Dear friends of desolated places,

here is a link for my last film, a 13 min doc about the Tamashek of Mali I recently filmed in the Kidal area.

The link is for the Spanish public television channel TV2.

Sorry, so far, only in Spanish.

TVE a la CARTA

ENGLISH TRANSLATION FROM DOCUMENTARY ABOVE.



The desert teaches by taking away

......
Now I’m in your camera ,
but it’s better they don’t see me or hear my voice.
I’m not scared but telling the truth is dangerous .
Thanks to France we’re in a loop of misery and margination.
Now we’re very poor
and nobody listens to the poor.
The governament Spreads the news we’re bandits or Al Qaeda.
The Tuaregs don’t like Al Qaeda,
Al Qaeda don't represent muslim people.
The Tuareg have never accepted domination,
we prefer death before domination
We don’t want more war.
We seek for a a peaceful rebellion.
We’re in a new milenium,
things are diferent now.
There’s a development in the soul,
the soul is under evolution.
.......
We love the desert ,
we love it's beauty and calmness.
Now the desert became a prison-
The White colonialists let us in the hands
of racist governament who hate us Tuaregs.
We know the truth but we can’t tell it.
By order of the racist governament ,
who hate the Tuareg people ,
our wells were poisened and many animals died of thirst.
If you want to exterminate the people of the desert,
you only have to kill their goats and camels.
Afterwards the army made common graves
where the Tuareg people were thrown.
Before the soldiers raped the women,
they shot at the people and burned them with petrol .
Some they shot
but many were burned while still being alive.
When they saw a pregnant woman
they cut her open with a bayonet and killed the little creature.
Our governament killed thousands of Tuareg civilians.
More than the triple of atrocities that Gaza.
But journalists don’t show up here.
They erase the traces of their worst crimes.
The cameras don’t show up here.
And France steals our Uranium to give energy to their people.
The Rich countries steal the desert from us.
The Rich countries have their hands stained with blood .
Life in the desert is already very hard.
We nomads have no ways
of telling the truth.
In every probllem the’re
good and bad gates.
Why the World doesn’t Judge our
ex presidents for crimes against humanity.
We accusse our politicians and military
of crimes against humanity.
They’re responsable for the masacres
of thousands of Tuareg people and animals.
The responsables of those masacres must be judged .
We’re fighting to get out of misery and explotation.
Weapons are not the solution.

We want to find a peaceful solution.
And the solution is in comunication.
To make us understood.
But our governament doesn’t listen to the words of the tuaregs.
They only listen to the words of our kalash(Ak-47)
So far things are not fine.
It’s better you film The life of the turegs,
To make the images speak for themselves.
Film and show those images to the people.
Let the images talk for us.
.....
We have told you a lot of things
But there still a lot we haven't told.
......
end

Thanks for posting this Lluis. Some really evocative images.

__________________
Pictures, Mauritania 2011

Thank you Richard.

I was commuting home when I got a call from from Mali from some Tamashek leader. He said they loved the doc. It was watched in some camps in a portable dvd player.

My fancy camera still is got sand in many corners.

Pretty but not very balanced, Atrocities have been committed by many in the desert. Being governed from people in the far north or in the south has not always been good for the desert people. Inner strife is a reason why they are lacking in power and influence.

Are there any really good documentaries ever made about the tuaregs?

I am also looking for good literature. What I have read so far has been biased and/or limited in scope.