AU "reassured", new rulers name government

African Union envoys said on Wednesday that they were reassured after meeting Mauritania's new military rulers but said the country's suspension from the continental body would stand until there were free and fair elections. "The AU did say that it is ready... to co-operate with the government in Mauritania," said Nigerian Foreign Minister Oluyemi Adeniji, who headed the delegation sent in after senior military officers toppled President Maaouya Ould Taya in a bloodless coup last week. "We are reassured after meeting all the various political parties of the reasons for the change and, some even say, the necessity of the change," the Nigerian diplomat told reporters. "There is something of a national consensus... but Mauritania will not be restored (to full AU membership), that is clear, until there are elections, until there is a democratic system," Adeniji added, urging the junta to make good on its promises. The Military Council for Justice and Democracy, who brought 21 years of authoritarian rule to an end by seizing power while Ould Taya was out of the country last Wednesday, has pledged to hold a constitutional referendum within a year to be followed immediately by legislative elections. Fresh presidential elections will come within two years and no-one in the junta or caretaker government will stand. Outside Africa, one of Mauritania's key allies, the United States, has adopted a similar approach to the AU despite an initial demand that Ould Taya be restored to power. "The guys running the country right now are the guys we're dealing with," the U.S. State Department's deputy spokesman Adam Ereli told a briefing in Washington on Tuesday. "We're dealing with who we have to deal with in order to effect change in the right direction." Under Ould Taya, Mauritania turned away from Iraq, became one of only three Arab League countries to have diplomatic ties with Israel and positioned itself as a staunch American ally in West Africa. The US military has trained Mauritanian soldiers to fight radical militants believed to be operating in the Sahara, and West Africa is of increasing interest to Washington as it looks for oil supplies outside the Middle East. Mauritania is due to start producing 75,000 barrels of crude oil a day from its offshore Chinguetti field early next year. As the diplomatic flurry subsided and the AU delegation left town, Mauritania's new rulers went about consolidating their grip on power by announcing a new cabinet on Wednesday, composed of civil servants, politicians and businessmen. New cabinet None of the cabinet serving at the time of the 3 August coup have been recalled to the ministries, but some opposition leaders, who have so far supported the putchists, voiced concern that many of the new ministers hail from Ould Taya's party and that no opposition members have been given a portfolio. "It seems as though this cabinet comes from a list found in a drawer of the ousted president," Messaoud Ould Boulkheir, the leader of one of the main opposition parties the Popular Progressive Alliance, told IRIN by phone. "Our reaction is one of extreme disappointment and scepticism. I thought that the transition would mean new faces, but with a couple of exceptions they are all people from Ould Taya's time," he added. "I don't see a break with the old regime." Other opposition leaders were more positive, saying that the cabinet would in any case have a largely technical role, with most of the real decision-making being done by the 17-member military council. "We believe that the objectives and the calendar for democracy that have been announced are more important than the means used to achieve them," said Ahmed Ould Daddhah, head of the Rally of Democratic Forces. The only nominee to have already served previously as a minister under Ould Taya, is Foreign Affairs Minister Ahmed Ould Sid Ahmed, who held the same post back when Mauritania normalised relations with Israel in 1999. The energy ministry, a key post in a country that hopes to get rich from oil starting next year, went to Mohamed Ali Ould Sidi Mohamed, who was previously head of the state electricity company. The one new minister who publicly fell foul of Ould Taya is the new justice minister Mahfoud Ould Bettah. He was suspended from the country's law association two years ago after denouncing what he called fraudulent practices at the bar that favoured someone from Ould Taya's party. There is no defence minister in the new cabinet, and three of the posts have gone to women.