The Elders Council, military and civil officials, Amazigh and Tubu tribes in Jadu city announced they will boycott the upcoming constitutional referendum for failing to recognize the Amazigh people’s rights.
A Sunday statement said the Elders Council of Jadu, a mountainous town in western Libya, denounced the marginalization and exclusion of the Amazigh people from drafting the constitution, whose draft does not recognize their language.
It added that a new Libya can only be founded on equality amongst all Libyans without discrimination based on race, language, color or religion.
“Such policies hinder national reconciliation and the efforts to achieve peace, stability justice and equality in Libya,” the statement read.
The council blamed the House of Representative (HoR) and the Constitution Drafting Committee for “not building an equal state for all Libyans.”
It also called on the United Nations Support Mission (UNSMIL) in Libya and other organizers of the Libyan National Conference, set to be held in the upcoming period, to make changes to the constitutional draft before the referendum.
Amazigh and Tubu tribes labeled the draft as “eliminatory.”
Re-emerging as a political force in Libya after decades of oppression, the Amazigh are the indigenous people of North Africa, from Morocco to western Egypt. However, with the arrival of the Arabs to that region in the seventh century, the Amazigh have been actively Arabised.
Their language is Tamazight, the native tongue Libya’s Amazigh or Berbers ethnic minority, and it is written in Tifinagh, the Amazigh script.
Libya’s Amazigh, also known as Berbers, want more to revive their language and culture. They want to be nationally recognized and to participate in Libyan political affairs after the uprising in which they have played a big role.
Berber activists called on the new rulers to recognize them and their native tongue in a new constitution.
They first made the demand during a Tripoli conference in September 2011 to forge an Amazigh political agenda.
However, their demand has not been implemented, and the draft of the constitution, outlined by the then-ruling National Transitional Council in 2011, only mentioned Amazigh culture in broad terms.
