T 1
MALI TERROR PIECE AND RIGHTS
AIRED SUNDAY 19th
0:00 - 0:39 ITN
0:42 - 1:29 MIKE
1:30 - 2:30 ITN
2:31 - 5:40 MIKE
5:41 - 5:51 ITN
0:00:05
Al Qaeda has a new refuge…. the deserts of northern Mali. They drove out the national army and seized their weapons… now they fly the Al Qaeda flag. They control an area twice the size of Britain including cities and airports… and they’re threatening Europe.
0:00:23
OMAR OULD HAMAMHA
MILITARY COMMANDER, ‘DEFENDERS OF THE FAITH’
When we’ve conquered France, we’ll come to the USA, we’ll come to London and conquer the whole world. The banner of Mohammed (peace be upon his head) will be raised from where the sun rises to where it sets.
0:00:37
The military commander, Al Qaeda’s local ally, Ansar Dine, Defenders of the Faith,
0:00:47
Four hundred miles south, in the Malian capital Bamako, a makeshift popular militia trains every evening on a football pitch, their mission: to take the north of their country back from the Islamists. Enthusiasm substitutes for weaponry. Determination for skill and experience. They call themselves ‘Death before Shame’ but Mali is a failed state.
0:01:14
LINDSEY HILSUM
Self defence units like this are springing up across the country now. People have got no faith in the army to defend them because they saw how the soldiers ran the moment the rebellion started in the north. But militias - some of them based on tribe - can be very dangerous and there’s no rule of law in Mali now.
0:01:34
“Allahu Akbar!”
On the night of April 1st, Islamists and local Tuareg rebels drove into Timbuktu. They’d seized 87 pickups from the army… gift of an American anti-terrorism programme.
0:01:51
By dawn they were in control. The Malian jihadis are backed by Al Qaeda in the Mahgreb, renowned kidnappers of westerners. Note the man in the yellow turban… he’s Abdulhamid Abuzeid, an Algerian Al Qaeda leader said to be responsible for killing a British hostage in 2009. Northern Mali has become a magnet for foreign jihadis, not just Algerians but Somalis, Nigerians, Afghans.
0:02:22, 03
The local people are suffering…mobile phone footage shows a teenager being whipped for smoking. The man administering the sharia punishment is said to be a Pakistani….
0:02:37, 10
Mali’s capital is desperately poor but nearly two hundred thousand northerners have fled here nonetheless… they’re staying with friends and family. Traders and shopkeepers are finding it ever more difficult to survive in Islamist-controlled towns like Timbuktu.
0:02:53, 14
MOHAMED DICKO
SHOPKEEPER FROM TIMBUKTU
Quand ils viennent dans la boutiques ils entrent sans demander quelqu’un de fouiller les bagages. Quand il fouille le magasin, s’il vent les cigarettes ils les prennent./ Maintenant je les vent en cachette. Quand on vient les clients a demander, il disent vous avez les secrets? on les appels le terme secret maintenant. On a changer le nom.
When they come into our shops they don’t ask permission to search our bags. When they find cigarettes, they just take them.// So now I have to hide the cigarettes. My customers ask ‘Have you got any secrets?’ That’s what they call them now. We’ve changed the name.
0:03:17, 20
Near the town of Segou, half way to the capital, we went to see how what remains of Mali’s army is trying to regroup. UPSOT Today we have naming of parts… they’re learning to dismantle a heavy machine gun. It’s pretty basic stuff. After the soldiers fled the north, a junior officers’ coup deposed Mali’s weak and corrupt civilian government - outside powers are reluctant to lend their support until the soldiers give way to a genuine new civilian adminstration. Aiming practice… but no firing. They’re short of ammunition and blanks - of everything really.
0:04:07, 08
LT CHEICKNE KONATE
COMPANY COMMANDER
“We need every support. Air support, ground support, logistics support, personnel support, experienced support, anything we need, because we are in need today.”
0:04:22, 02
In Bamako, life looks normal… but paralysis pervades the shiny government buildings. West African states have offered to stabilise a new civilian administration but the soldiers refuse to move aside.
0:04:36, 12
YAMOUSSA CAMARA
DEFENCE MINISTER
“On a jamais dit qu’on est contre l’intervention des soldats internationales au Mali. Si c’est pour nous accompagner faire face a la mission primordiales which affects all Malians, which is to liberate the nord of the country, et non pas pour securiser les institutions a Bamako.”
“We have never said we’re against the intervention of international soldiers in Mali - but only if it’s to help us face the main mission which affects all Malians, which is the liberate the north of the country, not to secure the institutions in Bamako.”
0:04:58, 07
As long as the authorities resist international intervention, Mali is drifting… aid’s been cut… people are getting poorer … there’s no solution in sight.
0:05:08
TIEBILE DRAME
FORMER FOREIGN MINISTER
((((With our collapsed state, with our collapsed army and security forces unfortunately everything is possible.)))) not in video
“The situation is serious. The rest of the world should not stay just to look at the situation, we should be helped unless they would like to see another Somalia or another Afghanistan.”
0:05:30, 03
Friday prayers in Bamako… 98 per cent of Malians are Muslims but that doesn’t mean they can tolerate life under harsh Islamic rule. Senior clerics are trying to negotiate with the jihadis, but all the while Al Qaeda is strengthening its hold on the north, and no one, as yet, is doing anything to stop them. LH, C4N, Mali. 0552
PT 2
MALI REFUGEES
0:00 - 1:45 MIKE
1:45 - 2:02 AMATEUR FOOTAGE FROM YOUTUBE
2:02 - 2:25 ITN OWNED
2:26- 5:03 MIKE
MAURITANIA REFUGEES AIRED Weds 22 nd august
0:05:58, 08
It’s been a long journey… three days’ trek through desert. Another seven families who’ve loaded everything they have onto their carts and crossed the border into Mauritania… Fear and hunger drove them out of northern Mali.
0:06:16, 21
UPSOT
They tell their story to the police chief in the border town of Fassalla.
0:06:22, 06
DEYDA MOHAMED
Police Chief in Fassala
La peur d’avoir une main sectionee, la peur des flagellations ou lapidations. C’est les principes qu’ils n’acceptent pas. Eux sont les musulmans mais une religion imposee, non.
“They say that fear of having a hand amputated, or being whipped or stoned to death made them come. They will not accept these things. They’re Muslims but they can’t endure this kind of religion being imposed upon them.”
0:06:41, 07
About 400 Malians arrive every day with similar tales of fighting between armed groups, and terror being administered by Al Qaeda and its allies in and around Timbuktu.
0:06:53, 18
LINDSEY HILSUM
The people coming across the border paint the picture of a region that’s descending into chaos. There’s less and less to eat they say, and they can’t afford the prices in the market. But, worse than that, they’re terrified of the armed men who are roaming northern Mali and imposing their version of sharia.
0:07:15
The Tuaregs of northern Mali are used to a tough life - but not like this.
0:07:20
MAULUD IBRAHIM
TUAREG REFUGEE
"We're frightened because there's no government we can trust to protect us from the armed groups."
0:07:28
They’ve heard on the radio that foreign powers may attack the Islamists with drones or fighter bombers.
0:07:34
INTIWILOU AG HAMADALLAMCE
TUAREG REFUGEE
What I’m afraid of is being bombed from the air.
0:07:42, 22
####AMATEUR FOOTAGE FROM INTERNET####
A few months back, the Tuaregs were celebrating… they seized weapons from the Malian army, to add to those they’d been given by Colonel Gaddafi of Libya, and claimed northern Mali as an independent Tuareg state flying their own flag…
0:08:00
####ITN PICTURE ####
But Al Qaeda hijacked their victory... The Tuaregs and local Islamists fought in Gao and other towns… The Tuareg separatists were pushed out… and the Islamists prevailed. Now the Al Qaeda flag flies over northern Mali - so many Tuaregs are being forced into exile.
0:08:23
MIKE GOLDWATER AGAIN ONWARDS FROM HERE
The journey from the border to the refugee camp isn’t easy… especially in the rainy season. Pastures new… but not for the refugees who face a life of uncertainty. Mbera camp’s a thousand kilometres from the Mauritanian capital… in a remote and inaccessible corner of the Sahara.
0:08:47
A hundred thousand people are living here… and more arrive every day. At least here they have water and the basics needed to survive. Fatima Sidi Mohammed’s makeshift dwelling collapsed in the rain and wind… her neighbour’s helping her build another.
0:09:11
UPSOT
She tells me she spent all her money hiring a vehicle to get to Mauritania - and now she has nothing.
0:09:20, 24
In the clinic, they’re treating diseases caused by malnutrition and poor sanitation. Health centres in the villages around Timbuktu have stopped working and the Islamists prevent women from leaving their homes.
0:09:34
SALLAMA MINT DELL
"We're scared of everyone. You can’t even go out to buy food, because your life is at risk. In the camp at least we feel safe and we’re given food.”
0:09:45, 10
Sallama Mint Dell’s grand-son Hassan’s getting treatment now… but he’s in danger - it may be too late.
0:09:55, 03
The young men tell me they have neither jobs nor education. Northern Mali’s always been deprived - the Tuareg blame both the Malian government and the Islamists for their misfortune.
0:10:08, 19
MOHAMED ALY AG ALMOUBARECK
FORMER MAYOR
Les Tuareg sont victimes dont le nord est victime. Nous comptent avec, parce que on ne peut pas avoir ce qu’on veut sans souffrir.// On ne peut pas avoir d’identite san souffrir, sans mourir, sans prendre tout les risques du monde.
“The Tuareg are victims just as the north is a victim. We expected that, because you can’t have what you want without suffering. You can’t get your identity without suffering, without dying, without taking all the risks in the world.”
0:10:30, 04
Refugees gather to listen to the griot… it’s a traditional form of story-telling through music. The Islamists have banned musical instruments and singing. Here in Mauritania at least the Tuareg are free to tell their story - how they fought for independence, but got exile instead. LH, C4N, Mbera Camp, Mauritania. //
PT 3
MALI CULTURE REPORT
0.00 -0:20 MIKE
TIMBUKTOU SECTION
0:20 - 0:25 ITN OWNED
00:26- 1:49 MIKE
TIMBUKTOU SECTION
1:49 - 2:24 ITN
2:25 - 4: 28 MIKE
MALI CULTURE REPORT AIRED
22 08 12
0:11:11, 15
Mali… one of the most culturally diverse countries on earth… a land of music, mud mosques, ancient Islamic manuscripts, animists… all now under threat.
0:11:30, 15
About 50 miles from the capital, Bamako, I meet the Hunters. They brandish their 19th Century flintlock rifles, and their talismans… the Islamists who now control northern Mali hate all this - but the Hunters’ culture goes back a thousand years and they like to show it off.
0:11:51, 06
LINDSEY HILSUM
These men see themselves as Muslims, but they mix their Islam with animism, traditional culture, and they know that if the Islamists came down from the north to here then they’d be the first target. But they’re an essential part of Malian culture.
0:12:15, 12
UPSOT
They show me how they aim their rifles - no shooting, though, because it’s Ramadan… and they say, they can always send magic to destroy the Islamists.
0:12:25, 23
DAGABA TRAORE
COMMUNITY LEADER
We’re scared of the new Islamic wave. When they see us wearing Hunters’ clothes, they won’t regard us as Muslims. They’ll automatically think we’re infidels who cannot know Allah. But our external appearance is different from what we feel inside. These foreigners are showing us a kind of Islam, which have never been Prophet Mohammed’s message, taking knives and killing others.
0:12:56
UPSOT - Allahu Akbar!
The people of Timbuktu have already seen what the Islamists can do. Last month, Al Qaeda’s local allies set upon the city’s famous Sufi landmarks. The Guardian of the Mausoleum of Alpha Moya could do nothing but watch… the jihadis say the shrines are idolatrous. Crowds came out in protest but to no avail… the Islamists have since destroyed more shrines.
0:13:31, 00
The Director of the National Museum in Bamako has a plan to protect both Islamic and pre-Islamic objects if the Islamists come south…
0:13:39, 20
UPSOT “If the pure Islam comes to Bamako all this is threatened…”
“This is beautiful…”
0:13:46, 10
An animist terracotta statue from the fourteenth century like this is priceless… both in its monetary value and its cultural meaning.
0:13:54, 23
SAMUEL SIDIBE
DIRECTOR NATIONAL MUSEUM OF MALI
The Taliban destroyed the Buddha in Afghanistan, what happened in Timbuktu is quite the same. Heritage is important for people because we all need to have the sense that we have an existence in the past. If someone wants to destroy this, it’s clear if someone want to destroy this idea of the past, it’s clear that this person wants to destroy the soul of Malian people.
0:14:24
Culture is about the present as well as the past. Women I met collecting food aid in Bamako told me they fled the north because the jihadis - many of them foreigners -force them to wear a full face veil - like Gulf Arabs or Afghans, not Malians.
0:14:40, 21
HAUROYE TOURE
POLITICAL SCIENCE GRADUATE
Nous sommes une pays democratiques, souverain, nous sommes une republique laique. Nous imposer la sharia ce n’est pas que nous attendons de ? Nous sommes chez nous. On est libre de se comporter comme on veux.
“We’re a democratic, sovereign, secular republic. We never expected anyone to impose the Sharia on us. We’re in our own country so we should be free to behave as we wish.
0:15:01, 20
Les Sofas de la Republique - warriors of the republic, musicians defending Malian culture and democracy. They’re still free to express themselves in the capital. But this week the Islamists controlling the north banned secular music as satanic - another sign of their intent to attack everything Malians hold dear. LH, C4N, Bamako.
MALI TERROR PIECE AND RIGHTS
AIRED SUNDAY 19th
0:00 - 0:39 ITN
0:42 - 1:29 MIKE
1:30 - 2:30 ITN
2:31 - 5:40 MIKE
5:41 - 5:51 ITN
0:00:05
Al Qaeda has a new refuge…. the deserts of northern Mali. They drove out the national army and seized their weapons… now they fly the Al Qaeda flag. They control an area twice the size of Britain including cities and airports… and they’re threatening Europe.
0:00:23
OMAR OULD HAMAMHA
MILITARY COMMANDER, ‘DEFENDERS OF THE FAITH’
When we’ve conquered France, we’ll come to the USA, we’ll come to London and conquer the whole world. The banner of Mohammed (peace be upon his head) will be raised from where the sun rises to where it sets.
0:00:37
The military commander, Al Qaeda’s local ally, Ansar Dine, Defenders of the Faith,
0:00:47
Four hundred miles south, in the Malian capital Bamako, a makeshift popular militia trains every evening on a football pitch, their mission: to take the north of their country back from the Islamists. Enthusiasm substitutes for weaponry. Determination for skill and experience. They call themselves ‘Death before Shame’ but Mali is a failed state.
0:01:14
LINDSEY HILSUM
Self defence units like this are springing up across the country now. People have got no faith in the army to defend them because they saw how the soldiers ran the moment the rebellion started in the north. But militias - some of them based on tribe - can be very dangerous and there’s no rule of law in Mali now.
0:01:34
“Allahu Akbar!”
On the night of April 1st, Islamists and local Tuareg rebels drove into Timbuktu. They’d seized 87 pickups from the army… gift of an American anti-terrorism programme.
0:01:51
By dawn they were in control. The Malian jihadis are backed by Al Qaeda in the Mahgreb, renowned kidnappers of westerners. Note the man in the yellow turban… he’s Abdulhamid Abuzeid, an Algerian Al Qaeda leader said to be responsible for killing a British hostage in 2009. Northern Mali has become a magnet for foreign jihadis, not just Algerians but Somalis, Nigerians, Afghans.
0:02:22, 03
The local people are suffering…mobile phone footage shows a teenager being whipped for smoking. The man administering the sharia punishment is said to be a Pakistani….
0:02:37, 10
Mali’s capital is desperately poor but nearly two hundred thousand northerners have fled here nonetheless… they’re staying with friends and family. Traders and shopkeepers are finding it ever more difficult to survive in Islamist-controlled towns like Timbuktu.
0:02:53, 14
MOHAMED DICKO
SHOPKEEPER FROM TIMBUKTU
Quand ils viennent dans la boutiques ils entrent sans demander quelqu’un de fouiller les bagages. Quand il fouille le magasin, s’il vent les cigarettes ils les prennent./ Maintenant je les vent en cachette. Quand on vient les clients a demander, il disent vous avez les secrets? on les appels le terme secret maintenant. On a changer le nom.
When they come into our shops they don’t ask permission to search our bags. When they find cigarettes, they just take them.// So now I have to hide the cigarettes. My customers ask ‘Have you got any secrets?’ That’s what they call them now. We’ve changed the name.
0:03:17, 20
Near the town of Segou, half way to the capital, we went to see how what remains of Mali’s army is trying to regroup. UPSOT Today we have naming of parts… they’re learning to dismantle a heavy machine gun. It’s pretty basic stuff. After the soldiers fled the north, a junior officers’ coup deposed Mali’s weak and corrupt civilian government - outside powers are reluctant to lend their support until the soldiers give way to a genuine new civilian adminstration. Aiming practice… but no firing. They’re short of ammunition and blanks - of everything really.
0:04:07, 08
LT CHEICKNE KONATE
COMPANY COMMANDER
“We need every support. Air support, ground support, logistics support, personnel support, experienced support, anything we need, because we are in need today.”
0:04:22, 02
In Bamako, life looks normal… but paralysis pervades the shiny government buildings. West African states have offered to stabilise a new civilian administration but the soldiers refuse to move aside.
0:04:36, 12
YAMOUSSA CAMARA
DEFENCE MINISTER
“On a jamais dit qu’on est contre l’intervention des soldats internationales au Mali. Si c’est pour nous accompagner faire face a la mission primordiales which affects all Malians, which is to liberate the nord of the country, et non pas pour securiser les institutions a Bamako.”
“We have never said we’re against the intervention of international soldiers in Mali - but only if it’s to help us face the main mission which affects all Malians, which is the liberate the north of the country, not to secure the institutions in Bamako.”
0:04:58, 07
As long as the authorities resist international intervention, Mali is drifting… aid’s been cut… people are getting poorer … there’s no solution in sight.
0:05:08
TIEBILE DRAME
FORMER FOREIGN MINISTER
((((With our collapsed state, with our collapsed army and security forces unfortunately everything is possible.)))) not in video
“The situation is serious. The rest of the world should not stay just to look at the situation, we should be helped unless they would like to see another Somalia or another Afghanistan.”
0:05:30, 03
Friday prayers in Bamako… 98 per cent of Malians are Muslims but that doesn’t mean they can tolerate life under harsh Islamic rule. Senior clerics are trying to negotiate with the jihadis, but all the while Al Qaeda is strengthening its hold on the north, and no one, as yet, is doing anything to stop them. LH, C4N, Mali. 0552
PT 2
MALI REFUGEES
0:00 - 1:45 MIKE
1:45 - 2:02 AMATEUR FOOTAGE FROM YOUTUBE
2:02 - 2:25 ITN OWNED
2:26- 5:03 MIKE
MAURITANIA REFUGEES AIRED Weds 22 nd august
0:05:58, 08
It’s been a long journey… three days’ trek through desert. Another seven families who’ve loaded everything they have onto their carts and crossed the border into Mauritania… Fear and hunger drove them out of northern Mali.
0:06:16, 21
UPSOT
They tell their story to the police chief in the border town of Fassalla.
0:06:22, 06
DEYDA MOHAMED
Police Chief in Fassala
La peur d’avoir une main sectionee, la peur des flagellations ou lapidations. C’est les principes qu’ils n’acceptent pas. Eux sont les musulmans mais une religion imposee, non.
“They say that fear of having a hand amputated, or being whipped or stoned to death made them come. They will not accept these things. They’re Muslims but they can’t endure this kind of religion being imposed upon them.”
0:06:41, 07
About 400 Malians arrive every day with similar tales of fighting between armed groups, and terror being administered by Al Qaeda and its allies in and around Timbuktu.
0:06:53, 18
LINDSEY HILSUM
The people coming across the border paint the picture of a region that’s descending into chaos. There’s less and less to eat they say, and they can’t afford the prices in the market. But, worse than that, they’re terrified of the armed men who are roaming northern Mali and imposing their version of sharia.
0:07:15
The Tuaregs of northern Mali are used to a tough life - but not like this.
0:07:20
MAULUD IBRAHIM
TUAREG REFUGEE
"We're frightened because there's no government we can trust to protect us from the armed groups."
0:07:28
They’ve heard on the radio that foreign powers may attack the Islamists with drones or fighter bombers.
0:07:34
INTIWILOU AG HAMADALLAMCE
TUAREG REFUGEE
What I’m afraid of is being bombed from the air.
0:07:42, 22
####AMATEUR FOOTAGE FROM INTERNET####
A few months back, the Tuaregs were celebrating… they seized weapons from the Malian army, to add to those they’d been given by Colonel Gaddafi of Libya, and claimed northern Mali as an independent Tuareg state flying their own flag…
0:08:00
####ITN PICTURE ####
But Al Qaeda hijacked their victory... The Tuaregs and local Islamists fought in Gao and other towns… The Tuareg separatists were pushed out… and the Islamists prevailed. Now the Al Qaeda flag flies over northern Mali - so many Tuaregs are being forced into exile.
0:08:23
MIKE GOLDWATER AGAIN ONWARDS FROM HERE
The journey from the border to the refugee camp isn’t easy… especially in the rainy season. Pastures new… but not for the refugees who face a life of uncertainty. Mbera camp’s a thousand kilometres from the Mauritanian capital… in a remote and inaccessible corner of the Sahara.
0:08:47
A hundred thousand people are living here… and more arrive every day. At least here they have water and the basics needed to survive. Fatima Sidi Mohammed’s makeshift dwelling collapsed in the rain and wind… her neighbour’s helping her build another.
0:09:11
UPSOT
She tells me she spent all her money hiring a vehicle to get to Mauritania - and now she has nothing.
0:09:20, 24
In the clinic, they’re treating diseases caused by malnutrition and poor sanitation. Health centres in the villages around Timbuktu have stopped working and the Islamists prevent women from leaving their homes.
0:09:34
SALLAMA MINT DELL
"We're scared of everyone. You can’t even go out to buy food, because your life is at risk. In the camp at least we feel safe and we’re given food.”
0:09:45, 10
Sallama Mint Dell’s grand-son Hassan’s getting treatment now… but he’s in danger - it may be too late.
0:09:55, 03
The young men tell me they have neither jobs nor education. Northern Mali’s always been deprived - the Tuareg blame both the Malian government and the Islamists for their misfortune.
0:10:08, 19
MOHAMED ALY AG ALMOUBARECK
FORMER MAYOR
Les Tuareg sont victimes dont le nord est victime. Nous comptent avec, parce que on ne peut pas avoir ce qu’on veut sans souffrir.// On ne peut pas avoir d’identite san souffrir, sans mourir, sans prendre tout les risques du monde.
“The Tuareg are victims just as the north is a victim. We expected that, because you can’t have what you want without suffering. You can’t get your identity without suffering, without dying, without taking all the risks in the world.”
0:10:30, 04
Refugees gather to listen to the griot… it’s a traditional form of story-telling through music. The Islamists have banned musical instruments and singing. Here in Mauritania at least the Tuareg are free to tell their story - how they fought for independence, but got exile instead. LH, C4N, Mbera Camp, Mauritania. //
PT 3
MALI CULTURE REPORT
0.00 -0:20 MIKE
TIMBUKTOU SECTION
0:20 - 0:25 ITN OWNED
00:26- 1:49 MIKE
TIMBUKTOU SECTION
1:49 - 2:24 ITN
2:25 - 4: 28 MIKE
MALI CULTURE REPORT AIRED
22 08 12
0:11:11, 15
Mali… one of the most culturally diverse countries on earth… a land of music, mud mosques, ancient Islamic manuscripts, animists… all now under threat.
0:11:30, 15
About 50 miles from the capital, Bamako, I meet the Hunters. They brandish their 19th Century flintlock rifles, and their talismans… the Islamists who now control northern Mali hate all this - but the Hunters’ culture goes back a thousand years and they like to show it off.
0:11:51, 06
LINDSEY HILSUM
These men see themselves as Muslims, but they mix their Islam with animism, traditional culture, and they know that if the Islamists came down from the north to here then they’d be the first target. But they’re an essential part of Malian culture.
0:12:15, 12
UPSOT
They show me how they aim their rifles - no shooting, though, because it’s Ramadan… and they say, they can always send magic to destroy the Islamists.
0:12:25, 23
DAGABA TRAORE
COMMUNITY LEADER
We’re scared of the new Islamic wave. When they see us wearing Hunters’ clothes, they won’t regard us as Muslims. They’ll automatically think we’re infidels who cannot know Allah. But our external appearance is different from what we feel inside. These foreigners are showing us a kind of Islam, which have never been Prophet Mohammed’s message, taking knives and killing others.
0:12:56
UPSOT - Allahu Akbar!
The people of Timbuktu have already seen what the Islamists can do. Last month, Al Qaeda’s local allies set upon the city’s famous Sufi landmarks. The Guardian of the Mausoleum of Alpha Moya could do nothing but watch… the jihadis say the shrines are idolatrous. Crowds came out in protest but to no avail… the Islamists have since destroyed more shrines.
0:13:31, 00
The Director of the National Museum in Bamako has a plan to protect both Islamic and pre-Islamic objects if the Islamists come south…
0:13:39, 20
UPSOT “If the pure Islam comes to Bamako all this is threatened…”
“This is beautiful…”
0:13:46, 10
An animist terracotta statue from the fourteenth century like this is priceless… both in its monetary value and its cultural meaning.
0:13:54, 23
SAMUEL SIDIBE
DIRECTOR NATIONAL MUSEUM OF MALI
The Taliban destroyed the Buddha in Afghanistan, what happened in Timbuktu is quite the same. Heritage is important for people because we all need to have the sense that we have an existence in the past. If someone wants to destroy this, it’s clear if someone want to destroy this idea of the past, it’s clear that this person wants to destroy the soul of Malian people.
0:14:24
Culture is about the present as well as the past. Women I met collecting food aid in Bamako told me they fled the north because the jihadis - many of them foreigners -force them to wear a full face veil - like Gulf Arabs or Afghans, not Malians.
0:14:40, 21
HAUROYE TOURE
POLITICAL SCIENCE GRADUATE
Nous sommes une pays democratiques, souverain, nous sommes une republique laique. Nous imposer la sharia ce n’est pas que nous attendons de ? Nous sommes chez nous. On est libre de se comporter comme on veux.
“We’re a democratic, sovereign, secular republic. We never expected anyone to impose the Sharia on us. We’re in our own country so we should be free to behave as we wish.
0:15:01, 20
Les Sofas de la Republique - warriors of the republic, musicians defending Malian culture and democracy. They’re still free to express themselves in the capital. But this week the Islamists controlling the north banned secular music as satanic - another sign of their intent to attack everything Malians hold dear. LH, C4N, Bamako.