Mauritania, and its periodic bouts of political instability, has important implications for the trajectory of secret U.S. military operations in Africa, as a recent article by Craig Whitlock in the Washington Post shows. American spy planes have flown out of Mauritania on and off for several years, but politics has sometimes constrained America’s role there. In 2008, for instance, a coup in Mauritania “forced Washington to suspend relations and end the surveillance,” Whitlock writes.
Today, Mauritania’s potential significance to the U.S. military is increasing. In neighboring Mali, torn apart by a civil war since January, the Islamist group Ansar al Din (Arabic for “Defenders of the Faith”) now controls some towns and territory in the country’s north. Al-Qaida affiliates and splinter groups are seeking political benefit amid the ongoing turmoil. As regional actors and Western powers piece together their response, Mauritania has stepped up military activities near the border, and, Whitlock writes, America’s “surveillance flights [into Mali] have taken on added importance.” How will Mauritanian domestic politics affect the Sahelian equation this time?
Mauritania’s 2008 coup, the latest in a string of coups and attempted coups in the country, came at the end of a particularly unstable period. From 2005, when a coup displaced longtime President Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya, to the 2007 election of civilian President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, to the 2008 coup, Mauritanian politics were in constant flux. During the same period, al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and its predecessor organization, the Algerian militant outfit the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, perpetrated several major kidnappings and attacks in Mauritania.
The leader of the 2008 coup, current President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, resigned his military commission and won the election of 2009 to become the country’s new civilian leader. Abdel Aziz has attempted to restore both security and stability, and under his watch, Mauritanian security forces have foiled several AQIM plots and on several occasions in 2010-2011 attacked militants’ camps in northern Mali. In a continuation of trends that began in 2000, under Abdel Aziz, Mauritania has “spent a larger percentage of its GDP on defense than any other state in West Africa.” In cultivating the image of an anti-terrorist warrior, Abdel Aziz has so far kept his domestic political rivals at bay through a combination of co-optation, divide and rule, and delays -- parliamentary elections have already been postponed twice. Already more than halfway through his five-year term, Abdel Aziz likely plans to contest the 2014 elections, potentially allowing him to remain in power at least until 2019.
But protest movements in the political capital Nouakchott and the economic capital Nouadhibou pose challenges for the president. The protesters have different causes and emphases, but many of them target the regime in whole or in part. In the spring of 2011, Mauritanian youth held “days of rage” demonstrations calling for political reforms and demanding that the military withdraw from politics. This latter grievance, echoed in this year’s protests by a coalition of political parties called the Coordination of Democratic Opposition, implies that despite having resigned his military commission, Abdel Aziz remains in essence a military strongman. Youth protests and opposition demonstrations have been paralleled by clashes between university students and police, marches by women (demanding employment), workers’ strikes, and other movements demanding economic and political change.
Meanwhile, the complex system of racial stratification in Mauritania -- which can be described, in a grossly simplified fashion, as a society composed of “white Moors,” “black Moors,” and non-Arabic-speaking black Africans -- continues to generate political tension. Some non-whites have resisted the national census, fearing it could undercount their numbers and deprive them of rights and representation. This spring, anti-slavery activists caused an uproar by burning Islamic legal texts to protest the ways in which legal maxims are invoked to defend the institution of slavery; activist Biram Ould Abeid and six others, arrested over the incident, remain in prison, and the controversy has generated further protests.
Sharif Nashashibi, chairman of Arab Media Watch, argues that these diverse movements add up to an “overlooked Arab spring.” Nashashibi believes the protests may “intensify, mainly because the government seems not to have learned from the mistakes of other Arab regimes that are under threat. It has used a combination of repression and pledges of reform that have left Mauritanians unconvinced and more frustrated.”
Even if the protests do not cohere into a movement aimed at ousting Abdel Aziz, the ongoing discontent poses logistical difficulties -- shifts in the electoral calendar; extended negotiations with the opposition; and disruptions to urban, academic and economic life -- as well as long-term worries for the regime. The ultimate threat to Abdel Aziz may come not from the street, but from a loss of confidence among the country’s political, business and military elites regarding his ability to manage the political scene.
Additionally, some level of corruption may be inevitable, but if elites come to feel that Abdel Aziz is not sharing the wealth broadly enough, he could face trouble. Analyst Mamoun Ismaili has observed (.pdf) that in Mauritania, “rent-seeking fuels cyclical attempts at military takeovers.” In Abdel Aziz’s Mauritania, Ismaili continues, “businessmen from [the president’s] Awlad Bu Sbaa tribe . . . dominate the more profitable sectors of the economy, and relatives have been placed in all vital positions.” Protests outside the palace and nepotism within it could make Abdel Aziz vulnerable.
http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/arti ... urity-roleThe U.S., as it steps up its military operations in Africa, relies on a number of strongmen, among them Abdel Aziz. Ideally, Pentagon planners would like Mauritania to play a significant role in efforts to monitor events in northern Mali and, potentially, to wrest control of the territory back from Islamists and rebels. Mauritania’s internal problems, protests and tensions will not necessarily prevent it from fulfilling this role, and the country is more stable in 2012 than it was in 2008. But the country’s turbulent history and politically complicated present suggest that Washington’s partnership with Mauritania could falter at any time.
