There’s a dangerous blame game being played now among the pundits, laying the responsibility for the conflict in northern Mali and the recent terror attack on the In Amenas gas field in Algeria on the overthrow of Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi. In the words of this recent New York Times story, “Qaddafi had mostly kept in check his country’s various ethnic and tribal factions … He acted as a lid … Once that lid was removed, … there was greater freedom for various groups—whether rebels, jihadists, or criminals—to join up and make common cause.”
This narrative is just wrong. On the simplest level, it’s a bad argument. The In Amenas attack was launched in Algeria and so far there is no indication Libyans were involved, though the country’s long desert border with Libya is close by. Algeria is a nasty police state ruled by a shadowy military junta that represses anything that smells of dissent, including peaceful protests. If the “lid” theory were right, the attack would have come in the Libyan oil fields. And Mali, while a titular democracy, was a very corrupt state under former President Touré, and an unstable state because of internal decisions about which tribes to include in power-sharing.
Interestingly enough, the situation of the Amazigh people—also known as Berbers, and including the Tuareg in their linguistic sphere—has been a running sore in Algeria, Libya, and Mali.
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