Army officer accused of torture arrested in France

Mauritania's government decided on Monday to expel all French military advisers, recall its military officers undergoing training in France and reintroduce visas for French citizens visiting the country, news reports said. The measures follow the arrest on Saturday of a Mauritanian army captain, Ely Ould Dha, who was attending a course at a French army college in Montpellier, according to AFP. Ould Dha was arrested after human rights organisations including the Federation Internationale des Droits de l'Homme (FIDH) filed a formal complaint with the police in Montpellier. They accused him of torturing at least two Mauritanians in a prison near Nouakchott in 1990 and 1991. French and international human rights organisations have distributed the names of hundreds of officials alleged to be responsible for the death of over 400 people between 1986 and 1991, the BBC reported on Tuesday. Amnesty International described the move to investigate Ould Dha as "a positive step in ensuring justice for the victims of gross human rights abuses committed in Mauritania over the years". "The culture of impunity for human rights violations has gone unchallenged for decades in Mauritania," Amnesty said. "Action by the international community is crucial in ensuring that those responsible for gross human rights violations do not escape justice." According to Amnesty, widespread human rights violations, including political killings, disappearances and torture, were carried out by the Mauritanian authorities over many years. "In 1986, mass arrests of suspected government opponents from both black and Arab-Berber communities began and a high level of human rights violations continued to be recorded in the early 1990s," Amnesty added. Victims of such violations included black Mauritanians suspected of being members of the opposition and civil servants. Between 1989 and 1991 hundreds of black villagers, particularly those from the Senegal River Valley, were targeted by the Mauritanian authorities, who are mainly Moors, and many were expelled to neighbouring countries, Amnesty said Tens of thousands more fled to Senegal and other neighbouring countries, it said, adding that those responsible for these crimes have remained unpunished.