While you were waiting for George Zimmerman to be arrested, a new nation was born. What, you didn't hear about it? Don't worry; you probably weren't alone. It was just a group of people who have been around for centuries finally managing to carve out their own nation. No one else recognizes it yet and they've got a long way to go, but I've got this odd feeling that they might actually manage to pull it off. Follow me after the jump to learn about the new nation of Azawad.
Azawad - the home of the Tuareg people - consists of the northern half of the African nation of Mali. The Tuareg - a nomadic group - are probably best described as the primary inhabitants of the Sahara Desert. As such, they mostly live in Mali and Niger, but some also are in Algeria, Libya, Burkina Faso and Nigeria. They are very different from the other inhabitants of Mali and Niger but when the French pulled out, they stuck them together. This wasn't a particularly good fit; the Tuareg have risen up in rebellion four times since the 1960's (counting the current one). Sometimes the action has been in Niger, other times it's been in Mali and even in both together. A few things came together at the right time for the Tuareg this year though.
They had a friend in the late dictator of Libya, the unlamented Muammar Gaddafi. He'd given the rebels refuge in the past and had helped broker the last cease fire. He had also hired a number of Tuareg as mercenaries to keep control in Libya. Thanks to him, a number of Tuareg wound up both well armed and well trained. With Gaddafi dead and no longer able to pay them, and the Libyan people trying to kill anyone they suspected of being and 'African mercenary' those that were able to came back home. They got together with some veterans of past uprisings and some other groups to form the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA). While the MNLA are secular, there are two other groups active in the area; the Islamist group Ansar Dine, who want to impose Sharia law on all of Mali and Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), a terrorist group as if that wasn't obvious.
In January of this year, the MNLA struck, capturing some towns in the northern part of the country. The army of Mali struck back, and at first it seemed they would put down the rebellion, but they soon found themselves fighting a much stronger force than they had dealt with before and realized they were completely outmatched. Not helping matters is that the president, Amadou Toumani Touré, was a lame duck with a new presidential election set for this month.
(Aside - Mali is actually a democracy, though one riddled with corruption. One of the leading candidates for President is a man named Yeah Samake - a Mormon if you please! - running on an anti-corruption platform. So the first Mormon head of state might actually be a black guy.)
President Touré proved to be quite infective in dealing with the Tuareg uprising. Part of the problem was that the military budget had been cut in recent years and they are poorly trained and equipped. As losses continued to pile up, the military got more and more upset and on March 21st, they actually overthrew the elected government. The president went into hiding and various military figures came on television to claim that the constitution had been suspended until new elections could be held.
The international reaction was swift; the coup was condemned everywhere and all overseas assets frozen.
With the military busy running around like chickens with their heads cut off, the Tuareg rebels took full advantage of their good fortune. On March 30, they took Kindal, one of three regional capitals in northern Mali, following it up with Gao (the intended capital of their self-proclaimed state) the next day. On April 3, they captured Timbuktu, the last of the three regional capitals and the last major stronghold of the government of Mali. The MNLA pushed to the border of their state and stopped, declaring a unilateral cease-fire.
So what happens now? Well, the coup failed. The military leaders had to step down and the leader of Parliament is acting as interim president until the scheduled elections on April 29th. Presumably, the residents in the the embryonic nation of Azawad will not be voting, but there does not seem to be any reason why the rest of the country cannot have their election. New leadership is clearly needed but it is impossible to predict who the people of Mali will turn to in order to deal with this situation.
The MNLA has challenges from within; Ansar Dine is running around into the liberated towns ranting about Sharia law and hoisting their own flag. Some are concerned about possible danger to many historical secular artifacts and documents in Timbuktu from this group. And of course, any Al-Qaeda offshoot is going to be trouble. The surrounding nations are also not too happy about the situation. Certainly Niger would find an independent Tuareg state next door to be a threat, given their own sizable Tuareg population. If the surrounding sub-Saharan countries got together and invaded, they would most likely overwhelm the Tuareg. The French, on the other hand, have made it clear they will not get involved militarily.
I suspect that the MNLA will play for time. The election in Mali will not be resolved until May 13, when the runoff is scheduled. The military of Mali is in no position to do anything about the situation and the surrounding nations will want to coordinate with the newly elected president, whoever he or she might be. The Tuaregs are trying to build ties to Algeria and Libya (some fought on the other side of that civil war as well, so they have contacts) and I suspect they will also beef up their forces from those of their tribesmen in Niger. On the other hand, not everyone in Azawad is Tuareg; there are two groups called the Songhai and Fulani who will not be that keen on being part of a Tuareg-dominated state, even a democratic one as pledged by the MNLA.
I love the internet because 20 years ago, you'd have no way of getting news about this sort of thing. Now it's out there, even if you have to look for it. And I'm very curious to find out what happens next.