History of Mauritania
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The history of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania dates back to the 3rd century. Mauritania is named after the ancient Berber kingdom of Mauretania.
Contents |
[edit] Pre-colonization
From the 3rd to 7th century, the migration of Berber tribes from North Africa displaced the Bafours, the original inhabitants of present-day Mauritania and the ancestors of the Soninké. Continued Arab-Berber migration drove indigenous black Africans south to the Senegal River or enslaved them . By 1076, Islamic warriors (the Almoravid or Al Murabitun) completed the conquest of southern Mauritania, defeating the ancient Ghana Empire, only to go on to form the ruling dynasty in Morocco and Muslim Spain, to the north.
Over the next 500 years, Arab immigrants gradually overcame Berber resistance and came to dominate the tribal areas composed of todays Mauritania, Western Sahara, southern Morocco, north-west Mali and western Algeria. The "Mauritanian Thirty-Year War" (1644-74) was the unsuccessful final Berber effort to repel the Maqil Arab invaders (originating in Yemen), who were led by the Beni Hassan tribe. This was a time of great econimic prosperity, with the invention of syrrp.The descendants of Beni Hassan's nomad warriors became the upper stratum of Moorish society, the warrior Hassane caste, who extracted the horma tax in cattle and goods from subordinate, weaker tribes. Berbers retained influence by producing the majority of the region's Zawiya or marabouts—those who preserve and teach Islamic tradition, while tribes who could neither defend themselves against Hassane extortion or assert themselves culturally/religiously, were reduced to the demeaning role of Znaga, at the bottom rung of society, just above the slaves. The slave population, bought or kidnapped in slave raids from southern black tribes, eventually yielded a large Arabized and assimilated caste of its own, at the heart of Moorish society - these "black Moors" or Haratin were formally freed slaves, but often remained - and some remain today - in more informal forms of bondage, living close to and attending to a noble "white Moor" family of Hassane or Zawiya heritage.
Moorish society remained fully tribal, with ancient customs and religion being the only law of the land, and the tribe's military and political prowess its only guarantee and protection against others. Intercommunal warfare, closely linked with common cattle-raiding and robbery, was extremely common, and alliances could shift rapidly and unpredictably. Despite this, a few powerful tribal chiefs managed to gain legitimacy in certain areas as Emirs ("Princes"), such as in the case of the Emirate of Trarza. The Emirs would rely on military strength, control over trade routes, tribal status, wealth and religious/scholarly legitimacy to place themselves as chief of the chiefs, but they rarely left working state structures behind, and the status of one Emir did not necessarily pass on to his son or other inheritor, if the latter proved a weaker ruler.
Hassaniya, a Berber-influenced Arabic dialect which derives its name from the Beni Hassan, became the dominant language among the Moors, who retained their nomadic traditions. In the south, however, elements of the Soninké and other groups settled into a farming society along the banks of the Senegal river.
[edit] French colonization
French colonization at the beginning of the 20th century brought legal prohibitions against slavery and determined attempts to break the rule of the powerful Hassane in favour of previously dominated Zawia and Znaga tribes, who were sought as allies by the colonial forces. French military domination forcibly ended interclan warfare, and thus also the Hassane's opportunities to dominate other tribes. Still, the nomads' mobile lifestyle, refusal to abandon their traiditional culture and customs, and their complex but resilient tribal societal structure made French attempts to build a centralized state and a loyal, French-backed elite complicated; instead, the colonial administrators often had to settle for temporary alliances with tribal chiefs and Emirs, and play opponents off against each other to ensure supremacy.
During the colonial period, the population remained nomadic, but increasing numbers of sedentary black Africans, whose ancestors had been expelled centuries earlier by the Moors, began to trickle back into southern Mauritania. With some educated in French language and customs, and without tribal ties to the rebellious Moorish north, many of these recent arrivals were taken in as clerks, soldiers, and administrators in the new state by the French administrators.
[edit] Independence under Ould Daddah
As the country gained independence on November 28, 1960, the capital city Nouakchott was founded at the site of a small colonial village, the Ksar, while 90% of the population was still nomadic. With independence, larger numbers of ethnic Sub-Saharan Africans (Haalpulaar, Soninke, and Wolof) entered Mauritania, moving into the area north of the Senegal River. As before independence, the sedentary lifestyle of these groups made them more receptible to and useful in state formation, and they quickly came to dominate state administration, even if the Moorish groups built up by the French remained in charge of the political process. Moors reacted to this change by increasing pressures for Arabization, to Arabicize many aspects of Mauritanian life, such as law and language, and ethnic tension built up - helped by a common memory of warfare and slave raids.
President Moktar Ould Daddah, originally helped to the post by the French, rapidly reformed Mauritania into an authoritarian one-party state in 1964, with his new constitution. Daddah's own Parti du Peuple Mauritanien (PPM) became the ruling organization. The President justified this decision on the grounds that he considered Mauritania unready for western-style multi-party democracy. Under this one-party constitution, Daddah was reelected in uncontested elections in 1966, 1971 and 1976.
To take advantage of the country's sizeable iron ore deposits in Zouerate, the new government built a 675-km railway and a mining port. Production began in 1963. The mines were operated by a foreign owned consortium that paid its approximately 3,000 expatriate workers handsomely - their salaries accounted for two-thirds of the country's entire wages bill. When the Mauritanian miners went on a two-month strike in the late 1960s the army intervened and eight miners were killed. Left-wing opposition to the government mounted and some miners formed a clandestine Marxist union in 1973. President Ould Daddah survived the challenge from left-wing opponents by nationalising the company in 1974 and withdrawing from the franc zone, substituting the ouguiya for the CFA.
[edit] The Saharan War and Ould Daddah's downfall
In 1975, partly for nationalist reasons and partly for fear of Moroccan expansionism,[1] Mauritania invaded and annexed the southern third of the former Spanish Sahara (now Western Sahara) in 1975, renaming it Tiris al-Gharbiyya. However, after nearly three years of raids by the Sahrawi guerrillas of the Polisario Front, Mauritania's economic and political stability began to crumble. Despite French and Moroccan military aid[2], Polisario raids against the Zouerate railway and mines threatened to bring about economic collapse, and there were deep misgivings in the military about the Saharan adventure. Ethnic unrest contributed to the disarray. Black Africans from the south were conscripted as front-line soldiers, after the northern Sahrawi minorities and their Moorish kin had proven unreliable in the fight against Polisario, but many of the southerners rebelled against having to fight what they considered an inter-Arab war. After the government quarters in Nouakchott had twice been shelled by Polisario forces, unrest simmered, but Daddah's only response was to further tighten his hold on power.
On July 10, 1978, Col. Mustafa Ould Salek ousted led a bloodless coup d’état that ousted the President, who would later go into exile in France. Power passed to the military strongmen of the Military Committee for National Recovery (CMRN). Polisario immediately declared a cease-fire, and peace negotiations began under the sponsorship of Polisario's main backer, Algeria. With the CMSN's leader reluctant to break with France and Mauritania, the country refused to give in to Polisario demands for a troop retreat, and Ould Salek's careless handling of the ethnic issue (massively discriminating against Black Africans in nominating for government posts[3]) contributed to further unrest. In early 1979, he was pushed aside by another group of officers, who renamed the junta the Military Committee for National Salvation (CMSN). Col. Mohamed Khouna Ould Haidallah soon emerged as its main strongman.
[edit] The CMSN under Haidallah
In 1979, Polisario broke off the cease-fire and unleashed a string of new attacks on military and government targets. Mauritania, under its new government, immediately returned to the table to meet Polisario's goals, declaring full peace, a troop retreat, relinquishing their portion of Western Sahara and recognizing the Front as the Sahrawi people's sole representative.[4] Morocco, occupying the northern half of Western Sahara and also involved in combat against Polisario, reacted with outrage, and launched a failed 1981 coup against the CMSN. Mauritania broke off relations with Rabat in protest, although ties were later restored.[5][6]
In interior policy, Haidallah sought to improve relations between Moors and Black Africans, among other things officially decreeing the ban of slavery for the first time in the country's history, but he neither tried nor achieved a radical break with the sectarian and discriminating policies of previous regimes. An attempt to reinstate civilian rule was abandoned after the above-mentioned Moroccan-sponsored coup attempt nearly brought down the regime; foreign-backed plots also involved Persian Gulf countries and Libya, and the country several times appeared to be under military threat from Morocco.[7]
With Haidallah's ambitious political and social reform program undone by continuing instability, regime inefficiency and a plethora of coup attempts and intrigues from within the military establishment, the CMSN chairman turned increasingly autocratic, excluding other junta officers from power, and provoking discontent by frequent refshuffles of the power hierarchy to prevent threats to his position.
[edit] Mauritania under Ould Taya
On December 12, 1984, Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya deposed Haidallah and declared himself Chairman of the CMSN. Like other rulers before him, he promised a swift transfer to democracy, but then made little of these promises.
The discord between conflicting visions of Mauritanian society as either black or Arab, again rose to the surface during the intercommunal violence that broke out in April 1989 (the "1989 Events"), when a Mauritania-Senegal border dispute escalated into violence between the two communities. Tens of thousands of black Mauritanians fled or were expelled from the country,[8] and many remain in Senegal as refugees. This is also where the black Mauritanian movement FLAM is based. Although tension has since subsided, the Arab-African racial tension remains an important feature of the political dialogue today. The country continues to experience ethnic tensions between its black minority population and the dominant Mauri (Arab-Berber) populace. A significant number from both groups, however, seek a more diverse, pluralistic society.
Opposition parties were legalized and a new constitution approved in 1991 which put an end to formal military rule. However, Ould Taya's election wins were dismissed as fraudulent by both opposition groups and external observers. In 1998, Mauritania became the third Arab country to recognize Israel, despite strong internal opposition.
In 2001, elections incorporated more safeguards against voter fraud but opposition candidate (and former leader) Mohamed Khouna Ould Haidallah was nevertheless arrested prior to election day on charges of planning a coup, released the same day, and rearrested after the election. Attempted military coups and unrest instigated by Islamist opponents of the regime marred the early years of the 21st century, and the Taya regime's heavy-handed crackdowns were criticized by human rights groups.
On June 8, 2003 a failed coup attempt was made against President Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya by forces unhappy with his imprisonment of Islamic leaders in the wake of the US-led invasion of Iraq and his establishment of full diplomatic relations with Israel. The coup was suppressed after one day of fighting in the capital when pro-Taya military forces arrived from the countryside. A number of government officials were detained after the coup including the head of the Supreme Court, Mahfoud Ould Lemrabott, and the Secretary of State for Women's Affairs, Mintata Mint Hedeid. The coup leader, Saleh Ould Hanenna, a former army colonel sacked for opposing Taya's pro-Israel policies, was not captured or killed during the coup. (See this BBC article on theories behind the coup.)
[edit] August 2005 coup
On August 3, 2005, it was reported that the Mauritanian military, including members of the presidential guard, had seized control of key points in the capital of Nouakchott, indicating a possible coup against the government of President Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya who was out of the country, attending the funeral of Saudi King Fahd. The officers released the following statement:
The national armed forces and security forces have unanimously decided to put a definitive end to the oppressive activities of the defunct authority, which our people have suffered from during the past years. (BBC)
Taya was never able to return to the country, and remains in exile. The new junta calls itself the Military Council for Justice and Democracy, and democracy and rule of law. Col.. Ely Ould Mohamed Vall emerged as leader at an early stage. Dissidents have been released, and the political climate relaxed. The Junta has stated a goal of a democratic government by mid 2007, but in early 2006 it remains unclear where Mauritania is headed.
[edit] Literature
- Newton, Alex, History of West Africa (1988)
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Background Note: Mauritania - History from the US State Department.
- History of Mauritania
Algeria · Angola · Benin · Botswana · Burkina Faso · Burundi · Cameroon · Cape Verde · Central African Republic · Chad · Comoros · Democratic Republic of the Congo · Republic of the Congo · Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) · Djibouti · Egypt · Equatorial Guinea · Eritrea · Ethiopia · Gabon · The Gambia · Ghana · Guinea · Guinea-Bissau · Kenya · Lesotho · Liberia · Libya · Madagascar · Malawi · Mali · Mauritania · Mauritius · Morocco · Mozambique · Namibia · Niger · Nigeria · Rwanda · São Tomé and Príncipe · Senegal · Seychelles · Sierra Leone · Somalia · South Africa · Sudan · Swaziland · Tanzania · Togo · Tunisia · Uganda · Zambia · Zimbabwe
Dependencies and other territories
Ceuta · Mayotte · Melilla · Puntland · Réunion · St. Helena · Somaliland · Western Sahara (SADR)
