Western Sahara Info.

Mauritania, Qadhafi, and the Arab world

2009-03-13T18:08:00.010Z

[Cross-posted to Maghreb Politics Review] -- At The Moor Next Door, MPR's fearsome strongman, Kal, adds up the results of Muammar el-Qadhafi's recent visit to Nouakchott, where he tried to mediate the Mauritanian crisis by unreservedly siding with the putschists. This didn't quite pan out, and his blatant partisanship surprised those who had seen Libya's previously intensive and consistent effort to come across as a possible bridge-builder -- the deposed president Abdellahi was given a head-of-state welcome in Sirte, and so on, to signify that Qadhafi was on good terms with both sides.

As Kal argues -- and I agree -- the end result of Libya's move from the middle to the fringe seems to be that the US/European position is strengthened. Washington has been militantly against the coup, while Europe under French leadership was equally vocal, but also hinted openly at a search for whatever pragmatic exit existed. If they would pool their resources to push hard for a solution alongside those local players that agree, they could probably make a real difference.

The Arab world, with a couple of prominent exceptions, remains negative or indifferent to the junta. Mauritania has gained some rare popular acclaim among Arabs for cutting ties with Israel, but on balance it didn't help to swing Arab states. Among the so-called 'radical' Arab states, Algeria (not terribly radical, under Bouteflika) was already firmly invested in the anti-coup camp, while Syria and Sudan have been too preoccupied with their own troubles to notice, and are unable to extend any help anyhow. (Yemen is also habitually railing against Israel, but I don't think Mauritania can expect any financial contributions from there...) It gained some limited applause from Qatar, and now there is this with Libya, although it's not obvious that the cut ties with Israel were behind Qadhafi's swing to full-blown partisanship. Among the so-called 'moderate' Arab states, the non-Qatari Gulf crowd, where the money is, all viewed this radical grandstanding very negatively, since they are presently under KSA leadership engaged in promoting a compromise line on Israel. For Egypt and Jordan, it's an absolute embarrassment -- it increases pressure on them to break their own ties with Israel. In Morocco, the government must have been quietly upset about the cut ties with Israel, given the back-breaking acrobatics that Rabat is presently performing to please Riyadh & Washington. But the government is, like Algeria's, much too invested in the situation to change sides or even punish the junta for the move.

Summing the Arab scene up, it's possible that Mauritania's Israel move was designed only to gain Qadhafi's total backing. If so, it seems to have succeeded (for what it's worth). If the embassy closure was designed to break its larger isolation, it's a failure, since it further alienated the West and a couple of Arab heavyweights, and didn't bring about change anywhere else. Finally, however, one shouldn't ignore the domestic factor: the Mauritanian public has opposed Israel's embassy since the day it opened, and despite the segmented nature of the Mauritanian polity, there's still a good political buck in wielding the Israel card.

At any rate, Qadhafi's first international action as head of the African Union ended in a serious anti-climax for him, depriving Libya of the swing role it had hoped for but adding a semi-powerful -- if double-edged -- support for the junta. With Qadhafi at the head of the AU, its previously stiff legalistic stand on the coup could also be in danger, given the flimsyness of its institutions and the Brother Leader's general disregard for, precisely, institutions. This could prove important, since the AU has so far been used as the international community's sanction canary, moving one step ahead of the rest. (About the AU, see also Ibn Kafka on MPR detaling the world of difference between a coup and a coup.)

Now, the ball is in the court of the US and Europe, and the quest to find another mediator is on. Let me guess that someone will sooner or later call on either Qatar, the UN or some African country to step in and work something out. It's either that or to wait for another coup, which given today's logjam would risk seriously destabilising the country, and also spoil the slim but intriguing chance that there could actually be a day when an African/Arab coup is overturned peacefully by foreign and internal pressure.

To read: great, long, and detailed sum-up of the whole Mauritanian coup story by Mohamed Lemine ould Bah at the Arab Reform Initiative.

Angry Berbers & Loony Libyans

2009-03-10T20:55:00.003Z

That is what i discuss in one, two posts at Maghreb Politics Review.

Libya calls for referendum in W. Sahara

2009-03-05T13:34:00.005Z

[picture: muammar al-qadhafi, exiting the mos eisley cantina]

The Libyan General Popular Congress is the closest thing that country has to a parliament. It has just held its session, and out of the steaming heaps of praise for the Brother Leader, one can extract the following:

- "The GPC hopes that reason, logic, geographical unity and historical ties will prevail between the brothers in Algeria and Morocco. It calls for the return of normal brotherly relations between the two brotherly countries and to the consolidation of ties of fraternity which bond their people through the opening of borders to facilitate the movement of people and the flow of goods and services."
- "The GPC maintains that a referendum for the population of the Western Sahara is the only practical solution for this crisis which had a negative effect on the efforts of the region's countries to realize a broader integration."

Libya was one of POLISARIO's strongest backers until 1984, when it joined in a short-lived union with Morocco designed partially to extract itself from the whole Western Sahara affair. Since then, it has ambiguously wavered to and fro, and tailored its Sahara-related messages to the audience, but when now calling for a referendum -- as opposed to some vague exhortation of self-determination -- that effectively aligns the country with POLISARIO's and Algeria's position on how the process must work. On the other hand, the GPC also calls for open borders between Algeria and Morocco, which Algeria is presently refusing.

Of course, Libyan policy is always subject to the whims of Qadhafi, so this need not be taken as a firm and final decision in either direction.

Pax Algeriana

2009-03-03T20:03:00.002Z

Read my post on the Touareg business in Mali, and Algeria's involvement with it, on Maghreb Policy Review.

The Sahrawi Republic turns 33

2009-03-01T10:39:00.009Z

Front POLISARIO, the Western Saharan independence movement, has held its annual celebrations of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. The SADR was announced on February 27, 1976, and so this is its 33rd anniversary; that most dangerous year. The celebrations seem to have been unremarkable, or in fact indistinguishable from earlier years -- a military parade in the "liberated territories", combined with some political and social stunts to make the yearly journalists' trek pay in pictures and headlines. But three things caught my eye:

1. Troop levels: "Bashir Mustapha Saeed, the deputy leader of the exiled Saharawi government, based in neighboring Algeria, said the Polisario Front had 12,000 to 18,000 regular troops and could mobilize many more reservists if needed." -- It is very rare to hear POLISARIO announce troop numbers for their armed wing, the Sahrawi People's Liberation Army. 12,000 to 18,000 seems too high to be credible, with most observers putting the figure closer to 6-7,000 active troops, but that figure is also guesswork. El Bashir's number was probably accurate during the 80s, but since the cease-fire in 1991, training has slipped, and is no longer universal in the camps. At the same time, POLISARIO claims to have stepped up preparations for war again, and training apparently continues to churn out hundreds of new fighters every year -- 500 graduated during the celebrations alone, some of them seen here.

2. El Bashir Mustafa El Seyyid ran the event. This is not significant in itself, if it were not for the fact that there's a line of argument in Morocco that this man -- El Ouali's brother, and a chef historique -- is in fact held as prisoner by the leadership of Mohammed Abdelaziz. Allegedly he wants to make up with Morocco, and is therefore held under strict surveillance by POLISARIO authorities. This may or may not be true, but there's very little or no evidence to back it up; even so, it's slowly becoming an established fact that "everybody knows". TelQuel, the Moroccan magazine, presented its interview with El Bashir in 2008 as a groundbreaking event with a virtual prisoner. In fact, and whatever the level of marginalization he may be suffering, he has been highly involved in politics in the movement both before and after that interview. He was among the top vote winners at the POLISARIO's congress in 2007, and now schmoozes with journalists on the Feb. 27 celebrations. I can't claim to know anything of POLISARIO's inner workings, but that's hardly behavior befitting a dissident in house arrest.

3. Repopulation of the "liberated territories": This strategy, begun discreetly a couple of years ago, is now fully public. POLISARIO wants to establish a permanent civilian settlement at Tifariti (pictured right) in its section of Western Sahara, to bolster its infrastructure there and make the semi-permanent division of the territory more of a political and psychological embarrassment for Morocco. (Until now, there have only been military camps and nomadic movement in the areas held by POLISARIO, while Morocco's part has all the settled population.) It's actually quite clever, since it pokes a hole in Morocco's propaganda to its population about these areas being a UN-patrolled "buffer zone", rather than territory legally -- if not in any way physically -- on par with Smara and El Aaiún (for this argument in more detail, a PDF document by Nick Brooks). On the other hand, it totally undermines the sabre-rattling that POLISARIO habitually engages in. If you think war is the least bit likely, you don't spend your precious resources building civilian housing on the front line.

US DoS human rights reports

2009-02-26T14:11:00.005Z

The US State Department has issued its yearly human rights reports. Here's Senegal, Mauritania, Western Sahara, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Mali, Niger. Don't read them immediately before going to bed.

Otherwise, I'm still mostly posting at Maghreb Politics Review, and at a splendid pace too.

Maghreb Politics Review

2009-02-21T05:21:00.007Z

Is this the end? As I mentioned earlier, I'm transferring to the new Maghreb group blog, Maghreb Politics Review. It really seems like it's going to be a good one, so I recommend you follow it whether or not for my ramblings. As for WSI, I may continue to post stuff here, or I may not.

On MPR, I haven't quite figured out the wonderful complexities of WordPress, so layout is bound to be spartan for a while. But disregard that, and you can still read my first posts:

Tamed or Broken?, a long descriptive rant about today's Algerian politics, with a focus on Islamists and the system of governance that has emerged under Bouteflika. Faithful readers of WSI will recognize most arguments, and note a curious resemblance to this post.

Ross tours the region, a brief note to point out that Christopher Ross, the new UN envoy for W. Sahara, is making his first official rounds in the Maghreb.

WSI: the blog of record

2009-02-18T12:37:00.011Z

Slow going, I know. But here: The New York Times runs a piece about Mauritania and tensions between U.S. anti-terror and pro-democracy commitments that perhaps you should read (h/t Justin). And, darn it, I do think that's my translation of an al-Qaida communiqué that they've used on page 4, even if slightly edited. Google agrees.

That's unfortunate. Because now, while checking if it was really my translation they'd swiped, I stumbled upon a claim in another al-Qaida statement, saying that the communiqué I translated was a fake, although there is of course no guarantee that it isn't that later statement that is in fact the fake one.

The truth of it I don't really care about, but it adds up to the doubly depressing realization that Jihadis suck at public diplomacy and that neither WSI nor NYT is careful enough about checking sources.

Previously on blog theft: Will turns into a Washington power broker, and the fake consultancy outfit Sahel Intelligence first lifts my Algeria posts and then, when caught red-handed, copies someone else instead.

Great moment in US-Algerian relations

2009-01-29T00:04:00.004Z

Not quite the under cover operation he was hired for:

The CIA's station chief at its sensitive post in Algeria is under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department for allegedly raping at least two Muslim women who claim he laced their drinks with a knock-out drug, U.S. law enforcement sources tell ABC News.

Expect all hell to follow when this breaks in Algeria. Already before, many Algerians viewed their country's relationship with the US as being on precisely the terms here formulated my Mr. Date Rape:

The alleged victim said she remembers being in Warren's bed and asking him to stop, but that "Warren made a statement to the effect of 'nobody stays in my expensive sheets with clothes on.'"

For more sad and sensationalist detail, here's a search warrant affidavit as PDF document

No country for old men

2009-01-25T00:55:00.006Z

He's an affable little fellow, but not everyone loves Abdelaziz Bouteflika.

Here, for example, Rachid Benyelles lambasts the president in a long column in El Watan, one of Algeria's biggest French-language private dailies. Not only is the president a gangster and a corrupt police-state dictator, he's also old, sick and almost dead. Criticism of Bouteflika is of course par for the course in Algeria, but here, at the end, Benyelles breaks every conceivable taboo by essentially calling for a coup d'état:

The constitution and the political parties must be suspended, the parliament dissolved, and power be handed to a transitional government. During its six to twelve month mandate, it would be tasked with managing daily affairs and installing a National Council for the Installment of Democracy (CNID).

[picture: rachid benyelles]

This Benyelles, born 1935 and no youngster himself, is a retired general. In the mid-80s he briefly served as secretary-general of the Ministry of Defense under Chadli Bendjedid (meaning he was in effect the country's minister of defense, since he answered directly to the president). He was sidelined later on, by being moved to the post as minister of transport, and has not been of much importance since the end of the 1980s. Unless he's writing with backing from someone else, this should not be taken as anything other than an old man's angry rant. On the other hand, Benyelles's military background is interesting; not least because the article largely absolves the military of responsibility for the country's situation (and it doesn't even mention the DRS).

Even with the rather brutal tone of Algerian political commentary, this piece stands out for openly demanding total regime change. Such seems to be the mood as Bouteflika gears up for a third term, having eliminated all opposition and rewritten the constitution -- one of anger and desperation among his enemies, and raw bulldozer determination among his allies.

Two new blogs!

2009-01-24T20:48:00.004Z

Hannes Bahrenburg -- The first one is run by Hannes, who has been commenting a lot on Mauritanian issues here. Seems like he's going to continue doing that on his own new website.

Maghreb Politics Review -- A nascent group blog started by Kal from The Moor Next Door, which will hopefully include a lot of other Maghreb-centered bloggers soon, among them me. If it works out well for me there, I'll probably kill WSI.

Embassy enigma

2009-01-18T11:26:00.009Z

[picture: no hostility there]

Why is Morocco closing its embassy in Venezuela? The government claims it is because the Chavez government in Caracas is "hostile" to the kingdom's "territorial integrity", i.e. supportive of POLISARIO and Algeria. And sure, it is. But that's not a new thing. There has long been a Sahrawi embassy in Caracas, the highest level of diplomatic support possible.

So what has happened to cause a rift in relations now, all of a sudden? Perhaps the government has decided on some sort of active support for POLISARIO (aid, training, scholarships), or perhaps Chavez was planning some public humiliation for Morocco that has now been avoided. Or perhaps Morocco was just planning to shut down a low-importance embassy anyway, and used the opportunity for some Sahara grandstanding? (On second thought, that doesn't sound very likely, since the embassy is moved to the Dominican Republic -- for all its virtues, hardly a regional powerhouse.)

And it gets more mysterious. Instead of parading this as a diplomatic victory, or a demonstration of its influence, POLISARIO denies that Western Sahara is the root of the problem. The Sahrawi Republic instead claims that Morocco is breaking with Venezuela due to Chavez's tough stand on Palestine, rather than Western Sahara. Chavez recently cut ties with Israel, and is wildly popular in the Arab world for his outspoken public diplomacy on the issue.

That this would be about Palestine sounds very unlikely, to me, but what do I know. Seems more likely that POLISARIO wants to exploit Arab nationalist ill-will towards the Moroccan government, after it boycotted the pro-Gaza summit in Doha. But most of all, I figure this must be an attempt to ride the Gaza media wave -- whereas a closed embassy due to the Sahara issue could easily drown in the wall-to-wall Palestine coverage in Arab media, this way, the Sahrawis hope to ensure that the news are picked up.

Sahrawi youth x 2

2009-01-18T02:52:00.003Z

The French think-tank IFRI has two essays on the political upbringing of Sahrawi youth, under Moroccan rule (by Omar Brouksy) and in Tindouf (by Cédric Omet). Both are in French, both seem very interesting, and both are available as PDF files here.

Gaza summit, Ross, rumors & more

2009-01-17T19:37:00.006Z

The slow pace of posting is likely to continue, but comments are always welcome in the meanwhile. Here's some catch-up.

Arab diplomacy: It's Gaza, Gaza, Gaza. On the fringes of that, Gen. Mohamed ould Abdelaziz, the Mauritanian junta leader, attended a special Arab League summit on the crisis in Doha. This marked a PR victory for the junta, since many/most Arab states have been reluctant to recognize the legitimacy of the coup. Also, the junta has upped its "Arab" standing by suspending relations with Israel (which it recognized in 1999) in protest over Gaza, after first recalling its ambassador. That's a very popular move domestically, and it carries less cost than it used to, now that Western donor nations have broken with Nouakchott since the coup. It was Western pressure that initiated and maintained the relationship with Israel, and if Western nations aren't going to be of any help anyway, Gen. Abdelaziz faces no penalty for catering to his domestic constituency.

[picture: gen. mohamed ould abdelaziz, leader of the mauritanian junta]

The summit itself was called by Qatar, against the wishes of major US-aligned Arab players such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, who prefer to see Hamas stew for a little longer in the fires of Gaza. In consequence, Riyadh and Cairo boycotted the summit, officially in favor of a less prestigious gathering on the margins of a prescheduled economic summit in Kuwait. The Saudis and Egyptians also in the end managed to prevent a substantial number of smaller pro-US states from attending, which meant it didn't count as a legitimate summit -- that requires the attendance of 2/3 of the total League membership, meaning I think 14 governments. This is presumably also why the Nouakchott junta found it so easy to get in: the organizers desperately wanted to reach quorum.

Among the other Maghreb states, Algerian Pres. Bouteflika went in person, and apparently exchanged greetings with Gen. Abdelaziz -- without Algeria signalling any relaxation of its opposition to the coup. Libya and Morocco instead announced they would send only their foreign ministers. In Morocco's case, it seems even this didn't hold up, and that Morocco abstained completely from the summit, in deference to sugar daddy. As for the motivations of the Brother Leader for not going himself -- who the hell knows.

Western Sahara: Some Moroccan newspapers are claiming that POLISARIO Sec.-Gen. Mohamed Abdelaziz suffers from cancer, and will be replaced by Mohamed Lamine ould el-Bouhali, the current SADR minister of defense. Apparently, all the papers are using the exact same source, and there's no evidence whatsoever to back this up, so I wouldn't put much faith in it. Also, Abdelaziz is still pretty young (well, early sixties) despite leading POLISARIO for over 30 years, and he hasn't shown any obvious signs of being ill. So unless something more credible pops up, I'm going to go ahead and call this psyop spin.

Oh, and Christopher Ross, the UN envoy and successor to van Walsum, has finally been approved. Moroccan objections were holding him up, for whatever reason. Officially, Morocco indicated that it wanted negotiations to be based on the autonomy plan, but that never seemed likely. It could just have been an attempt to play hardball, so Western nations do not get the idea that Morocco is ready for more compromise; also, it's worth bearing in mind that Morocco is rather comfortable with the status quo, and would rather extend it than enter unknown diplomatic territory.

Algerian-Moroccan relations: I posted on the border issue here, including some apparently uninformed lines on border closure & economy, and was duly molested in comments by The Lounsbury. More on his blog, which is always worth listening to on Maghreb issues (and for sheer enjoyment).

Gas: Algeria and Spain recently finished a second gas pipeline project. Unlike the older one, this pipeline goes across the Mediterranean, without passing Moroccan territory. Also in gas news, the Russian-Ukranian spat of course heightens European interest in Algerian gas, although it's not as if the two suppliers are exchangeable: not only are Algeria's export volumes much smaller, they also go to southern European states that generally do not import from Russia, with limited possibilities of filling the gap left by Gazprom. Kal has some thoughts on Algerian-Russian relations in this context.

The Timbuktu Twist

2008-12-26T00:21:00.010Z

Following the Mali peace process? Well, you should. It's much more exciting than Iraq or Palestine or whatever other intractable slow-motion conflict you may be wasting your days with.

Super-brief recap: the old on-off Touareg rebellion in northern Mali blew up again in 2006, following which Algeria intervened and mediated peace on terms that, as of by accident, secured a lasting role for it in the region, which is of prime importance for smuggling and anti-terror operations (it is the presumed HQ of the Maghrebi al-Qaida's Saharan wing, among other things). However, when unrest then restarted, Libya also showed up to mediate, initiating a process parallel to Algeria's. To the visible irritation of the Bouteflika government, Qadhafi actually managed to calm things down by organizing some major hostage releases from the hardline group of one Ibrahim ag Bahanga. He, along with the Tripoli-backed MNJ, Niger's main Touareg rebel group, went on record as saying that only Libyan intervention could solve the conflict. Algeria pretended not to notice and re-activated its old deal, bringing the hostilities to a formal halt again, even though violence continued to simmer sporadically.

Now, the Tripoli-based Bahanga has torpedoed both the Libyan-initated status quo and the Algiers Agreement, which actually reinforced each other, by a major attack on Mali government forces (killing somewhere around twenty). Algeria says that it will "continue to mediate". Clearly, however, Algerian-Libyan rivalries are by now an important factor on the perpetually fragile and splintering Touareg side of the conflict. There are competing peace strategies and -- presumably -- competing sponsorships of factions on the ground, with violence variously interpreted as a Libyan attempt to muscle out Algeria, or, conversely, as a ploy to invite renewed Algerian mediation, or something else entirely. All the while, both countries are wooing Bamako, too, and Libya is highly active in the closely intertwined Niger unrest, where France is also a major player. Add to that all sorts of conspiracy theories concerning the hidden agendas of various smuggling networks, terrorist groups, rebel units, and so on, and the different security services that are alleged to puppeteer them (Algeria, USA, Libya, France, Mali, etc). While these claims are often grotesquely overblown, it is true that it can be hard to tell where rebel/criminal groups begin and state security organs end -- and the mere fact that these rumors exist and are widely if selectively believed, both inside and outside of the region, tends to complicate everything so much further.

To sum up: It's getting really messy, soon to pass the point of no sense -- but it's great fun for us casual onlookers and conspiracy theorists. Sort of like Lebanese politics minus the media coverage.

And: Only somewhat related, but: Algerian military planners must be spending an ever-increasing amount of time thinking of their eastern and south-eastern border. Qadhafi has been arming like crazy ever since he slipped out of his boycott, and it's not only with the sort of guns he could use for his usual Saharan/Sahelian chaos-mongering: he's buying heavy tanks, cruisers, radars and fighter jets faster than factories in Moscow and Paris can churn them out. Sure, there has been not a hint of aggressiveness from Tripoli towards Algeria so far (not counting a one-off call for Algerian Touareg to secede), but Libyan politics in the longer term, five or ten years from now, are as unpredictable as the Brotherly Leader himself -- and so is Libya's internal stability, post-Q. Not to be alarmist, but prudence calls for some attention to this.

Official reactions to the HRW report

2008-12-21T19:56:00.008Z

Having now skimmed the new HRW report, it seems to me to be a very thorough piece of work. It presents a nuanced picture of repression on all sides in Western Sahara, and gives the most complete picture I have seen so far of the present human rights situation. (It does not deal with past violations.)

For example, police repression in Moroccan-held Western Sahara is portrayed in all its unpleasantness, with several political trials examined in detail. But the report also notes significant improvements since the 1990s: "Despite the persistent enforcement of laws repressing advocacy of Sahrawi
independence, Morocco has gradually and unevenly opened the door to wider debate on this issue." And "[i]n contrast to twenty years ago, Sahrawi activists conduct [pro-independence] activities and return home most nights without being disturbed. However, sooner or later most of them encounter various forms of harassment that can include travel restrictions, arbitrary arrest, beatings, or trial and imprisonment on trumped-up charges. In recent years, courts have generally imposed on Sahrawi activists sentences of three years or less, sentences generally much shorter than those imposed during the earlier period." This nuanced but critical view, of course, shatters both the stalinesque propaganda of official Morocco, according to which All Is Well In The Southern Provinces, but also pokes a hole in POLISARIO's claims that nothing has changed -- or can change -- for the better under Moroccan rule.

HRW also notes that power remains centralized to a small core of decision-makers in POLISARIO's Tindouf camps, with the refugee community dependent on their political leadership for jobs and provision, rather than the other way around; a situation which naturally encourages corruption and abuse. However, the report also points out that the political climate has been much liberalized since the ceasefire in 1991, and that "[t]oday, political detentions are rare or nonexistent in the refugee camps." It provides the first serious investigation of the slavery allegations, noting that "vestiges of slavery" and traditional racist social stratification remains in the camps, primarily in such a way as to affect marriage customs; but also, that POLISARIO has tried to fight these phenomena, and that they are present throughout Sahrawi/Moorish society, including on the Moroccan side. It clarifies that refugees aren't "forcibly held" or "sequestered", as Morocco claims, and that they are quite able to leave the camps -- but also that people fear POLISARIO's reaction if they were to announce a willingness to resettle in Moroccan-held territory. These descriptions run totally counter to POLISARIO's fantastical claims of a blossoming little refugee democracy, but also undermine Rabat's equally absurd depiction of the Tindouf camps as a sort of desert GULAG archipelago for kidnapped Moroccans.

Finally, HRW points out the anomaly that there is no party formally responsible to the international community for human rights protection in Tindouf: Algeria has abdicated rule over the area to the Sahrawi Republic, which in turn is not internationally recognized, and the UN mission, MINURSO, has no human rights-monitoring component. The report argues that Algeria's responsibility should be defined and recognized (something Algeria wants to hear nothing of, preferring its ambiguous role on the sidelines), and also demands that MINURSO get the same right and duty as other UN missions to monitor human rights in all of its areas of responsibility, i.e. all of Western Sahara and the POLISARIO-administered territories in Algeria (something which Morocco is rigidly opposed to, and which its ally France blocks in the Security Council).

All in all, this report is the best I've read so far, by far, on Western Sahara's human rights issues. So how was it received by its intended recipients, the ruling circles in Rabat, Rabouni and Algiers? Quite predictably, by a barrage of shrill and one-sided propaganda:

In Morocco, some officials denounce the report, which is harshest on Morocco (for the simple reason that Morocco has on the whole been much more abusive to Sahrawis). For example, Istiqlali parliamentarian Hamid Shibat explained to al-Jazira that the report is a product of, you guessed it, Algerian intelligence.* And the palace mouthpiece Le Matin is shocked to its very core after reading this "perfidious" document: "One falls backwards, one must be dreaming, one thinks that one is hearing an Algerian delegate in front of an assembly". However, the paper then catches its breath again, to summarize the report in another article in quite different tones. Now it suddenly states that "Polisario and Algeria are responsible for human rights violations in the Tindouf camps."

This is also the line taken by the official news agency, MAP, which spews out a steady stream of articles on the report, like one headlined "HRW urges Algeria to assume responsibility for Polisario barbaric acts in Tindouf" or its sister piece, which claims that "HRW's assessment is almost a scathing denial of the vain allegations that the polisario and its mentor Algeria throw out whenever a handful of separatists strive to disrupt public order and whenever Moroccan authorities exercise their right to restore order and reprimand violent rioting demonstrators and thieves." Almost!

Algerian and Sahrawi media is no better. The Sahrawi news agency, SPS, somehow twists HRW criticisms of POLISARIO rule in Tindouf into "HRW welcomes the role of the Polisario Front for the protection of human rights" and the writers' union UPES obediently follows suit: "Human Rights Watch accused Morocco on Friday of beating and torturing independence campaigners in Western Sahara and said U.N. peacekeepers should start monitoring human rights in the territory." And APS, the Algerian state news agency, sums up the report as "Morocco is in the eye of the storm because of its repression in Western Sahara." Meanwhile, the Algerian state newspaper El Moudjahid sums up the situation in Tindouf as simply one of "freedom of movement, no political prisoners, and where criticism against the management of Front Polisario is permitted," and the other state newspaper, ech-Chaab, headlines with "Morocco violates rights of free expression in Western Sahara," and that's about it.

The expression "dialogue of the deaf" doesn't capture the scope of the problem here. It's more like a drooling, spitting, eye-rolling rant of the mentally retarded. All the peoples involved deserve so much better than these pitiful governments.

( * ) Paranoid delusions? Why no. Have you already forgotten how the
UN report of 2006 was ghost-written by Algeria's "invisible hand"?

Merry Christmas: a HRW must-read!

2008-12-20T19:45:00.008Z

Human Rights Watch has released a 216-page report on the human rights situation in Western Sahara, including both the Moroccan-controlled areas and areas under the control of POLISARIO, notably the Tindouf camps. It is appropriately called "Human Rights in Western Sahara and the Tindouf Camps" (it's an update to their 1995 report on Western Sahara, "Keeping it Secret"). I just started reading it, and so far it seems excellent, destined to become the point of reference for the Western Sahara human rights debate for some years to come.

So print it out, and I'm sure it will make a perfect Christmas present for all your relatives. Happy Holidays!

UPDATE: Official reactions to the HRW report.

Le Clézio: Desert

2008-12-20T17:18:00.012Z

As promised, some time ago I dug up a copy of the 2008 Nobel prize for literature winner J. - M. G. Le Clézio's Desert and read it (in translation). Time for a belated review.

First of all, let's note with a snobbish hrrmph that the Swedish Academy, which hands out the prizes, apparently hasn't read the book very thoroughly. The Nobel Committee's bio of Le Clézio states that

His definitive breakthrough as a novelist came with Désert (1980), for which he received a prize from the French Academy. This work contains magnificent images of a lost culture in the North African desert, contrasted with a depiction of Europe seen through the eyes of unwanted immigrants. The main character, the Algerian guest worker Lalla, is a utopian antithesis to the ugliness and brutality of European society.

Fair enough as a three-sentence review, but Lalla -- one of the two protagonists -- is not Algerian. If they paid attention, they would have realized that she is living in southern Morocco (not Western Sahara), while her family came from a zwaya tribe in the deep deserts of today's Mauritania -- or maybe Mali, maybe Algeria, but that's less likely. She is, therefore, of Moorish or Sahrawi heritage, but now in any event a Moroccan citizen. While the story is therefore set in the areas in and surrounding Western Sahara, it makes no reference at all to the modern conflict about the territory, but digs deep into the precolonial and colonial history of the region.

Lalla, sometime presumably in the 1970s, lives a poor orphan's life in her village in southwestern Morocco, eventually migrating to France. Her story is intertwined with a parallel storyline about her ancestor, Nouri, which recapitulates his march as a young boy with the nomad following of Sheikh Ma el-Ainin in the early 1900s. The details are well researched, and real names of obscure places, tribes, Sufi brotherhoods and events will crop up throughout the novel. Occasionally, a reference will seem out of place, such as talk of the Mauritanian border (with Algeria or Mali) in the story of Nouri -- that border was not even marked on maps at the time, if I recall correctly, and much less a landmark for local nomads. But this is rare.

Sheikh Ma el-Ainin's revolt against France is a historical event here depicted in literary form. The arduous journey of the nomad tribes following the sheikh, including Nouri and his family, goes from Smara in Western Sahara towards southern Morocco, in an attempt to seize the Moroccan throne from Sultan Moulay Hafiz, who had cut off support to Ma el-Ainin and was about to hand the country to the French. For this final Jihad against the invaders, nomads had gathered from all corners of the western Sahara Desert, whether Arab Moors escaping the simultaneously approaching French forces in southern Maruitania, or Berbers coming down from the Atlas Mountains to join the passing Muslim army. The final battle was short and bloody, crushing all pretensions of Ma el-Ainin and his sons, although the latter would continue to launch sporadic uprisings for years after (they are today coveted as nationalist symbols by both Polisario and Morocco, uncomfortably squeezed into two equally nuanceless and ahistorical official narratives).

The story of Nouri captures the desperate, existential push of a culture threatened on all flanks by incomprehensible and unsurmountable foreign forces -- a suicidal last grand stand, perhaps the Wounded Knee of Moorish tribal history. Ma el-Ainin's character as religious leader and living saint is beautifully portrayed, with hypnotizing passages depicting his dhikr sessions. The disastrous nature of an absolute faith (his own, or only that of others?) in his magical abilities, such as the promise of divine victory and green pastures in the north for his people, gradually unfolds to the reader. Even so, the exact nature of the Sheikh's abilities is left for the reader to determine, and the mythologies and folk magic of Moorish Sufi Islam are described not as reality nor as fraud, but as an uncertain, but lived and recognized reality -- as they would be seen from the believer's viewpoint. Nouri's final chapters in Desert convey a gripping sense of finality: after the slaughter of their army at the hands of the French, the nomads disperse and filter back into the deserts, nameless men of the wastelands once again, their place in history lost for now, perhaps for ever.

Lalla's story deals with what comes after, the story of a culture crushed but not vanished, and of how memories of the past keep informing the present. She grows up a dreamer and loner, in poverty and isolation, in a small village or city on the coast of southwest Morocco. There she experiences the pull of, on the one hand, the desert, where her ancestors came from, and on the other hand, Europe and the stories she has heard of fantastic wealth and amazing cities. After emigrating, she finds France a strange and fascinating, but ultimately cruel, cold and inhospitable place, where her previous rootless poverty is simply replaced by a new and more violent kind of deprivation, in the slum life of African migrants.

Some sections of Desert can at times seem tediously reptetitive, especially the descriptions of natural scenery. On the other hand, this also adds some flavor of the desert itself, a main subject. It is pictured in terms of wind, light, heat and precisely endlessness -- and some of these scenes are high points of the novel. Ultimately, the novel portrays not events, but feelings, moods and tries to evoke a sense of the grinding clash of colonialism and native culture as a force shaping both history and individual destinies. The story sides uncompromisingly with native culture, at times leaving the reader with a taste of polemics, from subject and structure. But that is perhaps the point: it is an attempt att telling the other side of the story, from within a conquered culture; to give a brief taste of what was lost as Western Modernity rolled over the northwest corner of the Maghreb, guns rattling.

-- -- --

Also: read Le Clézio's Nobel lecture.
And: do not miss Ibn Kafka's massive post on Le Clézio (in French).

Amnesty on Mauritanian torture

2008-12-05T12:06:00.004Z

Amnesty International has released a 36-page report on torture in Mauritania, of which there is, unsurprisingly, quite a lot. Practices and perpetrators are analyzed, and if aspiring to become a prison guard, you learn fascinating details about where to best put your baton, as well as where to put out your cigarette, when in the company of an uncooperative prisoner. Rather unpleasant reading, so be advised. Torture has been an ongoing phenomenon throughout the transition process since 2005, but the report does note the general implosion of civil liberties since the 2008 coup (a ban on demonstrations, political arrests, etc) as well as state that the new military rule has in fact "led to the increased use of torture," despite its promises to the contrary.

Read it in English as HTML or PDF, or in Arabic and French as PDF only.

As an added treat, Amnesty reveals the involvement of Moroccan security personnel in torturing detainees. Moroccan-Mauritanian security cooperation is nothing new, with Morocco always having shown a keen interest in what goes on in Mauritania's north -- for a variety of good reasons -- but this is, to my knowledge, the first time that more direct evidence of involvement in abuses has been published. It will surely add fire to the political dispute in Mauritania, where some already resent the ties of the military junta to Morocco, and fear that the country will tilt towards Rabat in a way that would undermine its traditional neutrality, and, hence, stability.

[thanks to van kaas]

Algeria's and Morocco's closed border

2008-12-05T01:03:00.010Z

The Moor Next Door has an interesting post up on the controversy about the closed Algerian-Moroccan border, with some equally interesting comments at the end. (Also see his latest Mauritania monthly.)

[picture: open sesame]

For a brief recap, the Algerian-Moroccan border was shut as a consequence of the Sahara war, and remained closed into the eighties. In 1994, the border was shut again, after an shady affair which began with a terrorist strike on a hotel in Marrakech, where two French Algerians were among the perpetrators. Algiers quickly offered condoleances, but Rabat announced that the Algerian secret services had directed the attack. Crisis followed, and visas were imposed, borders shut, and thousands of Algerians tourists expelled manu militari. The expulsions, in particular, sent the Algerian public into a fit of jingoist rage, thus belatedly joining the Moroccans who were already roaring with righteous anger since the hotel attack. So everything was finally back to normal: borders closed, arms rattling, and everyone blaming everyone else. Recently, however, Morocco began publicly asking Algeria to reopen the borders, which Algeria refuses to do, and, indeed, generally avoids to even comment on. Why? Well:

Regarding Morocco's insistence on the border issue, unlike TMND, I think it is less an attempt to escalate the conflict than an attempt to profit from the present status quo. Publicly asking Algeria to open the border is a win-win gamble for Morocco, since:

1. If Algeria agrees to open the border, removed constraints on tourism and trade will boost the Moroccan economy, which is in dire straits. It will also easen one of the most significant costs of the Saharan conflict -- namely the block on trade and Morocco's geographic isolation. A closed Algerian border cuts Morocco off from any plausible land route to the rest of North Africa and the Arab world, so it's not just Algero-Moroccan trade that is at stake. Also, since it comes on Moroccan request, a border opening would score a political point. In that sense, the public and challenging nature of the requests may well make it less likely that Algeria will open the border. The Moroccans realize this, of course; it's part of the gamble.

2. If Algeria refuses to open the border, it comes off as the unreasonable party. That is true both internationally, in the US and Europe, where politicians are exasperated with the petty rivalries of the Maghreb; and in the Arab world, where the Algerian-Moroccan spat has always been seen as one of the most pointless examples of Arab disunity; and in Morocco; and to some extent in Algeria. Many Algerians are angered by Morocco's demands and tone, and want a thorough apology for 1994. But others -- I think a rather significant percentage -- believe that Morocco's proposal to decouple the issues of the Sahara and the border is an excellent idea (and a smaller percentage want to abandon Algerian involvement with POLISARIO altogether). Part of the attraction for Morocco in raising the border issue is, then, that it helps to drive a wedge between Algerians and the Sahara issue, if the Algerian commitment to POLISARIO starts being seen as a detriment to the country's economy -- especially, of course, in the Oran-Tlemcen regions, where trade and family ties with Morocco are strongest.

This perception is not very prevalent yet, for the simple reason that the Sahara question isn't expensive to Algeria. Western Sahara was always a war on the cheap for Algeria, while at the same time costly beyond belief for Morocco -- that was the whole point of it. The only serious Algerian expense was to keep a standing army tough enough to deter Moroccan cross-border responses. Even then, Algerian military spending has always been much smaller than Morocco's, proportionally -- and that includes significant expenses to guard against Qadhafi's antics on the eastern border. As for arming and hosting POLISARIO and the refugees, it was a minor expense even during the war years, and now in oil-flush peacetime it is absolutely negligible, while Morocco remains forced to pour billions into settling Western Sahara and buying off discontent. Even politically, Algeria expends just a fraction of the energy that its rival puts into Western Sahara. For Algeria it's enough do some casual lobbying to keep the issue going and put it on the agenda of international forums, which then forces Moroccan diplomats to rush there to put out the fire. As a result, Morocco has virtually given up on having a foreign policy outside of the Sahara, while Algeria can afford to remain heavily involved in African affairs, and to a lesser extent in Arab and Third Worldist circles.

This imbalance is also the main reason for keeping the border shut. In brief, Algeria's Saharan strategy is to bleed Morocco into submission, or into an acceptable compromise -- whichever happens first. The post-2000 arms race is part of this, which seems more and more to be a sort of a Reagan-style strategy of aggressively outspending your opponent; feasible or not, it fits neatly with the recent price increases and oil shock. Part of the idea is also that if Algeria shows total intransigence, the argument for the US and other nations to side with Morocco is severely weakened (it won't solve the conflict anyhow). Displaying any inclination to compromise, in turn, works against that objective.

Finally, as a wildcard influence on all of this, one sholdn't discount the tendency of corrupt elites to be, well, corrupt. Military-political cliques in both Morocco and Algeria are feeding off of trade and smuggling in various areas, giving them a vested interest in keeping borders shut as a crude instrument of directing trade. In Algeria, for example, today you have lots of tourists and trade going east towards Tunisia. Surely, some people who know people would be upset if half of that suddenly veered west across an opened border. And in Morocco, there is heavy military involvement in smuggling towards Mauritania and even across the Sand Wall that divides Western Sahara, as well as across the Moroccan-Algerian border. (However, it could work the other way as well: watch out for Algerian generals investing in Moroccan hotels...)

Opening the borders, for all these reasons, would be seen in Algiers to undermine a basic pillar of the strategy towards Morocco. However, the burden of keeping it shut grows heavier every day Morocco is on the airwaves asking nicely for it to be opened. Someone, somewhere, is probably making cost-benefit calculations on that as we speak.

The state of Algeria, 2008

2008-12-04T20:13:00.012Z

Third term for Bouteflika

President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has slammed a constitutional amendment through parliament, enabling him to run for a third term. Soon thereafter, the tripartite presidential alliance of the FLN, RND and MSP decided to launch him as their "consensus candidate". There can be no serious doubt that he will win at the polls next year. While there are questions about his relations to powerbrokers in the army -- most importantly Gen. Mohamed Médiène, the military security chief -- this remains speculation. Had some army-political faction seriously wanted to derail his third term (and: been able to), they would have had a better shot at doing it in parliament than in the elections, so now it looks very unlikely to happen.

Whatever the case, both of Bouteflika's earlier victories have been marked by gentle purges in the military pouvoir, as he shunted competitors to the side. Bouteflika may be a mediocre character in many ways, but when it comes to subtly amassing personal power, he is top of the class. Thus, the Boutef presidency has been remarkable for the way the army top brass has, not so much retreated from politics, but been overwhelmed by and submerged in Bouteflika's rapidly swelling power structure. If he started as a puppet, by 2004 he very publicly cut his strings, with the "retirement" of Army Chief of Staff Mohamed Lamari, and the subsequent dethronement of Gen. Larbi Belkheïr and others. In this way, the country has come to resemble a more straightforward dictatorship, instead of a military-run shadow republic, and Bouteflika to resemble a more straightforward Arab president-for-life. Cynical as it may be, I believe most Algeria watchers have considered this a basically healthy process, in that it normalizes the political scene to some extent. That, on the other hand, is of course most revealing of the sorry state of Algerian politics. But, the downside of this "neo-Boumédièneism" -- apart from authoritarianism in itself -- is that when Bouteflika dies, and he will soon enough, a giant power vacuum could open up, with unpredictable consequences. The West is then highly likely to back whatever strongman (= military security) looks set to gain control the easiest. Whatever happens, a serious contender for the post as future president is and remains Ahmed Ouyahia, of the RND party in the presidential majority, but the question is perhaps less who will be the next president, than what the next president will be able to control.

The most vocal opposition to the constitutional amendment has come from the RCD party, whose leader Said Saadi says he will run against Bouteflika. Let us state it as a matter of fact: Said Saadi has no chance of winning, even in a free and fair election. First of all, while ordinary Algerians are deeply unhappy with the state of the country, Bouteflika is still quite popular (he did end the civil war, and things are better now than before), and he plays the role of nationalist-populist caudillo with considerable skill -- not to mention that he and his allies control the major patronage networks, in the state, the army and even business. Second, the RCD is a small and organizationally limited liberal party whose voter base is restricted to about a third of the Kabyle population, with its Arab constituency limited to a tiny number of mainly Francophone ultrasecularists. Even if he should be bolstered by a powerful protest vote and serious cross-party opposition backing, Saadi is highly unlikely to ever get more than 30% of a fair Algerian vote, not to mention an unfair one. (It looks as if it's going to be the latter, since the government is now on the record as opposing international observers.)

There may be other challengers, though, who could theoretically scrape up a majority backing. But, short version: this time around, they don't stand a chance, and they know it. Running in the elections now is solely about profiling yourself with future political schemes in mind, not about seriously trying to get into el-Mouradia.

Islamists in disarray

[picture: ali belhadj]

In another somewhat significant development, the MSP has suffered an internal split. The conflict is said by some to stem from reactions to the Bouteflika candidacy, which the MSP is backing, but mostly it seems to be about internal opposition to the overbearing party leader, Boudjerra Soltani.

The MSP, also Hamas, is the Algerian wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, and has its roots in the Islamic reformist movement founded by the late Sheikh Mahfoud Nahnah. The Algerian Brotherhood tendency, through MSP, participates in government, and has -- contrary to much uninformed belief -- not been involved with the country's insurgency or with the banned FIS party. Their strategy is to stay out of any unwinnable confrontation with the army or Bouteflika, and instead pragmatically strengthen the Islamic character of the state and build their movement's capacity to govern. In this, they have been reasonably succesful; but it has also cost the party some standing with the public, as it is increasingly seen as part of the ruling elite. It's quite likely that the regime will pounce upon the split, to weaken the MSP and make Soltani more dependent on the presidency than he already is; on the other hand, they wouldn't want to destroy the party, and leave Islamist voters without any credible pro-regime option.

The Islamist opposition, to which the MSP defectors are likely to gravitate, is in a sorry state. On the one hand, you have the ex-FIS, which is now completely in disarray. Its leading lights are either disconnected from Algerian politics (Abassi Madani), or angling for favors from the regime (Rabeh Kbir, Madani Mezrag), or bitterly rejectionist, monitored, harassed, and reduced to railing against the powers that be in the Friday Khutba with no parliamentary leverage (Ali Belhadj). On the other hand, you have the anti-regime wing of the reformist Islamist trend, led by sheikh Djaballah. His party (el-Nahda) has been split through no little amount of state meddling, and he was himself ousted by the regime-backed wing of the party. This effectively deprived him of any chance to participate on fair terms in the political game, which spares the regime a nasty critic, but on the other hand risks alienating his supporters from parliamentary politics altogether. Lastly, there's the potential challenge from Ahmed Taleb Ibrahimi, a much-respected Islamic nationalist, who previously attempted to challenge Bouteflika's election in 1999. He then, however, had his party (el-Wafa) banned, for allegedly serving as a vehicle for reintroducing FIS into politics, but more likely because he seemed to be serious competition. Given his advanced age, he is not likely to give it another go.

Now, if credible Islamist opposition personalities like those mentioned above could congregate into a somewhat efficient political alliance -- a big if, given the size of the egos involved -- they would stand a good chance of assembling street power, since Algerian Islamist populism remains as potent a force as ever. However, this is something the authorities have made it very clear that they will not allow, like with the banning of el-Wafaa. With demonstrations still banned under the state of emergency, even non-party attempts to build an overtly political Islamist popular movement are doomed to failure, or at least to being outlawed and persecuted. For all their failures, the MSP seem best placed to capitalize, in the somewhat distant future, on their strategy of collaboration, than any of the groups that have tried a more confrontative approach.

Finally, the al-Qaida rebellion: nothing really new there. Fighting continues in the Kabyle mountains, occasional skirmishes elsewhere, a bombing now and then. The two Austrian tourists that were kidnapped in Tunisia a while back, have been released some time ago, unscathed. It seems rather obvious that someone paid a ransom, and it seems rather likely that "someone" is either Austria or Libya, with Algerian or Tunisian authorities as second-rate contenders, and the families involved a distant third. Regardless, the important point to take away is that the southern wing of the Maghrebi al-Qaida is still essentially a desert mafia, working in the grey zone between Saharan tribal trade and organized crime, with global Jihad as a pet hobby project on the side. They were not interested in killing kuffar, nor even in upsetting the Tunisian tourism business or shaming the infidel governments of Algeria and Mali: they wanted hard cash.

Oil prices slipping

Also worth noting is the slip in oil prices, following the global financial crisis. Algeria is of course completely dependent on hydrocarbon income (oil & natural gas). It has no significant economic activity apart from that, or at least not one that would survive without it. However, prices right now (50-60 USD/barrel) are still way above where they were a few years ago, and they don't seem likely to slip much further (Saudi Arabia now openly advocates 75 USD/b as a "fair price"). While Boutef may have to go through his checkbooks again, there seems to be no reason to fear major drawdowns in state spending. The earnings from the post-2003 oil bonanza have actually been used rather wisely (after subtracting for corruption and the Morocco-Algeria arms race), on infrastructure, paying off loans, and saving up huge reserves. So all in all, while Algeria's economic position is no longer great, it is still pretty good.

Even so, the population hasn't seen much of all this money, but plenty of the global price increases. The cost of living has skyrocketed, and people who were already on the margins now find it completely impossible to make ends meet. The state has not been able to effectively counteract this, and of course, poverty was pretty dire already before the price explosion. Accordingly, this year has seen an upsurge in political and social unrest especially in rural areas, with demonstrations, riots, road blocks, crime, state repression, and plain unfocused violence all around -- as well as growing numbers of harraga, young Algerians who risk their lives to flee across the Mediterranean in search of jobs, money, women and all the other things they've seen on MTV. This social crisis is certainly the most serious threat to Algerian stability, even including the sputtering al-Qaida rebellion.

The only credible solution to these issues, a program for systematic economic reform, is still in its infancy -- and what an ugly, misfit baby it is. Bouteflika's darkest legacy will undoubtedly be the failure to use his ten years of reasonable political and economical stability to develop and diversify the country's economy. I see no reason to hope for change in his third term, and what little exists of opposition tends to be even worse than the present regime on these issues. Also, today's (unworkable) system is so cemented and change resistant as to make any serious attempt at reform likely to be a very painful experience for ordinary Algerians, and possibly also upsetting to political stability, because it necessitates a challenge to entrenched bureaucratic and political-military interests. Therefore, even if almost everyone who is someone in Algeria agrees that reforms are necessary, they are ever put off for the future, since the hydrocarbon rent seems to be enough to keep the country afloat for the time being. But is it really?

Apologies...

2008-10-29T21:05:00.003Z

As you can tell, I'm not able to properly keep up posting right now. Sorry!

If you're into Algeria or Mauritania, however -- and sure you are, otherwise you wouldn't be reading this -- I suggest you check out The Moor Next Door regularly. Kal has promised to put out twice-monthly updates of recent events in those two countries, and whatever else he posts also tends to be well worth a visit.

A triple: Mauritania, Manhasset, Le Clézio

2008-10-11T22:40:00.004Z

I.
Mauritania's parliamentary speaker Messoud ould Boulkheïr, a prominent leader in the anti-coup opposition, has openly come out in favor of the compromise solution that seems to quietly have gained currency: that President Abdellahi is reinstated, but then voluntarily announces premature elections, and that some informal arrangement will guarantee the interests of junta members whatever happens next. The entire FNDD opposition coalition has come out in support.

[picture: messoud ould boulkeïr]

Something like this seems to be the most realistic way out of conflict, and it has the great advantage of preserving both face and formal constitutional legitimacy, although it is hardly a safe route: so much could go wrong. Of course, the most major problem is that the junta is presently on record as opposing such a solution, in spirit if not in words. In their recent negotiations with the African Union, the military argued for what sounded like a similar procedure, but with one crucial added condition: that they themselves maintain full power until the day the elections are held. A child could figure out the impact of that on the electoral process.

II.
The Manhasset negotiations process between Morocco and Front POLISARIO has again made a little noise. Good news: it is still moving. Bad news: it is moving backwards. A Moroccan delegation recently spoke to Ban Ki-moon, saying that from now on, any talks must focus on how to implement the king's autonomy plan, not whether to do it -- the Moroccan autonomy plan must be the "sole platform" for future discussions, leaving aside any proposals from POLISARIO. That is of course unacceptable to the Sahrawis, who respond that in such a case, there would be no point in having negotiations at all. (POLISARIO Sec.-Gen. Abdelaziz will be delivering his own message to Ban soon.)

[picture: christopher ross]

In connection to this, there is some sort of quiet tussle going on about Ban's new envoy-elect, Christopher Ross. POLISARIO is loudly repeating its support for his appointment, aiming to underscore that it is Morocco that still hasn't given the go-ahead. Why? Presumably, the Moroccan negotiators are trying to secure some sort of concession, or just to reentrench themselves in a position of strength, by dragging their feet a little longer. POLISARIO, conversely, is trying to make that position as uncomfortable as possible, by framing Morocco as the obstructing party both on content (what to negotiate about) and procedure (the appointment of a new envoy). They have the not insignificant advantage of actually being correct about that, but, in any event, if the talks stall again, they will be fine with that too -- as long as Morocco takes the fall for it. The process wasn't going Tindouf's way anyhow, and as much as the Front may shower these talks with verbal support, making Morocco squirm is its primary goal in the absence of a fair shot at independence.

III.
A follow-up: Le Clézio has indeed written about Western Sahara. Not only does Désert -- just dug up a copy -- deal with the Ma el-Ainin uprising, and feature a Sahrawi protagonist. He has also written a book with his wife, Jemia, called Gens des nuages, "People of the Clouds." It is about the couple travelling to the lands of the Laaroussiyine tribe, to which she belongs -- apparently she was born in Rabat, and considers herself a Moroccan Sahrawi.

[picture: jean-marie gustave le clézio]

Le Clézio's Désert

2008-10-10T18:03:00.005Z

J.-M. G. Le Clézio has won the Nobel Prize in Literature, and the biography provided by the Nobel Foundation mentions that:

His definitive breakthrough as a novelist came with Désert (1980), for which he received a prize from the French Academy. This work contains magnificent images of a lost culture in the North African desert, contrasted with a depiction of Europe seen through the eyes of unwanted immigrants. The main character, the Algerian guest worker Lalla, is a utopian antithesis to the ugliness and brutality of European society.

Haven't read it, but from what I understand, Désert starts off in present-day Western Sahara and Morocco -- although blissfully removed from contemporary politics. The protagonist, Lalla, appears to be not Algerian at all, as the bio claims, but from Río de Oro, i.e. Western Sahara (described in the review linked above as South Morocco).

The time frame, 1909-1912, points to the failed Ma el-Ainin revolt. Sheikh Ma el-Ainin was a major figure in the history of the Hassani tribal territories, who is today claimed as a nationalist forerunner by both Morocco and Polisario,* but who was in fact perhaps most connected to the tribal emirate in Adrar and Qadiri sufi politics in today's northern Mauritania. After leading a religiously based Moorish resistance to the French commander Coppolani's forces advancing northwards from Senegal, he retreated into the Spanish Sahara. There, built the city of Smara, out of reach of the French forces -- it is today controlled by Morocco. When fighting the French, Sheikh Ma el-Ainin claimed fealty to the Moroccan Sultan in exchange for arms and financial backing for his revolt; but when the support dried up and the Sultan distanced himself from these troublesome tribals, he turned on his former benefactor and proclaimed himself Sultan of Morocco (and most of the rest of western North Africa). In 1912, his forces were routed by the French, and he died soon thereafter, but tribal jihads against the French led by his sons went on for some time.

All in all, a fascinating story and a fascinating period, although there seems to be better reasons to pick up a copy of Désert than the historical setting. If anyone has read it, feel free to comment below, or I will whenever I get around to doing so.

* ) His descendants are scattered on both sides of the political divide, some of them in very high positions: one is secretary-general of CORCAS, while another is POLISARIO's chief representative to the EU.

UPDATE: Some more.

Twenty years ago today

2008-10-05T14:33:00.010Z

General Nezzar taught the band to play.

Fouad Ali el-Himma and the Touareg rebellion

2008-10-05T12:17:00.012Z

... are two things that interest me, separately.

[picture: sucker-punch, moroccan style]

Fouad Ali el-Himma, the royal confidant who left his post to run for parliament in Morocco, is now shoring up support for his own movement. This latest mutation in the country's pro-palace political landscape is creating a new catch-all movement -- improbably named yet appropriately abbreviated the Movement of All Democrats -- to counter the rise of the PJD islamist opposition. It's off to a stumbling start, but the latest news are that the el-Himma party, the Parti authenticité et modernité (PAM) has coalesced with an older pro-palace outfit, the Rassemblement national des indépendants (RNI), to create a joint bloc in parliament. Since I'm not doing a very good job at it, I suggest you follow Moroccan blogs closely on this topic, because it's bound to become very important.

[picture: cia agent under cover]

As for the Touareg, the British expert on Sahelian revolutionary politics, Jeremy Keenan, has an essay out in the latest issue of the Review of African Political Economy. He is deep into conspiratorial arguments about how the US and Algeria are together staging al-Qaida attacks across the Sahara to extend their joint control over it, and I've registered my mild dissent with this theory before (there simply is no evidence to support it, with Keenan relying on some rather speculative opposition rants as if they were definite proof). Nonetheless, it's thick with interesting information, and definitely required reading for anyone interested in the region and its politics. A pirated and poorly paragraphed copy of the entire piece can be read here. For another take on that whole Sahel business, you should also read Adrian's Media Shack post and thesis.

Morocco meets Mauritanian opposition

2008-10-05T11:36:00.004Z

Interesting! Taieb Fassi Fihri, the Moroccan foreign minister, has met publicly with the anti-coup resistance in Mauritania, the National Front for the Defense of Democracy (FNDD). According to MAP:

While reaffirming the importance that the Kingdom of Morocco accords to the security and calm of Sisterly Mauritania, and its contribution to the realization of an integrated and stable Maghreb, the minister recalled the vigorous desire of Morocco for a return to the normal constitutional order, given the appropriate conditions and delays.

This little word "appropriate" could of course intepreted in a thousand different ways, but that a meeting is held so publicly and that this sort of ambiguously junta-critical phrasing is put out by Morocco seems to indicate a climbdown from the position of most high-profile supporter of the August 6 coup. At the very least, they must have been aware that it would be interpreted that way.

The FNDD, as a reminder, is made up of a number of Mauritanian parties and political personalities, including: the deposed Prime Minister Yehia ould Ahmed el-Wagef (now in house arrest); the president's party, PNDD/Adil; the Haratine party APP of Messoud ould Boulkheïr; the leftist UFP party of Mohamed ould Maouloud; and the Muslim Brotherhood, in the shape of Jemil ould Mansour's Tawassoul Party. They demand the reinstatement of the former president, Sidi ould el-Cheikh Abdellahi, and a return to civilian rule.

Most of the rest of the world, including the USA, the EU, France, the AU, the UN, various Gulf nations, and neighboring Algeria, have more or less openly backed the FNDD's demands and refused to recognize or deal with the government or junta of Gen. Mohamed ould Abdelaziz. The states that have, on the other hand, most visibly come out in support of him have been Morocco, and more recently -- still slightly ambiguously -- Senegal, and, even more erratically, Libya, plus a couple of minor states in West Africa (eg. Burkina Faso).

Mauritanian junta bans demonstrations

2008-10-03T14:38:00.006Z

Mauritania's newly installed prime minister says he will ban all demonstrations in the country. Since the August 6 coup, there have been a lot of protests organized by the FNDD civilian opposition, as well as pro-coup manfestations organized by the Abdelaziz government. Television and radio have already been turned into mouthpieces for the junta; now they need only deal with critical print journalism, and there will be no outlets whatsoever left for the opposition.

That anti-coup protests are still continuing after almost two months is unprecedented in Mauritanian politics. Apparently, that is embarrassing enough to the putschists to want to ban it, even if the pro-junta crowds are much bigger -- mainly because state employees are ordered out to participate. Anyhow, the FNDD already has a new demonstration planned, so we'll see how this pans out.

Other things to keep your eye on: the October 6 deadline [pdf] given by the African Union to re-install the overthrown president, Sidi ould el-Cheikh Abdellahi. The AU threatens sanctions, but it's an open question how that would be practically implemented.

Polisario Confidential goes to Washington

2008-09-30T19:15:00.015Z

Polisario Confidential, as you may or may not know, is one of the ten or so sites that were thrown online by the Moroccan government about a year back, to get some anti-Polisario web buzz going. Given the relatively lax interest of Moroccan bloggers in the Sahara issue, it seems to be a pretty smart strategy. Hiring a webmaster and paying domain names is not very expensive, and it helps muddle the Polisario argument by creating a constant barrage of accusations they are forced to defend against. For example, it doesn't matter how many times the child-slavery-on-Cuba-nonsense is debunked, because (a) most Moroccans will never find out, given that their media does not report it, and (b) most foreigners, being new to the issue, don't know that it has been debunked. The same goes with accusations of Polisario and al-Qaida collaboration, or Polisario being a Marxist-Leninist terrorist group, or the Tindouf camps being concentration camps, and similar over-the-top mudslinging. It's classic shotgun tactics: fire away wildly, and something is likely to hit.

Most of these sites share the same material, all are registered at the same place and appeared at approximately the same time, and they all, most notably, insist that they have VERY TOP SECRET INSIDER INFORMATION. The general idea is that people googling about for information, hopefully journalists, will pick up some scare quotes and run with them. Since so few people outside the region knows much about the conflict, planting a few seeds like that can pay off handsomely in global media coverage. It would seem that strategy is working pretty well. Since Polisario doesn't have a website of its own, Polisario Confidential has by now reached # 3 in a standard English-language Google search for "polisario", beaten only by the unbeatable Wikipedia.

The only real problem seems to be one of execution: apparently it is impossible, just impossible, to hire a moderately competent writer for the job, despite the plethora of talented Moroccans out there. As evidence, and because it is likely to change, I here reproduce Polisario Confidential's latest newsflash in facsimile:

Exclusif : les communicants payés par Alger déploient la nouvelle stratégie du Front Polisario Ecrit par Khalid Ibrahim Khaled 27-09-2008
Alors que Washington, par la voix de « Condi » Rice, vient de réitérer le soutien américain à une forme d’autonomie pour régler le conflit du Sahara Occidental, les conseillers en communication du Front Polisario se sont réunis à New York en milieu de semaine avec leurs clients dans un célèbre restaurant de la « grande pomme », et ont décidé de dérouler une nouvelle stratégie. Au cœur de ces discussions, auxquelles a participé un adjoint du représentant permanent algérien auprès des Nations Unies -étant donné que c’est Alger qui signe les chèques des « consultants »-, la volonté de mouiller absolument le Maroc dans le récent coup d’état en Mauritanie, afin de le faire apparaître comme un « parrain régional ». Cette stratégie n’est cependant pas totalement au goût des « sponsors » algériens du Front Polisario, qui craignent que ces accusations systématiques, bien que fantaisistes, ne contribuent qu’à forger l’image d’un Maroc extrêmement puissant, et ne fassent de l’ombre à l’hôte du palais de la Mouradia, extrêmement soucieux de son image. En réalité, cette nouvelle stratégie de communication, théorisée par les communicants américains et anglais sous contrat avec l’état algérien, reflète la certaine fébrilité dans laquelle se trouve le front Polisario suite à la démission de Peter Van Walsum. En effet, tant que le diplomate hollandais était en poste, il constituait la tête de turc de la guérilla, celui à blâmer pour les soutiens qui s’amenuisent, et le ralliement des grandes puissances au plan d’autonomie marocain. En perdant son « meilleur ennemi », le Front Polisario se retrouve maintenant dans la position de devoir inventer un rôle au Maroc dans les bouleversements récents en Mauritanie, quitte à mettre en péril les liens qu’il entretient lui-même avec les nouveaux maîtres de Nouakchott…

This "exclusive" report, then, pretends to have information on a secret meeting between the Polisario leadership and Algeria-paid image consultants in a fancy restaurant in New York, where a new and nefarious strategy to tarnish the good name of Morocco was drawn up, presumably whilst consuming large amounts of alcohol and childrens' blood en plein Ramadan. The strategy consists in insinuating that the regime in Rabat is supportive of the recent coup in Mauritania -- something which obviously only a deranged hater of all things Moroccan would do.

This doesn't sound very plausible to begin with, but okay. Now, however, note the photograph that Polisario Confidential magically managed to snap of the secret meeting: Polisario leader Mohamed Abdelaziz poses with one of the consultants, eyes masked with a black stripe. It was filed as "abdelaziz_consultant.jpg," leaving little room to wonder who the guy to the right is: obviously one of the oil-paid Algerian public relations agents.

Unfortunately enough, a lot of the people likely to read Polisario Confidential -- we're not that many -- are also likely to read One Hump or Two, the very funny Western Sahara blog by US university student Will Sommer. That, in turn, means that they are quite likely to recognize the "consultant" as, precisely, Will Sommer. He took this photo of himself and Mohamed Abdelaziz while visiting a reception in Washington last spring with a friend, and posted it as seen to the right (without the eye masking) under the heading "How I met President Abdelaziz," on March 17, 2007.

Priceless! As Will recently wrote, "Whatever Morocco is paying the spies who run Polisario Confidential, it is too much."

As for me, I'm getting just the right amount of Algerian oil millions to be able to afford a Blogger account in support of the UN line on self-determination for the Sahara ... But should a better offer appear, I guess I might yet come to discover the merits of unilateral autonomy. Just saying.

Algerian link dump

2008-09-30T12:29:00.000Z

The elections in Algeria are drawing closer. Some good reading on that and on what's related:

Scenarios for the Presidential Election, Mustafa Saidji, Carnegie. A good, short summary of likely developments.

Algeria's Least Bloody Ramadan, News 24. In your darkest hour, statistics shine a light.

Bouteflika and Civil-Military Relations, Rachid Tlemcani, Carnegie. Another good, brief summary, from last year.

Demilitarizing Algeria, Hugh Roberts, Carnegie. Required reading on Bouteflikaism. (PDF)

Fearsome Lawiza and the Comb-Over That Won't Quit, The Moor Next Door. On Hanoune.

Le Président qui cache la forêt, Le Quotidien d'Oran. The lamentations of an Algerian democrat.

Algeria Curbs Dismay Foreign Investors, Reuters. Foreign ownership restricted to 49%, out of the blue. But who needs a functioning economy while oil prices are high?

Ramadan moubarak!

Preaching pointless ultraviolence to the choir

2008-09-23T01:47:00.000Z

[picture: AQIM LARP]

Abdelmalik Droukdel, proud owner of the local al-Qaida franchise, speaks to the Mauritanian people to explain his point of view, immediately after beheading twelve captured Mauritanian conscripts to prepare the audience:

"Unite around the jihad that is the only alternative power to the apostate regimes that dominate over our lands," Abu Musab Abdul Wadud, leader of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), said in an audio speech posted on Sunday on Islamist militant websites, the SITE Intelligence Group said.
Abdul Wadud blasted the regimes in Mauritania, Algeria and other North African countries, charging that Mauritania has become "a nest of foreign intelligence" topped by Israel's Mossad.
"Mauritania... has become a nest of foreign intelligence, at its forefront the Mossad, and has become a station of crusader colonial ambition," he said, according to a SITE transcript.
"History will continue to mention that this is the first Arab country, outside of the Tawq (Arab nations surrounding Israel), that recognised the state of Israel and exchanged ambassadors with it," he said.

A nest of foreign intelligence? Why of course -- legions stand ready on the dusty streets of Nouakchott, ready to plunge their poisoned imperial daggers into the heart of Islam, as clearly laid out in the Mauritania section of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Yes! And any minute now, Jewish settlers will start pouring into Adrar and the Hodh ... although, hilltops being absent, they will have to erect their cancerous colonial spy-nests at suitable hardscrabble plains, and, well, the lack of trees and such may yet thwart their scheme to turn the city of Nouadhibou into a Black Lodge of cosmopolitan Freemasonry.

Oh well. Thing is there are people who believe this tripe, and a bit more of them than one would like to think. It is important to recall that they, not you, are his target audience. Because, you see, the thing with a terrorist communiqué is not to appeal to the masses, as commonly but erroneously believed: it is to appeal to the fringes. Droukdel's new recruits will be found among young men already deep in his own Islamist-paranoic mindset, not in the comfortably numb political center, and that is why pointing out the sheer craziness of his statement is not really an argument at all.

Especially potent here, of course, is the charge about the Mauritanian government having political connections with Israel -- it being true and all. This is not the place and time to whine about how Washington has shoved a profoundly pointless Israeli embassy down the collective Mauritanian throat as a prerequisite for its aid and support, but, let us just note in passing that it is counterproductive idiocy. It doesn't advance the Israeli-Palestinian conflict one iota, but it does hand Islamist loons the silver bullet of Mauritanian politics.

On the other hand, chopping up surrendered Muslim soldiers during Ramadan is most emphatically not how you win hearts and minds -- not in Mauritania, not elsewhere -- and it will be hard to convince anyone otherwise, no matter how many times you remind them that Mossad rules the world. AQIM, being the bastard child of the GIA, has a long and proud tradition of alienating its own base by senseless violence, and it seems they're still not quite done with it.

Related stuff:

Al-Qaida central on the same topic.
The Moor Next Door: 1, 2.
And I still urge you to read Adrian's piece on Saharan terrorism/rebellion/criminality.
The USA freezes Millennium Change funding because of the coup. That's approximately $400 million lost to Mauritania, or about an entire year's worth of government revenue. Frankly, that's one hell of a whipping for a country this size. However, it is also a double-edged sword, because (1.) Abdelaziz's coup is judged in Mauritania by his capacity to deliver on all the economic stuff he castigated the overthrown Abdellahi for, and while he never stood much of a chance of doing significantly better anyway, this should put a nail in that coffin. On the other hand (2.) the FNDD opposition is highly vulnerable to charges by the junta, that they strenuously deny, that they are inciting foreigners to impose sanctions on the people of Mauritania.
Washington also refuses the new foreign minister a visa, presumably meaning he can no longer lecture at Harvard.
Long interview with Mohammed ould Maouloud, leader of the UFP opposition party (in French). Most interesting is how Maouloud, who is a hardliner within the FNDD, hints at how a compromise could look on their terms:

"Il faut que la junte renonce aux pouvoirs politiques et à ses ambitions politiques et que le président Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi et son gouvernement soient restaurés, ce qui marquera l’échec du putschisme. Par contre nous devons chercher pour le règlement de cette crise militaire, toutes les voies qui s’appliquent sur cette solution entre les partis en cause.

Maintenant il y a la crise politique qui oppose les acteurs politiques, ça c’est le jeu normal de l’institution ; on était dans ce jeu en apparence jusqu’à la fin de la session parlementaire passée. Ceux qui s’opposent au Président de la république avaient tous les moyens constitutionnels de continuer à le combattre ; c’est l’ingérence de l’armée qui a faussé le débat politique et le jeu politique. Si l’armée se retire, en ce moment la controverse politique peut trouver une solution entre les différents protagonistes politiques qui vont se rendre compte qu’il y a eu un tremblement de terre, qu’il y a eu beaucoup de dégâts, qu’il faut restaurer le système démocratique. Dans cette perspective et dans un esprit de responsabilité et de compromis, il serait envisageable d’évaluer toutes les options et de choisir celle qui est la plus avantageuse pour l’union nationale, pour la stabilité du pays et pour le renforcement de la démocratie."

(Short version: if the president is first reinstated, then we can try through normal channels to find a working arrangement between the political currents, including those presently backing the putschists -- implicitly, perhaps including a change in the presidency. But it is unacceptable and in fact impossible to attempt a compromise while the constitutional situation and electoral legitimacy remains suspended by the military.)

Mauritanian soldiers murdered

2008-09-21T13:04:00.000Z

The 12 Mauritanian soldiers snatched by al-Qaida in the recent ambush in Mauritania, have been found -- mutilated and decapitated.

Reuters has more. Note incessant GWOT spin by the junta. Their "we had to oust the president to defeat terrorism" line is so phony as to make your ears hurt, but they're sticking to it with some success.

[thanks to justin & van kaas]

AQIM communiqué, Sep. 17, 2008.

2008-09-18T12:46:00.003Z

This is the statement from al-Qaida in the Maghreb presently circulating in Mauritanian media after the Tourine attack, in full. Translation is mine, so you might need to double-check, done from the Arabic original at Sahara Media:

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Declaration regarding the attack operation of Zouërate in northern Mauritania [1.]

In the name of God and glory to his prophet

The bold Moudjahidin, protectors of a breach in noble Islam, have presented a victory to the faith of God and his prophet, by carrying out a new attack in the city of Zouërate in northern Mauritania against those who obey the Jews and who have turned from God and his prophet, and who have opened the chaste land of the Mourabitoun [2.] to the enemies of Islam and the Muslims and the American unbelievers and their servants, the haters of Islam and its people; and who carried out the arrest and the torture of the steadfast Moudjahidin, and who are loyal to the pig-Jews... [3.]

And by Gods grace, the brigades of Moujahidin following the Emir of the Sahara, Yahia Jouadi, set an ambush for the army of unbelief and apostasy, that managed to take 12 soldiers prisoner, including a commander by the rank of Captain, and to seize a large quantity of equipment and military matériel, including three cross-country cars, while the remainder of Gods enemies escaped, fleeing their failure and defeat.

This has been made possible by God, as the response to the infidel activities of the army of apostasy in Mauritania and its idols, and it will not be the last by the will of God; and to the imprisonment of the Moudjahidin, may God break their chains. [4.]

The al-Qaida Organization in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb
Abdelmalik Droukdal (Abou Mousaab Abdelwadoud)
Ramadan 15, 1429 H.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

[1.] Zouërate is the town closest to Tourine, where the assault happened. It's a mining town of economic importance to Mauritania, nowadays with a significant Sahrawi population who have moved out from the Tindouf refugee camps.
[2.] Meaning Mauritania. The Mourabitoun was an Islamic medieval movement that emerged in Mauritania and went on to found a dynasty in modern-day Morocco; an obvious local role-model for today's jihadists.
[3.] Zing! (But am I getting this right? Arabic: "mouwalaa el-yahoud el-khanazir".)
[4.] Something is grammatically amiss with this whole parapgrah.

The Monty Pythonesque lingo is all theirs.

Also note that the soldiers are alleged to be taken prisoners, not killed as initially reported. This is also what international and Mauritanian media has begun to talk about. It could be based on this statement, but I did read somewhere that army units returning to Tourine could not find bodies or equipment, even while there was blood on the scene. Finally, let's keep in mind that so far this is just something someone posted on a website -- not authenticated as an AQIM statement.

UPDATE: slight correction, and see this.

Adrian and the Emirs

2008-09-18T12:46:00.000Z

Adrian has put up a great walkthrough of the Saharan terrorism circus at Arab Media Shack, which I highly recommend you to read. (I register a slight disagreement in comments, but that doesn't mean I don't think it's an excellent text.) His thesis on Touareg troubles in Niger & Mali, which I haven't quite finished yet, is also really good.

That said, I should admit that I'm not quite à jour with al-Qaida leader struggles. Adrian pointed out that there have been rumors of Mokhtar Belmokhtar stepping back, being replaced by Yahia Jouadi as leader in the south. Now a communiqé supposedly from al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM, ex-GSPC) attributes the recent attack in Mauritania to this latter commander, labeling him the Emir of the Sahara. Either they're split threeways in some amicable division of labor, or Jouadi has moved up front (or some organizationally fuzzy combination of the two); but it seems reasonably clear that Belmokhtar, for whatever reason, is no longer the Emir of AQIM's southern branch. I wish to apologize to Mokhtar Belmokhtar, Yahia Jouadi and Abdelmalek Droukdel, and their families, for any damage or inconvenience my statements may have caused.

Touareg politics unveiled

2008-09-17T15:14:00.000Z

Well, what do you know -- commenter Adrian turns out to have a blog with lots of interesting stuff on the Touareg rebellions in Mali & Niger. He also has a meaty thesis on the whole thing, available in PDF. Read! Learn!

On the Mauritanian al-Qaida strike

2008-09-15T17:44:00.000Z

Here they come!

NOUAKCHOTT, Mauritania (AP) — Suspected al-Qaida militants killed 12 Mauritanian soldiers Monday, two senior officials said. The attack, which came after the terror group promised to avenge the country's recent coup, was the worst suffered by the military in three years.
Assailants ambushed an army unit patrolling the desert in Tourine, about 530 miles north of Nouakchott, a lieutenant-colonel told The Associated Press. The same account also was given by a senior official in the presidency. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media.
About two dozen soldiers in four vehicles were on a routine patrol when their convoy was raked with machine gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades, the lieutenant-colonel said. Three of the vehicles were destroyed, and a fourth managed to return to base with 10 soldiers aboard. Among the dead was the captain who had led the patrol.

1. If the above info checks out, this is the third major operation by jihadis in Mauritania in three years. The previous two were the 2005 assault on the military base at Lemgheiti, which killed 15 soldiers, and the Christmas 2007 murder of a French family. Apart from this, there have been some minor plots and shootouts. Three in three years, not an awesome track record, but by launching full-scale ambushes against the regular army, al-Qaida proves it can muster at least some capacity for real guerrilla warfare, rather than just terrorist bombings.

[picture: zouërate region, northern mauritania]

2. This is in the north of the country, in a desolate Saharan region with, shall we say, somewhat lax standards of law-enforcement. This is in large part a legacy of the Western Sahara conflict, which has effectively deprived Mauritania of whatever control it could plausibly exercise over its long, northern border. The Moroccan berm even cuts through northern Mauritania in the corner north of Bir Mohgrein, and Polisario military units move freely throughout the area with no regard for borders -- and the same goes for civilian Tindouf dwellers, traders, Bedouins, smugglers and others, also from Algeria and Mali. The Nouakchott government has resigned itself to this state of affairs, and securing the border properly won't be done, and can't be done, until the conflict is over. In the meantime, it will be very difficult to apply necessary pressure on al-Qaida/GSPC or similar groups if they manage to implant themselves well enough in the smuggling business, as it would seem they already have. What could help a lot is a formal framework for Algeria-Mauritania-Polisario-Mali policing, since these parties are already on friendly terms with each other, while Morocco is somewhat disconnected from the whole thing (by the berm). But, for political reasons, that wouldn't sit at all well with Rabat -- and one should keep in mind that high army/state officials with all of the above (including both Polisario and Morocco, I am compelled to say) seem to have business interests at stake here.

[picture: a portrait of the terrorist as a young man -- mokhtar belmokhtar]

3. The al-Qaida/GSPC group that is involved here is the southern/Saharan wing that is headed by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a.k.a. Belaaouar (real name Khaled Aboul-Abbas). It consists both of northerners (mainly Algerians, but also some Moroccans, Libyans and Tunisians) and locals, moving in the tribal border regions straddled by multi-national Touareg and Moors, and it has a fairly distinct identity within the larger GSPC framework. Belmokhtar has had sympathetic contacts with al-Qaida even before the GSPC leadership was accepted as part of the group, but, at the same time, he seems far less dedicated to spectacular terrorist stunts thas his colleagues/superiors up in the Kabylie. One example is the two kidnapped German tourists, who were picked up in Tunisia and spirited into the Algerian south in February this year. They haven't been killed (yet) and the kidnappers so far seem intent on extracting a high ransom rather than proving their gruesome political point. In fact, Belmokhtar's activities are mostly centered on smuggling and taxing trade routes, and opinions differ on whether he's really a radical Islamist terrorist or a cynical crime baron. I'd argue they aren't mutually exclusive. (Related: Mali's Touareg uprising & US military assistance.)

[picture: belmokhtar's boys]

4. As you can see above (and in an unquoted later segment of the AP dispatch), there are claims that al-Qaida has decided to launch this holy war "in retaliation" for the coup d'état in Mauritania in August. This, now apparently an established fact for the Associated Press, is solely based on how someone at Reuters interpreted a communiqué issued by al-Qaida right after the coup, in which they made the usual calls for overthrowing local regimes, including that recently established in Mauritania. The timing & framing was of course intentional, and they did get a lot of headlines by latching on to the news of the coup, but there was absolutely nothing new about them wanting to destroy an "infidel" regime in Mauritania. The 2005 attack on Lemgheiti, which Belmokhtar claimed responsibility for, predates both of Gen. Mohamed ould Abdelaziz's two coups (Aug. 2005, Aug 2008), and so does the flood of blood-curling anti-regime communiqués by al-Qaida and their affiliates. Their so-called Jihad has nothing to do with who rules Nouakchott. Still, the new Mauritanian regime will not be eager to correct this, since they are pinning their hopes of international recognition following the coup on a claim to be fighting Islamism. That so many manage to miss this transparent trick, and insist on taking both putschists and jihadists at their word, is far beyond gullible: it is completely failed journalism.

Christopher W. S. Ross new UN special rep for W. Sahara

2008-09-10T09:10:00.000Z

A new special representative of the UN secretary-general has been appointed to follow Peter van Walsum. Not Warren Christopher, but Christopher W. S. Ross, a former ambassador to Algeria 1988-1991, i.e. the period of the cease-fire agreement and the Moroccan-Algerian thaw.

Sounds like a highly qualified guy, who, according to his bio, is an Arabic speaker with loads of Maghreb experience -- but it remains a mystery what the otherwise very appropriate initials W. S. stand for.

Free Mohamed Erraji!

2008-09-09T00:02:00.000Z

Another Moroccan blogger has been sentenced to jail. This time, an article criticizing King Mohammed VI's social policies landed Mohamed Erraji two years in prison within 72 hours of it being posted online.

As you can see to the left, there's already a support website. Further, Larbi, the dean of Moroccan blogdom, has a post up on the matter and a French translation of the crime itself, while the invaluable crew at Global Voices has already translated it into English.

Enjoy, and please ensure maximum spread!

UPDATE: Mohamed Erraji freed, Sep. 17, 2008.

Warren Christopher next UN rep for Western Sahara?

2008-09-08T21:47:00.001Z

UPDATE: No. Please ignore this whole post.

Peter van Walsum's mandate as the special representative of the UN secretary-general for Western Sahara (now: SRSG) has, as you know, recently ended. It was not prolonged, most likely because of the protests from the Polisario Front over his politically charged statements on the realism, or lack thereof, of demanding independence for the Western Sahara.

So the speculation begins as to who will succeed him. I've previously opined that the Manhasset negotiations process, or any replacement for it, will not restart seriously -- to the extent it ever was serious -- until the issues of presidential succession in the US, and maybe Algeria, are settled. (In Algeria, it seems to have come a long way already.) This is because the US is the only major power truly involved in Western Sahara that may realistically change or vary its policy on the issue.

Of the Security Council's five permanent members, France is also mightily into the Maghreb, but so inflexibly pro-Moroccan on Western Sahara that it cannot really exert influence over developments there (the general idea being that this position buys influence with Morocco in other fields, plus that Paris doesn't want to see an independent Western Sahara pop up as a Spanish-Algerian fiefdom right in their North African heartland). The UK keeps out or follows Washington's lead, coupled with some nods to rump-EU sensibilities. China is strictly uninvolved, so far, while Russia occasionally leans on the others on behalf of its military client Algeria, but also doesn't want to spoil relations with Morocco, and so generally avoids getting snared in this pointless tangle. But the US has, in fact, recently changed its policies quite drastically, by coming out in favor of Morocco's bid to secure the territory as an autonomous province without the required self-determination vote. It is a Bush-era policy, or even late Bush-era policy, which is somewhat likely but not certain to stick with a new president (and which, in its timing, could perhaps also be a bit arms sales-related). Condoleezza Rice's curiously low-key statements when visiting Rabat recently may well have been a lame duck president's way of servicing the next occupant of the White House: when asked a straightforward question, she pointedly avoided repeating Bush's glowing endorsement of Morocco's position, content instead to note that there are some "good ideas on the table."

Anyway, that actual, meaningful negotiations will have to wait a bit doesn't mean that a SRSG can't be appointed in beforehand -- either as a transitory character, or to create a running start for whatever policies will be pursued once the US has set its course. Peter van Walsum, despite his highly creative use of that unenviable position, seems to have been intended mainly as the first kind of SRSG: he was a retirement-age Dutch diplomat of little international stature, signalling that it wasn't quite time to go all in for a solution (Rabat, for once, arguing otherwise...). His predecessor James Baker was the exact opposite: a US heavyweight who spent considerable energy and time (1997-2004) on the issue, with visible White House backing. That lasted until 2004, when Bush suddenly, for reasons best known to those responsible, wrong-footed him by endorsing Morocco's autonomy proposal over his laboriously negotiated and fully UN-backed plan, causing him to resign and eventually sending the UN process into the diplomatic trainwreck that is Manhasset.

Now our darling UN-monitors at Inner City Press report that former US Secretary of State Warren Christopher has been mentioned as a possible successor to van Walsum. This, if true, is potentially very interesting: a sort of James Baker redux.

Christopher has been involved with US foreign policy since the Lyndon B. Johnson years, and played a major role in both the Carter and Clinton administrations, culminating with him serving as secretary of state between 1993 and 1997. The first thing that strikes you, then, is that he is really too big a fish to want to swim in the Western Sahara pond, especially if there's going to be a Democrat in the White House, which doesn't look at all unlikely. On the other hand, so was Baker, and this slightly probability-reducing aspect of the idea is precisely what makes it significant: if he is appointed, it ought to mean something. (But that also means it could be just a malicious rumor spawned by intra-Democratic pre-presidency jockeying.)

We should note that his time in the State Department has given Christopher a little bit of a history with Western Sahara. He was seriously involved as early as during the Carter administration, eg. as an old copy of Time Magazine notes, being sent to Rabat to negotiate arms sales with King Hassan II and push him towards a compromise solution. (Reagan later removed all restrictions on arming Morocco, as well as the interest in crafting compromises; the latter but not the former returned under Bush Sr.)

But the issue here is not really the background or opinions of Warren Christopher. The question at hand is whether he -- should be be appointed to the post -- will have US backing for forcing, really forcing, one or all of the parties to the conflict to comply with either some experimental formula on shared sovereignty, or a let's-do-it-and-be-done-with-it referendum. The Clinton presidency squandered the crucial early nineties by letting Morocco (and also occasionally Polisario) have its way and stall the referendum process on technicalities or by demanding changes to accepted protocol, without coming down on either side of the fence. I do not believe, as does The New Internationalist, that this was necessarily due to any pro- or anti-Moroccanness of either Baker or Christopher or Albright:

The reason things have been unlocked in Western Sahara is nothing to do with the justness of the cause and everything to do with a change in the US State Department. When Bill Clinton won the White House it was actually a setback for Polisario because his Secretary of State Warren Christopher took a more pro-Moroccan line than had his Republican predecessor [i.e. James Baker]. Western Sahara is still beneath President Clinton’s notice but his appointment of Madeleine Albright as Secretary of State for his second term has had an immediate impact in North Africa. Albright was formerly US Ambassador to the United Nations and thus cares about the disrepute into which the Western Sahara fiasco had brought the international organization. Her former post may also have lent her some sensitivity on the issue – when Morocco’s Crown Prince Sidi Muhammad visited Washington recently it is rumoured that she refused to meet him.

One does have to admit that the 1993-1997 period, Christopher's era in the State Department, was sort of a low point for the mission in Western Sahara. The reason, presumably, was priorities more than anything else, and certainly more than any affinities for either Alawi monarchs or Bedouin guerrillas. (Let us also note in passing that Madeleine Albright is on record [PDF] as supporting Morocco, and -- yes, these are her words -- it's "historic initiative" to "giv[e] the people of the Western Sahara a true voice in their future through the full benefits of autonomy as presented by Morocco" which has "courageously shown its leadership." Perhaps she was simply too busy writing hymns to the Moroccan monarchy to meet the crown prince in 1997?)

To function properly, the Western Sahara peace process, let it be so called, needs active involvement and a strong man/woman on top of the issue, with White House backing -- and that's a bare minimum. This was the case under Bush Sr, and again in the later Clinton years. Under Bush Jr, it has been somewhat different. Baker's mission carried on after the 2000 elections, seemingly with the same level of support as before -- big Republican guy, close to the Bush family. Then policy abruptly shifted in about 2004 , undoing his work since 1997 in less than a year. The issue, then, is not primarily who is appointed the next SRSG, though a high-level American would certainly signify renewed Washington interest. Rather, keep your eyes on the State Department, and, more immediately, the White House...

Rice in Rabat

2008-09-08T12:34:00.000Z

Hm.

QUESTION (Via interpreter): President Bush confirmed in a recent message sent to His Majesty, the King, that the Moroccan proposal for the Sahara autonomy is an ideal proposal. Does Washington maintain this position, and would Washington maintain it after the next November elections? Thank you.
SECRETARY RICE: (Inaudible) to speak to what we are going to try to do ahead. We are looking for a mutually agreed solution to this problem. It is time that it be resolved. We believe it is extremely important for Algeria and Morocco to have good relations, to be able to trade, to share information, particularly given some of the challenges that the two face here, in the Maghreb.
And, by the way, that is something that I heard in both capitals, and I heard in Tunisia, and in Libya, as well.
There will be a new round for the solution of the Western Sahara problem. I talked with Secretary General Ban Ki-moon just before I left. We are going to support that round, that mediation. There are good ideas on the table, and there are ways to move forward. We don’t need to start over.
And so, I hope that we can very much move forward and get this resolved.

The junta's new Mauritanian government

2008-09-01T21:22:00.000Z

Prime Minister Moulay ould Mohamed Laghdaf [pictured right], who was appointed by the Haute conseil d'état (HCE) junta, has announced his new government:

Nouakchott, 31 août (AMI) - La Présidence du Haut Conseil d'Etat communique : par décret en date de ce jour et sur proposition du Premier ministre sont nommés :

Ministre de la justice : Amadou Tidjane Bal,
Ministre des Affaires Etrangères et de la Coopération : Mohamed Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou,
Ministre de la Défense Nationale : Mohamed Mahmoud Ould Mohamed Lemine
Ministre de l'Intérieur et de la Décentralisation : Mohamed Ould Maaouya
Ministre des Affaires Economiques et du Développement : Sidi Ould Tah
Minsitre des Finances : Sid'Ahmed Ould Raiss
Ministre de l'Education nationale: Ahmed Ould Bah
Ministre des Affaires Islamiques et de l'Enseignement Originel : Othmane Ould Cheikh Ahmed Aboul Maali
Ministre de la Fonction Publique, de l'Emploi et de la Formation Professionnelle : Hacen Ould Limam Ould Amar Jowda
Ministre de la Santé: Mohamed Abdellahi Ould Siyam
Ministre du Pétrole et de l'Energie : Die Ould Zeine
Ministre des Pêches et de l'Economie Maritime : Hacenna Ould Ely
Ministre du Commerce, de l'Artisanat et du Tourisme : Bamba Ould Dermane
Ministre de l'Habitat, de l'Urbanisme et de l'Aménagement du Territoire : Sy Adama
Ministre du Développement Rural : Messaouda Mint Baham
Ministre de l'Equipement et des Transports : Camara Moussa Seydi Boubou
Ministre de l'Hydraulique et de l'Assainissement: Mohamed Lemine Ould Aboye
Ministre de l'Industrie et des Mines : Mohamed Abdellahi Ould Oudaa
Ministre de la Culture, de la jeunesse et des Sports : Sidi Ould Samba
Ministre de la Communication et des Relations avec le Parlement : Mohamed Ould Mohamed Abderrahmane Ould Moine
Ministre des Affaires Sociales, de l'Enfance et de la Famille : Selama Mint Cheikhna Ould Lemrabott
Ministre Délégué auprès du Premier Ministre chargé de l'Environnement et du Développement Durable : Mohamed Ould Ahmed Salem
Secrétaire d'Etat chargé de la Modernisation de l'Administration et des TICs: Sidi Ould Mayouf
Secrétaire d'Etat chargé des Affaires Maghrébines : Mohamed Abderrahmane Ould Mohamed Ahmed
Secrétaire Général du Gouvernement : Bâ Ousmane
Commissaire aux Droits de l'Homme, à l'Action Humanitaire et aux Relations avec la Société Civile : Mohamed Lemine Ould Dadde
Commissaire à la Sécurité Alimentaire : Mohamed Ould Mohamedou
Commissaire à la Promotion des Investissements : Bâ Houdou

Salient points:

It has approximately one million ministers, since in Mauritania there are just that many vested interests (tribes, business groups, parties, regional bigwigs, foreign-backed puppets, religious families, etcetera) which need to get a slice of the pie, or the whole thing will crumble. Now they can all hire their relatives as expert consultants and help themselves to appropriate portions of the road construction budget, rural development funds or fishery license incomes, and, in return, abstain from causing trouble. This, while not terribly conducive to good governance, is standard practice, and should not be blamed on the junta specifically.
None of the major opposition parties take part, even -- as explained here -- from those that supported the coup. (In fact, four ministers were members of Ahmed ould Daddah's RFD, but they are now expelled.)
There are only four Black Africans as opposed to 18 Arabs, which is a gross racial underrepresentation even by Mauritania's rather unfair standards. Seems a telling sign of junta discomfort: bye bye, attempts to maintain southern support, and hello northern tribal entrenchment.
Foreign Minister Mohamed Mahmoud ould Mohamedou is a sharp, English-speaking Harvard pol-sci doctor, which seems to be just what the junta needs (interview: PDF). Conveniently enough, he's also a member in good standing of the ouled bou Sbaa tribe -- just like the HCE top brass, including Gen. Abdelaziz himself. Sometimes you're just lucky with the genealogy, I guess.
Slight shocker: new Human Rights Minister Mohamed Lemine ould Dedde. He is, or was, the leader of Conscience and Resistance, a leftist intellectual group in the habit of producing lengthy, verbose denounciations of all and sundry (you know the type). The CR has opposed the coup, and now duly expels its leader for collaborating with it.
International reactions are, still, not quite what they hoped for. France: "We consider this decision, like all the measures taken by the military responsibles who have seized power, and in particular the overthrow of the president, to be void of all legitimacy." -- United States: "We are considering personal sanctions against those who are an obstacle to the return of constitutional order. Clearly we could consider individuals named in the government in that group".
As the astute commenters of CRIDEM point out, the name Mohammed or Mahmoud appears 23 times in a list of 22 ministers, and at the start of the holy month of Ramadan that must surely be a sign of something.

Mauritania coup update - II

2008-08-31T13:05:00.000Z

Follow-up from the last installment. Mauritania's post-coup crisis continues to simmer. Among the ingredients, in no particular temporal or consequential order:

1. The Democratic Opposition bloc downgrades its support to the HCE junta. Member parties RFD (of deposed president Abdellahi's electoral rival, Ahmed ould Daddah) and AJD/mr (a Southern Peul group led by Ibrahima Sarr) both refuse to sit in the HCE's government under newly appointed Prime Minister Laghdaf, which is significant: the HCE can do without them, but their pro-democracy credentials (however contrived) represent its best chance for regime legitimacy. The parties seem to have different reasons for their refusals, but the RFD's position is clearly related to Daddah's wish to get guarantees for him becoming president. The Democratic Opposition also counts Saleh ould Hanana's Hatem party (which will participate) and MDD (which will not), but they're not as important as RFD and AJD/mr, both of which represent serious chunks of the political class.

[picture: official flag of the islamic banana republic of mauritania]

Not participating in a government does not mean, of course, that these parties are now in active opposition to the HCE. They cautiously backed the coup from the start, and remain open for discussions with the junta. It could very well be that they're just exploiting the junta's precarious position to try to extract concessions from it. More generally, it seems these former civilian opposition activists are belatedly beginning to realize that a military coup means that the military will be in charge, as opposed to, well, themselves.

A couple of deputies have already defected from the HCE's parliemantary majority, but it's a trickle so far.

2. Apart from this bunch of civilian politicians, the National Front for the Defense of Democracy (FNDD) is still going reasonably strong in its anti-coup activities. It is a mismatched but so far relatively cohesive coalition of president Abdellahi's loyal henchmen from the PNDD/Adil (Cleptocrat), arm in arm with Messoud ould Boulkheïr's APP (Nasserist-Haratine), Mohamed ould Maouloud's UFP (Socialist) and Jamil ould Mansour's Tawassoul party (Ikhwani). Rumors of its impending collapse are not in themselves unlikely, but have so far proven to be greatly exaggerated.

3. Col. Vall is back, again. The leader of the country during the junta-led transition of 2005-2007 has apparently returned from language studies in Ireland (!), and is now likely to insert himself into the political mess somehow. There has been much speculation that he will be the junta's presidential candidate, since he's popular and in uniform (and has familial and tribal ties to the HCE top men), but counter-speculation alleges that he's fallen out with the clique around HCE leader Gen. Abdelaziz. To be followed closely.

4. International reactions remain unforgiving, with France and the USA both being resolutely opposed to the HCE. They are joined by regional power Algeria, and economically influential Gulf states such as Qatar, UAR and Saudi Arabia -- the on/off talk about a trigger for the coup having been some shady Gulfie business deals (eh!) comes to mind again, as does the fact that ex-ex-president ould Tayaa is in exile in Qatar. Morocco, Algeria's regional rival, is the most important regional state to back the HCE, whereas Libya, which has been unsuccessfully meddling in the country's politics for many decades, also seems to have grown somewhat supportive of it. A couple of mostly inconsequential West African states also back the HCE, whereas the other neighbours, Senegal, Mali, and the POLISARIO Front, are all wholly noncommittal. POLISARIO's attitude is particularly interesting, since there has been a constant drip of reveleations about Gen. Abdelaziz's ties to Morocco, which are, to say the least, strong.*

5. Legal, political, and other wrangling continues around the Khattou mint el-Boukhari Foundation, which has become the focal point of accusations of corruption against the deposed president.

6. According to the African Union, the president will be released soon. One can't help wonder in return for what. There has been some speculation about finding him a nice place of exile, but who knows. One also can't help to bear in mind his prime minister, Yehia ould Ahmed el-Waghef, who was released sometime after the coup, but then jailed again after joining the FNDD protests.

Summary: The HCE, Gen. Mohamed ould Abdelaziz & Co. are still firmly in power, which is according to normal Mauritanian coup procedure: holding the military and bureaucracy together is what really matters. However, they are not securely in power, and neither internal nor external resistance has subsided, which is terribly abnormal. If the 2005 coup was a test case to see whether democracy could be brought by military intervention, this one is beginning to look like a test case to see whether firm international condemnation and internal protest is enough to stop a military seizure of power in a small country such as Mauritania. One certainly shouldn't count on it, and it's something of a gamble to bet on, but -- and this is the truly new and interesting part -- you can't quite rule it out either.

Tangentially related: The Moor Next Door has started some laudable research in trying to figure out which is the most popular month for Arab coup d'états. Join in, here.

*) According to some, Gen. ould Abdelaziz was in fact involved in assisting the "Gjijimat affair" last year -- an anti-POLISARIO gathering organized in northern Mauritania by supposed dissident Sahrawis, in parallel with POLISARIO's own Tifariti congress, which got enormous airplay in the Moroccan media. The event was followed by the equally stage-managed entry of these Sahrawis into Morocco-controlled Western Sahara, where they were presented to the Moroccan and international media in several government-organized press conferences as Sahrawi civilians having escaped POLISARIO's clutches after captivity and/or brainwashing, and who were now happy to return to the warm embrace of their king. The problem, of course, was that the "returnees" were not Sahrawi at all, but with a few exceptions all Mauritanian. They were led by Hammada ould Derwich, a shady Mauritanian businessman and former port director in Nouadhibou, who has never lived in Tindouf, never called himself Sahrawi, and was never a member of POLISARIO (even if he is a Rguibi tribal member, like much of POLISARIO's leadership, and has apparently been heavily involved with the trade/smuggling circuit in those parts of the desert). This prompted some angry reactions in Mauritania, where the old ghost of Moroccan expansionism -- Rabat claimed Mauritania in its entirety until 1970 -- was reawakened by the absorption of bona fide Mauritanian citizens as Moroccans. Even in Morocco, where, normally, both regime backers and opposition activists will eagerly gobble up the Saharan Kool-Aid, some raised a skeptical eyebrow.

Give me my robe, put on my crown

2008-08-30T10:32:00.000Z

From the BBC's "Day in Pictures" segment, Aug. 29, 2008:

The Brother Leader, the Guide of the Revolution, Muammar al-Qadhafi, is crowned "King of Kings" in a meeting of African royals convened in the Libyan city of Benghazi.

[thanks justin]

Van Walsum is out

2008-08-28T12:09:00.000Z

Peter van Walsum’s mandate as the personal envoy of the UN secretary-general for Western Sahara has now expired, and it has not been renewed.

POLISARIO’s refusal to negotiate under his supervision, and their stalling techniques, have had effect, and Morocco's autonomy proposal now loses its most important ally. Serious negotiations are not realistically going to resume until the presidential issues in the USA, and perhaps Algeria, have been settled; it's an open question whether or when a new non-temporary envoy will be appointed before that.

Van Walsum fires a parting shot against POLISARIO in El País, similar to earlier ones. It is available in English at the newspaper’s website.

The Maghreb Olympics 2008

2008-08-24T19:22:00.000Z

In case you were wondering, among the Maghreb states, Tunisia won the Olympics 2008, with one gold medal, and Algeria and Morocco ended in exactly the same spot (of course), with one silver and one bronze each. Libya and Mauritania also had the same result: 0. (Full ranking here.)

Security Council condemns Mauritania's coup

2008-08-19T22:37:00.000Z

Says the UN Security Council in its Presidential Statement S/PRST /2008/30, August 19, 2008:

- The Security Council condemns the Mauritanian military’s overthrow of the democratically elected Government of Mauritania and welcomes the statements condemning the coup by the African Union, European Union and other members of the international community.
- The Security Council opposes any attempts to change Governments through unconstitutional means.
- The Security Council condemns the actions of the State Council, in particular its move to seize the powers of the presidency.
- The Security Council demands the immediate release of President Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdellahi and the restoration of the legitimate, constitutional, democratic institutions immediately.
- The Security Council recognizes the important role played by the African Union as well as the support of regional and international partners, including the United Nations Secretary-General through his Special Representative for West Africa, Said Djinnit, and calls on all to assist in restoring constitutional order in Mauritania.
- The Security Council will monitor developments in this situation.

Strong statement, but was that all they could muster with, supposedly, complete US, UK and French backing? A presidential statement is all good and well, but it's no resolution. See also Reuters and Inner City Press.

Murders, plots and friendly hugs

2008-08-19T21:10:00.001Z

French police has reopened investigations into the death of Ali Mecili, an activist in the appropriately named Algerian opposition party FFS, who was assassinated in 1987. It lacks the extraordinary symbolic power and regime-shaking potential of the ben Barka murder in Morocco, but is otherwise similar and pretty important still: the prime suspect, a high-ranking official in the Algerian foreign ministry, has been arrested. (If Francophone, do read this interview with FFS's legendary leader Hocine Aït Ahmed.)

And while on Algerian murder plots, did Abdelhaqq Laayada, former leader of the GIA terrorist group, just say he was invited to the funeral of Smaïl Lamari, the recently deceased security service strongman? And that he met the éradicateur all star team there, and exchanged hugs and kisses? Oh.

Well, indicative of conspiracy or not, it's also illustrative of the curiously tiny, amoral and supercharged world of the Algerian elite. They massacre each other, then have tea together to talk it over, then switch sides, and then the knives are out again: the Algerian equivalent of an election cycle.

[picture: ali mecili, 1920-1987]

Suicide bomber kills 43 in Algeria

2008-08-19T20:38:00.000Z

Suicide blast against police recruits in the Algerian town of Issera, close to Boumerdès, kills 43, or something like that. May be the bloodiest single attack since the massacres in the 1990s, although competition is stiff from the GSPC/al-Qaida blasts in December 2007. Not much more to say except this will keep happening for quite some time more -- hopefully, rarely -- and Algeria is going to have to normalize its political climate best it can under these circumstances.

AFP: 43 killed in attack on Algerian police school.
BBC: Bombing kills dozens in Algeria.
Reuters: Algerian Islamist calls on rebels to lay down arms. (Short: Hattab encore.)
APS: Le gouvernement condamne vigoureusement l'attentat des Issers (Boumerdès)
The Canadian Press: A look at the increasingly deadly insurgent attacks in Algeria.

Also see the post over at Poly-Ticks, which discusses the same Jamestown analysis of the state of al-Qaida in the Maghreb, as I brought up here.

Carnegie on the Mauritanian coup

2008-08-18T22:05:00.001Z

The Carnegie Endowment has whipped together a policy brief on the military coup in Mauritania. Result: not great. It not only fails to bring anything new to the table, but also more or less buys into the junta's war-on-terror-spin, and misses the truly interesting aspects of this coup, that distinguish it from the 2005 one: an unexpectedly strong international condemnation and unprecedented (if now weakening) internal opposition. Further, somewhat sloppy research, and it overlooks the origin of the whole affair: the long, intense army/president rivalry that gradually pushed all other politics aside, starting this spring. Examples:

Earlier last week 48 MPs quit following a vote of noconfidence. [1] The parliamentary deserters—believed to be supported by the coup leaders—were at odds with the Abdallahi government over mounting corruption allegations and perceived linkages to the Taya regime.Some analysis has suggested that the coup leaders’ closeness to the parliamentary deserters likely spurred Abdallahi to fire the generals in the first place. [2]

1. No. A motion of no confidence was launched, but no vote took place.
2. Oh, you think their attempt to kill his presidency had something to do with it? I heard the disagreement was about them liking Leno, he sticking up for Letterman.

And:

The suspended U.S. military assistance programs are likely some of the incentives most appealing to the military-dominated State Council. This suggests that Washington possess useful levers with which to encourage the military to move toward elections.

Encourage, huh. There is nothing the junta would like more than to move toward elections, since the whole point of the coup is to undo the last set of polls. That is precisely why most of the rest of the world, including the USA, has warned it not to proceed towards new elections, but instead reinstate all recently elected officials...

Ah well, I shouldn't be too whiny. It's a decent short summary, and gives a welcome reminder of the fragility of Mauritania as a state and a nation. That is something which is perhaps the primary concern of policymakers everywhere (except of course in Mauritania), as reactions to the coup develop.

Full PDF here: Mauritania’s Coup:Domestic Complexities and International Dilemmas, and text copy here.

Court tout court

2008-08-17T01:03:00.000Z

Jacob Mundy strikes again, taking you through the International Court of Justice's landmark 1975 verdict on the sovereignty of the Western Sahara. For those of you who want to know who Western Sahara really belongs to, but are too lazy to read more than the summary of the verdict -- the whole case record is at least quadrilingual, and would fill a modest bookshelf -- now, finally, someone has done it for you.

Did the Sahrawi tribes pay tribute to and pray in the name of the Moroccan sultan? Did he appoint their leaders and issue decrees that they followed? Did Hassan I visit his loyal subjects in the Moroccan Sahara in 1882? Did surrounding nations ever recognize Moroccan rule in today's Western Sahara, before Morocco charged in guns blazing in 1975? Or was the territory simply unowned desert, no-one there, up for grabs? And, considering the potentials of a Mohammed Abdelaziz vs. Mohammed Abdelaziz showdown, what about the now long-forgotten Mauritanian claim to the territory?

[picture: you shut up, and you stop swiping colonial territories. next!]

All of them interesting questions, which were analyzed in mindnumbing detail by the ICJ judges and various expert panels. A hint to the answer lies in the fact that

The sixteen judges voted 14 to 2 against Morocco and 15 to 1 against Mauritania. In both cases, the dissenting vote was an ad hoc judge appointed by Morocco under a special ICJ rule. Yet in the case of Morocco, the other dissenting voice felt that the Court should have rejected Morocco’s claims more vehemently.

Mundy's full lecture can be found in an English PDF here, and a Spanish translation is available through here. And should you muster the strength, all of the awful rest that the ICJ read and wrote is linked from this post or, directly, here.

Polisario officially asks for new mediator

2008-08-16T19:00:00.000Z

Front POLISARIO's Secretary-General Mohamed Abdelaziz now officially demands Peter van Walsum's replacement as mediator, in a letter to the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon.

Full text here, and earlier speculation here.

Meanwhile, in Algeria...

2008-08-14T23:00:00.000Z

Coups may have upset life in Mauritania, but elsewhere in North Africa, it's about the same. In Liberté Dilem, Algeria's most loved and jailed political cartoonist, riffs off of the arrest of hunger-striking teachers that tried to demonstrate outside Bouteflika's office. Unfortunately, all demonstrations are banned under the emergency laws in Algeria for, you know, anti-terrorist purposes. (Click to enlarge.)

Nobody loves you

2008-08-14T01:49:00.000Z

Memo to Gen. Mohamed ould Abdelaziz: next coup should wait until after France leaves the rotating EU presidency.

Mauritania : the European Union warns the military junta of the serious risk of isolation in the international arena (August 13, 2008)

The European Union renews in the strongest terms its condemnation of the coup which took place in Mauritania on 6 August 2008. It considers the emergency measures taken by the military leaders who seized power, measures confirmed by the Order of 11 August 2008, in particular that relieving the President of the Republic of his duties, to be completely unlawful.

The European Union warns the military junta of the serious risk of the country’s long-term isolation in the international arena.

It urges the junta to restore the institutional framework that existed before 6 August and calls on it to cooperate immediately with the international community to that end. It renews its support for the efforts made along that path by the African Union in particular. The European Union stands ready to contribute to a solution for the current institutional crisis through dialogue.

Meanwhile, the Algerians have finally taken some sort of a stand on the issue. Their arch-foe Morocco kept a careful silence from official channels but allowed the regime outlet Le Matin to express near-orgasmic happiness over the coup, so while official ambiguity reigns, the Palace's position seems clear. And like clockwork, Algiers now pops up in the opposite trench. First, President Bouteflika snubbed Gen. ould Abdelaziz's envoy, leaving him instead to his minister for Maghrebi and African affairs, Abdelkader Messahel. The unreadably official El Moudjahid quotes a Foreign Ministry statement (not online) as saying that Messahel conveyed to the Mauritanian envoy his support for the African Union's expulsion of Mauritania, and, with a perfect poker face, "reiterated, on this occasion, the constant position of Algeria which condemns changes of power in violation of constitutional rules." He doesn't seem to have said anything explicit about putting President Abdellahi back in place, so there's still enough room to backtrack. Still, a clear enough rejection of the coup.

So, while the junta is settling in and striking roots in Mauritania, the international scene looks unpromising, despite the apparent support from Rabat. Algeria, France, the EU, and the USA are now all aligned against Morocco on this one.

Two actors of some importance remain uncommitted: Senegal, with weighty influence in southern Mauritania, and the Polisario Front, which matters in the north. After Algeria took its stance, Polisario could very well follow, but the tribe-and-trade mesh between Tindouf and northern Mauritania is so tight that they may also prefer to shut up and stay out of it for as long as Mauritania's position on W. Sahara is not in danger. Senegal: well, there, like in Tindouf, realistic appraisals about who will rule Nouakchott in the future should determine policy, but Paris's position must matter. Interesting setup.

UPDATE: More on TMND. It appears that Gen. Mohammed ould Ghazouani, the second-biggest fish of the junta, was part of the delegation to Algeria, but the putschists deny having been snubbed by Boutef. Also, Yacine el-Mansouri, boss of Morocco's secret police, has been on an official visit to the junta -- the first by any state. Mauritanian press notes that this constitutes de facto recognition, sort of, while Moroccan papers prefer to note that he was presented with the release of jailed Prime Minister el-Wagf as a reward. It's that famous Moorish hospitality: nobody leaves Nouakchott without a gift-wrapped political prisoner.

Mauritania coup update

2008-08-12T22:48:00.001Z

The Mauritanian coup has been swamped in Olympics and South Ossetia coverage, but there hasn't been a terrible lot to report anyway. Some stuff worth mentioning, in no particular order, is:

[picture: trying out the new election ballots]

Al-Qaida, in its Algerian/North African apparition, has tried to piggyback on the international media confusion surrounding the coup by calling for Mauritania's transformation into an Islamic Emirate, which sure enough got them some headlines (and created a philosophical problem). But we already knew they wanted that, didn't we? The only real importance of it, is that their press statements have given Gen. Abdelaziz & Co. an excellent opportunity to do their Algerian éradicateur impression again, which is perhaps very important, since they -- for lack of proper ideological reasons -- now seem determined to frame the coup to Westerners as a defensive strike against the Moslem Ayrab menace. The wildly unconvincing argument appears to be that Abdellahi's decision to allow the local Muslim Brotherhood a single pro forma seat in the cabinet makes him the local equivalent of Mulla Omar. Whether the stupid people of the world are buying this horseshit or not is hard to tell, since they're obviously busy taking one side or another in South Ossetia. (For the arguments advanced by the junta inside Mauritania, which make precious little mention of Islamism, see eg. here.)

Race relations: The Saudi pan-Arab paper al-Sharq al-Awsat reports that Abdellahi had plans to organize a tribunal to try people implicated in ethnic cleansing and other racist violence against southern Mauritanian peoples (primarily the Peul minority, but also others), connected to as the gruesome "1989 events," and that this was a trigger cause for the coup. As far as I know, the president had said absolutely nothing about such plans, and while he was active in bringing back 1989 refugees, he seemed to want to sweep the sensitive issues of criminal responsibility and race/power-relations under the carpet -- and probably, no one seriously expected him to do otherwise. Still, the anonymous pro-Abdelaziz source in the article seems to say that Abdellahi planned to use such tribunals as a way of purging the military, and that makes it sound more likely. Whatever the case, the most radical Black nationalist group, the exiled former guerrillas of FLAM, has firmly condemned the coup, and if I'm not misinformed, their relations with Abdellahi had been thawing. Three observations: 1. If this turns out to be true, Abdellahi could become wildly popular with the Black African southern community for doing what no other Moorish leader have even hinted at doing before him, and the putschists would suffer the opposite reaction; 2. He would become correspondingly unpopular in radical Arab nationalist circles and racist groups among the Moorish majority. It's entirely possible that this version is put out by the Abdelaziz gang precisely to rally those groups -- strong in the military -- to the junta's side, not to mention to make everyone with blood on their hands from past persecution step away from Abdellahi; 3. So far, it's way too vague for us to have any reason to think it true, and especially the claims that it would be an international tribunal "like Darfur" sound a bit too much.

Prisoners released: Prime Minister Yahia ould Ahmed el-Wagf has been released, along with other imprisoned Abdellahi cronies, and they immediately got to work organizing protest demonstrations. Clearly, international pressure and attention -- as puny as it has been -- is hugely important here. The president himself stays locked up, however; my guess is they'll want to shunt him off into exile somewhere sooner or later.

International reactions are still pretty stiff, and France takes point, but they're far from activist. With water polo, Ossetian separatism and other hot topics dominating the airwaves right now, there's a high risk of the initial outcry trailing off into a mumble, but it doesn't seem to have happened just yet. Two things are important: 1. Gen. Abdelaziz's talk about elections is now widely rejected, and 2. No one seems inclined to sabre-rattling. Interestingly, oil companies and others who tend to be pretty sober in their estimations seem untroubled by the whole affair. On the other hand, oil & mineral extraction would probably go on whoever is in charge, since the primary reason for wanting to be in charge is to get to skim the profits. Only serious instability would affect the business side of that. As for regional reactions, the expected suspension from the African Union hit on Saturday, whereas the Arab Maghreb Union's mission, sent by the Brother Leader of the Revolution, and the Arab League, both seem rather less interested in taking an anti-coup stand. No shocker. The Moor Next Door has some very interesting gossip on Morocco's position, and has been pondering the views of Algeria and Morocco in other posts too.

Internal reactions, well, all sorts. Assemblée nationale speaker Messoud ould Boulkheïr (sort of a Jumblatt-John Brown combo, if you can imagine it) has said he recognizes no other president than Sidi Mohamed ould el-Cheikh Abdellahi and will work against new elections. On the other hand, 67 out of 95 parliamentarians say they disagree, whether that means they actively back Gen. Abdelaziz or just don't want to be seen supporting his opponents. This seems to show that the junta has expanded its (highly opportunistic) support from the original 48 or so parliamentarians that the army managed to rally before the coup. That, in turn, is perhaps indicative of Mauritanian expectations about the junta's future, even if it is probably even more reflective of the parliamentarians' view of their situation in the present. Also importantly, the High State Council -- yes, that's the junta, if you aren't paying attention -- has added another top soldier to its ranks, and one that had been appointed by Abdellahi as the supposedly loyal replacement for HCE core member Félix Négri at that. I have a very hard time to see how the army could muster a counter-coup now that virtually the entire military elite has taken a seat on the junta, unless a revolt emerges from the lower ranks or the new regime's situation suddenly deteriorates enough due to eg. international pressure to split it apart again. Both things, at present, seem unlikely, although there's at least the chance of the latter happening.

General Vall, the 2005 putsch frontman, is back in Mauritania, or he isn't: a great unknown. Wherever he is, he's keeping his mouth shut, but, improbably enough, all agree that he was until just recently studying English in Ireland. Some agree that he may run for president supported by the military this time, and some others agree that he may not. When just guessing, I tend to believe he isn't in an important position now, nor will he be, or the army would have started sending signals to that effect already. Media handling hasn't been subtle.

The elections issue continues to spread confusion. Former opposition figure Ahmed ould Daddah still backs the coup, clearly hoping to be seated as president, whereas Gen. Abdelaziz hints that he could himself take the presidency in elections, and then immediately denies having said it. Abdellahi's supporters refuse to consider holding new elections at all, and the international community largely backs this position, having approved the last round of votes in which Abdellahi was elected.

-- -- --

Much of the above was brought to my attention by Hannes, Kal, van Kaas, E. M, and others, to whom thanks are due. For more, I direct you to the tremendous coverage on The Moor Next Door. Then check out The Arabist's post on the subject, if you haven't seen it, and Larbi's take on the pro-coup Le Matin editorial. Also, Magharebia investigates Tunisian public opinion on the coup (and on Mauritania's Olympic effort), and Jeune Afrique has a good summary of the coup, and an interesting interview with Gen. Abdelaziz. Here in PDF.

UPDATE: here.

New van Walsum interview

2008-08-12T22:41:00.000Z

Like the Dutch one, but in Spanish:

The Polisario, which is seeking a referendum on self-determination for the former Spanish colony, which was annexed by Morocco in 1975, has "international law on its side," [the United Nations'] mediator Peter van Walsum, a Dutch diplomat, told the newspaper El Pais.
"But the Security Council is not ready to exercise its authority ... and impose it," said the UN secretary general's envoy on the Western Sahara.
The UN Security Council "must respect international law, but it must also take into account the reality on the ground," as "30 years of weighty legal arguments of the Polisario have had no effect," van Walsum said.
In these circumstances, "the independence of the Western Sahara is not an achievable objective."

That was AFP. Full text in Spanish here .

Bye, Claudius

2008-08-12T21:57:00.000Z

Away for a few days, and sad to hear upon my return that Mahmoud Darwish has passed away. Not only sad, because he was a great poet, but because of the larger poeto-political implications: behold the ghastly prospect of a Nobel prize for Adonis.

Sarko lays down the law

2008-08-08T01:49:00.000Z

After some initial hesitation and bad faith on my part, France has now cleared away all lingering doubt about its rejection of the coup in Mauritania.

President Sarkozy has issued a statement surpassing everyone else in raw militancy, saying that France "totally rejects" the coup, that the "legitimate president" Abdellahi must be released as of right now, and that any new elections would be illegitimate. He even threatens the putschists with unspecified actions to be taken against them, in the "hypothetical case that a restoration of constitutional legality isn't rapidly ensured".

That's not a rejection, that's a commitment. This could very well be the beginning of the end for Gen. ould Abdelaziz and his junta.

France against, Morocco for?

2008-08-07T13:42:00.000Z

Apparently, France has raised its tone and declared that it refuses to recognize the new High State Council in Mauritania; it also demands the release of all imprisoned officials (including the president). Very important. Somewhat less important, but still, Russia also condemns.

[picture: they take the expression "banana republic" very seriously]

On the other hand, for the first time a neighbouring country weighs in, with Morocco seemingly coming out in favor of the coup. Independent papers seem mostly unhappy about it, but an editorial in the semi-official Le Matin du Sahara et du Maghreb describes the Mauritanian putschists as "patriots attached to the national unity of their country and its stability" and calls the coup a "nationalist and patriotic protest movement" by officers "deceived" by president Abdellahi's "ungratefulness"; and it says these same patriots can count on Morocco. A news piece in the same paper reports that Mauritanians took to the streets in support of the military, which is something not reported by any other media (although several have reported tiny protests, and that major junta-staged demonstrations are planned for today). Le Matin is not strictly an official source, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs remains quiet, but it seems unthinkable that it would take such a radical position without green light from the Palace. Perhaps those years of schooling in the Moroccan military academy in Meknès for Gen. ould Abdelaziz do mean something after all?

Will be interesting to see Algeria's reaction. The independent press seems generally upset about the whole thing, but so far absolutely nothing from the government (editorialists at the dreary state mouthpiece El Moudjahid are busy praising Bouteflika's investment trips in Algerian provinces) and Polisario also keeps mum. As for Senegal, can't find anything.

In Mauritania, a Front national pour la défense de la démocratie is being formed to oppose the coup, but apparently grouping only civilian parties, not officers: PNDD/Adil, RNRD/Tawassoul, UFP and APP. Respectively: Adil is the deposed president's party of technocrats and corrupt el-Tayaa regime insiders -- less icky now, as most of the latter have defected to the junta; Tawassoul is a reformist-Islamist local branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, led by Djemil ould Mansour; UFP is a leftist, longstanding opposition party with a strong anti-militarist bent, led by Mohammed ould Maouloud; and APP is Messoud ould Boulkheïr's party, with its base in the Haratine slave emancipation movement. Notable for its absence is the RFD of presidential second-finisher Ahmed ould Daddah, the largest opposition party, which seems to support the coup.

And we end on a stray thought: what could come to prove significant is the way the junta has begun phrasing its takeover in anti-terrorist and anti-Islamist terms, as an act of regime preservation in the face of the Islamist menace. Clearly, they're not gunning for support among Arabs or even Mauritanians; equally clearly, they want the US and France on board.

Second time as farce

2008-08-07T12:05:00.000Z

Let's repeat something catchy that Hannes said:

The question is whether there are still forces in the military that prepare resistance. I heard the coup was not fully planned since the president's actions came as a surprise for the generals. However there hasn't been any activity this night. We'll see, but one thing is for sure: The entire time democracy in Mauritania was no more than a farce. And this military putsch is an utter mockery.

About military units still preparing resistance, I wouldn't know of course, but it seems unlikely they could do much, when virtually the entire army top brass is on the junta. Perhaps regional commanders, but even that strikes me as a long shot unless the junta starts to stumble seriously.

[picture: my elite troops did what?]

The part about the coup not being fully planned, however, rings very true. The whole thing smacks of amateurishness, which is surprising considering that ould Abdelaziz has now been doing junta politics for the larger part of his life. The takeover itself seems to have been well-organized and quickly effected, but after that, it's been total confusion so far. First, you have the curious affair of the State Council, the civilian component of which melted away even before it could be installed. Then the lack of effort to produce a credible explanation: the putschists must have understood that the world would not look as forgivingly on a coup against the Arab world's only democratically elected government, such as it was, as it did on a coup against a military dictator of 21 years, back in 2005. Instead, the State Council has produced nothing to sell its coup, focusing instead on revoking the presidential decree that triggered it, i.e. publicly admitting that the coup is only about saving their own sorry asses.

The self-proclaimed head of state, Gen. Mohamed ould Abdelaziz, is now doing damage control, being out in the media proclaiming that it wasn't a coup at all -- he says he was simply forced to put things back on the 2005 track, after the president had taken improper measures (such as firing him) that would harm Mauritania's war on terror. He also says the state of law will be preserved, parliament will remain in place and working, freedom of speech will be protected, and so on. Even the last government of President Abdellahi can stay in place -- although without the arrested Prime Minister el-Wagf and his minister of interior. He promises a transition period of three -- no, six, no wait, three -- months during and after which all will be swell.

This does not look like a man with a plan, if you ask me. Still, that doesn't mean he won't be able to sit out the crisis and clear things up. He knows this stuff, he really does, and if the home front stays reasonably stable, and if the international community lets this pass -- this is the big if, with powerbroker France keeping a pointedly low tone in its condemnations, but most everybody else up in arms for the time being -- he will be fine. Then he can do a rerun of the 2005-2007 transition, only minus the claim that it was to install democracy.

Junta falls apart before being created

2008-08-07T12:02:00.000Z

ARSO throws in another list of State Council members in comments, which makes much more sense to me:

Outre son président, le général Ould Abdel Aziz, le Haut conseil d'Etat est composé de dix autres membres: le général Mohamed Ould Cheikh Mohamed Ahmed (chef d'état-major des forces armées), le général Felix Negri (chef d'état-major de la garde nationale), le colonel Ahmed Ould Bekrine (chef d'état-major de la gendarmerie) et le colonel Mohamed Ould Cheikh Elhadi (chef de la Sûreté nationale). Sont également membres du conseil, six hauts gradés: le colonel Ghoulam Ould Mahmoud, le colonel Mohamed Ould Meguett, le colonel Mohamed Ould Mohamed Z'Nagui, le colonel Dia Adama Omar, le colonel Hennoune Ould Sidi et le colonel Ahmedou Bamba Ould Baya.

The first list is still subject to discussion in Mauritanian media. Taqadoumy reports that Messoud ould Boulkheïr and Ba Mamadou both refuse to sit on it, while Ahmed ould Daddah is rumored to have set conditions that no member of the army would run (against him) in the upcoming presidential elections -- this may be an attempt to further sap his credibility, but I think that would be giving the junta credit for more tactical skill than it has so far shown. In the end, the military couldn't get a credible civilian component to its junta, the only ones willing to sit on it being their own sockpuppets, and so they appear to have settled for the all-army version reported by ARSO above -- Taqadoumy confirms this list. It will be called the High State Council, and perhaps the similarity to the Algerian HCE of 1992 is not unintended.

About Daddah, Hannes in Mauritania -- who, thankfully, appears to be alive and well -- has this to say:

this is so ridiculous. quite frankly speaking daddah has lost all his credibility now. again he is (excuse my language) being the military's bitch. can I already bet on a president? Ely, who else. (1) He's not "officially" involved in the putsch. (2) People love him (3) He's Abdelaziz's cousin. Any questions.
I also love the official statement of France. While everyone (even Nigeria, hehe) is demanding constitutional and democratic conditions, France demands stability. Many voices say their involved.
Other than that, I feel that many people are upset. The question is whether there are still forces in the military that prepare resistance. I heard the coup was not fully planned since the president's actions came as a surprise for the generals. However there hasn't been any activity this night.
We'll see, but one thing is for sure: The entire time democracy in Mauritania was no more than a farce. And this military putsch is an utter mockery.

Ely being Col. Ely ould Mohammed Vall, the public face of the last coup. He, on the other hand, is reported by Nouri in comments to be in Ireland taking English classes. Which is just weird enough to be believeable.

Mauritanian junta: list of members

2008-08-07T00:06:00.001Z

CRIDEM and Taqadoumy (referring to al-Jazira) now have a list of members of the new Mauritanian junta (Conseil d'état, or State Council), and it is either shocking or wrong:

• Général Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, Président du Conseil, Chef de l'État ;
• Général Mohamed Ould Ghazouany, chef d'État-major de l'Armé Nationale ;
• Général Félix Négri, chef d'État-major de la Garde Nationale ;
• Colonel Ahmed Ould Bekrine, chef d'État-major de la Gendarmerie Nationale ;
• Colonel Mohamed Ould El Hadi, Directeur Général de la Sureté Nationale ;
• Bâ M'baré, Président du Sénat ;
• Messaoud Ould Boulkheïr, Président de l'Assemblée Nationale ;
• Ahmed Ould Daddah, leader de l'Opposition Démocratique ;
• Abdallahi Ould Ely Salem, Président du Conseil Constitutionnel ;
• Mohamed Aly Cherif, Chef du groupe majoritaire à l'Assemblée Nationale.

Five military men, five civilians. Think they will be voting much?

As for the composition: The names of soldiers are not, as far as I can tell, very surprising. Gen. ould Abdelaziz as boss, flanked by the rest of the top brass. President Abdellahi's attempt to fire these men (except ould el-Hadi) was what triggered the coup.

But the civilians... of course the putschists have civilian support. Their puppeteering of the parliament was a first-rate show. Now, just as expected, some 50 parliamentarians -- the same people who brought down the government, old ould el-Tayaa stooges most of them -- have dutifully stated their support for the military intervention. But:

Messoud ould Boulkheïr: As a leader of the country's Haratine (slave and ex-slave) population, he is a bit at odds with everyone, but still has managed to sit in governments both under and after ould el-Tayaa. But while he seems politically and morally agile enough to make the list, there are serious question marks here. Wasn't he until just now supporting the president? And didn't his APP party "unreservedly condemn" the coup and demand the president's reinstatement? This looks fishy.

Ahmed ould Daddah: This is perhaps a more plausible selection, given his enmity with Abdellahi, but still... a close second-finisher in the presidential elections and with a solid base as opposition leader, is he really about to throw out 15 years of hard-earned dissident cred for a temporary advisory seat on someone else's military junta? Bizarrely enough, that seems to be the case: his RFD party refuses to condemn the coup, instead "taking note" of it and blaming everything on the president.

There must be more to this: dare I guess related to coming candidacies in the elections that the junta just promised to hold in six months...?

Communiqué No. 1 [updated]

2008-08-06T22:06:00.000Z

~~Someone get me a copy of the Mauritanian junta's Communiqué No. 1, pronto. What sort of two-bit putschist would you have to be to organize a coup d'état in 2008 and not put the No. 1 online?~~ UPDATE: Got it. My God, can't you feel the wind of change blowing?

"Le conseil d'Etat sous la présidence du général Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz décrète que le décret de l'ancien président révoquant le chef d'Etat major de l'armée nationale, le chef d'Etat major particulier du président de la République, le chef d'Etat major de la gendarmerie nationale et le chef d'Etat major de la garde nationale, est nul ".

meaning

"The State Council under the chairmanship of General Mohammed ould Abdelaziz has decreed that the decree of the former president revoking the chief of staff of the national army [Gen. ould Ghazouani], the chief of staff of the president [Gen. ould Abdelaziz], the chief of staff of the Gendarmerie [Col. ould Bekrine], and the chief of staff of the National Guard [Gen. Négri] is null and void."

Such verve, such glowing statecraft. If this piece of political art doesn't bring patriotic young Mauritanians out on the streets in support of the revolution, what ever will.

Mohammed ould Abdelaziz: Curriculum Vitae

2008-08-06T21:02:00.000Z

Mauritania's head of the State Council -- the newly installed junta -- was born in Akjoujt in western Mauritania in 1956, into a clan of the ouled bou Sbaa tribe. He joined the army in 1977, aged 21, and was sent to military school in Meknès in Morocco, as were many other officers of his generation -- this was when Mauritania was allied to Morocco in trying to occupy the southern half of Western Sahara from 1975 onwards. The war went badly -- very badly -- and the president fell already in 1978. Unsteady junta rule followed. This meant a rapid turnover of higher officers, and ould Abdelaziz rose through the ranks.

During the ould el-Tayaa dictatorship (1984-2005) he served as head of the elite presidential guard (BASEP), which he founded and organized himself. In 2003, he played a major role in cracking an oppositional coup attempt supported by Baathists and Islamists among others, which led to fighting in Nouakchott; in 2004, he helped strike down another alleged coup.

It was as head of BASEP that he and a number of similarly well-placed co-conspirators seized power in in August 2005, when ould el-Tayaa was out of the country. Another ould bou Sbaa henchman for ould el-Tayaa, Col. Ely ould Mohammed Vall, headed the junta, but ould Abdelaziz stayed (mostly) quiet although his influence was widely felt. Vall seems to have voluntarily left politics after the transition to democracy, but ould Abdelaziz and several others did not. (Lesson: look beyond the front man: then Vall, now Abdelaziz.) The political climate improved greatly, but again, rapid shifts on the power-posts in the army and security establishment ensued, as former putschists and the new-old political class fought it out bureaucratically.

It became clear that ould Abdelaziz was becoming locked in a struggle with the increasingly assertive President Abdellahi -- who the junta had helped get elected in 2007, by mobilizing l'ancien régime in his favor -- and along with a few other officers (Gen. Mohammed ould Ghazouani, Félix Négri, etc) he emerged as the main face of an ever more disgruntled military establishment. Social and economic issues and terrorism helped to aggravate the situation, as well as the president's aloof governing style and corrupt environment, and conspiracy theories about impending coups and intrigues mushroomed. The Abdelaziz-Ghazouani clique put increasing pressure on the president after he dismissed the government of Prime Minister ould Zeidane, and installed a new government headed by one of his personal loyalists, Ahmed ould Yahya el-Wagf; by enlisting parliamentary support, the officers swiftly brought that government down, and the president was weakened.

On the morning of August 6, 2008, almost exactly three years after the 2005 coup d'état, ould Abdelaziz was sacked by the president. He immediately responded by seizing power, cancelling his own dismissal, and ... then what? He seems not too sure himself.

Military coup in Mauritania

2008-08-06T12:04:00.000Z

[picture: gen. mohammed ould abdelaziz, professional putschist]

Breaking:

Mauritanian President Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi was being held under house arrest in the capital Nouakchott after the presidential guard rounded up the country's civilian leadership.

Yeah, that would be General Mohammed ould Abdelaziz in action. Worst fears confirmed: I didn't imagine it would blow up like this, at least not this fast. It appears the president became desperate and tried to sack the generals, who, even more desperately, struck and seized power.

No point in commenting much, until the dust settles, except on three matters:

1. This blog has been tailing the crisis from the outset. No top level of analysis, perhaps, but it is, I believe, the only English-language blog online to have followed the matter [UPDATE: no but almost, see comments]. Click "mauritania" in the tags, or read the "earlier" links from right to left here.

2. Huge thanks to Hannes/HB in Mauritania, who has kept us updated throughout. Now please stay safe and indoors...

[picture: political debate, mauritania-style]

3. Quick analysis, which I may regret: a tragedy for Mauritanian democracy, on the one hand, but that didn't stand much of a chance anyway; but more importantly, a giant setback for the country's broader chances of political development. While President Abdellahi and his cronies aren't exactly angels, Generals Ghazouani and Abdelaziz represent the very worst military-parasitic element of the Mauritanian regime, and their refusal to let the civilian side of the regime settle down in power threatens to undo it completely in the long run. If the last coup, in August 2005, could be met with cautious understanding by the international community, having unseated President ould el-Tayaa, and eventually with praise as it led to a real transformation, this time around it is different. What happened in 2005 was that a military-personal-tribal dictatorship was overthrown and the chance arrived to replace it with a civilian semi-authoritarian structure that respected most democratic norms most of the time, and which made sensible moves towards national reconciliation, refugee return and economic development; not heaven, but infinitely better. This change is now being reversed. The putschists -- even though they are some of the same people as acted in 2005 -- must be condemned and the result of the coup overturned if possible; Mauritania had a golden opportunity to break its vicious circle, and it is now slipping away.

4. [UPDATE] Seems a ~~National~~ State Council has been formed, with Gen. ould Abdelaziz as chairman, and a Communiqué No. 1 has been issued. There can no longer be any doubt about a fully fledged military takeover. First action of the new junta: to revoke the deposed president's dismissal of ould Abdealziz & Co. (Reuters updates continually.)

5. [UPDATE] Former Prime Minister ould Zeidane said to have been touring Western Europe (yes, France) on behalf of the military since last week. Was Paris in on it? Not unlikely at all, although this is hardly a smoking gun. The lame protests from Le Quai d'Orsay may be, however, saying it's "too early" to analyze the situation and mumbling a generally worded condemnation of military takeovers, without noting that this is one.

6. [UPDATE] Political forces seem to be reacting slowly, with one major exception: UFP, the leftist opposition party briefly in government (until the military forced its resignation), is going all-in with strongly worded statements condemning the coup, which they had been warning was in the making. Well, they've been mostly banned and underground since the 1960s, so I guess everything's really just back to normal.

7. [UPDATE] Nouri has great coverage on The Moor Next Door:

I am also told, by the same source, that after Sidi [tried to] sack Chief of Staff Ghazouani, the new CoS (Col. Mohamed Mahmoud Ould Ismail) showed up at Army HQ and informed the guard that he was the Chief of Staff. The guard responded with “tiyer” or “fuck off.” (Moor here.)

8. [UPDATE] World not too pleased. Strong initial stance from the EU against the coup, even angrier from the USA. And when you show up on Nigeria's blacklist, you know you've sunk pretty low:

"Nigeria totally condemns the event that took place today in Mauritania. Nigeria will not recognise any government that did not come to power through constitutional means," President Umaru Yar'Adua told reporters.

9. [UPDATE] But what of the neighbours? Senegal, nothing. Morocco, nothing. Algeria, nothing. Polisario/SADR, nothing. Why? Because they're waiting to figure out who is in charge, and who will win, and what the others are up to.

Last throes, swear to God

2008-08-05T22:02:00.000Z

[picture: abdelmalek droukdel and his merry men]

Apparently not online, but according to Jamestown:

Restructuring al-Qaeda’s Algerian Insurgency

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), the North African branch of al-Qaeda, has been driven to the wall. Despite a new suicide attack that injured 25 on Sunday morning in Tizi Ouzou, Kabylie, the Algerian-based group is facing difficulties that could endanger its very existence (AFP, August 3; for Tizi Ouzou, see Terrorism Focus, April 22). The number of militants is shrinking due to continuous military operations and difficulties in recruiting new volunteers. International anti-terrorism cooperation is also drying up sources of financing.

Since the beginning of 2008, Algerian authorities, with the help of neighboring countries, have arrested or killed more than 200 AQIM members, according to security sources. The great majority of these individuals were affiliated to support networks, while about thirty were active terrorists (Liberté, July 28; L’Expression [Algiers], July 30).

The strategy of the People’s National Army (Armée Nationale Populaire - ANP) to focus mainly on key figures of AQIM has proven largely successful. In February, Halouane Amrane (a.k.a. Handhala) was killed during a military raid in Si Mustapha, Kabylie (Le Jour d’Algérie, February 18). Amrane was AQIM’s main expert in explosives and one of the few instructors in the manufacturing of bombs. Amrane was also responsible for assembling the bombs used in the December 2007 suicide attacks in Algiers. In March, Abou Oussama, an Afghan veteran considered the leader of AQIM’s faction in southern Algeria, was arrested in Mali (L’Expression, March 5). In all, about ten amirs (commanders) have been eliminated since the beginning of the year (Liberté, July 28).

Persistent internal fights for power between competing factions partly explain AQIM’s current crisis, although internal fights are as old as the organization. Nevertheless, feuds sometimes lead to denunciations with grave consequences, such as in the case of Amrane who was allegedly given up to authorities by Adbelmoumène Rachid (a.k.a. Hodheïfa al-Assimi), an AQIM amir from another faction (Liberté, July 28).

Militants have been arrested, killed or have surrendered to authorities in growing numbers, and AQIM is said to be encountering difficulties in filling the vacuum. According to Algerian Interior Minister Noureddine Yazid Zerhouni, AQIM is “not able to recruit anymore” (L’Expression, July 17). The difficulties in recruiting volunteers for the jihad in Algeria, compared to other fronts such as Iraq or Afghanistan, seem to be confirmed in part by the fact that volunteers from neighboring Morocco are more willing to join the battle in Iraq than join the Algerian insurgents (see Terrorism Focus, July 23). There are also indications AQIM has used the Iraqi conflict to attract new recruits who later deserted once they realized that they would fight in Algeria and not in Iraq [1].

It is impossible to estimate the number of Algerian jihadis returning from Iraq at this time. In an interview with the New York Times, AQIM leader Abdelmalek Droukdel (a.k.a. Abu Musab Abdelwadoud), declared “there is a limited and very small number of the mujahedeen brothers who fought in Iraq that came back and joined us” (New York Times, July 1). At this point, it has become clear that the number of foreign jihadi fighters entering Iraq is in decline. However, it is still unknown whether North African fighters still present in Iraq will decide to stay, go back to their country and join AQIM, or eventually leave for another jihadi battlefield such as Afghanistan or Somalia.

Today, the number of fighters among the ranks of AQIM is estimated to be between 300 and 400, according to recent declarations of the Algerian Interior Minister (L’Expression, July 30). Although some prudence is always necessary with official statistics, these numbers seem to confirm the steady decline of the group, whose strength was estimated at 800 fighters in 2005, and over 500 at the end of 2006.

As a result of its weakening, AQIM has been forced to adapt. First, Abdelmalek Droukdel restructured his organization. Instead of eight geographic zones, he divided Algeria into only four zones: one in the East (including Jijel, Skikda, Constantine, Batna, Khenchela and Tébessa); two in the Center (one including Tipasa, Chlef, Aïn Defla, Berrouaghia and Khemis Miliana, the other including Tizi Ouzou, Boumerdès, Bouira, Béjaïa and M’sila); and a fourth in the Saharan south (L’Expression, May 18). This restructuring indicates both AQIM’s loss of control in certain areas and Droukdel’s search for tighter control of his troops – and more specifically his dissident amirs.

Secondly, Droukdel ordered a redeployment of his fighters. While most activities of the group have traditionally taken place in the Center zones, where the leadership is still thought to hide, Droukdel is attempting to develop a new hub in the East, close to the Tunisian border. According to security sources, AQIM will also redeploy in urban suburbs instead of isolated rural regions (L’Expression, May 18; April 23).

Thirdly, AQIM adapted its tactics to its shrinking capacities and its evolving strategy. With a diminishing number of fighters, AQIM cannot conduct its insurgency in the way Algeria’s powerful Groupement Islamique Armé (GIA) did in the 1990s. Therefore, fewer firefights are observed, while the use of explosives is increasing. The use of suicide operations has become frequent since the former Groupe Salafiste pour la Prédication et le Combat (GSPC) merged with al-Qaeda in 2007 – despite the fact that suicide operations were nonexistent in Algeria before that time. Although often very effective, suicide operations are more a tactic of terror or “propaganda of the deed”, than the work of an insurgent guerrilla group. Moreover, two recent suicide operations, less destructive than planned, demonstrate AQIM’s difficulties in recruiting experienced fighters. On June 4, a teenager suicide bomber blew himself up in the military base of Bordj al-Kiffan, injuring three soldiers, but killing only himself. On July 23, another newly recruited kamikaze drove his motorbike laden with explosives against a military truck, injuring 13, but again killing only himself.

Finally, AQIM seems to be in financial trouble. The U.S. Treasury Department froze the assets of four prominent members of AQIM on July 17 after the UN added the men to the list of Bin Laden associates on July 3 (U.S. Dept. of the Treasury, HP-1085, July 17). Spanish police arrested eight Algerian men on June 10 and four others on July 1, all of whom are accused of providing financial and logistical support to AQIM. Nevertheless, AQIM was quick to respond to its cash crisis. It has made a business of kidnappings for ransom, which are multiplying in the region.

Algerian operations and international collaboration have led to a strong decline in AQIM’s budget and fighting strength. However, the group has shown an impressive resilience and capacity to adapt. With Algerian security forces struggling to adapt to AQIM’s new structure and tactics, it appears Algeria is entering a new phase of its 16-year-old Islamist insurgency.

Thomas Renard is a consultant and expert on terrorism and insurgencies.

Notes

1.Anneli Botha, Terrorism in the Maghreb: The Transnationalisation of Domestic Terrorism, ISS Monograph Series, no.144, June 2008.

Nah, I don't know. They may or may not be correct in their conclusion, but Jamestown and similar terror expert outfits declaring the Algerian insurgency's imminent end or "new phase" or whatnot, is a weekly event rather than groundbreaking research. Further, if you check the sourcing, the article seems strung together on random quotes from the Algerian press more than anything else. The Algerian press, of course, declares GSPC's/AQIM's defeat not weekly, but daily -- not least because writing to the contrary is illegal, and because much of it functions as a secret service PR outlet anyway. And note, for example, the sloppy sourcing for AQIM being in financial trouble: a US Department of Treasury notice of sanctions, and a Spanish police arrest. If AQIM have been basing their financial situation on previously untouched US bank accounts for these guys and on the efforts of twelve charity collectors in Spain, they would be in dire straits indeed, but somehow I doubt it. And then the news that they "responded" by starting to kidnap for ransom -- good try, but that has been a regular feature of the GIA/GSPC revolution since the mid-nineties. Well, even so, good summary of recent events. Just ignore the analysis.

Mauritania's ruling party splits

2008-08-05T09:37:00.000Z

The PNDD/Adil, President Abdellahi's homemade ruling party, has now formally split, with 25 rebel deputies and 23 senators resigning. They are expected to form a new party sometime soon, presumably along similarly mushy ideological lines.

Serious setback for the president, but an expected one. Colonels in the lead. Hard to see how the present government can stay on.

(Earlier on the Mauritanian crisis: here, here, here, here, here. Thanks to Hannes for the link.)

Laraki: we missed our chance in 1958

2008-08-04T11:38:00.000Z

[picture: colorful, but poor resolution]

La Gazette du Maroc has published an interview with the veteran Moroccan politician Ahmed Laraki, who served as foreign and prime minister in the late 60s, and as foreign minister again in 1974-1977 (i.e. the formative years of the Western Sahara crisis). It gives an interesting insider's look into the diplomacy of the Sahara issue and Moroccan-Algerian relations. Excerpts:

Reporter: Which were the priorities of Moroccan diplomacy [after independence]?
Ahmed Laraki: First of all to accomplish our territorial integrity, because Morocco was split apart in 1912, having been the last country to fall to colonialism, into a French zone, a Spanish zone in the north and the south (Tarfaya), an international zone and the Sahara, which was directly under the Spanish state. Furthermore, the borders with Algeria were undefined south of Figuig (Treaty of Lalla Maghnia, in 1885). In 1958, France sent ambassador Alexandre Parodi, who ranked as Ambassador of France. He brought a message from General de Gaulle, saying that France was ready to open negotiations on the borders beyond Figuig. But certain people in the government said to His Majesty Mohammed V that “you have recognized the provisional government of Ferhat Abbas. It would be a stab in the back to Ferhat Abbas and the Algerian government to open negotiations with France.” These same persons had also called on the government of Ferhat Abbas. He came and we met in Mohammedia, at the Miramar Hotel. It was there that the agreement was signed establishing that the borders inherited by colonialism would not be in opposition to Morocco. We did that because the OAU conference which was held in Addis Abeba in 1963 had decided in its charter on the intangibility of colonial borders. And when the OAU charter was adopted, we made a reservation concerning this clause. When Abbas was replaced by Ben Khedda, the latter came with his whole government and confirmed the border agreement signed by his predecessor. But they didn’t keep their word. [ . . . ]
Reporter: Which are, in your view, the prospects for peace in the Sahara?
Ahmed Laraki: We made many mistakes. After the success of the Green March, we should have organized a referendum ourselves. We made the mistake of not entering into Bir Lehlou, because, as you recall, in 1975 there were 4,000 or 5,000 Algerian soldiers surrounded there. In that moment, all the heads of states intervened ... Houphouët-Boigny, Senghor, the kings of Arabia and Jordan. The present Egyptian president, Mubarak, made four or five trips between Algiers and Fez. They all said the same to His Majesty: “you’ve won everything. You must preserve the dignity of Boumédienne.” Hassan II gathered all the party leaders. They were all in agreement about withdrawing our troops, because our army was mobilized in the South. Oujda, in the North, was left unprotected, and, with the Algerians mad, one feared that they would enter Morocco through there. I recall the Sand War, in 1963, when General Driss Ben Omar, the chief of staff, could have gone on to Tindouf. He told me: “when I received the call to stop my push forward and return to the border, I thought about breaking the radio,” but added: “being loyal, I obeyed.” Later I asked Hassan II why we did this u-turn. He answered: “one may win temporarily, but I think about my successors. I don’t want the Algerians to wage war on my son and on my grandsons to take revenge. That’s why I preferred negotiations.” [ . . . ]
Reporter: Do you think that Algeria will finally accept the Moroccan proposal?

Ahmed Laraki: I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t think Algeria will ever change its position. It’s rooted in their souls. I’ve met with President Bouteflika as minister of foreign affairs. Unfortunately, they have something against Morocco. I don’t know what it is based on. In fact, our great mistake was not to negotiate with France in 1958. It was an opportunity we missed, and which we are paying a steep price for. We are in the Sahara and we will stay there. What I fear is that this internal autonomy will start to snowball and that other regions will demand the same thing. But lately, the position of the USA, France and several European countries has been reassuring to Morocco.

The rest of the interview can be read in original French here. (More here, with Ibn Kafka noting some question marks.)

Waltzing van Walsum

2008-08-03T23:29:00.000Z

From a Sahara Press Service dispatch, July 29, 2008:

Algiers, 29/07/2008 (SPS) The Saharawi Prime Minister, Abdelkader Taleb Omar, declared on Tuesday in Algiers, that his country is attached to the principle of negotiations with Morocco but without the presence of the UN’s mediator, Mr. Peter Van Walsum, because of his biased position in favour of Morocco.

From the UN secretary-general's spokesperson's press briefing, July 30, 2008:

Question: Thank you, Michèle. Michèle, yesterday on Western Sahara, two high officials of the Polisario indicated that they will not go to the fifth round [of the Manhasset negotiations] until Mr. Peter van Walsum, the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General, is replaced. Has the Secretary-General received any notification to that effect and what is his reaction?

Spokesperson: I just checked, we have not received any communication, so we don’t have any reaction at this point.

Today makes exactly four months since Polisario first announced that they want Peter van Walsum replaced as UN mediator on the Western Sahara question. Since then, Polisario officials have been loudly repeating to anyone who will listen, again and again, in increasingly shrill tones, that van Walsum is out. Except to one single organization -- the only one which could possibly act on that demand. Namely, the UN, which has now twice (at least) confirmed that Polisario is making no official request to remove van Walsum, despite all the hot air in the media.

Criticise the cynicism or admire the elegance, but this, my dears, is how to stall a political process which isn't running in your favor while seeming to demand immediate action: a skill perfected to superhuman levels by both Polisario and Morocco, and practiced variously by them since 1989. Morocco, which sees time as its most precious ally (sorry, Paris), is of course happy to see the UN Prozeß grind to a halt, while for Polisario -- bleeding cohesion every passing year -- it's how to live to fight another day.

Before any bets will be placed on the UN's appointment of a new mediator, or even a new approach to kill off the Manhasset debacle, there are elections to be had in the USA, and reelections in Algeria. Even if that request for a new mediator is handed in, eventually [UPDATE: here], don't expect much real movement until those two things have been taken care of.

Wahda camps eradicated

2008-07-27T15:16:00.000Z

Le Matin, the Moroccan pro-government newspaper, reports that the last parts of the el-Wahda camps in El Aaiún have been destroyed. The el-Wahda, or Unity, camps, were erected in haste in 1991 and the years thereafter, to temporarily house several tens of thousands of Moroccans Sahrawis who were bussed in to stuff voter rolls in the Minurso referendum on Western Sahara's future. Conditions were tough from the outset, and none the happier because people had been brought there on orders of the goverment, uprooted from traditional homes in southern Morocco.

[picture: no more]

As the years dragged on, voter identification efforts eventually excluded most of them from referendum eligibility on the grounds that they had no historical ties to the territory, but for Morocco, everything had been staked on their participation. This had two effects: the Kingdom backtracked on its promise to allow a vote on the territory's future, no longer feeling assured of victory through settlement, and the Wahda camp inhabitants were left to rot in their anything but temporary mud brick slums. Over the years, this did much to aggravate Sahrawi resentments towards the monarchy, but also to cement Sahrawi identity, by forcibly bringing so many together in similar (and similarly cramped and destitute) conditions, and in close contact with both nationalists inside the territory and with the brutal and hostile policing practices common to les provinces du Sud. In effect, what happened was that the monarchy created a second Tindouf, on Moroccan-controlled soil, and got much the same effect, in the form of an explosion of Sahrawi national consciousness. Sahrawis in the Wahda and other camp complexes who had originally had little sympathy for Polisario, began drifting towards pro-independence sentiments, as evidenced by the participation of many in nationalist demonstrations in 1999, 2000 and 2005. Indeed, how anyone could have expected anything else than nationalist rage to grow out of these slums is a mystery only explainable by the enormous capacity for patriotic self-delusion of the Moroccan regime elite whenever the Sahara enters into discussion.

It is therefore both symbolically and perhaps politically significant if these slums have now, as the normally not-too-trustworthy Matin reports, been replaced with more decent living quarters. The paper states that some 11,000 sheds have been destroyed and new housing provided to approximately 40,000 of the camp's inhabitants, as part of a major infrastructure and housing program across Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara, which has several such camps.

As parts of a hearts-and-minds strategy in the Sahara, this is solidly sound politics, and something Morocco must regret not having started much earlier. On the other hand, by any other count, it is yet another morbidly wasteful expense on the Sahara conflict (money pours in here for blitz building, but 35 million other citizens are not getting housing...), and it is a case of patching up self-inflicted wounds. The damage in Sahrawi sentiment and popular psychology already done, buying back lost sympathy hardly constitutes net gain -- yet gain it is. But whatever the case, if true, this should mean a little less suffering for a group of people unfairly hostage to a conflict outside of their control, and it is something Sahrawis and Moroccans alike should be able to applaud -- for once, in agreement.

Violence in Dakhla

2008-07-26T14:32:00.001Z

Criminal unrest, riots, attacks, and pogroms? The agreed-upon story (almost) is that a lot of people got their heads bashed in in Dakhla recently, and cars were overturned and buildings torched, in a dispute related to fishing on the Western Saharan coast. Sahrawi sources say those attacked were mainly local Sahrawis while those attacking were Moroccan settlers and laborers, and point to police standing back and letting it happen as evidence of state complicity; Moroccan media, on the other hand, portrays it as a dispute between rival groups of Moroccan (whether Sahrawi or not) fishermen mostly about economics. Both could of course be right, as neither economic riots nor settler-on-Sahrawi violence is a stranger to the territory, and frequently related. Anyway, more on One Hump or Two and elsewhere.

Mauritania: crisis continues

2008-07-26T13:50:00.000Z

Thanks to Hannes, as usual, here is the latest in the unfolding Mauritanian regime crisis. As he guessed earlier, the cabinet makeover did not stop the crisis, and the internal rebellion in President Abdellahi's PNDD/Adil party continues, fanned by generals Ghazouani and Abdelaziz. Things seem to be getting personal, in that the president is now himself targeted, instead of just his government and prime minister. Ingredients:

- Moves to open investigations against the president for corruption.
- Persistent rumorsthat the PNDD/Adil rebels may formally secede to form a new party.
- Continuing spats over the possibly unsound businesses of the president's wife.

Unrelated: About 4000 black Africans have returned to the Mauritanian south, in the president's program of refugee return after the 1989 events. However, predictably, it's not always easy to fit them back into lands that have long since been taken over by others. Also, somewhat worrying, the trend towards increasing press freedom -- but for lack of outside interest, Mauritania now easily rivals Lebanon as the Arab world's press freedom pioneer -- faces a road bump, with two journalists brought to court.

Algeria mediates Mali deal

2008-07-22T11:13:00.001Z

Algeria has mediated a new deal between the government of Mali and Touareg rebels in the country's north. Not the first time this happens: these rebels are a breakaway faction who wouldn't accept former peace agreements; an ongoing story. The agreement seems to roll along the usual lines, of more resources to the north, army pay for former rebels, less government interference with their tribal and regional dealings, permanenting the discreet Algerian role in the region, and, certainly, strategic cash handouts to all concerned by Algiers. (See earlier posts on this.)

[picture: everybody back to being chums]

The new agreement, if it holds, is important not only for the stability of Mali and other Touareg zones, but also in the context of:

(a) Anti-terror stuff, since these areas are where the southern wing of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb is implanted (and where most of Algeria's Marlboro smokes come from).

(b) Algeria's growing regional assertiveness -- itself a result of post-war stability, the oil & gas windfall, and the neo-Boumédiènist tendencies of Bouteflika's presidency. Libya made an attempt to mediate the conflict, Qadhafi always interested in getting a foot into whatever tribal stirrings might be about. It failed, but went on long enough to see Algeria sulk terribly about interference in what may be technically Malian soil, but which Algiers seems to regard as essentially its private fief. This is related to (a), and trade and smuggling -- the situation in northern Mali is, in the eyes of Algeria, way too important to be left to the Malians...

Importantly, though, the not-quite-separate Touareg rebellion in Niger sputters on, for reasons of its own, and will continue to destabilize any settlement in Mali. However, that movement, the MNJ, might need some media training: they just went on an interview on al-Jazira and declared their love for the United States. Rookie move.

Islamists pick new leader in Morocco

2008-07-22T10:38:00.000Z

To briefly note that Morocco's largest Islamist party, the Party of Justice and Development (PJD), has elected a new leader. The PJD originally grew out of more radical student groups and cultural associations, some associated with armed militancy, but in forming Morocco's first legal Islamist party, they have significantly tempered their message. Today, the party is considered close to the Muslim Brotherhood, and aims to replicate the successes of the AKP in Turkey. (Which, on the other hand, is now struggling against a military-backed move to ban it...)

While clearly in opposition, the PJD takes care not to seriously confront the system, despite it being a public secret that they, for reasons of orthodoxy, oppose the king's role as Commander of the Faithful; criticism is also muted on other sensitive issues. For this reason, the PJD sometimes ridiculed by more radical voices as the in-house Islamists of the monarch, and even non-Islamist observers have worried that their submissiveness to the monarchy may ultimately make them lose face, and throw their electorate in more radical and less organized hands. The party membership seems far more rigid in its opposition than its flexible public faces. While Islamo-liberal tendencies seem to be firmly in charge of the party leadership, there exists a significant radical faction -- headed by men like Casablanca parliamentarian Mustapha Ramid -- which is both more outspoken in its opposition to the regime, and more socially conservative.

[picture: abdelilah benkirane, new PJD leader]

The new leader, Abdelilah Benkirane, is considered a representative of the more moderate factions, as is his outgoing predecessor, Saadeddine Othmane. Othmane also ran to continue his five-year leadership of the party, but lost to Benkirane 684-495 in its general congress. Presumably, this is related to the party's poor showing in the Moroccan elections last year, when instead of emerging as largest party, which was widely expected, it finished second after the nationalist Istiqlal, a domesticated former opposition party.

Hydrocarbons and the inner self

2008-07-21T12:06:00.000Z

Two articles:

On his blog, US energy analyst Jeff Vail posts an article from The Oil Drum about Moroccan-Algerian tensions, terrorism and Western Sahara, against the background of the resource question -- oil and gas in Algeria, and phosphates in Morocco and Western Sahara.
Jeroen van Bergeijk travels from Casablanca through southern Morocco and Western Sahara, in search of something else than pot-smoking backpackers. Success is mixed.

Sahrawi poetry

2008-07-19T12:46:00.000Z

Last post for today, promise: you need to read this great Global Voices post by Renata Avila on Sahrawi poetry. More generally, you should be clicking onto Global Voices Western Sahara often for the latest, because so far, they've been very good, and comments are flooding in. Both the standard mudslinging and more thoughtful debate, so everyone gets their fill.

Pot, meet settle

2008-07-19T12:28:00.000Z

Your weekly reading assignment: "Settling to Win: State Expansion in Post Colonial Times in Western Sahara and Beyond." Ehud Eiran, a Ph. D. candidate from Brandeis University, analyzes Morocco's use of settlers in Western Sahara in a recent paper for the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Centre in Israel, comparing and contrasting it with, among other things, Israel's own use of settlers in the West Bank.

Looks very interesting, but watch out, because it's PDF.

Angela in Algiers

2008-07-19T09:24:00.000Z

Over at The Moor Next Door, Nouri has been ably and triply posting on German Chancellor Merkel's recent visit to Abu Combover, and some other Algeria-related affairs. You know, arms purchases, terrorism, gas, Touaregs, natural disasters, constitutional manipulation, the standard stuff.

Read: Ein, Zwei, Drei.

Mauritania's new government

2008-07-19T08:20:00.000Z

Sorry for the patchy follow-up on this, but if you're reading comments, you have Hannes/HB keeping up. Reuters reports that Mauritania's new government has arrived, after being forced to resign by a military-inspired parliamentary rebellion. It is again headed by Yehia ould Ahmed el-Wagf, but now without the UFP and Tawassoul parties -- the two opposition stalwarts brought into Wagf's otherwise apparatchik-staffed government for the first time in the country's history. Apart from that, quite limited changes, although one should dutifully note new ministers of the interior and of oil (while the defense minister stays). Contrary to what Reuters claims, the Haratine-based APP remains in government, while the ex-ruling PRDR apparently bowed out after (again) being offered a single seat.

Hannes says word is that this government isn't expected to last long, which suggests that the parliamentary insurgents, and les colonels, may have wanted more far-reaching changes, related to other disputes or to the overall power balance between the president and the parliament, and, by extension, the military establishment. Nonetheless, the no-confidence deputies seem appeased, for now. Perhaps awaiting further orders...

[picture: yehia ould ahmed el-wagf, hanger-on]

This is the new government line-up:

Chef de l’Etat, M. Sidi Mohamed OULD CHEIKH ABDALLAHI
Gouvernement du dimanche 15 juillet 2008

Premier Ministre, M. Yahya Ould Ahmed Waghf
Ministre de la Justice : Ahmedou Tidjane Bal
Ministre des Affaires étrangères et de la Coopération : Dr. Abdallahi Hassen Ben Hmeyda
Ministre de la Défense nationale : Mohamed Mahmoud Ould Mohamed Lemine
Ministre de l’Intérieur : Mohamed Ould R’zeizim
Ministre de l’Economie et des Finances : Sidi Ould Tah
Ministre de l’éducation nationale : Mohamed Ould Amar
Ministre de l’Enseignement supérieur et de la Recherche scientifique : Hemida Ould Ahmed Taleb
Ministre des Affaires islamiques et de l’Enseignement originel : Yahya Ould Sid’el Moustaph
Ministre de l’emploi, de l’insertion et de la formation professionnelle : Mohamed Lemine Ould Nati
Ministre de la Santé : Camara Bakary Harouna
Ministre du Pétrole et des Mines : Baba Ahmed Ould Sidi Mohamed
Ministre des Pêches : Sy Adama
Ministre du Commerce et de l’Industrie : Selma Mint Teguedi
Ministre de l’Artisanat et du Tourisme : Mohamed Mahmoud Ould Brahim Khlil
Ministre de la Décentralisation et de l’Aménagement du Territoire : Yahya Ould Kebd
Ministre de l’Agriculture et de l’Elevage : Correra Issagha
Ministre de l’Equipement, de l’Urbanisme et de l’Habitat : Mohamed Ould Bilal
Ministre des Transports : Ely Ould Mohamed Lemine Ould Haimoud
Ministre de l’Hydraulique et de l’Energie : Mohamed Ould Bahiya
Ministre de la Culture et de la Communication : Abdellahi Salem Ould El Moualla
Ministre de la Fonction publique : Moustapha Ould Hamoud
Ministre de la Promotion féminine, de l’Enfance et de la Famille : Fatimetou Mint Khattri
Ministre chargé des Relations avec le Parlement et la Société civile : Lemrabott Ould Bennahi
Ministre chargé de la Jeunesse et des Sports : Mohamed Ould Borbosse
Ministre délégué auprès du Premier Ministre, chargé de l’Environnement : Abdellahi Ould Dahi
Ministre déléguée auprès du Ministère des Affaires étrangères et de la Coopération, chargée du Maghreb arabe : Mekfoula Mint Agatt
Ministre délégué auprès du Ministre de l’Economie et des Finances, charge du Budget : Sid’ahmed Ould Raiss
Secrétaire d’Etat chargé des Mauritaniens à l’étranger : Mohamed Ould Mohamedou
Secrétaire d’Etat chargée Technologies de l’Information et de la Communication : Aicha Val Mint Michel Verges
Secrétaire Général du gouvernement : Ba Abdoulaye Mamadou

A very useful analysis of the new government in terms of region and tribe is found here, and a similar break-down for the former government is here.

Link Mix

2008-07-09T19:41:00.001Z

Read:

The North Africa Journal's editor-in-chief Arezki Daoudi outlines the prospects of a new US presidency for the Maghreb countries, and sees changes ahead. Smart stuff:

Although many analysts argued that recent American policy toward the Maghreb was meant to chip away European influence on the region, this assessment is farther from the truth and accepting it would be giving far too much credit for the White House and the State Department. I would argue that an American policy toward the Maghreb simply does not exist. In fact, the declining influence of Europe, although returning with a vengeance more recently, was simply the result of Europeans own disengagement from the Maghreb. The Americans have simply squandered the opportunity to fill the vacuum left by the Europeans as they implemented stringent protectionist and anti-immigration policies.

The intermittent Mr. Chasli of Western Sahara Endgame is back, crusading/jihading, as per your preference, against yet another lobbyist web villain. Here he explains why the Moroccan autonomy proposal -- whether good or bad -- is not a "compromise," and lets slip a little something about his own experience with the Western Sahara dossier in the UN. We are intrigued.

Matthew Hogan of 'Aqoul dissects the ups and downs of foreign investment in the Maghreb countries, setting off the usual suspects in comments. Also on 'Aqoul, some back-and-forth on Algeria, Islamism and Berbers between me and Shaheen chez Lounsbury.

Thanks to my own speculation and HB's confirmation, you all surely know of the resignation-at-gunpoint of the government in Mauritania. If not, Reuters sums it up pretty well here.

HB: our man, or woman, in Mauritania

2008-07-04T20:42:00.000Z

Your's truly is travelling around various hot and sandy countries right now, and I will have only the rare opportunity for posting. This is unfortunate, given the interesting events in Mauritania: the new government was just forced to resign, after military pressures on parliament threatened to unleash a vote-of-no-confidence.

Fortunately, Western Sahara Info's ever-expanding network of anonymous enthusiasts for obscure Maghrebi conflicts has acquired an on-the-scene correspondent in Nouakchott: commenter HB is keeping us updated as events progress over here. A big thank you to him or her!

Tragedy hits Iowan Emirate

2008-07-02T07:47:00.000Z

[picture: north main street, elkader, iowa.]

The Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria's ongoing fascination with a Midwest American rural town, pop. 1,465, reaches unprecedented heights, as Elkader, Iowa, is hit by serious flooding:

Elkader receives $150,000 in flood relief from Algeria
Pat McTaggart

ELKADER, Iowa - Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has presented the city of Elkader with a gift of $150,000. The donation from the country of Algeria to the Clayton County Disaster Relief Committee is to assist exclusively in the recovery of the citizens of Elkader as they put their community back together.
President Bouteflika also sent a message to the people of Elkader, the first time Elkader has received a message directly from a Head of State.
"We grieve with all the families of Elkader who have suddenly become homeless or have lost their livelihoods and express our deep sympathy as well as our admiration for the way that it is facing adversity with the pioneer spirit of dedicated volunteers and of community solidarity," Bouteflika wrote in his message.
Emir Abdelkader was the chivalrous leader of Algeria (1832-47) whose love for freedom inspired the Founding Fathers of Elkader to give his name to their community.

Elkader updates are pretty regularly found in Algerian national newspapers, and for all their own problems with poverty, refugees, dictatorship, and al-Qaida terrorism, people never seem to tire of news about life up in Iowa, where someone has named a tiny little town after their hero. I don't know if it's more entertaining, in a man-bites-dog-way, or more sad, as a sign of Algeria's desperate quest for history and community, but no matter what, I find it charmingly weird.

To the people of Elkader, best of luck.

Sahrawis in the Socialist International

2008-07-01T13:30:00.001Z

UPES reports that Front POLISARIO has been granted the status as observer member in the Socialist International. The Socialist International contains 159 parties from around the world, being the by far largest cooperative body for political parties in the world. The UJSARIO, Polisario's youth organization, was already involved with the International's youth wing IUSY (and with any other international organization they could join), but POLISARIO had so far, to the best of my knowledge, neither sought nor received status as observing members.

The advantage for POLISARIO is twofold. First, it provides a formal point of contact with a whole lot of major political parties, many of which are in power. Second, this should once and for all debunk Morocco's nonsense about Polisario being a Marxist-Leninist post-Soviet puppet (and/or closet Islamists), because the Socialist International is not the same as the Third, Fourth or any other communist international. On the other hand, it may narrow the movement's appeal to potential liberal or conservative supporters abroad -- although if that was a factor for them, they would presumably have been more concerned about the communist rumors bandied around by Morocco.

Among the members of the Socialist International are the Nordic social democratic parties, Germany's SDP, the French Parti socialiste, Britain's Labour (and Israel's), and Spain's PSOE, plus a number of former liberation movements in Africa, such as FRELIMO, ANC, MPLA, and others. The Algerian Kabyle opposition party FFS is a member, while in Mauritania Ahmed ould Daddah's RFD holds observer status. In Morocco, as mentioned above, the Socialist International is represented by the USFP, which is in government -- and according to UPES, they were the only party to vote against POLISARIO's observer status.

Cabinet crisis in Mauritania: what, why, and who.

2008-07-01T09:36:00.000Z

The Mauritanian parliament has now formally launched a motion of no-confidence in the two-month old government of Yahia ould Ahmed el-Wagf. To make the proposal itself required only 32 MPs -- they got 39 -- but to fell the government takes a majority of the 95 parliamentarians for that, i.e. 48 votes. In response, President Sidi Mohamed ould el-Cheikh Abdellahi has threatened to dissolve parliament, which would send Mauritania into a serious political crisis just a year after its ostensible democratization. The vote is planned for Wednesday.

As previously mentioned, this proposal appears to be inspired by military strongmen Col. Mohamed ould Abdelaziz and Col. Mohamed el-Ghazouani. These two figures are at the center of the group that performed the 2005 coup against President el-Tayaa, which during and after the transitional phase 2005-2007 has seen considerable infighting, reflected in a rapid hemorraghing of higher officers and constant reshuffles in the army hierarchy. Today, they're widely considered the power behind the throne, somewhat like the generals and secret service heads in Algeria.

This present crisis also seems to have something in common with Algeria, in that President Abdellahi appears to have tried to do le Bouteflika: to bolster his own standing within the bureaucracy to the extent where he would no longer be forced to rely on the colonels. However, he has been forced to move very carefully, since his own base is constructed on the remains of the old el-Tayaa regime, in which these military men played a paramount role.

The president has gathered his own supporters into a new party called the PNDD-Adil, organized and led by el-Wagf. Still, for the first year of his mandate, he relied on his post-election Prime Minister Zeine ould Zeidane. Ould Zeidane, a former governor of the Central Bank and despite his slick reformist image a serious regime insider, also ran in the 2007 presidential elections, finishing third. He was then considered by some to have the support of the deposed president's Smasside tribe, even if he is not himself a member of it, with all of the financial and political influence that tribe had acquired during el-Tayaa's 21 year rule. (The core members of the coup all issued from the ouled bou Sbaa, a once-great warrior tribe which was crushed by Reguibat rivals in the 19th century and now more devotes itself to trading, mainly being present in northern Mauritania and Morocco.)

Zeidane was abruptly and unceremoniously fired on May 6, and the president's own man, el-Wagf, appointed head of the new government. He stuffed it full of his own PNDD-Adil members, but, interestingly enough, also managed to attract a couple of hardcore opposition groups which have never before been allowed into a Mauritanian government: the socialist UFP and the Muslim Brotherhood-linked Tawassoul Party (PNRD). The PNDD-Adil component of the government, however -- 24 out of 35 ministers -- was full of former el-Tayaa stalwarts, to the extent that the UFD and PRDR were at blushing pains to explain their participation.

What happened the last month was that criticism grew against the new government both from the opposition and from the military and its allies within the regime. Recently, a large chunk of PNDD-Adil defected, and a number of its parliamentarians have declared that they will vote to withdraw confidence from el-Wagf. The resulting lineup is somewhat compromising for all sides:

On the President's and Prime Minister's side, you have about half of the PNDD-Adil, including a lot of hoary old faces from the el-Tayaa dictatorship. There's also the APP of Messaoud ould Boulkheïr, a Nasserist anti-slavery party (yes) which has long wallowed between opposition and collaboration with whatever powers might be, and there's the UFD, with its long record of principled opposition to el-Tayaa and previous dictatorships; no obvious friends of the military. This bloc blames the crisis on the army, claiming that the two colonels and their allies are trying to subvert Mauritania's emerging democracy, and they invoke the president's right to dissolve parliament in defense of ... parliamentarianism.

Opposite, we find the other half of PNDD-Adil's ancien régime, the gleam of officers' epaulettes all too visible in she shadows behind. But here, too, stands a major part of the opposition, in the shape of the RFD party and its leader Ahmed ould Daddah -- half-brother of Mauritania's first president, and a former prisoner-of-conscience under el-Tayaa. The anti-Wagf bloc blames the president for having failed to resolve the country's economical and social ills, for growing political unrest, for mismanaging and possibly stealing oil resources, and for bringing back corrupt and tainted apparatchiks from the el-Tayaa years through the el-Wagf government. This last charge has some credibility coming from ould Daddah, but his military and parliamentary allies-of-convenience could hardly repeat it with a straight face.

Party discipline being nonexistent and side-switching a Mauritanian fine art, it is very difficult to predict how this will end. The PNDD-Adil has 50 of 95 seats in parliament, but it is now split down the middle, with 29 of its MPs having signed the motion of no-confidence. If these figures stick -- a big if -- that leaves el-Wagf with 21 loyalists, to whom he should theoretically be able to add the votes of UFP, APP and a few others. But so far, only the UFP has been really outspoken in their defense of el-Wagf, attacking the two colonels by name and qualifying the vote as a sort of civilian coup d'état.

In contrast, the anti-government bloc should be able to count on the 29 PNDD-Adil rebels, as well as the 17 parliamentarians of ould Daddah's RFD, for a sum of 46 -- and then there are a couple of minor parties which should bring them over the 48-member mark. But on the one hand, it's not clear that any party will be able to hold together its party line, and any anti-Wagf coalition can easily splinter over who they want instead. On the other hand, the balance tilts in favor of no-confidence, and a lot of government supporters seem to be hedging their bets and preparing to pick the side of the winner at the last moment. Then again, should that happen, there is the president's threat to dissolve parliament -- and the possibility that the vote will be delayed to sort out all these uncertainties.

So, whatever happens, or doesn't happen, it's going to be a close call. On the one hand, therefore, it all looks terribly divisive, disruptive and clearly unhealthy for Mauritanian politics; in a worst-case scenario of either kind, the central pillar of Mauritanian politics, the presidency, could emerged fatally weakened or delegitimized. While Mauritanians were clearly hoping for more, international observers have been quite positive about Abdellahi's time in power, and should he be strapped down by the military and opposition forces, or weaken himself by lashing out in authoritarian style, the reform and reconciliation projects he has initiated would clearly be at risk. But on the other hand, it's a lot more exciting to watch a country where parliamentary votes matter, than to spend one's time staring at the ossified dictatorships in Morocco, Algeria, or all the way out eastwards. Surely, that must count for something.