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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs |
MAURITANIA: 90 detained soldiers released after coup attempt
NOUAKCHOTT, 6 August 2003 (IRIN) - The Mauritanian government has released about 90 soldiers, including four senior officers, who had been arrested for questioning after a failed coup d'etat on 8 June, military sources said.
The soldiers were released on Saturday after being cleared of involvement in the coup attempt, which led to two days of heavy fighting in the capital Nouakchott, the sources told IRIN.
Dozens more of the 150 or so suspects who were rounded up after the failed putsch were likely to be released this week, they added.
Three former army officers suspected of leading the uprising against President Maaouiya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya have all gone into hiding. But a lieutenant implicated in the coup attempt who fled to Senegal, was arrested and extradited back to Mauritania last month to face trial.
President Taya has accused Islamic fundamentalists of backing the attempt to remove him from power. For the past three months his government has cracked down on Islamic radicals. Several have been arrested and in recent weeks the security forces have tried twice without success to detain a preacher at the Arafat mosque in Nouakchott. On each occasion, worshippers prevented police from detaining the man.
Last Saturday, a group of leading imams and Islamic scholars in Mauritania issued a joint declaration, which had the status of an official fatwa, condemning the wave of arrests as an affront to justice and divine law.
Meanwhile, former president Mohamed Khouna Ould Haidallah has announced that he will stand against Taya, who deposed him in a coup 19 years ago, in presidential elections due on November 7.
Ould Haidallah is a 63-year-old former army colonel who enjoys strong support among Islamic religious leaders, the business community and the Mauritanian diaspora in Europe.
He headed a military government in this desert country of 2.5 million from 1980 to 1984 and is widely regarded as the strongest challenger to emerge so far to the current president.
Taya, who served as Ould Haidallah's prime minister, drew close to Iraq during his early years in power. However, he switched his allegiance to the West following Iraq's ill-starred invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Taya has since cultivated close links with United States, France, the former colonial power in Mauritania, and Israel.
Despite legalising opposition parties a decade ago, he has continued to rule Mauritania with an iron hand.
Launching his presidential campaign at the weekend, Ould Haidallah said he would “offer the country a chance for a democratic and peaceful change.”. He pledged to "put an end to the solitary exercise of power that has led to the serious crisis affecting the country and which gave rise to the disastrous culture of coups d’etat."
In December 1980, nearly a year after coming to power, Ould Haidallah proposed a new constitution which provided for a multi-party system, but the scheme was subsequently abandoned. Ould Taya eventually introduced a multi-party politics in 1991.
Five other presidential candidates have already thrown their hat into the ring; Cisse Amadou Cheikhou of the Democracy and Justice Alliance, Moulaye Hacen Ould Jiyid of the Mauritanian Party for Renewal and Reconstruction, and three independent candidates. The latter included Aicha Mint Jeddana, the first ever woman to woman to stand for the presidency in this socially conservative country, which only abolished slavery in 1980.
The economy depends on exports of iron ore from mines in the north and revenues from fishing. But hopes of ending the rural poverty in which most Mauritanians live are pinned on the recent discovery of offshore oil.
Theme(s): (IRIN) Conflict, (IRIN) Governance
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