The Duck of Minerva

Tinariwen

by Jon Western

1 March 2011, 0319 EST

Many of the “mercenaries” fighting on behalf of Gaddafi’s regime in Libya are ethnic Tuaregs who fled conflicts in Mali and Niger in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1980, Gaddafi began encouraging the young Tuareg men — illegally residing in Libya — to join military service as “African regiments” within the Libyan military. The general reputation of the Tuareg are as fierce and brutal fighters and they appear to be the “foreign mercenaries” in many of the eyewitness reports of brutality in Libya.

My first exposure to Tuareg peoples and their relationship with Gaddafi came several years ago when I started following Tinariwen — a group of former Gaddafi-trained rebels who floated for years from the refugee camps of southern Algeria to the deserts of Libya and Mali. Unlike the fighters in Libya today, this group of men put down their guns and picked up their musical instruments. The result is a special eclectic blend of North African folk, American blues and reggae.

Jon Western has spent the last fifteen years teaching IR in liberal arts colleges at Mount Holyoke College and the Five Colleges in western Massachusetts. He has an eclectic range of intellectual interests but often writes on international security, U.S. foreign policy, military intervention, and human rights. He occasionally shares his thoughts about professional life in liberal arts colleges. In his spare time he coaches middle school soccer, mentors the local high school robotics team, skis, and sails.

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