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Mauritania
HISTORY |
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About | Contact | Mongabay on Facebook | Mongabay on Twitter | Subscribe |
Mauritania
HISTORY |
In the 1980s, Mauritanian society was a collection of distinct, stratified ethnic groups that showed little evidence of social cohesion or national identity. The process of creating national institutions or professional classes had hardly begun. For most Mauritanians, loyalty to family, lineage, and ethnic group far outweighed allegiance to the state or to national institutions. Ethnicity, social position, and caste identity remained strong, conditioning the processes of state formation and administration.
During the colonial period, Mauritania's social structure had come to reflect the impact of French administrative preferences. Individuals, families, and dominant clans attempted to use the colonial presence to maintain or improve their privileged status. Among the Maures, for example, the zawaya tribes at first used their control of religious education to dominate economically and politically. This was accomplished at the expense of the hassani, who had made the transition from warriors, raiders, and tribute collectors to pastoralists, traders, and low-level civil servants. However, the French generally employed Wolof and Toucouleur, rather than Maures, as low-level civil servants. By 1960 black Africans were the majority of the colonial administration's civil servants and played a much larger role in the modern employment sector than did either the hassani or the zawaya.
After independence was granted in 1960, Mauritanian society changed faster than it had during the colonial period. This era saw the beginnings of urbanization, the founding of a permanent capital, the establishment of national organizations such as trade unions, and the expansion of education facilities and literacy. It also brought a reorientation away from West Africa toward the Maghrib as the number of white Maures in the government increased. Secular education, heretofore largely the preserve of black Africans, increased significantly among Maures. White Maures attempted to give Mauritania a distinct Arab-Berber character and in doing so often alienated the black population. At the same time, Maures developed a sense of ethnic identity and unity that had not existed before independence.
By the 1980s, the ranks of the bureaucracy and military included both white Maures and black Africans, but the distribution of professionals in these ranks varied widely. In the late 1970s, studies indicated that black Africans generally formed a larger proportion of the salaried professional class than did white Maures, whereas the opposite was the case among wage earners and general laborers. Continuing the colonial pattern, the Toucouleur and the Wolof were well represented in higher and mid-level professional ranks, and the Sonink� were beginning to penetrate the lower and mid-level ranks. White Maures and black Africans were almost equally represented at the highest bureaucratic levels.
Considerable tension existed between Maures and black Africans in the late 1980s. Many Maures still viewed black Africans as people who should be under Maure control, a perception especially evident among more traditional Maure tribes of the north. Many blacks, however, considered Maures (especially white Maures) to be ignorant, lazy, and inefficient. They also saw white Maures as slaveholders. Thus, they feared growing Maure political and social dominance.
These attitudes intensified during the 1980s. Despite official denials, many black Africans complained of widespread racial discrimination in political and economic areas. They pointed to the disproportionate number of Arab-Berbers at the top of the government bureaucracy and military command, to Mauritania's close ties with the Arab world, and to the emphasis on the use of Arabic in national life to support these complaints.
Another issue that exacerbated racial tensions during the 1980s was access to land along the Senegal River. As plans for economic development along the river valley progressed, blacks feared that wealthy white Maures would buy up productive land in areas traditionally claimed by blacks. Desertification of once- fertile lands farther north added to the competition for better watered land in southern Mauritania.
As in many newly independent countries with marked ethnic and linguistic diversity, the selection of national and official languages heightened intergroup tensions. At independence, Hassaniya Arabic was given "national" language status, while French remained an "official" language. In 1966, however, the government made Hassaniya Arabic an official language along with French and required that Arabic be taught in secondary schools, a requirement that brought protests from Mauritania's blacks.
In the late 1980s, blacks continued to protest against the compulsory study of Arabic and complained that their lack of proficiency in the language was used to block their advancement in the bureaucracy and military. Blacks could still choose to be educated in French, however, and French retained its status as an official language. The government also permitted primary-level instruction in several of Mauritania's African languages.
Economic development has altered traditional social organization, particularly among groups near centers of modernization. Rapid urbanization has accelerated these changes. The importance of lineage endogamy has declined among Maures, and customary marriage patterns have begun to change. By the late 1980s, urban Mauritanians paid less attention to distant segments of their lineages, and they seldom reckoned their kin-group membership back more than five generations.
Economic functions of the various black African and Maure caste groups were becoming less rigid; social patterns, therefore, also were becoming more fluid. An increasing number of Mauritanians were involved in work unrelated to traditional caste occupations. Although the customary social distinctions associated with traditional stratification patterns remained and individuals were still identified socially as members of particular castes, there were indications that caste designations were becoming less important socially and economically. In addition, government efforts to modernize and commercialize the activities of craftsmen and fishermen resulted in some rise in the social status of these groups.
If the pace of change was slow in Mauritanian society as a whole, it was even slower in the area of slavery. Slavery was abolished in 1960 and again in 1980. Mauritanian authorities acknowledged the continued existence of slavery and took limited steps to eradicate it, but in 1981 observers estimated that at least 100,000 people were still slaves and 300,000 were ex- slaves.
In 1974 a group of escaped slaves formed an emancipation movement known as El Hor (Freedom). By the late 1970s, El Hor began to achieve some notable successes; the 1980 decree abolishing slavery was owed at least in part to El Hor's agitation, as were fact-finding missions by the London Anti- Slavery Society (1981) and the UN (1984). Building on these achievements, El Hor continued to press for specific laws to ensure that emancipation became a reality and that former slaves enjoyed equal rights and treatment.
Factors that conditioned the role of women in Mauritanian society in the late 1980s included the impact of Islam and sharia (Islamic law); West African influences that allowed women substantial independence in some social and economic areas; economic modernization, which challenged customary behavior patterns in some areas; and Mauritania's rapid pace of urbanization, which subjected traditional nomadic customs to new scrutiny. Many women in such urban centers as Nouakchott, for example, were born in the rural interior of the country and found their childhood training challenged by changing urban social conditions.
Girls' education took place primarily at home and emphasized homemaking skills. Some girls attended Quranic schools, but their training was usually limited to learning verses from the Quran and attaining minimal literacy skills. A mother's responsibility toward her daughter traditionally included instruction in household and family affairs and childrearing. In recent decades, fathers were responsible for financing any formal education for their children, but a father's most important responsibility toward his daughters was to prepare them for marriage, primarily by ensuring their physical attractiveness. A widespread practice was forced feeding (gavage). Forced feeding usually involved psychological pressure, rather than physical force, but it often required a family to reserve substantial quantities of food--in most cases, milk--for consumption by its pre-teenage daughters, whose beauty was a measure of a father's commitment to the marriage alliances they would form. Many young women were betrothed or married by the age of eight or ten. Unmarried teenage girls were subjected to severe social criticism.
Divorce was fairly common in Mauritanian society in the 1980s, even among very traditional villagers. A divorced man suffered no social stigma, but a divorced woman could still become an outcast if her family or her former husband's family criticized her behavior. Women traditionally had cared for their homes and worked in limited agricultural pursuits; but by the 1980s, they were beginning to enter professions formerly closed to them, such as commerce, teaching, and a variety of skilled occupations.
By 1985 nearly one-fourth of all girls below the age of eleven attended primary school, a marked increase over enrollment figures just a decade earlier. More women were attending secondary schools and university, and in 1987 Khadijatou Bint Ahmed, Mauritania's minister of mines and industry, became the nation's first female cabinet official.
In the late 1980s, Mauritania was still in the early stages of developing a modern education system. Although Islamic education had long been an important part of life, this religious instruction involved only rote learning of the Quran. Few Mauritanians possessed skills necessary to create a modern nation-state.
The government has consistently stressed the need for improved and expanded education programs and in the 1980s was actively pursuing these goals. While modern, skill-oriented programs were being established to help satisfy the growing needs for skilled workers and technicians, efforts also were under way to expand traditional Islamic education. Expanding Quranic education has been viewed as necessary to preserve Islamic cultural tradition and promote national unity.
Mauritania has long had an extensive but scattered education system consisting of the religious and cultural education provided by marabouts. Indeed, it was largely through the efforts of these teachers that Islam was spread throughout West Africa. Although in the past Islamic education was largely limited to fundamental religious teaching, the children of white Maures often studied Arabic and simple arithmetic as well. Both boys and girls received traditional education, at first within the family and later in the local Quranic schools operated by the marabouts. They usually began their education around the age of eight, the boys studying for about seven years, the girls for perhaps only two.
Traditional Islamic schools were found in the nomadic communities and in settled villages. Because particularly renowned marabout teachers would be surrounded by families who wished their children to learn from these masters, several centers of more advanced Islamic learning developed around the camps of these marabouts. In these centers, students learned grammar, logic, and other subjects, as well as traditional religious subjects. Many of the centers developed sizable collections of manuscripts through the efforts of the great marabouts.
The tradition of religious learning centers continued through the late colonial period. The Institute of Islamic Studies, founded in 1955 at Boutilimit, was the only Islamic institution of higher learning in West Africa. It provided instruction in traditional Islamic subjects and teaching methods. After independence, it was moved to Nouakchott, where it continued to draw upon the manuscript collection built by the marabouts of Boutilimit as well as other libraries of traditional Islamic literature in Chinguetti, Ka�di, Mederdra, Oual�ta, and Tidjikdja.
The French colonial administration established a system of public schools in Mauritania. The French schools were largely concentrated in the sedentary communities in the Senegal River Valley. In 1950 the first teacher training school was established at Boutilimit, and in 1957 the secondary school in Rosso also began training teachers. In part because public schools were concentrated in the south, black Africans enrolled in large numbers. As a result, the overwhelming majority of public school teachers were black, and blacks came to dominate the nation's secular intelligentsia.
The few French schools located in nomadic areas had difficulty attracting students. The Maures in particular were reluctant to accept the public schools and continued to favor purely Islamic instruction. Gradually, however, they began to send their children to public schools, as they saw that traditional religious training was not preparing their children for life in the twentieth century. The French also experimented with "mobile schools" after World War II, and in this way they provided public education for a larger number of nomads. In 1954 there were twelve so-called "tent" schools serving 241 students. At least some of these tent schools continued to function after independence.
The independent government viewed secular education as one of the major methods to promote national unity, as well as a necessary step toward the development of a modern economy. It still faced shortages of funds, adequately trained teaching staff, and classroom facilities at all levels. Another teacher training school was opened in Nouakchott in 1964.
School attendance was not compulsory, and in 1964-65 only 19,100 primary-school students and 1,500 secondary-school students--about 14 percent of school-age children--were enrolled. By 1985 an estimated 35 percent of primary-school-age children were enrolled in school, but only about 4 to 10 percent of eligible secondary-school-age children were enrolled. In both cases, boys heavily outnumbered girls.
In 1985-86 primary-school enrollments had climbed to 140,871, and enrollments in secondary and vocational schools amounted to 34,674. The government reported a total of 878 primary schools and 44 secondary or vocational institutions. A total of 4,336 students were enrolled in postsecondary training programs. An additional 448 students were attending the National Islamic Institute (formerly the Institute of Islamic Studies), and some 1,900 Mauritanians were enrolled in various training programs abroad. The public schools employed almost 2,900 primary teachers, 1,563 secondary and vocational teachers (412 of them foreign), and 237 postsecondary instructors, more than half of them expatriates. In 1982 the National College of Administration and the National College of Sciences opened in Nouakchott, and in 1983 nearly 1,000 students began instruction at the University of Nouakchott.
Illiteracy remained a major problem and an important impediment to economic and social development. In 1985 the adult literacy rate was estimated at 17 to 25 percent, approximately half the average for sub-Saharan Africa. Nonetheless, this rate represented an improvement over the estimated 5 percent literacy rate at independence and 10 percent a decade later. Recognizing the need for a better educated work force, in mid-1986 the government launched a major literacy campaign and created the State Secretariat of Culture, Information, and Telecommunications to head the effort. That same year, the government reported that the number of literacy classes had already increased more than ten times over the 1985 number.
At the same time, the cost of education was quite high in comparison with neighboring countries. In the mid-1980s, Mauritania was spending about US$45 million (20 percent of current expenditures) on education every year. Its costs for primary schooling were the highest per student in francophone West Africa, and only C�te d'Ivoire exceeded the cost per secondary pupil. These high costs were due in part to teachers' salaries, particularly those of expatriates, and to a generous system of scholarships. Planned investment in education for the years 1985 through 1988 was set at US$27 million under the Economic Recovery Program for 1985-88, an increase of less than 1 percent over the period from 1980 through 1984.
The French system of primary and secondary schools remained in force into the late 1980s. Over the years, however, some significant changes had been made, and others were planned. In the early 1980s, instruction in Pulaar, Azayr (Sonink�), and Wolof was introduced into the primary school curriculum, and Arabic was emphasized at all levels. The official policy of gradually replacing French with local languages and Arabic, adopted in the late 1970s, drew vigorous protests from Frenchspeaking black Mauritanians and was abandoned within a decade.
Mauritania remained critically short of skilled labor. In the mid-1980s, only about 15 percent of secondary-school students were enrolled in vocational education. To redress this situation and to raise the general level of literacy, the government encouraged the growth of private and Quranic schools; most industrial training took place in private institutions. More important, the government also turned to the international community. In 1987 the World Bank agreed to help make Mauritania's education system more responsive to the country's development needs. Proposed changes involved expanding primary education and restructuring secondary schooling. Special attention was to be given to vocational training in areas of particular national need, such as water engineering and fisheries.
Despite the central government's good intentions and some health care planning, health care and medical facilities in Mauritania remained inadequate in the late 1980s. Most Mauritanians, especially those who inhabited rural areas, did not have access to modern health care facilities. Nouakchott and the provincial centers had facilities, but even in these locales health care was rudimentary. Planned public investment in health and social services for the years 1985 through 1988 was projected at only US$2.5 million. While this doubled the amount spent from 1980 through 1984, it was still inadequate to meet the country's needs.
Mauritania's health care infrastructure in the early 1980s consisted of a central hospital in Nouakchott, twelve regional hospitals, a number of health clinics, maternal and child care centers, dispensaries, and mobile medical units to serve the countryside. All facilities suffered from a lack of equipment, supplies, and trained personnel. The ratio of people to hospital beds was 2,610 to one. The ratio of people to physicians was 13,350 to one. This ratio represented an improvement over the 1965 figure of 36,580 to one and was better than that of some of Mauritania's neighbors.
In 1987 Mauritania's largest medical facility was the 500-bed government-run hospital in Nouakchott. Staffed by Mauritanian and expatriate doctors, it lacked supplies and properly maintained equipment. Other facilities included the National Health Center, built in 1977 for the study of disease prevention and methods of public health care education, and the National School of Nurses and Midwives, founded in 1966 to train nurses, midwives, and paramedical personnel.
In general, health standards were quite low, and many infectious diseases were endemic. Contagious diseases (such as measles and tuberculosis) and respiratory disorders were more prevalent in northern arid regions, whereas malaria, guinea worm infection, and schistosomiasis were more common in the Senegal River Valley. The desert tended to be a healthier environment than the more tropical south, but several major diseases were common to all areas of the country. Typhoid, poliomyelitis, hepatitis, and a variety of parasitic illnesses also affected the population. In late 1987, the World Health Organization issued warnings about cholera, and outbreaks of both yellow fever and Rift Valley fever were reported in the extreme southern part of Trarza Region around Rosso. Contagious and infectious diseases were rampant in the k�b�s surrounding major towns, cities, and villages.
In the mid-1980s, a mass vaccination campaign for children under five years of age was under way. The program, aimed at reducing infection from poliomyelitis, diphtheria, pertussis, and several other diseases, was reportedly meeting with some success. Malnutrition remained widespread, especially in children. The long-term drought and the consequent drop in food production exacerbated this problem during the early 1980s. According to a 1987 report by the United States Agency for International Development, between 40 percent and 70 percent of children under the age of five had experienced moderate to severe malnutrition. The degree of malnutrition varied according to the success or failure of local crops, and some slight improvement was noted in early 1987.
AT INDEPENDENCE IN 1960, Mauritania embarked on an ambitious but ill-conceived development plan to construct large-scale industrial projects in the mining, energy, and manufacturing sectors. The failure of many of these projects left the nation saddled with one of the largest foreign debt burdens in the world in proportion to the size of its economy. In the late 1980s, Mauritania's economy continued to rely heavily on the earnings derived from the export of iron ore and fish. The economy also remained seriously hampered by a structural inability to feed the country's population. Even in nondrought years, large amounts of food aid were needed to supplement domestic production and commercial food imports.
Until the mid-1980s, iron ore mining was the motor of economic development in Mauritania. Exploitation of rich, highgrade iron ore deposits began in 1963. In the 1960s, mining directly provided almost one-third of the gross domestic product (GDP) and contributed more than 80 percent of the country's export earnings. Mauritania also began mining copper deposits in 1973; the mine closed in 1975, however, because of falling world copper prices. The worldwide recession that caused a fall in demand for copper also affected iron exports. Iron mining stagnated during the later 1970s. By the mid-1980s, the mining sector had lost its predominance in the economy, accounting for between 10 and 11 percent of GDP in fiscal year (FY) 1984, and by 1985 export earnings from mining had fallen to around 40 percent.
The waters off the coast of Mauritania are among the richest fishing grounds in the world. Before 1979, however, the government exercised little control over foreign fishing operations, and Mauritanians took little part in fishing. Fishing and fish processing accounted for less than 5 percent of GDP in 1975, and virtually the only revenues obtained were in the form of royalties on fishing licenses paid by foreign fishing companies to the government. In 1979 Mauritania established its New Fisheries Policy and a 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ). The industry underwent rapid growth under the new policy, which required foreign operators to form joint ventures with Mauritanian companies and resulted in the development of a national fishing fleet.
Although in 1984 fishing contributed less than 10 percent to GDP at current market prices, the volume of reported fish exports rose rapidly. In 1983 fishing became the number one foreign exchange earner with some 54 percent of export revenues. Fishing, together with mining, employed about 9 percent of the economically active population.
Through the 1970s, agriculture, including herding, continued to deteriorate. Serious droughts combined with economic neglect to cause a severe decline in farm production. Both herding and agriculture were hard hit by the droughts: their combined contributions to GDP dropped from about 40 percent in the 1960s to about 25 percent in 1986.
In the early 1960s, Mauritania produced about half of its grain needs. After dropping to an all-time low of about 3 to 5 percent of its grain needs during the drought years of 1983-85, production rebounded somewhat to about one-third of need in 1986. Although the vast majority of the people remained attached to the traditional agro-pastoral life of the countryside, this life was becoming extremely difficult. Desertification advanced in some areas at a rate of six kilometers per year. Increasingly, refugees from the countryside began to migrate to urban centers such as Nouakchott. With the exception of a few scattered oases, farming was limited to the narrow band along the Senegal River.
As recently as the mid-1970s, only 20 percent of Mauritania's total population were sedentary farmers. Between 1975 and 1980, their contribution to GDP averaged 3 to 5 percent. During the same period, the pastoral herding sector of the economy constituted about 20 percent of GDP and engaged 60 to 70 percent of the total population. Of the states in West Africa, Mauritania had the highest ratio of cattle to people, a ratio of three to one. The livestock-to-crop ratio of GDP also was the highest for West Africa, as animal husbandry contributed four times as much to GDP as did farming.
The cumulative effects of drought and weak demand for Mauritania's iron exports, along with the heavy expenses of the war in the Western Sahara during the mid-1970s, curtailed the rapid growth of the 1960s that had been marked by an average rise in GDP of 8 percent a year. During the late 1970s and the 1980s, the economy stagnated, and financial instability supplanted an earlier ability to meet foreign debt obligations. From 1974 to 1984, GDP growth averaged 2.3 percent, barely keeping pace with population growth. In 1986 GDP per capita income was estimated at US$410, no higher in real terms than a decade earlier, placing Mauritania at the lower end of low- to middle-income developing countries. Real per capita income for the vast majority of the population outside the small modern sector was much lower, estimated in the range of US$100 to US$150 per year.
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Since independence in 1960, the government has played the central role in development planning and economic management. In 1963 the government inaugurated the first of a series of fourand five-year development plans. Covering the period 1963-67, the first plan had two primary goals: reducing Mauritania's dependence on external finances (principally French) and foreign personnel and laying the foundation for economic development through a series of basic studies of the country's resources. The plan gave investment priority to processing facilities in the mining industry (30 percent of total programmed financing), urban development (15 percent), and transportation and communications (12 percent). The plan neglected the rural sector, however; only 9 percent of programmed financing was earmarked for agriculture and livestock, nearly all of which went for construction and maintenance of small dams and wells and for meat packing and storage plants. Virtually no money was allocated for improving agriculture and livestock production techniques. In 1963, in pursuit of the plan's first objective, the government requested a halt to French subsidies to the current operating budget. Nevertheless, French development assistance continued and was critical to investment plans that favored the partly French-owned iron mines that opened in 1963.
In the second (1970-74) and third (1976-80) development plans, Mauritania asserted an independent national economic identity and established the framework of the public sector. In 1973 Mauritania withdrew from the French-backed West African Monetary Union (Union Mon�taire Ouest Africaine--UMOA) and created an independent central bank and national currency, the ouguiya. In 1974 the government nationalized the mining sector, and enterprises engaged in basic public services and "mauritanized" staff positions throughout the newly expanded public sector. Planners continued to focus on investment in mining and infrastructure (roads in particular). Between 1970 and 1975, mining received 39 percent of a planned total expenditure of UM8.9 billion, and roads received 20 percent. The rural sector continued to lag, as the government allocated to it only 7 percent of total development spending.
The government that came to power in 1978 adopted a fourth five-year development plan (1981-85) and a stabilization program that had International Monetary Fund (IMF) support. The stabilization program called for tighter controls on government spending, more stringent tax collection, and major debt rescheduling. The five-year plan had three objectives: the development of irrigated agriculture, the rehabilitation of the iron mining sector, and the construction of a national fishing industry.
Public enterprises emerged rapidly during the 1970s and by 1985 totaled more than 100 entities. Through these parastatal enterprises, the government brought under national control the exploitation of the country's natural resources and the provision of basic public services--functions that were still largely in foreign hands as late as the mid-1970s. By the mid-1980s, public enterprises generated about 20 percent of GDP and employed some 14,000 people, thus providing about 25 percent of recorded employment in the modern sector. By 1986 the parastatal companies included twenty-five largely government-owned industrial and commercial enterprises, twenty-seven joint ventures with the private sector, and fifty-six decentralized services in administration, research, and education. The largest public enterprise was the National Mining and Industrial Company (Soci�t� Nationale Industrielle et Mini�re--SNIM).
The majority of the larger, wholly government-owned enterprises operated in principle on a commercial basis. Nevertheless, since the late 1970s they have operated at a loss, and many have failed to provide the services for which they were responsible. Direct government operating subsidies to these public enterprises were modest, totaling only 3 percent of government expenditures in 1983. Their losses (in addition to undelivered services) reverted to the government, however, because they failed to pay tax liabilities and the government assumed their debts. In 1986 public enterprises owed 25 percent of Mauritania's total public external debt.
The poor performance of public enterprises had a variety of causes, including a paucity of technical and professional skills among increasingly "mauritanized" staffs, a poor definition of roles and responsibilities, inadequate pricing policies, weak accounting practices, and overstaffing. In 1983 the government launched a program to reform and rehabilitate the public sector, and this program continued under the 1985-88 Economic Recovery Program and the 1987 Structural Adjustment Program agreements with the World Bank. Under the original 1983 program, no new public enterprises were to be established unless they could be economically justified; public enterprises were to be reviewed and nominated for liquidation, privatization, or rehabilitation; subsidies were to be phased out; and pricing policies were to be revised to reflect economic costs. In addition, interlocking relationships between the central government and individual enterprises were to be more clearly defined and enterprise debt arrears settled; excess staff was to be trimmed, hiring of new unskilled staff was to be frozen, and a new salary scale was to be established. Finally, substantial improvements in budgeting, accounting, and auditing procedures were to be introduced.
By 1987 progress in achieving these goals was impressive. The government had implemented selective rehabilitation of five large public enterprises. It also had privatized three others and begun liquidating five more.
The government's plan included privatizing three of the country's eight public financial institutions. In 1984 it settled interlocking debts of fifteen important enterprises through compensation, cancellation, and refinancing. In 1985, under new pricing policies, regulated producer prices paid to farmers by the Commission for Food Security (Commissariat � la S�curit� Alimentaire--CSA) rose by 40 percent. At the same time, the CSA raised the price of subsidized food aid on sale by 50 percent. The National Import-Export Company (Soci�t� Nationale d'Importation et d'Exportation--SONIMEX) raised consumer prices for food and basic commodity goods by approximately 30 percent to reflect real costs and to achieve full import parity on grain prices at the Senegalese border. Water and electricity prices rose by 10 percent, and port services fees rose by 25 percent, in part to compensate for the 1985 currency devaluation. The government reduced labor costs at SNIM, where it cut the work force by 25 percent. By the end of 1987, public sector management, wage policies, training, accounting procedures, and policies governing relations between the public enterprises and the central government all were under intensive review by the World Bank and the international donor community.
The waters off the 754-kilometer-long coast of Mauritania are among the richest fishing grounds in the world. In 1986 estimates of the country's potential annual marine resources ranged between 400,000 and 700,000 tons. Mauritanian officials estimated the potential annual catch at 525,000 tons, a level close to that of Senegal, which had the largest fishing industry in West Africa. The actual catch, however, could only be estimated on the basis of export figures from Mauritania, recorded catches of licensed operators, and estimates of unrecorded and unlicensed catches. Unrecorded and unlicensed fishing in Mauritania's waters were believed to be high, perhaps in excess of 100,000 tons annually. In 1983 recorded exports and declared licensed fishing catches were estimated at 450,000 tons. Combining these figures, experts believed Mauritania's waters were close to being overfished. Although these waters had long been commercially exploited by foreign fleets, Mauritanians historically had done little fishing. The majority Maure population consumed little fish, and only the small Imraguen ethnic group fished for subsistence.
Until 1979, Mauritania's efforts to exploit the economic benefits of its fishing grounds focused on licensing foreign operators in territorial waters (confined until 1980 to a thirty- nautical-mile limit). These efforts, coupled with some port and processing development designed to attract fleets to land their catches at Nouadhibou, were only partially successful. The principal benefit came in the form of licensing royalties, calculated on the basis of 10 percent of an operator's reported catch. Because Mauritania had no means of patrolling its waters, many foreign operators were never licensed, and licensed operators consistently underreported their catches. Nevertheless, revenues from fishing royalties were very important to the government and in 1977-78 accounted for almost 20 percent of total budget receipts. In addition, the port and processing facilities were underused. In 1967 only 35 percent of the 52,000- ton annual processing capacity was used. Foreign operators preferred to use the facilities at Las Palmas, in Spain's Canary Islands, where they could avoid the supply, handling, water, and electric power shortages prevalent at Nouadhibou.
In 1979 Mauritania initiated its New Fisheries Policy and established a 200-nautical-mile EEZ. The New Fisheries Policy had three objectives: the formation of Mauritanian-controlled joint ventures, the creation of a national fishing fleet, and the establishment of a Mauritanian-controlled fish processing industry at Nouadhibou.
The first of these objectives led to the replacement of licensing and royalties agreements with foreign operators by newly formed Mauritanian-controlled joint ventures. In principle, such joint ventures implied a 43 percent government share, an 8 percent local private sector share, and a 49 percent foreign share. In practice, Mauritanian control of these ventures was nominal. The foreign partner provided all the capital and equipment and controlled all operations. Government and private shares were to be purchased out of venture profits over periods as long as twenty years. By 1986 the most important of the joint venture agreements that had been established was the Mauritanian- Soviet Maritime Resources Company (Mauritanienne-Sovi�tique des Ressources Maritimes--MAUSSOV). Between 1985 and 1987, MAUSSOV accounted for about 55 percent of total export tonnage and 20 to 30 percent of the total value of fish exports. The next most important joint venture was the Mauritanian-Romanian Fishing Company (Soci�t� Mauritano-Roumaine de P�che--SIMAR). Between 1985 and 1987, SIMAR accounted for 16 to 18 percent of total export tonnage and 7 to 10 percent of the total value of fish exports. Other significant joint ventures were established with Algeria, Iraq, and the Republic of Korea (South Korea).
The development of a national fishing fleet and processing industry led to the creation in the early 1980s of two public enterprises. The government also participated in and lent support to several privately owned Mauritanian fishing and processing companies. The most important of these was the Mauritanian Commercial Fish Company (Soci�t� Mauritanienne de Commercialisation du Poisson--SMCP). Owning no boats or facilities, the SMCP was a marketing board that bought all fish landed at Nouadhibou. By the terms of their agreements, joint ventures were required to land a portion of their catches--in practice, only the more valuable demersal (sea-bottom) fish--for local processing. The SMCP arranged processing and cold storage at port facilities before resale and export. Between 1985 and 1987, the SMCP exported 14 to 17 percent of the total catch and accounted for 71 to 82 percent of the demersal catch, which translated into 75 to 88 percent of the value of demersal exports and 43 to 60 percent of the value of total fish exports. Another public enterprise, the Mauritanian Refrigeration Company (Soci�t� des Frigorifiques Mauritaniens--SOFRIMA), operated processing facilities as well as a fleet of fishing boats. Several small privately owned Mauritanian companies also operated facilities or fleets of fishing boats.
Between 1968 and 1974, processing capacity at Nouadhibou rose by 22 percent per year until it reached an annual capacity of around 140,000 tons. Between 1970 and 1979, however, companies landed between 50,000 and 80,000 tons of fish annually for processing at Nouadhibou--far below the port's capacity. During the first years of the New Fisheries Policy (1979 to 1982), tonnage landed dropped to under 10,000 tons. Once joint venture agreements were signed, however, average annual tonnage landed began to rise, reaching about 58,500 tons annually between 1984 and 1986. Joint venture companies built additional processing capacity, and by 1985 the port had an annual processing capacity of some 200,000 tons. Despite government policy requiring certain landings, however, at the rates companies were landing their catches, only 30 percent of the port's capacity was in use.
Because of poor services and high costs, Nouadhibou was unattractive to fishing fleets. Its principle problem was lack of handling equipment for quickly unloading frozen or iced fish from vessels to cold storage. In addition, fish spoiled quickly in the desert heat, and the high cost of electrical power for processing and cold storage (three times the cost at Las Palmas) made landing of any but the most valuable fish varieties uneconomical. In addition, supplies and equipment were not readily available. Many items had to be brought in on an emergency basis by air, further inflating the cost of operations. Local banking facilities were limited, and international communications were difficult and often unavailable. Finally, Nouadhibou--with only two small hotels and scant recreational opportunities--offered little attraction to crews of vessels calling at the port. For the most part, crews who used the port either stayed on ship, went directly to chartered flights home, or took commercial flights to recreational ports such as Las Palmas or Dakar. Thus, the local economy benefited little from their presence.
Compounding these problems, the types of fishing vessels in use and the economics of the international market in fish varieties also made Nouadhibou unattractive for fish processing. The most economical types of vessels in use in the mid-1980s were large trawlers capable of freezing, processing, and transshipping catches independently of any port. The largest were Atlantic- and Super Atlantic-class factory trawlers, built for the most part in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) and operated by the Soviets and Romanians. In the mid-1980s, these ships accounted for the bulk of Mauritania's reported catch, including 85 percent of pelagic (open-sea) fish. Between 1985 and 1987, pelagic fish represented about 79 percent of the total catch. The pelagic catch included sardines, herring, tuna, and anchovies. Although it represented the bulk of tonnage caught, the pelagic catch included the least valuable of fish varieties in Mauritania's waters and was fished almost entirely by the Soviet and Romanian joint ventures. From 1985 to 1987, MAUSSOV and SIMAR accounted for 90 percent of the pelagic catch. Because of their size and draft, the Atlantic- and Super Atlantic-class pelagic freezer- factory trawlers could not enter Nouadhibou, and they transshipped their catches to refrigerated carrier vessels anchored outside the port.
The most valuable varieties of seafood in Mauritania's waters were demersals, including cod, sole, octopus, squid, lobster, and shrimp. For these varieties, joint ventures and local operators used demersal freezers and demersal ice boats. The ice boats had to unload their catches for processing at port before export, but the freezers were somewhat less dependent on port processing. In 1983 the government began requiring the landing and processing of all demersal catches at Nouadhibou under the SMCP monopoly. Between 1985 and 1987, the demersal catch was estimated at about 21 percent of the total catch, with the SMCP accounting for 71 to 81 percent of the demersal exports, representing as much as 60 percent of the total value of fish exports in those years.
Despite difficulties, the New Fisheries Policy was partially successful. Its adoption led to the formation of important joint venture operations and the growth of locally owned fishing fleets. Efforts to encourage local fishing brought some opportunity for sales to processors and exporters, estimated at 10,000 tons per year. In the 1983-85 period, 70 percent of the total estimated catch in Mauritanian waters was brought in by joint ventures and ships flying the Mauritanian flag. This activity generated approximately US$150 million in gross export receipts and made fishing the country's most important source of foreign exchange. The remaining 30 percent of the reported catch continued to be fished by companies under older licensing agreements. These older agreements were due to expire by 1988 and included, in particular, operations of the Spanish and Portuguese fleets. A comprehensive fishing agreement covering the operations of these and other European operators that mainly fished for demersals was under negotiation with the European Community (EC) in 1987. To better control the estimated 100,000 tons of fish taken by unlicensed trawlers, the government, the World Bank, and the donor community were considering measures to increase surveillance and reporting. In late 1987, studies sponsored by the World Bank and donor community were under way to determine ways to increase the value-added portion of the industry to GDP.
Mauritania's mineral wealth has been exploited since Neolithic times. Archeological evidence of a copper mining and refining site near Akjoujt in west-central Mauritania dates from 500 to 1000 B.C. Modern exploitation of copper at Akjoujt and the more important iron ore deposits between Fd�rik and Zou�r�t began after independence.
Plans to exploit the high-grade iron ore deposits at Kedia, near Zou�r�t, began in 1952 with the formation of the privately owned Mauritanian Iron Mines Company (Soci�t� Anonyme des Mines de Fer de Mauritanie--MIFERMA). With support from the World Bank, the French government, and the Mauritanian government, MIFERMA (owned by French, British, Italian, and West German steel interests) began operations in 1963. By 1966 MIFERMA had invested the equivalent of some US$200 million in mining facilities at Kedia, port facilities at Nouadhibou, and a rail line to carry the ore to port for export.
Iron mining quickly dominated Mauritania's economy. In 1966, after only three years of operations, iron mining contributed 28 percent to GDP and accounted for 92 percent of the value of all exports. The three surface mines at Kedia had a rich ore content of 65 percent. Mined by explosives from the sides of tall rock formations, the ore was loaded on 100-ton trucks for transport to the railhead. There, the ore was also crushed and sorted. The ore was then loaded on the world's heaviest trains (200 cars carrying a total of 20,000 tons, pulled by four locomotives, and averaging two kilometers in length) for transport to Nouadhibou for export. Normally, there was one trip daily in each direction along the 650- kilometer line.
Iron mining provided the income for Mauritania's economic development during the first two decades of independence. Construction of the mine, rail, and port facilities provided wages to thousands of laborers. By the late 1970s and early 1980s, the industry employed some 6,000 workers and accounted for about 10 percent of the jobs in the modern sector. Development of the mines and their associated infrastructure took the bulk of investment funds allocated under the first three national development plans. The iron mining industry had a substantial direct and indirect impact on the economy, and many industrial and construction enterprises worked primarily or exclusively for the iron company. By the mid- 1970s, iron operations consumed about 40 percent of the country's imports of fuel oil. At the same time, mining was responsible indirectly for about 25 percent of GDP because of its high consumption of public utilities (power and water), commerce, transportation, and services. Iron also provided nearly 30 percent of all government revenues, thereby making an important contribution to all public sector investment and current expenditures. By the early 1970s, the cumulative effects of the growth of iron mining on national accounts, along with rising demand and good world commodity prices, enabled Mauritania to be recategorized by the World Bank and United Nations (UN) from a "least developed country" to a "moderate-income developing country." This reclassification increased Mauritania's ability to borrow on the international market to finance its ambitious development plans.
The development of the iron mines also contributed directly to the country's rapid urbanization. At independence, the populations of Nouadhibou and Zou�r�t were estimated at less than 5,000 each. By the mid-1970s, these two towns had more than quadrupled in size to around 20,000 to 30,000 people each. Mining revenues to the government also helped spur the growth of the administrative capital at Nouakchott, which grew from around 5,000 people in 1960 to over 125,000 people in the mid-1970s.
In 1974 Mauritania nationalized the mining industry as a part of its effort to establish economic independence under the second development plan. With substantial assistance from Arab members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Mauritania bought out the European owners of MIFERMA. Transfer of ownership to the newly formed SNIM was smooth; the terms of the transfer kept the foreign expert personnel and managers on the job and maintained the commercial relationship with the former owners of MIFERMA.
The mid-1970s marked a turning point for Mauritania's economy. Two events adversely affected the mining sector. The first was the onset of the world recession in 1974 and 1975, caused by the sharp rise of world oil prices; the second was Mauritania's costly involvement in the Western Sahara conflict between 1976 and 1978. These events, along with a prolonged drought that began in the late 1960s, reversed Mauritania's iron- based economic growth.
From the beginning of mining operations in 1963, Mauritania's production and export of iron ore rose constantly for a decade. In 1974 ore exports reached their all-time high of 11.7 million tons. In the following year, with falling demand for steel in Western Europe, Mauritania's exports of iron ore declined by more than 25 percent, to 8.7 million tons. Between 1975 and 1987, iron ore exports averaged 8.5 million tons annually. Between 1976 and 1978, attacks on the rail line by the Polisario exacerbated the situation. In 1978 ore exports had fallen to 6.2 million tons. Mauritania's withdrawal from the war in mid-1978 allowed some recovery but did not affect the trend based on continued weak demand for iron ore on world markets.
By the late 1970s, the worsening economic situation created the first in a series of financial crises for the state, whose revenues fell with declining iron ore exports. This decline affected the government's ability to meet increasing foreign debt obligations. An immediate result of this financial crisis was the government's decision to reorganize the nationalized mining sector as a part of an IMF-supported stabilization program. Following nationalization in 1974, SNIM controlled not only iron mining but also copper and gypsum mining, as well as other industries and trading activities related to mining. The most important benefits of this arrangement for SNIM were control over the national distribution of petroleum products through the Petroleum Products Commercial Union (Union Commerciale des Produits P�troliers--UCPP); control of the explosives industry (with factories in Nouadhibou and Nouakchott); and participation in the Arab Metal Industries Company (Soci�t� Arabe des Industries Metallurgiques--SAMIA), which planned and later operated a steel rolling mill at Nouadhibou. Until 1978 SNIM's operations were the direct responsibility of the president of the republic and were administered by a board of supervisors composed of twelve members from the various ministries under the chairmanship of the minister of planning and mines.
The reorganization carried out between 1978 and 1979 led to SNIM's divestiture of many of these operations, particularly those related to copper and gypsum mining and petroleum products distribution. The financial reorganization of SNIM resulted in the sale of about 30 percent of the company's shares to new foreign investors, including the Arab Mining Company, the Islamic Development Bank, the government of Morocco, the government of Iraq, and the Kuwait Foreign Trading, Contracting, and Investment Company.
The critical importance of iron ore mining to the economy was underscored in the late 1970s by the ripple effects its decline had on the country's ability to meet its debt obligations. Prospects that the industry would continue to decline throughout the 1980s as the older Kedia deposits were exhausted led the government, with World Bank support, to embark on the US$500 million Guelbs Iron Ore Project in 1979. The sale of US$120 million worth of SNIM shares to Arab investors was one means of raising the capital for this massive project. Further support was guaranteed by large loans from the World Bank, the Saudi Fund, France's Central Fund for Economic Cooperation (Caisse Centrale de Coop�ration Economique--CCCE), the Kuwait Fund, the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development, the Abu Dhabi Fund, and the European Investment Bank. Smaller loans were secured from the Japan Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund, the African Development Bank, and the OPEC Special Fund.
In late 1984, the first phase of the Guelbs project went into operation with the opening of new surface mines at El Rheins, located in the Zou�r�t district, about twenty-two kilometers from the Kedia deposits. Because the ore from the new deposits was not as rich as the Kedia ore (38 percent pure iron content as compared with Kedia ore's 65 percent iron content), the project required the construction of concentration and beneficiation facilities to raise the ore content to competitive marketing levels before export. Transportation, water, power, housing, and port facilities were also upgraded at Zou�r�t and Nouadhibou to handle what was expected to be increasing ore exports. By 1987, however, world demand for iron ore had not risen as expected, and the 1986 opening of new Brazilian mines increased overproduction worldwide. The Guelbs project was not expected to be cost effective for some time, if ever. Plans for a second-phase expansion were postponed in 1987; the Kedia deposits were still in operation in late 1987 and were expected to continue production into the 1990s.
Since 1975 the decline of the iron mining industry, as represented by its direct contribution to GDP, has been constant. During the 1960s, mining directly accounted for no less than 25 percent and as much as 33 percent of GDP at current market prices. If indirect contributions to related industries are factored in, these proportions rise. By the mid-1970s, with its direct contribution to GDP around 20 percent, mining's total contribution to GDP was still above 30 percent. After 1976 mining's direct contribution to GDP fell, so that between 1980 and 1985 it averaged 10 percent; by 1987 it was only 8.6 percent.
Iron ore was the nation's most important source of foreign exchange for twenty years; the value of iron ore exports relative to other exports fell below 50 percent for the first time in 1983. In that year, exports of fish overtook iron ore exports as Mauritania's most important foreign exchange earner. In 1985 iron ore represented 40 percent of total export earnings, down from an average of 80 percent between 1963 and 1980.
Despite these relative declines, iron mining remained a key factor in the overall economy. In terms of relative export percentages, mining's decline had little effect on day-to-day operations. In the 1984-86 period, levels of tons of iron ore shipped from Nouadhibou were actually higher than in the 1982-83 period. In 1985 SNIM was the country's largest employer after the government and accounted for over 40 percent of the jobs in public sector enterprises. In the 1970s, iron ore contributions to government revenues were estimated at around 30 percent of all government revenues. This percentage probably declined during the 1980s, but in late 1987 statistics were unavailable. Between 1981 and 1986, mining royalties contributed about 5 percent to government tax revenues. The industry's actual contributions were much higher, however, when taxes paid on business profits and wages and salaries, employers payroll taxes, turnover taxes, export taxes, and nontax revenues from public enterprises are taken into account.
In 1967 the Mauritanian government formed a joint venture company with French and other interests to create the Mining Company of Mauritania (Soci�t� des Mines de Mauritanie--SOMINA). SOMINA was created to exploit copper deposits at Akjoujt. Operations began in 1973 but closed in 1975 because of the combination of high operating costs (particularly for fuel) and falling world commodity prices for SOMINA's low-grade ore. In 1975 the company was sold to SNIM. SNIM reopened the mine and continued to operate it at a loss until 1978, when the government separated SOMINA from SNIM and closed the mine. In the early 1980s, plans were laid to reopen the mines with backing from the Jordan-based Arab Mining Company of Inchiri (Soci�t� Arabe des Mines de l'Inchiri--SAMIN). By 1987, however, SAMIN had abandoned plans to operate the copper mine because of continued low world commodity prices and the high costs of processing the low-grade ore with its high arsenic content. In a related development, SAMIN planned to open a plant at Akjoujt to process copper tailings for gold content. Operations were scheduled to begin in 1988.
In 1973 SNIM began exploitation of large deposits of gypsum located about fifty kilometers northeast of Nouakchott. Total reserves of 98 percent pure gypsum were estimated at 1 billion tons. SNIM's operations during the 1970s entailed the export by road of roughly 17,000 tons per year to cement factories in Senegal. Senegal in turn sold cement to Mauritania on a rebate basis. Rising transportation costs forced a halt to operations in 1981. In 1984 production of gypsum resumed under the newly created SAMIA. SNIM held equal shares in SAMIA with the Kuwait Foreign Trading, Contracting, and Investment Company. Output in 1985 was 5,470 tons, which were consumed locally in a crushing and bagging operation that imported clinker from Senegal to make cement. Plans in 1987 called for resuming exports of gypsum to Senegal by sea once the new Chinese-built Friendship Port at Nouakchott became operational.
In 1984 a consortium discovered large deposits of phosphates near the Senegalese border. Nonetheless, by 1987 no plans existed to exploit these deposits (estimated at 95 million tons of rock, averaging approximately 20 percent of phosphate pentoxide). The high cost of building the infrastructure and facilities needed to exploit the deposits, estimated in 1984 at US$400 million, made exploitation unlikely for the foreseeable future.
In 1985 seismic surveys conducted jointly by Occidental Oil Company of the United States, the Chinese Petroleum Corporation of Taiwan, and Yukong Limited of South Korea indicated a high possibility of petroleum and natural gas reserves in Mauritanian waters. In 1987 the Amoco Oil Company signed an agreement with the government for a production-sharing contract to conduct offshore explorations in a 920,000-hectare tract west of Nouakchott. The company began seismic acquisition work in late 1987 and planned to drill exploratory wells in 1988.
Located in the Sahelian and Saharan zones, Mauritania has one of the poorest agricultural bases in West Africa. Most important to the rural economy has been the livestock subsector. Between 1975 and 1980, herding engaged up to 70 percent of the population, and sedentary farmers constituted about 20 percent of the population. The vast majority of the population lived in the southern one-third of the country, where rainfall levels were high enough to sustain cattle herding. Farming was restricted to the narrow band along the Senegal River where rainfall of up to 600 millimeters per year and annual river flooding sustained crop production as well as large cattle herds. In the dry northern two-thirds of the country, herding was limited to widely scattered pastoral groups that raised camels, sheep, and goats, and farming was restricted to date palms and minuscule plots around oases.
A major reason for Mauritania's economic stagnation since the mid-1970s has been the decline of its rural sector. Government planners neglected both herding and farming until the 1980s, concentrating instead on development in the modern sector. The rural sector was severely affected by droughts from 1968 through 1973 and from 1983 through 1985, and it has suffered from sporadic dry spells in other years. In the 1960s, livestock and crop production together provided 35 to 45 percent of GDP (at constant 1982 prices). From 1970 to 1986, their contribution to GDP (at constant 1982 prices) averaged 28 percent, with herding accounting for about 20 percent of this figure and with crop production falling to as low as 3 to 5 percent in the worst drought years.
<>Herding
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Historically, cattle herding was Mauritania's most important economic activity. In the 1980s, with a cattle-to-people ratio of three to one--the highest in West Africa--herding provided subsistence for up to 70 percent of the country's people. Herding has been dramatically affected by chronic drought and the attendant rapid advance of the desert. These events have forced shifts in patterns of movement, herd composition and ownership, and increased pressures on lands also occupied by sedentary farmers in the south.
Although sources disagree about herd size, it is clear that numbers have fallen since the 1960s. The decline in herd size probably did not reflect a widescale dyingoff of animals so much as an increasingly permanent shift of herds to better watered lands in Senegal and Mali.
The drought also caused shifts in the herding of camels (traditionally located in the drier north) and of sheep and goats (held by groups all across Mauritania). These changes were less dramatic than those for cattle, however, because camels, sheep, and goats are more resistant to drought. Although decreases in sheep, goat, and camel herd size in drought years could be significant, recovery was more rapid and sustained. In the years following the 1968-73 drought, camel, sheep, and goat herd sizes increased to predrought levels or higher. The same pattern seemed evident during the 1983-85 drought and the recovery years of the late 1980s. Indeed, the overall size of camel, sheep, and goat herds may have risen since the 1960s, as these hardier animals have moved into areas abandoned by cattle herds. This pattern seems to have been particularly true for the camel herds.
In the 1960s, cattle herds in Mauritania were composed of two basic types: the lighter, short-horned zebu, or "maure," which made up perhaps 85 percent of the national herd; and the heavier, long-horned zebu, or "peul." The smaller zebu ranged farther north and were owned by nomadic herders. The larger zebu stayed closer to the better watered riverine areas and were owned by sedentary groups who practiced agriculture in addition to livestock raising.
Although traditional herding patterns persist, considerable changes have taken place. Since the 1968-73 drought, precipitation has been below average. Between 1973 and 1984, as the 150-millimeter isohyet line moved south, livestock often were forced to stay year-round in dry season grazing areas nearer the Senegal River and across the border in Senegal and Mali. Thus, the herd populations were compressed into a smaller area, increasing pressure on land resources and heightening competition among herding groups and between herders and sedentary farmers. Overgrazing in increasingly crowded areas and the cutting of trees and shrubs for firewood and fodder (particularly for sheep and goats) contributed to accelerating desertification and posed a threat to crop production.
Patterns of herd ownership also changed with drought and the impoverishment of the rural sector. Increasingly, herds belonged to urban investors (mostly government officials and traders) and were cared for by hired personnel (drawn from the pool of destitute pastoralists who, having lost herds, migrated to urban areas). Herders began to take advantage of access to public wells to graze herds in areas traditionally controlled by tribal groups. The extent of this growing system of "absentee herding" was difficult to assess; but by the mid-1980s, as much as 40 percent of the national herd was thought to be involved.
The Ministry of Rural Development was responsible for livestock and natural resource conservation. The ministry's National Livestock Department (Direction Nationale d'Elevage-- DNE) was responsible for field services and for the annual rinderpest vaccination campaign. Headquartered in Nouakchott, in the mid-1980s the DNE operated eleven field centers in regional capitals and nineteen veterinary field stations, mostly located in the southern third of the country. Used principally in the annual vaccination campaigns, these field stations offered few other veterinary and extension services. The ministry also operated the National School for Training and Rural Extension (Ecole Nationale de Formation et Vulgarisation Rurale--ENFVR) at Ka�di, which since 1968 has trained veterinary field staff.
In 1981 the government established an autonomous state marketing enterprise, the Mauritanian Livestock Marketing Company (Soci�t� Mauritanienne de la Commercialisation du Betail-- SOMECOB). This agency had an official, but unenforceable, monopoly over livestock exports and the authority to intervene in market operations to stabilize domestic livestock prices. SOMECOB was also responsible for the Ka�di Abattoir, constructed in 1975 as an export slaughterhouse. By 1986 it functioned for local municipal consumption only, far below capacity, and SOMECOB's exports were negligible. Private exports of live cattle took place without obstruction from SOMECOB. This trade consisted mostly of unrecorded movements into Senegal, Mali, and countries farther south. In the mid-1980s, the most important market for Mauritanian cattle was domestic, centered on Nouakchott, Nouadhibou, and the mining centers.
Although it is a large country, most of Mauritania is desert. In the late 1980s, arable land was scarce, and, except for some oases, crop production was limited to a narrow band along the southern borders with Senegal and Mali. Farmers practiced four types of agriculture: rain-fed dryland cropping, called dieri; flood recession cropping along the Senegal River and its seasonal tributaries, called oualo; oasis cultivation, the least important; and modern irrigated agriculture.
The most important methods, dieri and oualo, were entirely dependent on limited and erratic rainfall and on the annual flooding of the Senegal River and its only perennial tributary in Mauritania, the Gorgol River. Dieri cultivation occurred during the rainy season, from June-July to September-October, in areas receiving sufficient precipitation (400 to 450 millimeters annually) to grow millet and peas. Oualo plantings occurred during the cold dry season from November to March, to take advantage of ground moisture as the flood waters of the Senegal and Gorgol rivers receded. Sorghum was the major crop for this season. Oasis cultivation drew its water from subterranean sources and so was not dependent on rains. Indeed, areas where oases were located might not experience any significant rainfall for years. Modern irrigated agriculture was only partially dependent on annual rainfall. It depended primarily on dams to retain water from the annual rise on the rivers resulting from rains falling upriver. For the Senegal River, these rains fell principally in the headwaters in eastern Mali and Guinea.
The two major droughts of the African Sahel were prolonged in Mauritania by intermittent dry spells. The result was a serious decline in overall agricultural production. In the 1960s, Mauritania had produced about one-half of its grain needs. By the 1983-85 period, grain harvests had fallen to a level that met only about 3 to 8 percent of the country's grain needs. The cereal deficits have been filled through a combination of commercial imports and international food aid, of which the United States has been the principal donor. During the most serious drought years, from 1983 to 1985, food aid accounted for over 61 percent of Mauritania's available supply of grain, commercial imports of rice by the government covered approximately 20 percent, and imports of flour by private traders provided another 13 percent. Local production was able to cover only 5 percent of need. In the following three years, local production recovered sufficiently to meet about one-third of the annual grain need, estimated in 1986 at 260,000 tons. In that year, local production covered 35 percent of need, government imports supplied 30 percent, and food aid met 35 percent.
Although accurate data were lacking, production of all grains in the recovery years from 1985 to 1987 rose to between 68,000 and 120,000 tons, a large increase over the record low of approximately 20,000 tons in 1984. Thus, gross production between 1985 and 1987 attained levels not matched since the mid-1960s. Rising population in the interim meant that, despite this significant recovery, the country remained dependent on imported grains to satisfy its needs.
Millet and sorghum were Mauritania's principal crops, followed by rice and corn. Before the 1980s, millet and sorghum accounted for 70 to 80 percent or more of total grain production. Rice production in the 1970s averaged 5 to 10 percent, and corn made up 10 to 25 percent. In the 1980s, rice production grew in importance, as national planning emphasized irrigated agriculture (which favored rice) and a change in dietary habits.
A few other crops were cultivated. Around 10,000 to 15,000 tons of dates were produced annually in the country's oases, mostly for local consumption. During the 1960s, the traditional production of gum arabic rose to some 5,000 tons a year. By the 1980s, however, production of gum arabic had disappeared. The ill-considered cutting of trees to increase short-term production combined with drought to destroy virtually all of Mauritania's gum-producing acacia trees.
By 1986 farmers working irrigated lands produced about 35 percent of the country's grain crops. Of a potentially irrigable area estimated at 135,000 hectares, only some 13,700 hectares were in production in 1985-86. Most of the irrigated land (about 65 percent) was in large-scale developments (500 hectares or more) centered in Bogu� and Ka�di, which were controlled by the government through the National Corporation for Rural Development (Soci�t� Nationale pour le D�veloppement Rural--SONADER). The remainder were small-scale operations (less than fifty hectares), developed by a newly active private sector centered mainly in Rosso.
In the 1980s, the government put increased emphasis on developing the rural sector. Government planning strategy under the 1985-88 Economic Recovery Program placed the highest priority on rural development (35 percent of planned investments). Particular attention was to be paid to upgrading existing land and developing new irrigated farming and flood recession agriculture. There were also plans involving Mauritania, Mali, and Senegal to integrate rural development and water and flood control through the Senegal River Development Office (Organisation pour la Mise en Valeur du Fleuve S�n�gal--OMVS) as the massive Diama and Manantali dams became fully operational.
In 1986 the government agencies involved in agricultural production, marketing, and food distribution were SONADER, CSA, and SONIMEX. Created in 1975, SONADER was a public agency under the control of the Ministry of Rural Development. Its general responsibilities focused on planning rural agricultural programs, including building and operating irrigation projects, training farmers in new techniques required for improved irrigation cropping, and providing credit and such inputs as fertilizers and pumping equipment. Organized in 1982 from two other agencies, CSA became responsible for stabilizing grain prices, maintaining a security food stock through market intervention, monitoring production and food deficits, and distributing food aid. SONIMEX began operations in 1966 as a government-controlled joint venture. The company held a monopoly on the imports of basic commodities (principally rice, tea, sugar, and tomato paste), which it resold to private interests for the retail trade. The private sector's role in cereal imports was legally restricted to wheat and flour. Numerous private traders in the marketing chain, however, were not covered (or were covered only partially) by CSA and SONIMEX. There were no precise data on the extent of domestic production marketed by private traders compared with CSA or on the extent of the grain trade across the Senegal River that was outside the control of SONIMEX.
The system of land tenure was in transition in the 1980s. Factors contributing to this transition included government abolition of centuries-old slavery practices involving tribal and ethnic relations between various herding and sedentary communities; government development policies, particularly with regard to land reform and large-scale irrigation schemes; and tremendous shifts in land settlement and herding patterns because of drought.
Historically, landownership and range management were based on tribal relations and ethnic settlement patterns. Rangeland for herding was controlled through tribal ownership of wells; around oases, slave groups worked cultivable plots, although traditional noble clans held ownership of the land. In more southerly settled agricultural areas, ownership varied from region to region and village to village, depending on ethnic settlement patterns. Landownership might be vested in the clan or village chief as representative of the group and land distributed in perpetuity to family units having usufruct. Elsewhere, traditional nobilities might hold ownership of lands worked by formerly enslaved groups, who held traditional usufruct. Although a village chief could not sell land belonging to the clan (which would alienate family groups from the land), traditional noble clans could more easily sell property and effectively displace or disinherit slave groups. By the late 1980s, it was not known to what extent the formal abolition of slavery had affected traditional land relationships among noble and former slave groups. Also unknown was the impact of the government's stated policy of giving priority to former slave groups when lands that might be claimed under eminent domain were redistributed. Of potentially far greater importance in land tenancy was the 1983 Land Reform Act. The underlying first cause of the act was the state's inherent and overriding interest in land development. According to the act, the government could grant title for parcels of undeveloped land-- which apparently included fallow land--to whoever pledged to improve it and at the same time possessed requisite resources. Although the economic necessity of the act was beyond question, the social costs of appropriating valuable Senegal River Basin land hypothetically controlled by blacks and redistributing it to wealthy Maures from farther north could prove unacceptable. It was evident, however, that the situation was in considerable flux.
Large-scale government irrigation projects and plans for integrated development based on regional water management created another set of variables for traditional patterns of land use and ownership. Groups located in areas behind dams or in areas to be either permanently flooded or deprived of annual floods with increased control over flow levels in the Senegal River were undergoing a process of controlled resettlement. The formation of cooperative production groups that were to be settled on the land--often on a first-come, first-served basis--was essential to project implementation.
The bulk of Mauritania's industry was in mining or miningrelated activities. Industry, including fish processing but excluding mining, contributed only 5.3 percent to GDP in 1984. Industrial development was hampered by a limited infrastructure, a small local market with limited purchasing power, and a lack of skilled labor. In the mid-1980s, the labor force engaged in industrial activities numbered about 16,000 to 18,000 workers, of which 10,000 were employed in construction and an additional 4,000 to 6,000 were employed by SNIM. Most construction was related to the activities of foreign-financed projects, including mining. Some workers were employed in road and port construction. Within the small manufacturing sector were two main industries: an oil refinery and a steel mill. The rest consisted of small enterprises such as cement bagging, a perfume manufacturer, blanket fabrication facility, and an American-built sugar mill in Nouakchott that had never used its refining capacity and was limited to packaging imported refined sugar. In 1986 about thirty small enterprises were in operation.
Built in 1976 with West German, World Bank, and government financing, the steel rolling mill had an annual production capacity of 36,000 tons of reinforcing bars and rods. Operated originally by SNIM, the mill, which was located at Nouadhibou, operated intermittently and unsuccessfully before it was closed and sold in 1984 to the Arab Iron and Steel Company (Soci�t� Arabe du Fer et de l'Acier--SAFA). Reopened in 1985, the mill continued to be plagued by technical and economic problems; output in 1986 was only 5,300 tons.
At independence, Mauritania became a member of the West African Monetary Union (Union Mon�taire Ouest Africaine--UMOA) but withdrew in 1973 to demonstrate its independent economic identity. When it withdrew, the government also relinquished membership in the African Financial Community (Communaut� Financi�re Africaine--CFA), whose currency--the CFA franc--was freely convertible to French francs. Mauritania then created its own currency, the ouguiya, and an independent central bank.
In the mid-1980s, Mauritania's monetary and banking structure consisted of the Central Bank of Mauritania (Banque Centrale de Mauritanie--BCM) and six commercial banks established with the participation of the government or of the BCM. Other major shareholders included various Arab interests, which included Saudi and Libyan participation.
By the early 1980s, Mauritania's banking sector was deteriorating, chiefly because of an accumulation of nonperforming loans that constituted some 50 percent of commercial bank assets. Between 1981 and 1983, government borrowing from the BCM and commercial banks rose to statutory limits. The private sector and public enterprises were thus forced to borrow increasingly from foreign banks to cover their severe liquidity problems.
As a result of this spiral of debt, in 1985 the government, with IMF and World Bank support, undertook measures to restructure the banking system. Measures taken under the 1985-88 Economic Recovery Program instituted a monetary and credit policy favoring the private sector and an austerity program for the public sector. Furthermore, in 1987 the government, in cooperation with the World Bank, adopted a reform program that focused on three areas: reforming credit policies and banking regulations, strengthening the BCM, and restructuring four of the six commercial banks, including the International Bank of Mauritania (Banque Internationale pour la Mauritanie--BIMA), of which the BCM held 91 percent.
In 1986, with IMF and World Bank support, the government prepared its first consolidated budget. Before this, budgetary procedures covered only expenditures financed through domestic resources. The new procedures covered all financing sources used by the government in a budget encompassing both internally and externally financed current and capital expenditures.
Between 1979 and 1984, expenditures on current operations averaged UM10.5 billion. Typically, domestic revenues covered about two-thirds of this amount; the balance was financed by direct external budgetary support. Between 1978 and 1983, the government wage bill (including military salaries) constituted the largest line item of current expenditures. The second largest expenditure was for equipment and supplies.
In addition to current expenditures, the central government budget allocated smaller amounts for capital expenditures, which amounted to the government's contribution to the public investment program. Capital expenditures accounted for only between 8 and 11 percent of the total budget in the period 1979- 83, far less than current expenditures.
Mauritania's domestic revenue base was very narrow and depended on the iron and fishing export industries and the service sector. Total government revenues were derived from taxes and nontax revenues. Between 1981 and 1986, nontax revenues accounted for from 11 to 20 percent of the total and consisted of fish royalties, penalties, and revenue transfers from public enterprises. Tax revenues were derived mainly from taxes on international trade and on income and profits. Between 1981 and 1986, taxes on international trade (of which import taxes were the most important) averaged 41 percent of all revenues, and taxes on income and profits represented 26 percent. Taxes on wages and salaries averaged more than 14 percent of all government revenues for this period.
MAURITANIA'S GOVERNANCE EPITOMIZES a cycle all too evident throughout sub-Saharan Africa. A civilian government, espousing the liberal democratic principles inherited from the colonial regime, came to power on the eve of independence. After it had ruled for nearly a generation, during which time the expectations born at independence remained largely unfulfilled and government became increasingly capricious and corrupt, a military regime toppled the civilian government and suspended the Constitution. In the following years, a succession of military rulers, each promising to end the corruption, abuse of authority, and economic waste of earlier regimes, proved as unwilling and inept as their civilian predecessor at ensuring the territorial integrity of the state, achieving national unity, and fostering economic development in the face of severe environmental challenges. The subsequent ascendancy in 1987 of what appeared to be a reformist government, albeit military, demonstrated for the first time Mauritania's growing understanding of the limits of government as this new regime grappled with the problem of adapting the longstanding cultural values of a very poor society to the needs of a modern developing state.
Prior to independence, Mauritania served as a bridge between the Maghrib and West Africa, with strong cultural links to the former and equally strong economic and administrative ties to the latter. Like Sudan and Chad, which also link Arab North Africa with black Africa, Mauritania suffered internal social and political problems as cultures collided. The potential for conflict was strengthened by the proliferation of particularist-regional political parties before independence. These parties, composed exclusively of either ArabBerbers (Maures) or one of several black ethnic groups and advocating union with Arab Morocco or with black Mali, tended to aggravate existing cleavages.
To overcome the structural problems intrinsic to the Mauritanian polity, its first president, Moktar Ould Daddah, resorted to one-party rule with a strong executive branch. Although the Constitution of 1961 called for some power-sharing between the president and the legislature, the National Assembly, in practice, routinely supported presidential initiatives, and government remained highly centralized. Daddah's ill-fated participation in the Western Sahara conflict and the resulting ruin of the Mauritanian economy led to a military coup in July 1978. Daddah was detained and later exiled, and his government was replaced by the eighteen-member Military Committee for National Recovery (Comit� Militaire de Redressement National--CMRN) with Lieutenant Colonel Mustapha Salek as president.
During the next six years, ensuing military regimes failed to resolve the thorny issue of Mauritania's involvement in the Western Sahara and failed to improve Mauritania's dismal economic performance. On December 12, 1984, Chief of Staff and former Minister of Defense Maaouiya Ould Sid Ahmed Ould Taya led a group of dissident officers who staged a palace coup against head of state Lieutenant Colonel Mohamed Khouna Ould Haidalla.
Still in power in late 1987, the military government under President Taya has eschewed ideological labels. Initially, Taya's policies reflected the amalgam of private capitalism and state ownership of industry common throughout sub-Saharan Africa. In his first interviews as president, Taya pledged that his administration would respect human rights, end corruption, and promote national unity. In one of his first acts, he freed thirty-two political prisoners seized by his predecessor. He also promised to hold elections for municipal councils in Mauritania's thirteen largest urban areas before the end of 1986, ostensibly to encourage local initiatives but also to appease ethnically based interests. The elections, whose fairness was acclaimed by independent observers, took place on December 19, 1986, and more were promised for smaller towns. As for a return to civilian rule, Taya insisted in March 1985 that Mauritanians must first develop an understanding of civic participation in order to avoid the divisions and paralysis that characterized the final years of Haidalla's government.
Mauritania has joined the Nonaligned Movement and has sought to establish friendly relations with both East and West. In response to Morocco's irredentist claims through the 1960s, Mauritania appealed for and received support from France and Western and African allies. That support continued as Mauritania's fortunes in the Western Sahara conflict deteriorated in the late 1970s and Morocco's challenges to Mauritania's borders mounted. As its own economy faltered and its dependence on loans and grants deepened, Mauritania improved its ties with wealthier Middle Eastern and Maghribi states at the expense of its relations with black Africa. In a further attempt to find aid, the government has moved away from total reliance on the West and strengthened relations with the Soviet Union and China.
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CULTURE
<>GOVERNMENTAL POWER
<>POLITICAL POWER IN
THE MID-1980s
<>INTEREST GROUPS
<>FOREIGN RELATIONS
Attitudies toward the political system in Mauritania were like those found in other developing African countries undergoing a similar nation-building process. Mauritanian society had both a modern sector and a rural, traditional sector. Each nurtured vastly different expectations of the political system, a split that gave rise to two political subcultures. Although these two subcultures were often depicted as polar opposites, membership was not exclusive; in fact, most Mauritanians participated to varying degrees in each. Perhaps what most distinguished modern elites from those labeled traditional was the former's greater reliance on modern technology and its commitment to economic development.
The less educated, subsistence society offered little support to the modern, urban political system. Its members participated only insofar as government welfare programs, taxes, or laws impinged on their lives. To many Mauritanians, national government signified only President Taya and did not imply any further loyalty to government, state, or nation. For this sector, citizenship meant respect for tradition, maintenance of social status, and rigid rules of behavior. Accordingly, traditional injunctions against rising above one's inherited class stifled economic activity among black groups as well as among Maures. Maures of high status often viewed economic activity, such as earning a salary, with disdain. By the same traditions, women were accorded only a minor role in politics.
Although traditional elites dominated local politics in rural areas, a modernizing elite, which constituted approximately 10 percent of the population, greatly influenced national and urban politics. That elite comprised senior military officers, government workers, wealthy businessmen, union members (especially teachers), and students. Insofar as economic development was dependent on national unity and a less rigid social structure, the members of the modernizing elite were also committed to the progressive transformation, with its concomitant dislocations, of traditional society through the agency of the state. Among the modern elite, political consciousness remained high, even if military rule limited opportunities for participation.
The political goals of the modernizing elite were initially articulated by Daddah and were retained in 1987 under the Taya administration. These goals included cultural independence, economic development, and democracy. The conditions for cultural independence, according to Daddah, included bilingualism, a revitalization of Islam through a return to its original precepts, and a more prominent role for women. Cultural independence was not to be construed as a return to precolonial social mores, but rather as an adaptation of Mauritania's unique cultural heritage. Economic independence, according to Daddah, meant "mauritanization" of the labor force, restrictions on the repatriation of funds by foreign-owned firms, and diversification of Mauritania's sources of external aid, most of which came from France. Democracy, the third of Daddah's goals, meant popular participation, especially by women and youth, in the management of public policy.
The military rulers who succeeded Daddah have implicitly adopted his perspective. Since the 1978 coup, Mauritania has imposed bilingualism, incorporated the Islamic legal code, elevated women within the government, made the study of Arabic an educational requirement, borrowed from an ever-increasing list of donors, limited foreign participation in industry while replacing foreigners with Mauritanians, and held elections to promote participation in local politics.
Thus, in Mauritania in the mid-1980s traditional outlooks based on custom, family ties, and Islam were gradually giving way to a more modern set of political views based on codified laws and procedures, achievement, and a national consciousness. More and more, individuals tended to rely on the modern political institutions of society (government, interest groups, police, and the like) to satisfy their needs, rather than on traditional political and religious leaders. This process has been hastened by a protracted drought during the 1970s and 1980s. Over a period of approximately fifteen years, 60 percent of Mauritania's previously nomadic people, who constituted 80 percent of the total population, resettled in urban areas, with many becoming dependent on government aid programs. The resettlement in towns has markedly altered traditional economic patterns and political alliances.
In 1987 the pace of modernization remained slow in Mauritania, where much of the population was closely bound to traditional subsistence agriculture and pastoralism and where literacy in French or Arabic was limited to only about 18 percent of the population. Although the modernizing elite shared with the traditional elite and the Mauritanian masses a common history and religion that prevented the state from collapsing, centrifugal forces competed for scarce economic and political resources. These forces ranged from ethnic groups and tribes to occupational and social classes.
An even greater impediment to development and modernization was the cleavage between the Maures and Mauritania's black population, the size of which has never been precisely ascertained and may be either undercounted or overrepresented, depending on one's perspective. Historically, the Maures have discriminated against the black population, which, well into the twentieth century, continued to be a source of slaves. Different languages and a fairly uncomplicated geographic split tended to reinforce racial differences. Moreover, the black southern portion of the country, which was predominantly agricultural and until independence had generated much of the country's wealth, lost economic and political influence as mining and fishing investments in the Maure northern portion achieved far greater economic importance beginning in the late 1960s. By the mid-1980s, however, the economic pendulum began to swing back again as mining and fishing revenues leveled off or began dropping while the relentless process of desertification had increased the value of black-held lands along the Senegal River. Nevertheless, blacks still complained that the government allocated greater resources to projects benefiting the Maures than to those benefiting blacks.
Mauritania's experiment with one-party democracy ended with the replacement of Daddah's government by the CMRN on July 10, 1978. In April 1979, following the coup that brought Lieutenant Colonel Haidalla to power, the CMRN became the Military Committee for National Salvation (Comit� Militaire de Salut National-- CMSN). The Taya government came to power following a bloodless palace coup on December 12, 1984. To justify the reorganization, President Taya and members of the CMSN charged Haidalla with excluding his colleagues on the CMSN from the decision-making process. The CMSN also expressed concern over the impact of the Structures for Educating the Masses (Structures pour l'Education des Masses--SEM), a grassroots network established by Haidalla in 1982 to lobby on behalf of his policies toward the Polisario. Over time, the SEM had become both the center of a personality cult and an alternative political apparatus. Finally, the new leaders pointed to evidence of corruption, which, if not benefiting Haidalla directly, profited family, friends, and the Polisario guerrillas.
<>Constitution
<>Constitutional
Charter
<>Legal System
<>Local Government
<>Local Elections
The military regime that toppled Daddah in 1978 abolished the Constitution that had been ratified on May 20, 1961. Then in December 1980, when he unexpectedly announced a return to civilian rule, Haidalla promulgated a new provisional constitution. That draft constitution provided for a multiparty system and freedom of association, provisions Haidalla hoped would attract support from the labor union movement. Following an abortive coup attempt in March 1981 by former members of the military government, however, Haidalla reneged on his intention of returning Mauritania to civilian rule and scrapped the draft constitution.
The Constitutional Charter of the CMSN, which was promulgated on February 9, 1985, served as a de facto constitution in 1987. The charter unequivocally eliminated any of the pretenses of democracy embodied in the 1961 constitution. At the same time, it pledged adherence to the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and, in Article 14, presaged a return to democratic institutions and a new constitution that would bear some semblance to the 1961 Constitution.
The 1961 Constitution clearly reflected the influence of the Constitution of the French Fifth Republic in its dedication to liberal democratic principles and inalienable human rights as expressed in the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In addition, the Constitution underscored the state's determined quest for independence and unity by proclaiming Islam the official religion. Somewhat paradoxically, freedom of religion was also guaranteed. Strict adherence to both sets of principles would seemingly have given rise to conflict, especially in the area of jurisprudence; however, in practice the government sought with acceptable success to balance the demands of the two.
Under the Constitution, the government was composed of three branches: executive, legislative, and judicial. The executive branch was headed by the president of the republic and included ministers whom he appointed and the administrative bureaucracy. The president was elected by universal suffrage for a five-year term and could serve an indefinite number of terms. From 1966 until the coup in 1978, all candidates for the office had to be nominated by the Mauritanian People's Party (Parti du Peuple Mauritanienne--PPM), be at least thirty-five years old, and have full exercise of their political and civil rights. In sharp contrast to its French antecedent, the Mauritanian Constitution strengthened presidential power by combining it with the function of prime minister, while making the National Assembly subordinate. Like a prime minister, the president participated in legislative processes that would otherwise reside in the domain of the National Assembly. At the same time, the Constitution prevented the president from dissolving the National Assembly, and it also denied the assembly the right to unseat the president by means of a vote of no confidence.
In its entirety, the Constitution came to resemble those of other francophone African states that were also adopted under the influence of General Charles de Gaulle's Fifth Republic and in response to the perceived need for strong, centralized leadership. In light of the highly fragmented polities typical of much of sub-Saharan Africa at that time, however, a system of checks and balances was thought to be overly cumbersome for the immediate tasks at hand.
Other presidential powers included commanding the armed forces; appointing civil servants, military officers, judges, and ambassadors; ratifying treaties and other international agreements; initiating or amending legislation; eliciting advisory opinions on proposed legislation from the Supreme Court; and exercising a temporary veto over legislation. Perhaps the president's greatest power lay in his right, in times of peril, to declare an emergency and exercise extraconstitutional authority.
The National Assembly was subordinate to the president. At independence, the assembly numbered forty deputies, all of whom were elected as a slate by universal suffrage for five-year terms. By 1971 the number had grown to fifty and by 1975 to seventy-eight, including the new deputies from the annexed portion of the Western Sahara, Tiris al Gharbiyya. The presidency of the assembly was the second highest position in the government and often the locus of traditionalist opposition to Daddah. Along with three vice presidents and two secretaries, the president of the assembly was elected from among the deputies. The assembly's limited power derived from Article 39 of the Constitution and included the formulation of broad policies on national defense, education, labor, and public administration. The assembly also had responsibility for legislating civil rights and taxation. All other legislative powers, including the implementation of specific policy decisions, fell to the president. In general, Daddah's handling of policy matters underscored the imbalance between the two branches of government. For example, although the president was required to present an annual message to the nation and might also provide supplemental statements to the assembly, he alone determined what information to share with legislators, who could not compel him to be more forthcoming. The president could also bypass the legislature completely by submitting proposed legislation to a popular referendum. Finally, the assembly's relatively short session, fixed at four months per year, limited the amount of legislation it could pass.
Constitutional amendments were permissible if they did not threaten the state or its republican form of government. Either the president or the National Assembly could propose an amendment, which would then require a two-thirds vote in the legislature in order to become law. If the proposed amendment received only a simple majority, the president could submit it as a referendum. In fact, the latter process was never necessary. Two major amendments were passed in the 1960s, one in 1965 institutionalizing one-party government, and a second in 1968 pertaining to local administration, the status of magistrates, and the designation of Hassaniya Arabic as an official language.
Although the Constitution did not provide for a system of checks and balances, the assembly did have three ways to limit presidential power. First, it could refuse requested budgetary appropriations, although the president could circumvent the assembly's budgetary veto by simply promulgating an interim budget based on total receipts of the previous year. Second, if able to muster a two-thirds vote, the assembly could impeach the president or any of his ministers for treason or plotting against the state. The Supreme Court, a body appointed by the president, would judge the charges in such cases. Finally, the assembly could, in effect, override a presidential veto if, after a second reading, the law received an absolute majority in the assembly and was declared constitutional by the Supreme Court.
In fact, the assembly's debates and votes were most often highly symbolic gestures that brought closure to a process initiated and dominated by the executive. In the early 1960s, however, the legislature often challenged the executive, only to be deluged with priority bills that in effect smothered any legislative initiatives. With the institutionalization of oneparty rule in 1965, engaging debate in the assembly was no longer possible, and the assembly's role became promotion of political integration at the expense of individual rights while strengthening party unity and discipline.
Like the Constitution, the Constitutional Charter of February 1985 pledged adherence to principles embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in the charters of the United Nations (UN), the Organization of African Unity (OAU), and the League of Arab States (Arab League). The charter also proclaimed Islam the state religion and sharia the only source of law.
The fundamental powers and responsibilities of the CMSN, outlined in Article 3 of the charter, included establishing the general policies of the nation, promulgating ordinances to carry out policy, monitoring actions of the government, ratifying international agreements, and granting amnesty except in cases of retributory justice and religious crimes. Articles 4 through 10 pertained to the internal organization of the CMSN and presidential succession. Members were nominated to the CMSN by ordinance of that body, and it alone decided the procedures by which it would conduct its business. Included within the CMSN was the Permanent Committee, consisting of all CMSN members posted to Nouakchott. The Permanent Committee met in ordinary session once every fifteen days and in extraordinary session when convoked by the president. The CMSN was required to meet in ordinary session every third month and in extraordinary session when convoked by the president after approval of the Permanent Committee, or upon the request of one-third of the members. If the president were temporarily absent, the president of the CMSN would nominate a member of the Permanent Committee to carry out the routine affairs of state. If the president were temporarily incapacitated, the Permanent Committee would nominate one of its members to manage affairs of state for a period not to exceed one month. In the event of the president's death or a long-term incapacitation, the Permanent Committee would designate one of its members to carry out the functions of president for one week, after which the entire CMSN would appoint a new president from among its members.
Articles 11 and 12 determined the manner in which the president nominated civilian and military members of government. As head of state and commander in chief of the armed forces, the president made all nominations for civilian and military posts and for members of the government. Similarly, he could dismiss an appointee at any time. The final four articles of the Constitutional Charter dealt with maintenance of public order and enforcement of CMSN ordinances.
A second ordinance, promulgated at the same time as the charter, governed the internal organization of the CMSN and supplemented the charter. The preamble to this ordinance unequivocally entrusted the CMSN with national sovereignty and legitimacy, but only until replaced by democratic institutions.
The first three articles established de jure membership and rank in the CMSN and delineated the relationship between members of the government and the CMSN. Members of the CMSN ranked higher than members of the government. Accordingly, no member of the CMSN could be sued, searched, arrested, held, or tried while carrying out official duties. No member could be arrested or sued in criminal cases or minor offenses without authorization from either the full CMSN or the Permanent Committee, unless caught in flagrante delicto.
The second article dealt with the selection and responsibilities of the president of the CMSN, who was chosen in a secret ballot by a two-thirds majority of its members and could be deposed in the same way. The president presided over debates and ensured that the Permanent Committee complied with the charter and the committee's regulations. He also controlled debate and could suspend the session at any time. Internally, the CMSN included five advisory commissions dealing with cultural and social affairs, security affairs, public works and development, economy and financial affairs, and education and justice. The commissions monitored the implementation of policy in their respective areas.
In reality, the CMSN in 1987 was a coterie of officers, most of whom were Maures, representing a variety of sometimes overlapping and sometimes discrete corporate and ethnic interests. Among its members, rank, status and influence varied widely. In debates, which were resolved by consensus, the opinions and positions of the acknowledged "big men" were not likely to be challenged openly by members of lower status, who instead might have engaged in surreptitious maneuvering or plotting behind the scenes. The most powerful member of the CMSN in the late 1980s was Taya, who was often described as hardworking and dedicated and whose achievements were the result of strength of purpose rather than political ambition. The second most powerful figure was the minister of interior, information, and telecommunications, Lieutenant Colonel Djibril Ould Abdallah, who was often described as "Taya's strongman."
The military government operated through a cabinet whose members, both civilian and military, were appointed by the president, presumably after consultation with members of the CMSN. In 1987 approximately one-third of the fifteen cabinet ministers were also members of the CMSN, although that ratio changed with every cabinet reshuffle. Cabinet officers were responsible for implementing policies initiated by the CMSN.
Through the 1960s and early 1970s, Mauritania's legal system bore the imprint of the French legal and judicial system. As the number of legal cadres rose, so did attempts to reconcile secular and Islamic law. In the meantime, Islamic courts coexisted alongside secular courts based on the French model. Neither appellate courts nor courts with constitutional jurisdiction existed. There were few secular lawyers; Mauritania's first French-trained lawyer was Daddah. The 1961 Constitution provided that French laws were to remain in effect until amended or repealed, as were French civil, commercial, and penal codes. The first Mauritanian chief justice of the Supreme Court was not appointed until November 1965, in accordance with a law requiring that a Muslim fill the position. As late as 1968, fully onequarter of Mauritania's judges (including almost all the secular law judges) were French. Only in the early 1970s were new labor and nationality codes adopted, along with new codes of penal, civil, commercial, and administrative procedure.
The sharia Islamic code, which was instituted in 1980, served as the law of the land in civil matters, except in certain socalled modern areas, such as nationality law and litigation involving corporations, automobiles, and aircraft. Sharia also covered such areas of public law as theft and murder. As in French law, no one was presumed innocent; thus an inability to convince the sitting magistrate that the government's charges were erroneous in itself constituted proof of guilt, as did firsthand testimony from a witness or codefendant. Defendants had the right to counsel and could appeal a verdict to the Supreme Court within fifteen days. As in secular courts, circumstantial evidence was inadmissable as proof of guilt. Plea bargaining was also common. Although Mauritanian law guaranteed expeditious arraignment and trial, the slow functioning of the state's inadequately funded judicial system frequently resulted in long pretrial detentions. Under legislation approved by the increasingly isolated President Daddah just prior to the 1978 coup, the state arrogated the authority to detain without trial or appeal anyone judged to be a national security threat. (The Taya government exercised that prerogative in September 1986 when it arrested thirteen blacks from the Toucouleur ethnic group, including prominent educators, politicians, and media figures, on charges of sedition and threatening national security.)
Although nearly all of Mauritania is Muslim, some opposition to the institution of sharia was expressed by blacks and women, who believed that it discriminated in favor of the white, Maure male population. Meanwhile, communal tensions resulting from a strict interpretation of sharia have waned over the years as courts have moderated their interpretation. This moderation has not prevented the government from more fully implementing previously ignored provisions of sharia, however. In October 1986, the government interdicted the introduction and sale of alcohol in Mauritania to all but foreign diplomats and technical assistants working for the government. Punishment for violating the ban was to be forty lashes administered in public as prescribed by sharia.
At the top of the judicial system in 1987 was the Supreme Court, which had six permanent members, including a president, who had to be a jurist in both Islamic and secular law. In addition, court members included two vice presidents, one Islamic and one secular; two ordinary counselors, also one Islamic and one secular; and a financial counselor, who served a two-year term and was selected jointly by the ministries of justice and finance. The six judges did not sit together to hear cases; the number and type of judge (secular or Islamic) depended on the nature of the case. The court had three areas of competence: appellate review, administrative litigation, and financial oversight. The Supreme Court also heard questions on constitutionality.
In judging constitutional cases before the 1978 coup, the court included only five judges: the president, the two vice presidents, and two extraordinary counselors, one of whom was appointed by the president of the republic and the other by the president of the National Assembly; both extraordinary counselors served two-year terms. (Under military rule, both were chosen by the head of state with advice from the CMSN.) The court ruled on the constitutionality of proposed projects, laws, or treaties at the request of the president; determined the eligibility of presidential candidates; adjudicated electoral disputes; and supervised referenda and censuses. The court also closely supervised the normal activities of the National Assembly, ensuring its conformity to the Constitution. As the final appellate court, the Supreme Court heard appeals from the Court of First Instance and the Labor Court or appeals based on the lack of jurisdiction or a violation of due process from any other court. As an administrative court, it had first and final jurisdiction in litigation concerning state-owned property, the status of civil servants, and public administration. In its financial oversight role, the Supreme Court verified public accounts and imposed sanctions on civil servants found guilty of fraud or mismanagement.
The 1961 Constitution kept the highly centralized colonial structure of counties (cercles), subdivisions (souspr�fectures ), and administrative posts. Local councils were established in the twelve cercles--the French created eleven cercles coterminous with the old amirates, and the newly independent government created a twelfth cercle, Tiris Zemmour, out of northern Adrar--as representative and administrative bodies to replace the chiefs and councils of notables through whom the French ruled. By 1961 urban and rural communes had been created, and rudimentary representative councils had been established with elected mayors in the urban communes. There were five urban communes modeled after similar bodies in France in Rosso, Ka�di, Atar, Bogu�, and Nouakchott. Three experimental communes were established in Nouadhibou, `Ayo�n el `Atro�s, and Fd�rik. Although the government attempted to give the councils and mayors of the communes control over communal legislation, the communes failed to fulfill any meaningful function for lack of trained and experienced managerial cadres and for want of resources to support local administration. With the Law of March 4, 1968, the rural communes were abolished, and less than a year later the urban and experimental communes were also eliminated. Local administration reverted to the traditional authorities, who became the links between the rulers and the rest of the population.
On July 30, 1968, the resources and functions of the former communes were transferred to twelve regions and one district (Nouakchott) in sweeping reforms of local administration. Each of the regions, which were generally coterminous with the former cercles, were subdivided into d�partements, generally coterminous with the former sous-pr�fectures, and further divided into arrondissements, corresponding to the former administrative posts. A thirteenth region encompassing al Gharbia (that part of Western Sahara claimed by Mauritania) was created in 1976; however, it was abandoned when Mauritania withdrew from the Western Sahara conflict. The state viewed the regions as serving as administrative subdivisions and as independent judicial districts.
Each region was headed by a governor representing the central government. The governor headed the administrative bureaucracy of the region, ensured the execution of laws and regulations, and coordinated state services (except for military and judicial activities). Under his authority were pr�fets, who administered d�partements, as well as other civil servants of the region. The governor's staff also included two assistants responsible for administration and economic and social development. The governor and his two assistants were appointed by the president.
Each region had a regional assembly of twenty to thirty members (conseillers) named by presidential decree from a list of nominees presented by the party. The conseillers served with no pay for five years. The regional assemblies had only minimal autonomy. The regional budgets for which they voted were prepared by the government in Nouakchott and included mandatory expenses, such as the cost of administration and maintenance of local roads and secondary airports. Regional assemblies could also levy taxes on certain specified goods and allocate a portion of their budgetary subvention from the central government to discretionary items. In spite of these apparent moves toward decentralization, effective control remained with the central government in the name of forging national unity. Regional assemblies served only to disseminate orders and information from Nouakchott, and not to mediate between local and centralized authority.
Under military rule, the government no longer pursued even the pretense of democracy. Although the office of regional governor was retained, the regional assemblies, like the National Assembly, were eliminated. In addition to a regional governor with responsibility for regional administration, six regions also had a regional military commander responsible for maintaining internal security, a task that included monitoring and controlling political dissent within his region. The two regions classified as autonomous military sectors also had military commanders with responsibilities similar to those of the regular commanders.
To appease the demands of ethnic minorities and diminish the role and obligations of an already overburdened government, Taya's government hesitantly took the first steps toward democratization and decentralization. In December 1986, residents of Nouakchott and Mauritania's regional capitals, by then numbering twelve, voted for candidates for thirteen municipal councils. The municipal councils consisted of either thirty or thirty-six members, depending on the size of the constituency. For example, the Atar council had thirty seats; Zou�r�t had thirty-six. The councils assumed responsibility for local economic and financial planning and for cultural activities; however, as in the old regional assemblies, theirs was a limited autonomy. In addition to the elected counseillers and mayor, each council included an agent of the state with the title of secretary general, appointed by the minister of interior, information, and telecommunications. The ostensible task of the secretaries general was to provide managerial expertise to the elected counseillers and mayor, none of whom may have had previous administrative experience. At the same time, however, the secretaries general acted as representatives of the central government and thus fulfilled the Taya government's objective of decentralizing while maintaining national control.
Membership in the municipal councils was determined by popular vote with universal suffrage and secret ballots. Locally based political parties, some of which had ties with parties in other areas and all of which included as part of their name the word union, nominated slates for all or a portion of the seats on the council. Debate dealt exclusively with local issues, and a limit of four candidates represented the four slates contesting each seat. The campaigns and elections in December 1986 were conducted in what has been characterized as a surprisingly decorous manner, with between 48 and 65 percent of the electorate voting. To its credit, the government refused to inflate vote totals as is often customary elsewhere in the Third World. In four of the thirteen municipalities, no slate won a majority during the first round of voting, so a runoff vote was held a week later on December 26, 1986. Once seated, the councils elected mayors who, in every city except Nouakchott, had headed the majority slate in the council. In the capital, Mohamed Ould Mah, who headed the Union for Progress and Brotherhood minority slate, won an unexpected victory over the leader of the majority National Democratic Union slate.
In some respects, the election of municipal councils seemed little more than a repeat of earlier, somewhat pretentious attempts to bring the trappings of representative democracy to a society unaccustomed to mass political participation. But unlike earlier efforts, which were inappropriate copies of the colonial administration, the new councils had organic roots and modest aspirations. In light of the paucity of resources available to the mayors and the councils, foreign observers doubted that this experiment in democracy would resolve Mauritania's profound economic and political problems. Nevertheless, the Taya regime asserted that the elections were but a first step in the longterm process of democratization.
Upon taking office in 1984, Taya pledged to promote political unity and stability by improving the economy, redressing the erosion of civil and human rights, and ensuring Mauritania's strict neutrality in the Western Sahara conflict. During the first two years of Taya's administration, Mauritania's economic performance improved, even though attempts to halt or slow desertification proved ineffectual. Revenues from agriculture, mining, and fishing increased from the depressed levels of the drought years; the rate of inflation decreased; and the World Bank stepped up lending, following a currency devaluation in 1985. In keeping with his promise concerning human rights, in late 1984 and early 1985 Taya freed many of the political prisoners jailed by his predecessor. More important, he successfully organized Mauritania's first elections.
Taya himself, known as a diligent, loyal, disinterested professional, remained a popular figure. At least at the outset, his tenure attracted support from Mauritania's principal constituencies, including harratin, labor, and students, as well as from the exiled, pro-Moroccan Alliance for a Democratic Mauritania (Alliance pour une Mauritanie D�mocratique--AMD) based in Paris and the Organization of Mauritanian Nationalists (Organisation des Nationalistes Mauritaniens) formed in Senegal. His general amnesty for political prisoners pleased both domestic and external dissidents, and his ban on alcohol won support from Islamic fundamentalists.
In spite of Taya's successes, internal politics in 1987 remained unsettled. Alternative political choices were still banned, and neither of the two exiled dissident groups chose to return. Corruption, which had flourished under Haidalla, was still a significant problem. The number of nomadic herders dropped from 85 percent of the population to 15 percent, with former nomads settling in Nouakchott and other cities and vastly inflating the number of unemployed or underemployed living in k�b�s (shantytowns) surrounding Nouakchott. Harratin, who previously had worked for the nomads, also entered the labor market, often in competition with their former employers for scarce or nonexistent jobs. Wealthy speculators exploited the difficulties of the nomads by purchasing their herds at distress prices and then selling them to farmers in the south. The economy, which had rebounded somewhat during Taya's first two years in office, stagnated. The government raised prices for staples and simultaneously devalued the ouguiya. Revenues from mining, fishing and agriculture dropped. To prevent a financial collapse, the World Bank took control of the International Bank of Mauritania (Banque Internationale pour la Mauritanie--BIMA). Finally, southern blacks, and the Toucouleur in particular, charged the Taya government with discrimination and bias, and in frustration they took their grievances to the streets.
Internal divisions based on race remained Taya's most critical domestic problem in 1987, in spite of his insistence that racism was of no consequence in Mauritania. Since independence, some black groups repeatedly had charged the government with discrimination, alleging underrepresentation of blacks in important posts in government, education, and business. Other grievances included supposed favoritism by the state in allocating resources, such as bank loans and scholarships, and a land reform act that seemingly gave Maures preference in the acquisition of irrigated land along the Senegal River. The 1983 Land Reform Act maintained that as the owner of all unimproved and undeeded land, the state had an inherent interest in its development. The act stipulated that in accordance with relevant provisions of sharia, the government was permitted to cede land to those committed to improving it. Although the policy of providing parcels of fallow, irrigable land to those willing to farm it was economically sound, ambiguities surrounding the implementation of the Land Reform Act raised the specter of wealthy land speculators from Nouakchott and Nouadhibou appropriating tracts of rich agricultural land along the Senegal River and displacing blacks whose roots extended back for generations. Complicating the issue was the fact that wealthy blacks from the Senegal River Basin were also interested in assembling large, capital-intensive farms on riparian lands and were very much in favor of the government's efforts on their behalf.
President Taya attempted to deal with racial controversy by creating a national constituency to replace local or regional (often ethnically based) affiliations. To this end, he sought to eliminate racial and ethnic labels. He continued to bring southern blacks and harratin into his government, in mid1987 he named three women to cabinet positions, and he earmarked agriculture along the Senegal River, historically a black enterprise, for heavy investment. Notwithstanding such efforts, local blacks, Mauritania's black African neighbors, and many foreign observers shared the perception that Maures formulated and carried out the political agenda. Moreover, frequent cabinet changes, coupled with the rapid rotation of regional governors and military commanders, have prevented Mauritania's political leaders from acquiring managerial expertise.
In the absence of political parties, in 1987 political demands found informal expression only through the various interest groups within Mauritanian society. Their interaction with the military government provided some indication of the regime's support. Four interest groups offered contrasts in how they related to government: blacks, who questioned the legitimacy of any government headed by Maures; traditional elites, whose importance diminished under the military; women, whose limited political strength has come only at the sufferance of the government; and labor unions. Mauritania's most important interest group was the military, for which the rules of politics were different.
In 1987 the most visible political organization among Mauritania's blacks was the African Liberation Forces of Mauritania (Forces Lib�ration Africaine de Mauritanie--FLAM). Founded in 1983 and outlawed in 1984, the group has developed a complex and clandestine organization based in Dakar, Senegal. It drew its membership primarily from the Toucouleur. Among alleged FLAM members arrested by the government in September 1986 were Ibrahima Sarr, a television journalist; Tafsirou Djigo and Mamadou Ly, former cabinet ministers; Mahmoudi Ould Boukhreiss, a businessman and brother of Colonel Moulay Ould Boukhreiss, a former minister of justice known for his pro-Libyan sentiments; Tene Youssouf Gueye, a writer; Oumar Ba, a noted historian and linguist; and Def Ould Babana, a former diplomat. Several professors and researchers from the University of Nouakchott were also linked to FLAM.
FLAM members have claimed responsibility for distributing a highly articulate, fifty-page pamphlet entitled "Le Manifesto du N�gro-Mauritanien Opprime" (The Manifesto of the Oppressed Black Mauritanian), documenting alleged examples of officially sanctioned discrimination. Copies of the manifesto were circulated in Addis Ababa during the spring 1986 meetings of the OAU and during the summer 1986 summit meetings of the Nonaligned Movement in Harare, Zimbabwe. FLAM adherents were also charged with instigating a series of attacks in September and October 1986 against a fish-processing facility in Nouadhibou, a pharmacy and gas station in Nouakchott, and three government vehicles. Although damage from the attacks was minimal, they were the first such acts of sabotage in Mauritania and thus represented a dramatic escalation in political violence.
The government responded quickly and harshly to these attacks. It labeled FLAM leaders as "misled persons" intent on "undermining the values and foundations of . . . society" by sowing "hatred and confusion" with the assistance of foreign enemies, possibly Libya. On September 4 and 5, 1986, army and police units arrested between thirty and forty suspected FLAM members. Twenty of the group were later given sentences ranging from six months to five years. Lieutenant Colonel Anne Amadou Babali, the black minister of interior, information and telecommunications, was dismissed from his post, allegedly for ignoring evidence of FLAM's existence. He was replaced by Lieutenant Colonel Djibril Ould Abdallah, who was known for his firmness. Also relieved of their positions were Captain Niang Harouna and Commander Diouf Oumar of the Mauritanian Army, as well as the director of BIMA and other highly placed officials elsewhere in government. Most of those dismissed blacks were replaced by other blacks from Wolof or Sonink� groups, and only a few were replaced by Maures. None of the new black appointees, however, supported the FLAM agenda.
With its leadership imprisoned or in self-imposed exile, FLAM's activities through the first half of 1987 diminished considerably; nevertheless, discontent among blacks, and especially among the Toucouleur, simmered. Observers speculated that further outbreaks of violence might erupt if the government attempted to implement its 1983 land reform program on a large scale.
Although originally supported by Mauritania's leading chiefs, the PPM in 1963 made the policy decision to suppress the institution of chieftaincies in order to foster unity and allegiance to a national leader. Accordingly, no replacement was chosen for a chief who died or resigned. Nevertheless, traditional rulers continued to play a significant, if decreasing, role in the political system. At the local level, traditional rulers represented the administration with the peasantry, aided in the maintenance of public order, and mobilized resources for public works projects. Chiefs also collected taxes, and in return the government paid their salaries.
On the national level, traditional rulers were most often coopted and integrated into the party, where they played an important role. Some chiefs or their kin became secretaries of the party committee in their villages; others held civil service positions. Throughout Daddah's stay in office, nearly all his ministers and deputies came from the highest levels of traditional leadership, and especially from marabout castes. Daddah regularly brought new members of the old elite into the government to improve efficiency and to enlarge his base of support. This changed only when the costs of the war in the Western Sahara threatened the economic well-being of the growing class of technocrats--a new elite--at home.
The 1978 military coup brought another group of traditional elites into government, as leaders of what had been warrior castes (hassani) replaced those of maraboutic groups. Of far greater significance for the long term, however, has been the movement of civilian and military technocrats into positions of political leadership. Taya's 1987 cabinet appointments-- such as the new minister of mines and industry, Khadijatou Bint Ahmed, and the new minister of foreign affairs, Commander Mohamed Lemine Ould N'Diayane-- have tended to be young (Ahmed, a woman, and N'Diayane are under forty), well educated, motivated, articulate, and energetic politicians.
During the period of civilian government, women were most successful in fulfilling their political demands through the party. Although the constitution guaranteed equality before the law and full rights of political participation, traditional practices effectively denied women any major role in political life. To elicit the support of women, the PPM created the National Union of Mauritanian Women in 1961. At first oriented only toward such typically feminine issues as health, nutrition, and education, by 1964 it had become the women's political arm of the PPM and was renamed the National Women's Movement (Mouvement National F�minin). The organization of the women's movement paralleled that of the PPM, with local committees, sections, and federations, and was headed by an elected bureau. At each level in the hierarchy, an official of the women's organization participated as an ex officio member of the respective PPM bureau. Although most women were far from achieving political equality with men, they were able to bring about change in response to some of their demands.
Over the years, several political functions helped to improve the lot of women. The PPM party congress at Ka�di in 1964 condemned abuses of divorce and doweries. The congress at `Ayo�n el `Atro�s in 1966 made provisions for the support of dependent children who remained with their mothers following a divorce and created the Superior Council for Women (Conseil Sup�rieur des Femmes), which operated the National Women's Movement. At the Nouakchott party congress in 1968, women's issues received significant attention. The 300 participants, including 11 women, called for the obligatory registration of marriages and divorces to protect women, the enactment of laws to discourage polygyny, limits on the size of dowries, and a code to protect women's rights. In the 1971 elections, two women were elected to the previously all-male National Assembly, and one, Aissatou Kane, was named minister of health and social affairs, becoming the first woman to serve in the government. She remained in office until the 1978 coup.
The pace of change improved under the military government as more women enrolled in schools and joined the labor force. In May 1987, in what was a remarkable step for Mauritania, President Taya named three women to cabinet-level posts to "correct countless managerial mistakes committed in the past." Khadijatou Bint Ahmed of Boutilimit was appointed minister of mines and industries. Lalla Mariam Bint Moulaye was appointed associate director of the presidential cabinet, and N'Deye Tabar Fall became general secretary of the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs.
The Mauritanian Workers Union (Union des Travailleurs Mauritaniens--UTM), created in 1961, was a government-supported federation of all trade unions within the country. Until 1969 the UTM was completely separate from the PPM and the government, although it supported the party and had as many as seven representatives in the National Assembly. Initially, the UTM was conceived as a radical union in a class-oriented society and was pledged to forward the interests of workers as a class. Accordingly, union leadership ruled out integration with the party, as was customary in most other one-party states in subSaharan Africa. Consequently, union leaders were not averse to challenging the state. In May 1968, when news of student and worker demonstrations in France reached Mauritania, iron ore workers at Zou�r�t struck to protest the pay differential, amounting to almost 1,000 percent, between the salaries of West Europeans and Africans. The government called on the army to restore order, a move that resulted in the death of eight workers and injuries to twenty-three.
At the fourth congress of the UTM, held in February 1969, party leaders and UTM leadership proposed incorporating the UTM into the PPM. Several member unions of the UTM denounced both the proposal and UTM leadership, which was described as no longer representing the interests of workers. Subsequently, several unions, including the National Union of Mauritanian Teachers, formally opposed integration with the party and voted to withdraw from the UTM. Under the Directing Committee of Mauritanian Workers, the "Progressive" UTM was formed. The new federation argued that the UTM was now under the control of management and could no longer represent the interests of the working class.
The PPM and the government refused to recognize the new labor federation, arguing that there could be no political activity outside the party. Mauritanian students, on the other hand, supported the new federation and in May 1971 challenged police and army units by demonstrating throughout Mauritania. Workers joined students in protest when miners at Fd�rik closed the mines in September and October 1968.
Subsequent union activity under the military was marked by conflict and confusion. In 1983 Haidalla imprisoned UTM secretary general Elkory Ould H'metty for allegedly having used the UTM for political purposes and on behalf of Libyan interests. Taking over UTM leadership was H'metty's former assistant, Beijel Ould Houmeit, who had been a faithful Haidalla supporter. In 1985 H'metty was freed by President Taya. Nevertheless, Houmeit only begrudgingly yielded power to the erstwhile secretary general. From 1984 until mid-1987, the administration of the UTM was paralyzed, and union locals atrophied. In an effort to secure worker cooperation during the period of recession, the government decided to reinvigorate the UTM. In mid-1987 local offices were being reestablished in major urban areas, and a general UTM congress was tentatively planned for late 1987.
The historic contradictions and competing interests involved in formulating foreign policy have allowed Mauritania's several heads of state to justify a monopoly on foreign policy decision making. As a result, Mauritania's foreign policy, like that of other developing states, represents at once an extension of the president's personality and the embodiment of an otherwise fragile state. Accordingly, Mauritania's foreign policy over the years avoided ideological posturing in favor of pragmatic responses to domestic and foreign pressures. That was particularly true in the mid-1980s when harsh economic realities and the ongoing conflict in the Western Sahara compelled the Taya government to strengthen its ties to France; continue its balancing act between Morocco, Algeria, and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR); and solicit support from as many donors as would come to its aid.
During the late colonial period, Mauritania had few contacts with the other territories of French West Africa (Afrique Occidentale Fran�aise--AOF). At the time of the independence referendum in 1958, Mauritania's representatives on the Grand Council of the AOF remained neutral, while all other AOF members divided between the African Democratic Rally (Rassemblement D�mocratique Africain--RDA) and the African Regroupment Party (Parti du R�groupement Africain--PRA). Until Mauritania became independent and Morocco threatened its security, Mauritania did not participate in AOF intraterritorial political, labor, or cultural movements. Only when Mauritania's existence as a state became problematic did it seek international recognition and support.
Throughout the 1960s, Mauritania's main foreign policy objective was preserving its independence in the face of Moroccan irredentism. (Morocco finally recognized Mauritanian independence in 1969.) To that end, the Daddah government insisted on maintaining close ties with France, an effort that included allowing France to station troops on Mauritanian soil. In Africa, Mauritania established ties with the more conservative francophone countries because all the Arab League states (except Tunisia) and the African members of the Casablanca Group (Ghana, Guinea, and Mali) supported Morocco's irredentist claims.
Mauritania applied for admission to the UN in 1960, sponsored by France, but its membership was vetoed by the Soviet Union, which supported the Arab League. For the most part, black Africa and the West favored Mauritania's admission, and the Soviet Union dropped its opposition in 1961 in exchange for a favorable vote on Mongolia's admission. In a final effort to block Mauritania's admission, Morocco brought the issue to the General Assembly, which supported Mauritania's application by a vote of sixty-eight to thirteen, with twenty abstentions. Mauritania was admitted to the UN on October 27, 1961. Mali, Guinea, and most Arab states supported Morocco in the debate.
In January 1962 Mauritania edged away from its previously conservative, pro-French position by extending recognition to the Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic and refusing to attend meetings of the French-backed Common Saharan States Organization. These tentative displays of independence increased Mauritania's credibility with its more progressive African neighbors and emphasized the country's role as a bridge between Arab North Africa and black sub-Saharan Africa. Mauritania and Mali subsequently achieved a rapprochement with the signing of the Treaty of Kayes in February 1963. Relations with Algeria improved when Mauritania supported Algeria in its dispute with Morocco. Egypt, known at the time as the United Arab Republic (UAR) and the acknowledged leader of the Arab world, also sided with Algeria, and on October 21, 1964, the UAR officially extended recognition to Mauritania. That action encouraged Daddah to undertake an even bolder foreign policy.
In 1963 Mauritania joined the OAU, whereupon Morocco resigned in protest. In 1964 Daddah became the first president of the recently formed Afro-Malagasy Union for Economic Cooperation (Union Africaine et Malagache de Coop�ration Economique--UAMCE), a loose grouping of francophone African countries pledging technical and cultural cooperation. When the organization was subsequently upgraded to become a political organization in defiance of the OAU charter, Mauritania withdrew from all but the technical committees.
Through the early 1970s, Mauritania continued to play the role of bridge between the Maghrib and sub-Saharan Africa. Mauritania also maintained its commitment to nonalignment while opening relations with Eastern Europe and the radical states of Africa. In support of Arab League and OAU positions, Mauritania did not seek ties with Israel, South Africa, or Portugal. Mauritania finally established diplomatic relations with Morocco in 1969. Close relations with France, on whom Mauritania continued to rely for much of its development aid, remained the cornerstone of Mauritanian foreign policy through the late 1980s.
Spain's withdrawal from the Spanish Sahara and the latter's partition and annexation by Mauritania and Morocco in 1976 inaugurated an eight-year period of conflict and fighting against Polisario guerrillas of the SADR, resulting in military setbacks and stagnating diplomacy for Mauritania. Upon annexation, Mauritania's former ally Algeria severed its ties with the Daddah government in support of the SADR. From 1976 to 1979, Polisario guerrillas increased pressure on Mauritania and launched commando attacks against Fd�rik and Nouakchott. As a consequence of the economic and political costs of the fighting, the military successors to Daddah attempted to disengage Mauritania from the conflict; nevertheless, Polisario forces penetrated Mauritania's defenses, often with impunity, to infiltrate fighters into the Western Sahara. Subsequently, relations with Morocco again deteriorated and then finally ruptured in 1981 when Mauritania accused Morocco of backing a coup attempt in Nouakchott. Conversely, relations with the Polisario and Algeria improved. In December 1983, Algeria, Tunisia, and Mauritania signed the Treaty of Peace and Friendship. The following year Haidalla extended diplomatic recognition and support to the SADR, an action that ultimately led to the downfall of his government. President Taya maintained ties with the SADR, but the link was at best correct and represented little more than Taya's attempt to appease his more formidable neighbors.
Mauritania's principal foreign policy objective in the mid1980s has been to ensure its own territorial integrity. Translated into diplomacy, this has meant pursuing a policy of strict neutrality in the Western Sahara dispute, improving relations with Morocco and Algeria, and seeking guarantees of support from France should ties with Mauritania's northern neighbors seriously deteriorate. Taya's efforts in that area have had mixed results. Although Taya insisted that Mauritania would remain neutral in the conflict over the Western Sahara, Mauritania faced a mounting threat of greater involvement because the combatants themselves continued to encroach on Mauritanian territory. As the Moroccans pushed southward in the Western Sahara behind their highly effective network of sand walls (berms) to within a few kilometers of the Mauritanian border, Mauritanian armed forces were placed in the position of confronting either well-equipped Moroccan troops pursuing Polisario guerrillas, or Polisario commando teams crossing into and perhaps attacking the berms from Mauritanian territory. In either case, Mauritania would probably be the loser.
Taya has also sought to improve ties with other countries to secure trading partners or find new investors. Mauritania's principal benefactors have been Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and France. The list of donors also includes Japan, Iraq, Italy, the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), Romania, the United States, the Persian Gulf states, and China.
Foreign Relations with ...
<>France
<>Morocco
<>United States
Most of Mauritania's developmental assistance in the 1980s was provided by France, which was also the major supplier of private direct investment. Bilateral accords signed with France in 1961 provided for economic, financial, technical, cultural, and military cooperation and aid. Although Mauritania opposed France on Algerian independence, nuclear testing in the Sahara, and French arms sales to South Africa, ties remained cordial through the Daddah term. French citizens worked in Mauritania as technical assistants in the government, administrators, teachers, and judges. Daddah frequently traveled to France, and French development aid flowed to Mauritania. The level of French involvement rose markedly following the outbreak of hostilities in the Western Sahara. Between 1976 and 1979, when Mauritania unilaterally declared peace and withdrew from combat, French aircraft provided air support for Mauritanian troops fighting Polisario forces, and French paratroops were stationed at Nouadhibou.
Activity by Mauritanian dissidents in France, together with Mauritania's gradual policy shift toward the Polisario, resulted in a growing coolness toward Paris. In May 1979, Mauritania asked France to remove its troops from Nouadhibou. France continued to provide a high level of financial aid, although less than requested by the Haidalla government, and this curtailment further strained ties. Following alleged accusations of Moroccan support of a coup attempt in March 1981, Haidalla again turned to France to obtain guarantees of Mauritania's territorial integrity. French president Georges Pompidou and Haidalla concluded an accord in 1981, as Morocco threatened to carry the struggle against Polisario guerrillas into Mauritanian territory. As Morocco's advancing sand walls increasingly obligated Polisario guerrillas to use Mauritania as a staging area, President Haidalla and, later, President Taya sought and received guarantees of French support in August 1984 and June 1987.
Prior to the December 1984 coup that brought Taya to power, the Mauritanian-Moroccan cooperation agency stated that relations between the two countries were on the mend in spite of alleged Moroccan complicity in a 1981 coup attempt and Mauritania's subsequent turn toward Algeria. Representatives from both sides initiated a series of lowlevel contacts that led to a resumption of diplomatic ties in April 1985. For Mauritania, the d�tente with Morocco promised to end the threat of Moroccan incursions, and it also removed the threat of Moroccan support for opposition groups formed during the Haidalla presidency. Through the agreement with Mauritania, Morocco sought to tighten its control over the Western Sahara by denying the Polisario one more avenue for infiltrating guerrillas into the disputed territory.
Relations between Morocco and Mauritania continued to improve through 1986, reflecting President Taya's pragmatic, if unstated, view that only a Moroccan victory over the Polisario would end the guerrilla war in the Western Sahara. Taya made his first visit to Morocco in October 1985 (prior to visits to Algeria and Tunisia) in the wake of Moroccan claims that Polisario guerrillas were again traversing Mauritanian territory. The completion of a sixth berm just north of Mauritania's crucial rail link along the border with the Western Sahara, between Nouadhibou and the iron ore mines, complicated relations between Mauritania and Morocco. Polisario guerrillas in mid-1987 had to traverse Mauritanian territory to enter the Western Sahara, a situation that invited Morocco's accusations of Mauritanian complicity. Moreover, any engagements near the sixth berm would threaten to spill over into Mauritania and jeopardize the rail link.
Relations with the United States have never been close. The United States recognized Mauritanian independence when it was proclaimed in November 1960, but the first two ambassadors shared accreditation with Senegal and resided in Dakar. A United States embassy opened in July 1962 in Nouakchott and was headed by a charg� d'affaires. Only in 1972 were resident ambassadors exchanged.
Since the onset of the drought in the mid-1970s, Mauritania has cultivated ties with Western Europe and Eastern Europe as possible sources of aid and investment. Mauritania's ties with Spain, which until 1975 were dominated by the fate of the Western Sahara, remained cordial in spite of repeated violations of Mauritania's fishing regulations by Spanish boats. The two countries have formed a joint economic and technical cooperation commission, a move reflecting the importance Spain gave to its aid and cooperation program with Mauritania.
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