Thousands march in Niger against desert rebels

NIAMEY, Aug 11 (Reuters) Thousands of people marched through the streets of Niger's capital Niamey today to demand Tuareg-led rebels in the desert far north lay down their weapons and free army hostages.

The Niger Movement for Justice (MNJ) has killed at least 40 soldiers and kidnapped dozens since February in a campaign of attacks against military and industrial targets in the north, home to some of the world's biggest uranium reserves.

The government dismisses the MNJ as common bandits and drug traffickers and refuses to negotiate. The group says it wants more autonomy for its desert region in the southern Sahara and a greater share of the mineral wealth it contains.

The march, in which some witnesses said as many as 50,000 people took part, was called by President Mamadou Tandja's ruling National Movement for a Developing Society (MNSD) party.

''We are asking the armed movement...to lay down its weapons unconditionally and favour the route of dialogue and brotherhood,'' MNSD party chief and former prime minister Hama Amadou said.

The MNJ launched twin attacks on Thursday night on the main town of Agadez and on an electricity company in Tchirozerine further north which supplies French-run uranium mines, triggering clashes with the army which killed two civilians.

More than 1,000 km from the capital, northern Niger has long been a hotbed of dissent, largely beyond government control, full of unemployed youths and awash with arms from a 1990s uprising by Tuareg, Arab and Toubou nomads.

Most of those rebel groups accepted peace deals in 1995 but the MNJ says the government has not lived up to its promises, failing to integrate former fighters and leaving the north economically marginalised and rife with insecurity.

Niger's government says the vast majority of Tuareg demands from the 1990s have been met.

REUTERS RSA RAI2105