History of Mauritania
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The history of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania dates back to the 3rd century. Mauritania is named after the ancient Berber kingdom of Mauretania.
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[edit] Pre-colonization
From the 3rd to 7th century, the migration of Berber tribes from North Africa displaced the Bafours, the original inhabitants of present-day Mauritania and the ancestors of the Soninke. Continued Arab-Berber migration drove indigenous black Africans south to the Senegal River or enslaved them. By 1076, Islamic warrior monks (Almoravid or Al Murabitun) completed the conquest of southern Mauritania, defeating the ancient Ghana Empire. Over the next 500 years, Arabs overcame fierce Berber resistance to dominate Mauritania. The Mauritanian Thirty-Year War (1644-74) was the unsuccessful final Berber effort to repel the Maqil Arab invaders, who were led by the Beni Hassan tribe. The descendants of Beni Hassan warriors became the upper stratum of Moorish society. Berbers retained influence by producing the majority of the region's marabouts—those who preserve and teach Islamic tradition. Hassaniya, a mainly oral Berber-influenced Arabic dialect which derives its name from the Beni Hassan tribe, became the dominant language among the largely nomadic population. Aristocrat and servant castes developed, yielding "white" Moors (aristocracy) and "black" Moors (the enslaved indigenous class).
[edit] French colonization
French colonization at the beginning of the 20th century brought legal prohibitions against slavery, though at the end of the 20th century rural slavery persisted, and an end to interclan warfare. During the colonial period, the population remained nomadic, but sedentary black Africans, whose ancestors had been expelled centuries earlier by the Moors, began to trickle back into southern Mauritania.
[edit] Independence under Ould Daddah
As the country gained independence on November 28, 1960, the capital city Nouakchott was founded at the site of a small colonial village, the Ksar, while 90% of the population was still nomadic. With independence, larger numbers of ethnic Sub-Saharan Africans (Haalpulaar, Soninke, and Wolof) entered Mauritania, moving into the area north of the Senegal River. Educated in French language and customs, many of these recent arrivals became clerks, soldiers, and administrators in the new state.
Moors reacted to this change by increasing pressures for Arabization, to Arabicize many aspects of Mauritanian life, such as law and language. A schism developed between those who considered Mauritania to be an Moorish Arab country and those who seek a dominant role for the Sub-Saharan peoples; the Moorish community remained in charge of the state apparatus.
President Moktar Ould Daddah, originally installed by the French, formalized Mauritania into a one-party state in 1964 with a new constitution, which set up an authoritarian presidential regime. Daddah's own Parti du Peuple Mauritanien (PPM) became the ruling organization. The President justified this decision on the grounds that he considered Mauritania unready for western-style multi-party democracy. Under this one-party constitution, Daddah was reelected in uncontested elections in 1966, 1971 and 1976.
To take advantage of the country's sizeable iron ore deposits in Zouerate, the new government built a 675-km railway and a mining port. Production began in 1963. The mines were operated by a foreign owned consortium that paid its approximately 3,000 expatriate workers handsomely - their salaries accounted for two-thirds of the country's entire wages bill. When the Mauritanian miners went on a two-month strike in the late 1960s the army intervened and eight miners were killed. Left-wing opposition to the government mounted and some miners formed a clandestine Marxist union in 1973. President Ould Daddah survived the challenge from left-wing opponents by nationalising the company in 1974 and withdrawing from the franc zone, substituting the ouguiya for the CFA.
[edit] Saharan War and Ould Daddah's downfall
Mauritania annexed the southern third of the former Spanish Sahara (now Western Sahara) in 1976, renaming it Tiris al-Gharbiyya, but after nearly three years of raids by the Sahrawi guerrillas of the Polisario Front, the country's economic and political stability began to crumble. Despite French and Moroccan military aid, Polisario raids against the Zouerate railway and mines threatened to bring about economic collapse, and there were deep misgivings in the military about the Saharan venture. Ethnic unrest contributed to the disarray. Black Africans from the south were conscripted as front-line soldiers, after the northern Sahrawi minorities and their Moorish kin had proven unreliable in the fight against Polisario, but many of the southerners rebelled against having to fight what they considered an inter-Arab war. After the government quarters in Nouakchott had twice been shelled by Polisario forces, unrest simmered, but Daddah's response was to further tighten his hold on power.
On July 10 1978, Lt. Col. Mustafa Ould Salekousted led a bloodless coup d’état that ousted the President, who would later go into exile in France. Power passed to the military strongmen of the Military Committee for National Salvation (MCNS), and soon Mohamed Khouna Ould Haidallah emerged as leader of the country. Polisario immediately declared a cease-fire, and peace negotiations began under the sponsorship of Polisario's main backer, Algeria. In 1979, Polisario broke off the cease-fire after Mauritania had stalled the negotiations, and unleashed a string of new attacks on military and government targets. Mauritania immediately returned to the table to meet Polisario's goals, declaring full peace, a troop retreat, relinquishing their portion of Western Sahara and recognizing the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) as the country's legitimate government. Morocco, occupying the northern half of Western Sahara and also involved in combat against Polisario, reacted with outrage, and is generally believed to have been behind the failed 1981 coup against the MCNS. Mauritania broke off relations with Rabat in protest, although ties were later restored.[1]
[edit] Mauritania under Ould Taya
On December 12, 1984, Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya deposed Haidallah, whose increasingly autocratic behaviour and close relations to the Sahrawis of Polisario had again caused discontent within the army, and declared himself Chairman of the MCNS. Like other rulers before him, he promised a swift transfer to democracy, but then made little of these promises.
The discord between conflicting visions of Mauritanian society as either black or Arab, again rose to the surface during the intercommunal violence that broke out in April 1989 (the "1989 Events"), when a Mauritania-Senegal border dispute escalated into violence between the two communities. Tens of thousands of black Mauritanians fled or were expelled from the country,[2] and many remain in Senegal as refugees. This is also where the black Mauritanian movement FLAM is based. Although tension has since subsided, the Arab-African racial tension remains an important feature of the political dialogue today. The country continues to experience ethnic tensions between its black minority population and the dominant Mauri (Arab-Berber) populace. A significant number from both groups, however, seek a more diverse, pluralistic society.
Opposition parties were legalized and a new constitution approved in 1991 which put an end to formal military rule. However, Ould Taya's election wins were dismissed as fraudulent by both opposition groups and external observers. In 1998, Mauritania became the third Arab country to recognize Israel, despite strong internal opposition.
In 2001, elections incorporated more safeguards against voter fraud but opposition candidate (and former leader) Mohamed Khouna Ould Haidallah was nevertheless arrested prior to election day on charges of planning a coup, released the same day, and rearrested after the election. Attempted military coups and unrest instigated by Islamist opponents of the regime marred the early years of the 21st century, and the Taya regime's heavy-handed crackdowns were criticized by human rights groups.
[edit] Recent political coups
[edit] June 2003 Coup
On June 8, 2003 a failed coup attempt was made against President Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya by forces unhappy with his imprisonment of Islamic leaders in the wake of the US-led invasion of Iraq and his establishment of full diplomatic relations with Israel. The coup was suppressed after one day of fighting in the capital when pro-Taya military forces arrived from the countryside. A number of government officials were detained after the coup including the head of the Supreme Court, Mahfoud Ould Lemrabott, and the Secretary of State for Women's Affairs, Mintata Mint Hedeid. The coup leader, Saleh Ould Hanenna, a former army colonel sacked for opposing Taya's pro-Israel policies, was not captured or killed during the coup. See this BBC article on theories behind the coup.
[edit] August 2005 coup
On August 3, 2005, it was reported that the Mauritanian military, including members of the presidential guard, had seized control of key points in the capital of Nouakchott, indicating a possible coup against the government of President Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya who was out of the country, attending the funeral of Saudi King Fahd. The officers released the following statement:
The national armed forces and security forces have unanimously decided to put a definitive end to the oppressive activities of the defunct authority, which our people have suffered from during the past years. (BBC)
Taya was never able to return to the country, and remains in exile. The new junta calls itself the Military Council for Justice and Democracy, and democracy and rule of law. Col.. Ely Ould Mohamed Vall emerged as leader at an early stage. Dissidents have been released, and the political climate relaxed. The Junta has stated a goal of a democratic government by mid 2007, but in early 2006 it remains unclear where Mauritania is headed.
[edit] Literature
- Newton, Alex, History of West Africa (1988)
[edit] See also
Algeria • Angola • Benin • Botswana • Burkina Faso • Burundi • Cameroon • Cape Verde • Central African Republic • Chad • Comoros • Democratic Republic of the Congo • Republic of the Congo • Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) • Djibouti • Egypt • Equatorial Guinea • Eritrea • Ethiopia • Gabon • The Gambia • Ghana • Guinea • Guinea-Bissau • Kenya • Lesotho • Liberia • Libya • Madagascar • Malawi • Mali • Mauritania • Mauritius • Morocco • Mozambique • Namibia • Niger • Nigeria • Rwanda • São Tomé and Príncipe • Senegal • Seychelles • Sierra Leone • Somalia • South Africa • Sudan • Swaziland • Tanzania • Togo • Tunisia • Uganda • Western Sahara (Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic) • Zambia • Zimbabwe
Dependencies and other territories
British Indian Ocean Territory •
Canary Islands •
Ceuta •
Melilla •
Madeira Islands •
Mayotte •
Réunion •
St. Helena
es:Historia de Mauritania fa:تاریخ موریتانی fr:Histoire de la Mauritanie ru:История Мавритании
