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| CAMPBELL: At dawn we watch the city slowly come to life. After all the build-up, Timbuktu is surprisingly small and desperately poor. Once a lush oasis, it’s been slowly swallowed by the Sahara. But there’s a real sense of delight at being free again. More people are moving back every day. There are signs everywhere of why they fled. | 28:08 |
| Posters with faces scratched out |
| 28:50 |
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| “Hello, how are you? Where are the faces?” MAN OUTSIDE SHOP: “The Islamists removed them”. CAMPBELL: “Really? That’s crazy”. MAN OUTSIDE SHOP: “Yes”. | 28:52 |
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| CAMPBELL: “Even from an advertisement”. MAN OUTSIDE SHOP: “Yes”. | 29:03 |
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| CAMPBELL: The Islamists not only banned entertainment like football, television and music, they erased every depiction of human faces, declaring portraits to be un-Islamic. For some reason even this camel’s face was deemed indecent. | 29:07 |
| Hamadou greets men | Far worse than vandalism was the terror they instilled in the community. Hamadou Maiga heads Timbuktu’s crisis committee, trying to help people rebuild their lives after 10 months of occupation. | 29:30 |
| Men at mosque | HAMADOU MAIGA: “When the Islamists took control it was like a ghost town, a dead city. Dead because everyone was inside their houses, from fear of reprimand, fear of humiliation, fear of being brutalised, fear of violence. | 29:46 |
| Hamadou | They had an inhumane attitude – these people pretended to be Muslims but their acts were not the way of Islam”. | 30:06 |
| Islamist file footage | CAMPBELL: It’s been the most traumatic time since Moroccans invaded in the 16th century but the medieval Moors were men of culture compared to the 21st century Islamists. A fanatical collection of North Africans and Pakistanis, they had no respect for different traditions or beliefs. Their military commander, Omar Hamaha made that clear in this interview in Timbuktu last year. | 30:14 |
| File footage. Hamaha interview | REPORTER: “Do you want Sharia law for the whole of Mali or just the creation of a Tuareg state in the north of Mali?” | 30:48 |
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| OMAR HAMAHA: “We want Sharia for the whole of Mali. This is not something for Arabs or Tuaregs but for all Muslims”. | 30:54 |
| Eric and Azima visits Zeina and Che | CAMPBELL: Azima takes me to meet some friends who suffered the rebels’ version of Islamic law. At 18, Zeina fell in love with her neighbour Che and had a baby. Two months after the birth, the Islamists discovered they weren’t yet married. CHE: “The problem with the Islamists was the boy. | 31:10 |
| Zeina and Che with baby | The boy was born at her family’s home and they asked me why I was there. I told them that this is my sister. The Islamists knew it wasn’t true so they took me to the prison for two nights and later took me to the court to decide what to do with me”. | 31:41 |
| File footage of flogging | Music | 32:00 |
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| CAMPBELL: On the 20th of June they were taken to the main square by the Sankore mosque to be publicly flogged. Despite the prohibition on showing faces, the Islamists allowed the punishment to be filmed to spread the message of the new Sharia. CHE: “They took us by car to the square | 32:06 |
| Zeina and Che with baby | and they beat us 100 times. Four of them took turns, 25 each”. | 32:33 |
| File footage of flogging | CAMPBELL: Zeina, still recovering from the birth, was punished just as harshly. ZEINA: “I felt very bad. | 32:44 |
| Zeina with baby | They beat me hundreds of times. | 32:54 |
| File footage of flogging | They beat me very badly. | 32:59 |
| Baby | There were a lot of people watching. The Islamists are not good people”. | 33:05 |
| Islamists destroying shrine | CAMPBELL: As well as whipping people, the Islamists demolished some of the city’s holiest shrines. | 33:15 |
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| This was one of several tombs of Muslim saints. There are said to be 333 saints buried in the town, but the militants denounced that as idol worship and got out their sledgehammers. | 33:25 |
| Djenne | Some of the destruction they wreaked can only be explained as spite. | 33:48 |
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| Earlier on our journey, we saw how Timbuktu’s sister city, Djenne was trying to preserve centuries of priceless manuscripts. | 33:59 |
| Sophie and man digitising manuscripts | Sophie Sarin, the expatriate Swedish designer, is leading a project to digitise them. | 34:14 |
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| SOPHIE SARIN: “I’m really privileged to be able to be part of that. It’s an exciting thing because we never know what we’re going to find. | 34:21 |
| Sophie | We think maybe we’ll find something that is going to revolutionise the way we’re thinking about West Africa, who knows? There could be anything in these documents”. | 34:27 |
| Sophie with man looking at manuscript | CAMPBELL: While she was trying to save them, the Islamists in Timbuktu decided to destroy them. | 34:36 |
| Eric walks with Azima in library to destroyed manuscripts | “So this is what they did when they left?” MOHAMED AZIMA: “Yes exactly. They destroyed all these manuscripts, this big treasure from Timbuktu and from the world”. CAMPBELL: In their last act before they fled the city, | 34:48 |
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| the Islamists torched all the manuscripts they could find. | 35:01 |
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| MOHAMED AZIMA: “They burnt them and put fire here and you can see how… all manuscripts from the 15th century…” CAMPBELL: “15th century and they just destroyed them?” MOHAMED AZIMA: “Yes”. | 35:06 |
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| CAMPBELL: “It’s just ash”. MOHAMED AZIMA: Just ash. | 35:15 |
| Library interior | This was a public library, purpose built to protect the manuscripts from the ravages of time and weather. | 35:21 |
| Azima picks through ashes | “How do you feel about that as a Muslim and as someone | 35:25 |
| Eric and Azima by destroyed manuscripts | who has grown up here?” MOHAMED AZIMA: “I feel very bad because I think Islam are never told to do something like this because this… it’s against Islam. So why they do it? So… it’s very bad”. | 35:30 |
| Azima picks up empty satchel | You see, it’s empty... nothing inside. I cannot believe it. | 35:41 |
| Mud buildings in Timbuktu | CAMPBELL: Fortunately most of Timbuktu’s manuscripts | 35:56 |
| Haidara shows Eric manuscript | were saved. They were hidden or smuggled out by families that have safeguarded private collections for generations. “How old is it?” ABDEL KADER HAIDARA: “The manuscript is from the 11th century”. CAMPBELL: “11th century, 1000 years?” ABDEL KADER HAIDARA: “Yes, it’s a Quran with a commentary”. CAMPBELL: “That’s incredible, it’s beautiful”. | 35:59 |
| Haidara with manuscript | Abdel Kader Haidara has one of Timbuktu’s biggest collections. He organised a covert operation to spirit out the private libraries. | 36:20 |
| Eric looks at manuscript | The owners hid them in suitcases or crates and transported them south, sometimes bribing Islamists to look the other way. | 36:34 |
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| ABDEL KADER HAIDARA: “It was very difficult and risky but with the help of the | 36:43 |
| Haidara | community of Timbuktu, with the imams and the truck drivers and all the business people, we got the job done”. | 36:51 |
| Haidara shows manuscripts | CAMPBELL: He’s brought some of his favourite manuscripts out from hiding but for now he’s keeping the rest in a secret place. | 37:05 |
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| ABDEL KADER HAIDARA: “The importance of the manuscripts is that they are part of our heritage. | 37:15 |
| Haidara | Not for one family, one place, or one country, but for the heritage of humanity”. | 37:21 |
| Men at mosque |
| 37:36 |
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| CAMPBELL: At the main mosque we find a memorial being held to the Malian soldier killed in the suicide bombing. The ten Islamists who the French shot during the attack go unmourned. Ben Assayouti is the mosque’s Imam. | 37:41 |
| Assayouti | BEN ASSAYOUTI: “It was an act of terrorism. Everyone is alarmed, everyone is panicked by this situation”. | 38:00 |
| Men at memorials service at mosque | CAMPBELL: His family has been in charge of the mosque since it opened in 1327, when Timbuktu was one of the greatest centres of Islamic scholarship. But he had to play peacemaker as gun toting fanatics told them how to be Muslims. | 38:15 |
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| BEN ASSAYOUTI: “People were concerned that our young people would take up arms and there would be a war. | 38:39 |
| Assayouti | Happily they didn’t give in to this provocation and we were able to keep a lid on the situation”. | 38:50 |
| Mosque/French flag | CAMPBELL: Not surprisingly most people in Timbuktu see the French as liberators, but you never see them in the city.. | 38:57 |
| French army camp | They’re hunkered down in the old airport. The suicide bombing that took place just hours before we arrived showed the Islamists can still strike back. | 39:09 |
| French troops at Algerian border | Further north, French troops are still trying to oust them from mountain bases near the Algerian border. SOPHIE SARIN: “I don’t think it’s possible they will take over the cities again like they did before or the whole northern territory, but I think that we’re in for probably a rough ride when it comes to suicide bombings and that sort of thing. I don’t think that, you can easily, very easily just get rid of that. | 39:27 |
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| They are so entrenched into those mountains in the north, they have been there for years. They have tunnels, they have been able to stock food – | 39:56 |
| Sophie | they’ve been there for a long, long time and that’s probably where they’re keeping their hostages and everything so it’s difficult to just get rid of these sort of people if they have that, those deep roots in a place”. | 40:08 |
| Bombed car rubble | CAMPBELL: The suicide bombing at Timbuktu Airport was followed by a fierce gunfight. | 40:27 |
| Eric with Samake inside airport terminal | Inside the bullet-riddled terminal I meet a young VIP who’s appealing for the French to stay. | 40:35 |
| Samake | YEAH SAMAKE: “I doubt the French will invest as much as they have and leave before the assurance that peace will be able to be maintained”. | 40:41 |
| Eric with Samake | CAMPBELL: Yeah Samake is a popular mayor who’s running for president in the July 7 elections to restore civilian rule. | 40:49 |
| Samake | YEAH SAMAKE: “So we hope they will stay longer. Some have given the impression that they will leave soon. I doubt they will do so because it won’t be the best option”. | 40:57 |
| French trucks loading on to ferry | CAMPBELL: But the French are already drawing down their forces. They have four thousand soldiers in northern Mali, an area the size of France. Half of them are due to leave by July. | 41:07 |
| Malian soldier on back of truck | All agree Mali’s poorly paid, poorly equipped army is no match for the Islamists. In January, most of the army retreated as the rebels swept south. So France is relying on a UN peace keeping force to take over when it leaves. “The great fear | 41:24 |
| Eric with Samake | is that the Sahara will become like another Afghanistan, just a breeding ground for extremism and terrorism”. | 41:45 |
| Samake. Super: | YEAH SAMAKE: “It can but should we let it happen? We also have the power to stop that from happening. We have to work together. In the past previous administrations, previous governments of Mali have not given the sense of investment, the sense of involvement in eradicating extremism. | 41:52 |
| Village | It breeds because people have no other options. If we have option to attend schools in our villages, if we have the hope that after school we get a job, why would we strap an explosive to ourselves or let our children strap explosive to themselves? We all hope for a better tomorrow. The reason why people do this is lack of hope. | 42:09 |
| French loading trucks on to ferry | We cannot afford a country owned by terrorists. We can’t, the world cannot. Australia cannot either. Because then they’ll prepare themselves and threaten Western interests”. | 42:40 |
| Zeina and Che at home |
| 42:54 |
| Che sits with Eric. Shows pictures on phone | CAMPBELL: Che who married Zeina immediately after they were flogged, has just enjoyed some small revenge. After the attack on the French base, he took cell phone pictures of the dead Islamists and circulated them around Timbuktu. | 43:02 |
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| “Is that justice?” CHE: “Yes”. | 43:19 |
| Village children | CAMPBELL: After three days here with the constant sound of warplanes overhead, Azima’s | 43:22 |
| Azima with friends | optimism is being tested. | 43:30 |
| Eric with Azima | “Do you think you’ll bring your family back straight away?” MOHAMED AZIMA: “Not now. Maybe I need to wait one month or two months away to be sure everything is quiet”. | 43:35 |
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| CAMPBELL: “This is your town”. MOHAMED AZIMA: “It’s my town”. | 43:43 |
| Checking out of hotel | CAMPBELL: His caution is soon justified. We check out of Timbuktu’s only working hotel, the Colombe, to begin the long journey back to Bamako. A few days later Islamists attacked the hotel – seven people were killed. | 43:46 |
| Bamako. Night | Back in Bamako, a thousand kilometres to the south, people are making a determined effort to return to normal. | 44:10 |
| Fashion parade | Sophie Sarin, the Swedish designer we met in Djenne, has brought down her new clothing collection for a fashion parade. It’s a slightly surreal sight in a country still at war, but to Sophie it’s just one more way to fight the Islamists. | 44:24 |
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| SOPHIE SARIN: “These cities in the north will have to start working as normally even if there are these unfortunate events with suicide bombings. It has to be, it has to be like that. You know otherwise there’s no future for Mali. You have to be defiant. The Malians have to be defiant about this, and I think they will be, I think they will be”. | 44:49 |
| Eric at fashion parade | CAMPBELL: And she wants the French to stay. | 45:07 |
| Sophie. Super: | SOPHIE SARIN: “You know it was an absolutely euphoric moment when they came in and they came in just at the right time. I mean we acclaimed them as heroes when they arrived that was fantastic”. CAMPBELL: “You’re not in a hurry for them to go?” SOPHIE SARIN: “No I want them to stay because obviously I’ve got the hotel. I want it to start running again like a normal, you know, a normal hotel and we need some military presence here. We need some strong military presence in the north”. | 45:12 |
| Baba Salah performing in club | Music | 45:38 |
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| CAMPBELL: Elsewhere in Bamako the music plays on. Baba Salah has helped bring West Africa’s vibrant melodies to the world. But when the Islamists threatened the capital they threatened his freedom to play here and to write songs like ‘Dangay’, an ode to all who’ve suffered in the north. | 45:56 |
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| BABA SALAH: “Dangay also means ‘dry your tears’. I chose this word to say to the people, don’t cry anymore, soon there will be a solution. The problem of people doing bad things, the problem of terrorism, all this will end very soon”. | 46:19 |
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| [lyrics] “Our country needs to be quiet. We all have to do it together”. | 46:50 |
| Baba Salah | “The world shouldn’t close its eyes and ears to the fact that people are experiencing violence, and dying - and nothing is being done”. | 47:02 |
| Baba Salah sings | [Singing] | 47:17 |
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| Reporter Eric Campbell
Camera David Martin
Editor Nicholas Brenner
Location fixer Karen Crabbs
Sydney producer Marianne Leitch
Old Timbuktu prints Courtesy Princeton University Library
Executive Producer Steve Taylor
| 47:40 |