August 16, 2021 16:14
When I finally found it and put it back in charge, my phone had already been off for several days. The battery, completely dry, took several, very long minutes to absorb the amount of energy necessary to revive. When the screen woke up I was tempted to imitate Colin Clive in the iconic scene of the film Frankenstein in 1931, when the monster begins to move after being electrified in the midst of a thunder storm: “Look! It moves. Is alive. He is alive… he is alive ”. Waiting was the usual number of unread messages and the usual lack of messages I was hoping to receive. Some threatened to ruin my life for unknown reasons and others invited me to speak. Someone asked me why I didn’t write and others why I continued to do so. Then, finally, here is the message from which this article drew inspiration. A man sent it to me whom I will call Salim to protect his identity.
I will tell you something about him. Salim belongs to a Tuareg tribe in Libya, and his is the first generation of the family to be born in the capital Tripoli with documents certifying their citizenship. When it was decided in 1983 to regularize the status of the Tuareg, that of Salim was one of the many families to be registered and to obtain temporary documents. Resolution 11 was then passed in 2005, allowing these Tuareg tribes to obtain identity cards, family statuses and birth certificates. Salim says that the Tuareg experience in Libya was characterized by “inequalities, the absence of opportunities and the denial of human rights. We are talking about an entire generation born in Libya with no choice. They had received documents that were of no use except to join the security brigades ”. And he adds: “The Libyan state considered and still considers this group a container that can be used as fuel for conflicts without being granted any rights in exchange”.
Even today, many Tuaregs in Libya are deprived of legal rights. They are neither citizens nor considered foreigners, and legally exist only in the temporary register of returnees. The Tuareg are not the only group deprived of nationality due to ethnic discrimination and political exploitation, but they are among the most vulnerable. How will this situation evolve, in which people who have lived in Libya for a lifetime are treated as a people without citizenship?
Since 1981, the Tuaregs have been forced to serve in the army to obtain citizenship and access public services
After independence, Libya carried out a first census in 1954 and a second in 1964. In both cases the census committees managed to reach only the main localities of southern Libya, cutting out the more internal and isolated southern areas. . Inhabitants of excluded areas were unable to register.
The Tuareg are an indigenous people who for hundreds of years have lived in the vast area of the Sahara ranging from southwestern Libya to southern Algeria. Many Tuaregs have been unable to apply for citizenship due to their frequent movements between the borders of Libya, Algeria, Niger and Chad. Many others were unable to submit documents showing that they or their parents were born in Libya, as required by the Citizenship Act of 1954. They were born in the desert, where there are no hospitals or registry offices. Over the years and after Gaddafi’s rise to power in 1969, Libyan citizenship laws have changed several times. With the overlapping of decrees and laws, large legal gaps have been created that have produced many more stateless people who have passed on their condition to subsequent generations.
In 1971 Gaddafi established with resolution 193 the temporary register for returnees, to monitor Libyans returning from the diaspora and to verify and guarantee citizenship to anyone who had the legal right. As the name suggests, that register was meant to be temporary. It has, however, become permanent and has expanded further over the years to include many more people. It eventually outlived its creator and was bequeathed to the new governments that have followed one another to this day.
In the 1970s, thousands of Tuareg arrived in Libya from Niger and Mali due to a very serious drought. Their immigration was encouraged by Gaddafi, who even launched the so-called “Gaddafi appeal” on October 16, 1980. The Tuareg from Mali and Niger did not have to return to their countries, but had to stay in Libya, the homeland from which they had emigrated in the past. Of course, Gaddafi had many plans for them. Since 1981 they have been forced to serve in the Libyan National Army to obtain citizenship and access state services. This provision naturally led to the marginalization of many women and children.
At the front
Gaddafi essentially used Tuareg recruits to fight his wars. The Tuaregs were sent to fight in the Lebanon war during the Israeli invasion and were among the besieged soldiers in Beirut. Between January 1987 and September 1991 they were then sent to fight in Chad. In 2004, 3,200 soldiers and 105 officers were included in a military brigade (the Commando brigade) and charged with keeping the southwestern borders safe. Another 625 soldiers and 10 officers were enlisted in the 32nd Enhanced Brigade. Some completed the procedures for obtaining citizenship while serving in the brigade and continued until the revolution broke out in 2011, during which the Tuaregs were sent on several fronts to fight against the rebels. About 300 soldiers and officers died during the conflict.
In post-2011 Libya, the Tuareg were further marginalized because they were deemed loyal to Gaddafi, although many opposed him both before and during the revolution. A review committee recommended the suspension of previous decrees of 2009 and 2011, which granted citizenship to registered Tuareg families, and revoked some identity documents. In addition to a cultural rejection of naturalization in Libya and in memory of the inclusion of the Tuaregs in Gaddafi’s brigades, the committee made this proposal to ensure that, in the absence of real alternatives, these people continue to be considered forced conscripts to low cost.
They were later recruited individually by both sides to fight in the second civil war of 2014, with an unknown number of casualties. Many Tuaregs were sent to fight with the Benghazi Shura council aboard fishing boats. Even in this case, the number of victims is not known. In the last war unleashed against the capital by Haftar in 2019, the Tuareg were once again recruited to fight on both fronts. They currently serve in several major battalions in Tripoli and other cities.
I asked Salim why according to him there continues to be such a strong fear of recognizing the rights of the Tuareg. Salim suggested several reasons, including fifty years of Arab nationalism, the cultural and religious mobilization of the Gulf region and the Middle East, the failure to crystallize a national identity that goes beyond ethnocentric thought. Salim stated:
“The pan-Arab movement has promoted the concept of the great Arab world and the idea that Arabism is an element of unity. Consequently, anything that contradicts Arabism is considered subversive or divisive. There is no awareness of the North African and Mediterranean identity, neither from a cultural point of view nor from a historical point of view ”.
I let my mobile slowly die until I found it and charged it again the following week. Unread messages can wait a week or two, as they mostly come from people who mysteriously threaten to ruin my life or from others wondering when I will finish ruining my life on my own. Bad news can find you even without a phone, and good news never seems to come when you look forward to it. After all, the Libyans included in the temporary register for returnees have been waiting for good news since 1971.
(Translation by Giusy Muzzopappa)
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