AU head Gaddafi tells Tuareg rebels to disarm

Reuters - 15/03/09

lundi 16 mars 2009

NIAMEY, March 15 (Reuters) - African Union (AU) head Muammar Gaddafi of Libya has called on Tuareg rebels in Niger and Mali to abandon armed struggle, adding to pressure on the dissidents to put down their weapons.

Rebel groups and bandits are rife in the neighbouring desert states, kidnapping Western visitors and worrying investors who want to mine Niger’s uranium. But rebels in both countries have recently shown signs that are willing to enter talks.

"Anyone who lays down their arms and enters the peace process has nothing to fear, nobody will call you to account for the past," Gaddafi said during a state banquet in Niger’s capital Niamey on Saturday night.

"Carrying weapons can never constitute a means of expression of protest," he said.

Earlier this month, a rebel faction split from the main Tuareg-led Niger Justice Movement (MNJ) armed group, saying it wanted negotiations to restore peace.

Niger has refused to talk to the insurgents, which it says are criminals, unlike Mali which has negotiated with Tuareg dissidents campaigning for greater autonomy on its territory.

Last month, almost 600 rebels in northern Mali disarmed in a sign military pressure and Algerian mediation may be helping to defuse the Malian rebellion.

DRUGS, GUNS, ISLAMISTS

Gaddafi said he intended to rid the desert of the drug traffickers, arms smugglers and Islamist rebels he said were based there.

"The Sahara is polluted by all these groups. The situation in the Sahara concerns me. I have resolved that peace will prevail in the Sahara," he said.

Al Qaeda’s North African wing has heightened insecurity in the area where internatioal resources firms such as Areva (CEPFi.PA) and Cameco (CCO.TO) have operations.

Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has said it is holding four European tourists who were seized on the Niger-Mali border in January, as well as two Canadian diplomats taken in southern Niger in December.

Since his February election to the chair of the AU, Gaddafi has visited Eritrea to attempt to mediate between it and border rival Ethiopia, and more recently crisis-hit Guinea-Bissau and northwest African Islamic state Mauritania.