Abstract
Between 1985 and 1990, the Tuaregs—a nomadic pastoralist people inhabiting the Sahara Desert—launched sporadic attacks from their military camps in Libya and Algeria with arms supplied by France, Germany, and other foreign countries. These attacks provided grounds for the Nigerien government to implicate all Tuaregs indiscriminately and to order the national armed forces to lead a merciless crackdown on Tuareg civilians. Both the Tuareg rebels and the national armed forces operating in the north of the country violated the human rights of innocent Tuaregs and other ethnic groups. The appalling silence of the rest of the population aggravated their fate. Why didn’t the tradition of ethnic blending between Tuaregs and other ethnic groups prevent armed conflict in the Nigerien Sahara? What kept Nigerien women from creating a coalition to challenge the ideologies of warfare? What explains women’s lack of solidarity, their failure to aid those women who were tragically affected by the armed conflict in the north? Why did women compromise solidarity by supporting one or another of the warring parties? Women swore their allegiance to either the government armed forces or Tuareg combatants.