Mauritania: An Introduction

For a few days now, I've been talking about Mauritania because it's my assigned country. But through talking to my friends, I realized how little people know about it- if they'd heard of Mauritania at all. So I found this article from LexisNexis- I'm posting the full article here to save you the troubling of logging into the Library website, then LexisNexis. It offers a nice and brief introduction to Mauritania.


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July 31, 2007 Tuesday Mauritania is a country of contrasts. While its territory consists mainly of vast Sahelian and Saharan plains, where vegetation in parts is even insufficient to graze the camel, the vegetation in the south supports sheep, goats, cattle and cultivation based mainly on the seasonally flooded alluvial zone along the river Senegal and its tributaries. And while the population of 2.8 million is bound by a common Muslim attachment to the Malekite sect, 75 per cent are Moors, heterogeneous groups of Arabo-Berber stock, speaking dialects of Hassaniya, and 25 per cent are Negroes (Toucouleurs, Sarakoles, Wolofs) and light skinned nomads (Peulh or Fulani). The Moors themselves are divided on social and descent criteria rather than skin colour into a superior group, the Bidan or 'white' moors (55 per cent of the population) and an inferior group, the Harattin or 'black' moors, who were once slaves (slavery was finally banned in Mauritania in 1981). Both of these groups are nearly all nomadic pastoralists, living a patriarchal life similar to the Arab Bedouins, while the Negroes are sedentary cultivators. These wide cultural and ethnic differences have led to racial clashes, a problem that is found right across Africa where the Saharan peoples adjoin Africa peoples in the same country.

1800s France gained control of Mauritania, ruling it from Senegal.
1957 Limited self-government was granted under the Loi cadre.
1960 Mauritania gained full independence from France under the regime of the Mauritanian People's Party. Mokhtar Ould Daddah became president.
1974 Mauritania withdrew from the CFAf currency zone and introduced the ouguiya.
1975 An agreement between Mauritania, Morocco and Spain led to the division of the Spanish Sahara (a Spanish colony and the present-day Sahrawi Arab Republic (Western Sahara)) between Mauritania and Morocco.
1978 After fighting a largely unsuccessful war against rebels of the Western Sahara, President Daddah was overthrown.
1979 The government of President Haidallah agreed to renounce all territorial claims to Western Sahara.
1981 Slavery was banned in Mauritania.
1984 Haidallah was removed from office by Colonel Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya.
1992 Multi-party elections were held in which President Taya was returned to office.
1996 The governing Parti Républicain Démocratique et Social (PRDS) (Social and Democratic Republican Party) won the elections.
1997 President Taya was re-elected.
1999 Full diplomatic relations were established with Israel. After criticism by Iraq, the foreign ministry announced that Mauritania had severed its relations with Iraq.
2001 The PRDS was re-elected.
2002 Famine increased due to three years of drought.
2003 The OPEC Fund for International Development donated US$300,000 to support an emergency operation by the World Food Programme (WFP). A coup attempt by rebels in Nouakchott was foiled by the President's troops on 9 June. On 6 July, President Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya named Sghair Ould M'Bareck as the new prime minister. Incumbent Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya was re-elected president in the 7 November elections. On 12 November, Prime Minister Sghair Ould M'Bareck was re-appointed.
2004 In January, a team of US military experts began training the Mauritanian army.
2005 Mauritania lost its crop production, which had been attacked by the locust swarms in 2004. The UN called for food aid. On 3 August, while President Taya was out of the country, a military coup overthrew his regime. Colonel Ely Ould Mohamed Vall (leader of the military Junta) was declared president and head of the Military Council for Justice and Democracy. 2006 A referendum was held on 24 June 2006, which approved limitations on future presidential powers. Parliamentary and municipal elections took place on 19 November and 3 December.
2007 In presidential elections Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdellahi won 24.8 per cent of the vote and Ahmed Ould Daddah won 20.7 per cent. A runoff is scheduled to be held 25 March.

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