World>Terrorism & Security
posted August 3, 2005 at 12:41 p.m.

Mauritania's 'pro-US' president overthrown

Soldiers seized control of the capital ending 'the totalitarian practices of the deposed regime.'

By Matthew Clark | csmonitor.com

Armed forces in the northwest African nation of Mauritania have seized control of the state radio and television station, as well as main routes in the capital, Nouakchott, in what sources are calling coup d'etat.

Al Jazeera reports that a group identifying itself as the Military Council for Justice and Democracy has announced the overthrow of President Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya in a statement run by the state news agency on Wednesday.

"The armed forces and security forces have unanimously decided to put an end to the totalitarian practices of the deposed regime under which our people have suffered much over the last several years," the statement said.

The group pledged to "establish favorable conditions for an open and transparent democratic system on which civil society and political players will be able to give their opinions freely," and said it would exercise power for up to two years to allow time to make it all happen.

Soldiers in this oil-rich desert nation reportedly made their move while Mr. Taya was in Saudi Arabia attending the funeral of King Fahd.

Taya arrived in Niger's capital Niamey hours after reports of the troop movements in Nouakchott emerged, according to a Reuters report.


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The African Union expressed concern and condemned all seizures of power, reports BBC.

Rebel soldiers in the former French colony came close to toppling Taya in June 2003 before loyalist forces regained control, and the government says it foiled two more attempts in 2004, reports BBC.

Taya himself took power in a bloodless coup in 1984, and has since been reelected three times in elections opponents claim were fraudulent.

In recent years he has "made enemies among Islamists in the country," reports BBC.

Critics accuse the government of using the US-led war on terror to crackdown on Islamic opponents. [Taya] has also angered Islamists by establishing links with Israel.

Reuters cites analysts as saying that Mauritania is "one of the region's most repressive countries towards Islamist movements."

Police have arrested scores of Islamic opposition leaders and activists since April, accusing them of colluding with the Algerian-based Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), a movement allied to Al Qaeda.
In May, security forces searched mosques around the capital, seizing Koranic texts and arresting mosque officials.

Analysts have warned that Mauritania's attempts to stifle opposition groups by denouncing them as terrorists risks backfiring by radicalizing moderate Islamists.

The coup comes at a time when "the US military is embarking on a long-term push into Africa to counter what it considers growing inroads by al Qaeda and other terrorist networks in poor, lawless and predominantly Muslim expanses of the continent," as The Washington Post reported last week.

The Pentagon plans to train thousands of African troops in battalions equipped for extended desert and border operations and to link the militaries of different countries with secure satellite communications. The initiative, with proposed funding of $500 million over seven years, covers Algeria, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Nigeria, Morocco and Tunisia -- with the US military eager to add Libya if relations improve.

Mauritania "sits on an estimated one billion barrels of oil and 30 billion cubic meters of natural gas," according to AFX News.

Oil recently was discovered offshore, and Mauritania "is expected to begin pumping crude for the first time early next year," reports The Associated Press.