Malian Diaspora Calls for Assistance, Unity and Peace

5 February 2013
Coalition of the Malian Diaspora Association in the United States of America (Washington, DC)
opinion

Washington, DC — After ten very long months of suffering, numerous mutilations and whippings, frequent rapes of women and girls, and repeated negations of basic human rights, the residents of Timbuktu, the fabled city that has stood for centuries as an international center of culture and learning, have retrieved their most precious treasure. Not the historic UNESCO-designated mausoleums that were recently destroyed. Not the priceless ancient manuscripts that were torched. No, what the people of Timbuktu have recovered is even more important, their Freedom!

Wearing beautiful traditional dresses, women were once again singing, dancing, and laughing after being silenced and forced to cover head to toe in Islamic veils for ten very long months. Men were once again playing drums and other musical instruments after months of privation under the Islamists' brutal sharia law. People of Timbuktu and other northern cities, Gao, Ansongo, Sevare to name a few, overwhelmingly welcomed Malian and French troops who liberated them. They reserved a massive hero's welcome for French President, Francois Hollande, to express their gratitude, relief, and joy while also applauding his public recognition of a brotherhood of nations with France trying to repay its debt to Mali and the other African countries who contributed to liberate France during World War I and II.

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