flavours) from locally producedmilk. Telecommunications networks and public radio stations were rapidlyspreading, connecting the Malian Sahara to the wider world. In June 1999 Kidal1234Lecocq, B. & P. Schrijver 2007. And http://centricenergy.com/Lecocq, B. 2003; Lecocq, B. & P. Schrijver 2006, 2007.The following is based on Vallet, M., “Chronique de la vie au Sahara”. Le Saharien148 (1 st semester 1999) – 155 (4 th semester 2000).Jezequel, J-H. & X. Crombe 2005.