Durmam Daxxel - PUBLICATIONS BY Garba Diallo
Mauritania - the making of a Pariah State
by Garba Diallo
Director for International Programmes
The International People's College, Elsinore, Denmark
"Make new friends, but always keep the old ones". Its 40 years
of search for cultural identity has led Mauritania to seek alliances
with black African countries, ex-colonial power France, later the Arab
world and now the US and Israel. Making new friends here means abandoning
the old ones.
Thus, after turning its back on black Africa during the 1970s in an
attempt to become an Arab country, Mauritania has now ended up losing
both Africa and the Arab world. While the recent withdrawal from ECOWAS
has further distanced the country away from black Africa, the new rapprochement
with Israel has served a heavy blow to three decades of image making
to turn the country into mono-ethnic Arab. In addition, Mauritania is
in a noisy row with France over the arrest and indictment of a Mauritanian
army officer on torture charges. As the country cannot survive without
a mentor, Mauritania has found a new ally in the US. Though those who
invented Mauritania claimed that the country would be a bridge between
Africa and the Arab world, today the slave state has become neither
Arab nor African. In fact, with the unresolved ethnic conflict, human
rights abuses, a heinous practice of slavery and a de facto return to
a one-party military regime, Mauritania has become an endangered state.
Despite massive foreign aid amounting to 2 billion dollars since 1985,
the country's foreign debts have accumulated to $1000 per capita while
57% of the people have fallen below the poverty line and 37% are unemployed.
Departure from the ECOWAS: The black phobia
In view of the current regional and global integration, it is difficult
to understand why the Mauritanian President, Colonel Sid Ahmed Ould
Taya, decided to quit ECOWAS, especially at a time when Mauritania's
relations with its traditional allies - the Arab world and France -
are at their worst. Ould Taya's stated reason for leaving ECOWAS is
the organisation's decision to establish a common currency by 2004,
for which the regime is not ready to give up its own currency, the Ouguiya.
However, the real problem is that Mauritania has no intention to integrate
or have open-border policy with black Africa. Mauritania has not paid
its membership contribution to ECOWAS for the last 16 years, since Colonel
Ould Taya seized power through a coup. Situated on the cultural divide
between black Africa and Arab North Africa, Mauritania suffers from
a serious identity crisis. The regime's approach to this crisis has
been to deny its African identity and bend over toward the Arab World.
A meaningful West African integration will directly contradict Taya's
ethnic cleansing policies: a campaign of terror by which tens of thousands
of black citizens have been forcibly expelled and hundreds more have
been tortured and killed. To cover up for the crimes, Ould Taya passed
a blanket amnesty to all members of the armed forces for crimes committed
during the "period of exception" (1989-93). The amnesty was
issued on 29th May, just before the 1993 International Human Rights
Summit held in Vienna.
Ethnic makeup
Covering over one million squar kilo metres, Mauritania's population
is eatimated at 2,5 million. They comprises some 40-45% slaves and descendants
of slaves, known as Haratine, black African of Fulani, Soninke, Wolof
and Bambara plus 25% white Moors known as Beydanes. The white Moors
are of Arab.Berber stock. The Haratine are all black and of African
descent, who were taken into slavery by the white Moors, who still control
them. In spite of their mionority status, the white Moors dominatel
over 80% of power positions in the country. Discussion of demographic
and ethnic distribution is a national taboo. Therefore, results from
the three population census (1977, 1988 and 1998) have never been published.
Even the UN surrendered to these policies when in 1995 the Mauritanian
regime managed to prevent the UNHCR from publishing the result of their
census of the Mauritanian refugees in Senegal.
Much to lose
The decision to leave ECOWAS was strongly condemned by the African Liberation
Forces (FLAM) which described it as racist. According to FLAM, the next
regional body that Mauritania may quit is the Senegal River Development
Agency, OMVS, which groups Mali, Mauritania and Senegal. Formed in 1983,
FLAM is the only political organisation which challenges the ideological
foundation of the regime. As such FLAM is illegal and its members have
been the main target for exclusion, detention and killing. Also the
main legal opposition party the Unions for Democratic Forces (UFD) condemned
the decision to quit ECOWAS, especially after "having sabotaged
Mauritania's relations with the Arab World and France". As ECOWAS'
executive secretary, Lansana Kouyate noted, quitting ECOWAS will hurt
[Mauritanian] citizens...", and he warned that Mauritania had much
to lose, especially those things taken for granted, including the fact
that Mauritanians would now need visa to visit ECOWAS countries. While
an ECOWAS citizen would pay 15,000 CFA for a resident permit, a Mauritanian
would have to pay about 150,000 CFA to secure the same document".
Exchanging Israel with the Arabisation
After weeks of reports that Mauritania had allowed Israel to dump nuclear
waste in the Mauritanian Sahara, it was announced in Washington on 28
October 1999 that the two countries had agreed to upgrade their ties
into full diplomatic relationship. This rapprochement meant normalisation,
which is against the general Arab consensus not to normalise with Israel
before a comprehensive peace agreement with the Palestinians is concluded.
Within Mauritania itself, there was no information or discussion on
the latest policy shift. The news came just when Mauritanians were trying
to grasp an earlier government decree to abandon Arabisation in the
school system, adding to the general confusion. Forced arabisation has
been at the core of the inter-ethnic strife in the country since the
first arabisation decree of 1966. The new and unexpected down grading
of arabisation is not meant to restore the cultural rights of the African
community to use and develop its languages and culture. It is in fact
intended to upgrade French while further marginalising African languages
whose teaching has now been totally removed from both the primary and
secondary school system. The authorities says that a department of African
languages would be created at the university level!
As a dictator with a bloody human rights record, Colonel Taya's prime
concern is to stay in power. Thus, the rapprochement with Israel is
to please the USA. Taya needs continued funds from IMF/WB, debt relief
and resumption of direct development aid from the US that was suspended
following Taya's alliance with Iraq during the Gulf War. The indictment
of Captain Ely Ould Dah in France have generated a state of panic within
the regime. Also, Taya wants to counter the increasing publicity in
the US about the heinous practice of slavery led by the American Coalition
Against Slavery in Mauritania and Sudan (CASMAS). In response to the
US campaign, Taya appointed Bilal Ould Werzeg, a freed slave, ambassador
to the US and Abou Sow, a black African, foreign minister, making him
the first black minister time since 1966. In addition, Mervyn Dymally,
an African-American, was hired as "a legislative advocate"
to deny the existence of slavery in the country for $120,000. Though
US has changed its policies toward Mauritania, the antislavery campaign
in the US continues. Recently, religious leaders from 19 religious organizations
sent a letter to Secretary of State Albright urging that the US deny
trade benefits to Mauritania until slavery is eradicated and human rights
restored. The sognatories wrote that they 'are extremely troubled by
the knowledge that slavery continues to exist in Mauritania along with
other human rights abuses… [and] 'that Mauritanian President …has
declared that those who campaign against slavery are enemies of the
state and human rights activists who focus attention on slavery have
been arrested and imprisoned'.
Mauritania's obsession with slavery
It should be recalled that Mauritania was the last country on earth
to abolish slavery in 1980, for the third time after independence in
1960. Like the previous abolitions, the last one has never been applied,
because the release of the slaves was conditional to the payment of
compensation to the slave masters. As Mesoud Ould Boubacar, president
of SOS Esclaves, put it, Mauritania is obsessed with slavery. This obsession
was recognised by colonial France which exempted the Moors from the
1905 abolition law, on the grounds that white Moors' survival depended
on the black slaves. As the vice president of Association Mauritanienne
de Droits de l' Homme (AMD), Mrs. Fatimata Mbaye who won the third Nuremberg
International Human Rights Award for "the greatest contribution
to the promotion of human rights in Mauritania in 1999"noted,"
In its traditional form, the slaves are frequently offered as wedding
presents, they do not even have the right to marry without permission,
and any refusal to obey the commands of the masters can result in tortures.
In the other form, the girls carry out domestic work without payment'.
What Mauritania has to offer Israel and the USA?
The vast desert and thinly populated and corrupt ridden nation Mauritania
can be an ideal site for a missile testing site. With its hitherto extensive
military cooperation with "radical" Arab countries like Iraq,
Mauritania is likely to possess sensitive information on Arab military
capacity and be an important springboard to monitor and counter attack
Islamic fundamentalism. The American public has already been warned
of such 'terrorist and Islamic threat'. The regime has recently arrested
a Mauritanian national suspected of planning attacks against US interests.
Reactions to the new Israeli connection
While the US praised Taya's "bold step t[hat] will bring real benefit
to the people of Mauritania", the opposition to upgrading ties
with Israel is unanimous, though for different reasons. Moorish led
opposition parties described it as insult against Islam and Arab interests.
Victims of human rights abuse consider it hypocritical of Israel to
engage with a racist dictatorship. In light of Israel's reaction to
the new Austrian government, it is difficult to understand that the
Jewish nation could find it appropriate to associate with the Nouakchott
regime. During the peak of the pogroms against the African community,
black political detainees were portrayed as Jewish by the regime's torturers
and their oppressors referred to themselves as Germans. As colonel Deddahi
Ould Saleck, Dirctor of Mauritania's Sate Security, warned black political
detainees in Sept 1986, " like the dirty Jews in Germany, we are
going to cleanse Mauritania from the dirty blacks" The American
Anti-Slavery Group called on Israel to break its newly-formed ties with
Mauritania, a nation that has never ended chattel slavery…. Moctar
Teyeb, a Mauritanian native who was himself born into slavery but escaped,
described the new ties by saying that "this is a peace on the backs
of my people", and noted that "Israel has made peace with
the Pharaohs."
The Row with France
After years of intensive work to bring the perpetrators of crime against
humanity in Mauritania to justice, human right activists succeeded to
Captain Ely Ould Dah was arrested and indicted in France last July.
This was a major victory for the victims as it was a great shock for
the criminals. Commenting on the indictment, Professor Cheikh Saad Bouh
Kamara, president of the Mauritanian Human Rights Association, said
that those close to the regime were frightened and amazed, as they did
not expect that the Convention against Torture, which Mauritania had
just ratified, could be applied on Mauritania's torturers. There are
also others who have begun to understand the danger of committing or
condoning such crimes. Furthermore, there are those who feel "happy
that this problem could be solved or at least the trial of those who
have committed the crime will contribute to the fight against impunity".
Taya's reaction
Colonel Taya could not understand that the French government was unable
to prevent the arrest of his lieutenant. It was even harder for him
to accept the fact that the French president who routinely praised him
as a wise and democratic Francophile, could not order the justice system
to set the indicted officer free. Therefore, Taya could not but overreact
and expel French military advisers, recall Mauritanian officers undergoing
training in France and impose visa on French citizens.
Conclusion
Mauritania's triple crises: state racism, slavery and dictatorship is
but a symptom of the deep identity confusion from which the ruling elite
suffer. This confusion is expressed in the relentless search for alliances
and mentors. Paradoxically enough, Mauritania has so far escaped condemnation,
sanctions or sufficient exposures of its gross human rights violations.
The crime of modern day slavery, ethnic cleansing and violent military
rule in Mauritania could never have taken place and continued in this
scale without directly support or condoning by local elite, neighbouring
African countries, the Arab World and France, with US and Israel joining
recently as new accomplice. As part of the problem, the international
community has a historical responsibility in helping the Mauritanian
people do away with the triple crises so as the country can be what
it is suppose be: a positive bridge between Africa and the Arab world.
Selected literature on Mauritania
· Philippe Marchesin: Tribus, ethnies et pouvoir en Mauritanie
(1992), Karthala, Paris, France
· Oumar Moussa Ba: Noirs et Beydanes Mauritaniens, l'école,
creuset de la nation? (1993), L'Harmattan, Paris,
· Okwudiba Nnoli (ed), Ethnic Conflicts in Africa (1998), CODESRIA,
Dakar
· Pierre Robert Baduel : Mauritanie entre arabité et africanité
(1989), edition Edisud), France
· Human Rights Watch/Africa: Mauritania's Campaign of Terror,...Repression
of Black Africans (1994), UAS
· Livre Blanc: Radioscopie d'un Apartheid méconnu,1990,
FLAM, Dakar
· Samuel Cotton: Silent Terror, a journey to modern day African
Slavery (1998), Harlem River Press, USA
· Garba Diallo: Mauritania-the other Apartheid (1993), Nordic
Africa Institute, Uppsala Sweden
· Boye Alassane Harouna: J'etai a Oualata (1999), L'Armattan,
Paris
· Leservoisier Olivier: La gestion fonciere en Mauritanie: Terres
et pouvoir dans le region du Gorgol, 1995, L'Harmattan
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Last updated on April 9, 2003
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