Mali's Tuareg rebels, who seized control of the country's north in the chaotic aftermath of a military coup, have declared independence of the Azawad nation.
They said in a statement published on the rebel website: "We, the people of the Azawad, proclaim the irrevocable independence of the state of the Azawad starting from this day, Friday April 6 2012."
The military heads of the nation's bordering Mali met in Ivory Coast yesterday to start working out plans for a military intervention to restore constitutional rule and push back the rebels in the north.
The traditionally-nomadic Tuareg people have been fighting for independence for the northern half of Mali since at least 1958, when elders wrote a letter addressed to the French president asking their colonial rulers to carve out a separate homeland.
Instead the north, where the lighter-skinned Tuareg people live, was made part of the same country as the south, where the dark-skinned ethnic groups controlled the capital and the nation's finances.
The Tuaregs fought numerous rebellions, but it was not until a March 21 coup in the distant capital of Bamako toppled the nation's...
↧