On a bumpy road towards democracy

Last month's bloody coup attempt highlighted the fact that beneath a veneer of multi-party democracy, Mauritania remains very much a traditional society where control of the army and membership of clan and family are the real keys to power. The pro-western government of President Maaouiya Ould Sid Ahmed Taya, an army colonel who seized power in a coup 19 years ago, survived a two-day battle with rebel soldiers to the relief of neighbouring governments and Mauritania's Western donors. Many Mauritanians condemned the coup, but they regarded it as being motivated more by family vendettas among the ruling elite than about “bread and butter” issues affecting the country's largely poor population. One French-trained economist said that while Ould Taya was not a popular figure, Hanenna's coup attempt had attracted little popular support. "Between the bad and what could have been worse, Mauritanians want neither," he told IRIN. On the night of 8 June, rebel military units, led by a former army colonel, Saleh Ould Hannena, rolled a column of tanks into the capital Nouakchott and began shelling the presidential palace. State radio and television went off the air and for 36 hours the capital of this desert nation of only 2.5 million people echoed to the sound of gunfire. However, military units loyal to Ould Taya eventually crushed the uprising and Ould Taya reappeared on TV screens to confirm that he was back in control. The rebels never said why they wanted to overthrow Ould Taya or what they stood for and the government has not publicly identified the coup plotters. One official dismissed the bloody battle which left 29 people dead and dozens wounded, as "just a bump on the road." But Mauritania's neighbours and western donors took it seriously enough. Within days, French foreign minister Dominique de Villepin jetted in for a lightning visit, followed shortly after by Morocco's King Mohamed VI. Sighs of relief and messages of support, meanwhile came from the United States, Senegal and Algeria. Although Ould Taya was quick to announce that presidential elections would go ahead as planned on 7 November, security in Nouakchott has been beefed up since the coup attempt. Heavily armed soldiers have mounted guard outside the presidential palace, radio and TV studios and other government buildings. And at night military check points have been thrown up across the city of one million people to search cars and check the identity of their occupants. Initially there was widespread speculation that the coup attempt was partly a reaction to a month-long crackdown on Islamic radicals by Ould Taya. Diplomats feared that had he been overthrown, Mauritania might have severed its unpopular diplomatic relations with Israel, loosened its ties with the United States and become more closely identified with the Arab world. But many Mauritanians suspect that the coup attempt was more about family and clan rivalries, than fundamental issues of government policy. Ould Hannena has gone into hiding, but many of his relatives in government have been sacked or arrested. Victims of the purge included the head of the Supreme Court, the mayor of the northern port city of Nouadhibou, the deputy director of the government news agency, the minister in charge of women's affairs, the national secretary of the ruling Republican Social Democrat Party (PRDS) and several military officers. The joke around town is that most of these people stood accused of "kinship" with Ould Hanenna, rather than any active role in the rebellion. Ould Hanenna himself was drummed out of the army in 2001 and was subsequently seen driving a taxi and selling cars. No official reason was given for his discharge, but he was widely believed to have been linked with a group of officers that wrote a letter to the president seeking better pay and conditions. Little is known about Ould Hanenna's political beliefs, although he is suspected of sympathy towards the deposed Baathist regime of Sadaam Hussein in Iraq. Like the man he tried to depose, he is a member of the fair skinned Bidan elite. He hails from the Ayoun region, near the eastern border with Mali and received military training in the Middle East, where Mauritania formerly sent cadets to military academies in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Iraq. The fugitive coup leader is also believed to have opposed Ould Taya's controversial decision to establish full diplomatic relations with Israel in 1999. Mauritania provides a delicate bridge between the Arab states of the Mahgreb and the black nations of Sub-Saharan Africa and ethnic tensions smoulder just belong the surface. There are therefore many vested interests in maintaining the stability in this former French colony, now an Islamic Republic that uses Arabic as its official language. Increasingly it has looked to the Arab world rather than Sub-Saharan Africa for inspiration. Mauritania first withdrew from the CFA franc zone to establish its own currency in the 1970’s and then left the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in 2000. Two thirds of the population are Moors, who are culturally closer to Mauritania's northern neighbour Morocco than Senegal to the south. During the early years of independence Morocco claimed Mauritania as a southern province. It only recognised the government in Nouakchott in 1969. But a third of Mauritania's populations are Black Africans who live near the southern border with Senegal. They belong to the same Wolof and Fulani ethnic groups that live in greater numbers on the south bank of the Senegal River, which forms the border between the two countries. The Moorish community is sharply divided between the "Bidan" or white Moors, who dominate government, and the "Harratin" or black Moors, who were formerly slaves and today still generally occupy a lower rank on the social scale. Slavery was only abolished by law in 1980 and ethnic tensions erupted into communal fighting in 1989 that led to many southern blacks being forcibly deported to Senegal and Mali. Ould Taya has, on the surface at least, begun to modernise the country. He legalised opposition parties in 1991 and drafted a new constitution that turned Mauritania into a multi-party democracy. Over the past decade he has also liberalised the economy, which is dependent on exports of iron ore and revenues from licencing foreign fishing boats, and has presided over a modest improvement in living standards. According to the African Development Bank, the economy grew by four percent a year between 1990 and 2000. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) estimates that the number of Mauritanians living below the poverty line fell from 56 percent of the population to 46 percent over the same period. Now there are hopes that offshore oil will start flowing in 2005 and help to spread the wealth currently enjoyed by a small urban elite more widely. Woodside Petroleum of Australia struck a promising oil reservoir with its Chinguetti exploration well in May 2001, since then other companies have been gearing up to drill more. But behind the facade of modernity and progress, drought and famine still plague subsistence farmers in the southeast of the country. Opposition leaders question the economic success story told by official statistics. They accuse Ould Taya of running a corrupt government packed with members of his own family and clan that has failed to tackle the country's real problems effectively. "Tribu" the French word for tribe, crops up continuously in political discussions. "The fundamental problem is to know if the State is fulfilling its primary roles? Is it promoting economic justice and social equality? Democracy and human rights?” said Hamidou Baba Kane, an economist and parliamentarian of the opposition Rally of Democratic Forces (RFD). He expressed fears that the hope for oil boom would only widen the gap between rich and poor. While a minority of western-educated men wears smart suits and drive around Nouakchott in expensive cars, most of the city's middle class are growing slowly poorer and beggars line the streets. And among the drought-hit millet and sorghum fields of the south, many subsistence farmers and their families are quietly starving. Although Ould Taya boasts that he introduced multi-party democracy to Mauritania, he has continued to ban political parties that he accuses of "threatening state authority" and detain their leaders. Critical newspapers have been shut down for similar reasons. Political analysts say that as a result the opposition remains muzzled, weak and divided. "The job of the opposition becomes very difficult under a tyrannical regime," Kane, the RFD leader, said. Cheick Saad Bouh Kamara, a law professor at Nouakchott university, told IRIN that after 19 years of strong-arm government by Ould Taya, Mauritanians were yearning for change, but did not want to plunge the country into armed conflict to achieve it. Kamara, who is vice-president of the International Federation of Human Rights, said Mauritanians wanted "peace at all costs, but not at any price." So far three opposition politicians have announced plans to challenge Ould Taya in the November presidential election, including for the first time, a woman. Aicha Mint Jiddana, a 43-year-old businesswoman, is campaigning against female circumcision and forced marriage. But it remains to be seen whether Ould Taya's western friends will pressure him into running a freer, fairer and more transparent poll than the last presidential election in 1997 which was boycotted by most of the opposition.