NOUS, PEUPLE DE L'AZAWAD, 
 
 Par la voix du Mouvement National de Libération de L’Azawad après concertation avec : 
 
 Le Comité Exécutif, 
 
 Le Conseil Révolutionnaire, 
 
 Le Conseil Consultatif, 
 
 L’Etat-Major de l’Armée de Libération, 
 
 Les bureaux régionaux 
 
 Rappelant les principes du droit international et les principaux instruments juridiques internationaux régissant le droit des Peuples à disposer d’eux-mêmes, notamment, la charte des Nations Unies en ses articles 1 et 55, les dispositions pertinentes de la déclaration internationale des droits des peuples autochtones; 
 
 Considérant, la volonté explicitement exprimée dans la lettre datée du 30 mai 1958 adressée au président français par les notables, guides spirituels de toutes les composantes de l’AZAWAD; 
 
 Considérant qu’en 1960, à l’occasion de l’octroi de l’Indépendance aux peuples Ouest-Africains, la France a rattaché sans son consentement l’AZAWAD à l’Etat malien qu’elle vient de créer; 
 
 Rappelant les massacres, les exactions et humiliations, spoliations et génocides de 1963, 1990, 2006, 2010 et 2012, qui ont visé exclusivement le peuple de l’AZAWAD jusqu’au 1er avril 2012; 
 
 Rappelant, le comportement inhumain du Mali qui a utilisé les différentes sécheresses (1967, 1973, 1984, 2010….) pour faire disparaitre notre peuple par anéantissement alors même qu’il a sollicité et obtenu une aide humanitaire généreuse; 
 
 Considérant l’accumulation de plus de 50 ans de mal gouvernance, de corruption et de collusion militaro politico financière, mettant en danger l’existence du peuple de l’AZAWAD et en péril la stabilité sous-régionale et la paix internationale; 
 
 Considérant, la libération complète du territoire de l’AZAWAD; 
 
 Proclamons irrévocablement, L’ETAT INDEPENDANT de l’AZAWAD à compter de ce jour Vendredi 06 Avril 2012. 
 
 DECLARONS: 
 
 
 
 La reconnaissance des frontières en vigueur avec les états limitrophes et leur inviolabilité; 
 
 L’adhésion totale à la charte des Nations Unies; 
 
 L’engagement ferme du MNLA à créer les conditions de paix durable, à initier les fondements institutionnels de l’Etat basés sur une Constitution démocratique de l'Azawad indépendant. 
 
 Le Comité Exécutif du MNLA invite l’ensemble de la Communauté Internationale dans un élan de justice et de paix à reconnaitre sans délais l’Etat de l’AZAWAD Indépendant. 
 
 Le Comité Exécutif du MNLA jusqu’à la mise en place de l’Autorité du Territoire de l’AZAWAD continuera à assurer la gestion de l’ensemble du territoire. 
 
 
 
 
 
 GAO - 06/04/2012 
 
 SECRETAIRE GENERAL-MNLA 
 
 BILLAL AG ACHERIF ||||| JOHANNESBURG — Lines etched in sand are playthings of the wind. So it is no wonder that the nomadic Tuareg people of West Africa, who have for centuries plied caravan routes that crisscross the Sahara with little regard for national borders, have long believed in their right to their own state. And on Friday, by their lights, they got one: rebel fighters in the ancient crossroads of Timbuktu, Mali , announced the birth of a nation called Azawad. 
 
 In a declaration on its Web site, the rebellious National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad said it proclaimed “irrevocably the independent state of Azawad, starting from this day, Friday April 6, 2012.” The declaration said the rebels recognized the inviolability of their borders with neighboring countries and promised to draw up a democratic constitution. 
 
 But the declaration is unlikely to be embraced by anyone. The African Union has a near-ironclad policy against the dismemberment of its member countries. Algeria, which shares a desert border with Mali, and the West African regional trade bloc, known as Ecowas, were reported Friday to have opposed the nation’s partition. The United Nations is all but sure to reject the claim, too. Western powers, concerned about vast, ungoverned territory in the desert being used by local affiliates of Al Qaeda, have already registered their displeasure. 
 
 Defense Minister Gérard Longuet of France said Friday that a unilateral declaration “which is not recognized by African states would not have any meaning for us.” 
 
 The name Azawad refers to the areas where Tuaregs live in Mali, Niger and southern Algeria, and they base their claim to independence on the uniqueness of their lifestyle, language and history. A light-skinned, nomadic people never fully subjugated by French colonizers, they have always lived a life apart from the darker-skinned southerners who govern them in Mali and Niger. 
 
 The rest of Mali is in disarray after a military coup that toppled the elected government last month, and even if the junta returns power to the nation’s democratic institutions — as it told reporters on Friday that it would — there is little likelihood that anyone will defeat the Tuaregs on the battlefield anytime soon. 
 
 Still, they face slim odds of establishing a nation. Just ask Ahmed Abdi Habsade, a government minister in Africa’s other unrecognized state, Somaliland. “We have many problems,” Mr. Habsade said in a telephone interview from Somaliland’s capital, Hargeysa. “The country cannot get donations from the U.N. or other governments. We are not having a budget to develop our country.” 
 
 Somaliland, which sits in the northwestern corner of Somalia, has been a de-facto independent nation for the better part of two decades, and an oasis of calm in the chaos that has swept up Somalia. Its claims to independence date from the colonial era, when it was a British protectorate while Somalia was controlled by Italy. The two states merged after independence, but the Somalilanders had almost immediate regrets, and have been trying to break free ever since. 
 
 Somaliland has had successes, including holding peaceful elections, yet it has struggled without an international stamp of approval on its nationhood. The country lacks many of the trappings of a state. It has no real banking services, leaving people dependent on the hawala money transfer system and a cellphone payment network to make small purchases. Its passports are largely meaningless. 
 
 Najiib Hassan, 43, is a consultant to the Somaliland government and a proud citizen of it. But he travels on his United States passport when he is abroad — he grew up in Oregon, where his parents had emigrated. 
 
 Somalilanders who do not have a foreign passport have little choice but to go to Somalia to get travel documents, a great humiliation, Mr. Hassan said. “It is unfair,” he said. “When it comes to Bosnia and other places in Europe, they recognize their claim. But when it is black people, they don’t care or pay attention.” 
 
 An African Union fact-finding mission in 2005 said that Somaliland might have legitimate claims to independence, calling it “unique and self-justified in African political history.” Seven years on, the African Union has yet to change its position. 
 
 The claim of the Tuaregs, who have risen up against the government repeatedly since Mali won its independence from France in 1960, has even less legitimacy, analysts say. Unlike Somalia, Mali is a functioning nation that, until the coup last month, had a functioning, democratically elected government. ||||| Mali’s Tuareg rebels, who have seized control of the country’s north in the aftermath of a military coup in the capital, declared the independence Friday of what they called their Azawad nation. 
 
 “We, the people of the Azawad,” they said on the rebel Web site, “proclaim the irrevocable independence of the state of the Azawad starting from this day, Friday, April 6, 2012.” 
 
 The military chiefs of 13 of Mali’s neighbors met Thursday in Ivory Coast to hash out plans for a military intervention to push back the rebels and restore constitutional rule after a military coup last month ousted the country’s elected leader. 
 
 France, which earlier said it would offer logistical support for a military invasion, said Friday that it does not recognize the new Tuareg state. The European Union concurred. 
 
 The traditionally nomadic Tua­reg people have fought for independence for the northern half of Mali since at least 1958, when Tuareg elders asked their French colonial rulers to carve out a separate homeland. Instead, the north, where the lighter-skinned Tua­regs live, was made part of the same country as the south. 
 
 The Tuaregs accuse the southerners of marginalizing the north and concentrating development in the south. They fought numerous rebellions attempting to wrestle the north free, but it wasn’t until the March 21 coup in Ba­mako that they were able to make significant gains. In a three-day period last week, their fighters seized the three largest cities in the north — Kidal, Gao and Timbuktu — as soldiers retreated. 
 
 The rebels’ independence declaration cited 50 years of misrule by the south and was issued by the National Movement for the Liberation of the Azawad, whose army is headed by a Tuareg commander who fought in the late Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi’s military. 
 
 The group is secular, and its stated aim is creating Azawad. However, it was helped by an Islamist faction, Ansar Dine, which abides by the extreme Salafist reading of the Koran. In all three of the north’s major cities, residents say they do not know which of the two factions has the upper hand. 
 
 Foreign governments are concerned that the Islamist faction is providing cover for al-Qaeda’s North African branch, known as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.
– Tuareg rebels in Mali yesterday announced the creation of their own state called Azawad in the country's vast desert hinterland, reports the BBC, but with the African Union and neighboring countries firmly opposed to breaking up its member states, the chances of Azawad succeeding are "slim," notes the New York Times. Despite an absence of support for the Tuaregs' new country, Mali's disarray from the coup last month has left the state unable to re-take control over the Tuareg region any time soon. In a statement by the upstart Azawad government on its website (in French), the rebels proclaimed “irrevocably the independent state of Azawad, starting from this day, Friday April 6, 2012,” reports the Washington Post. But already there are signs infighting among the rebels, with one Islamist faction declaring it opposes independence because it is "not in the name of Islam." The Tuaregs, a nomadic people who have lived in the desert for hundreds of years, claim parts of Mali, Niger, and Algeria for Azawad.