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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Mauritania
Index
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 (Comité Militaire de Salut National--
CMSN). The Taya government came to power following a bloodless
palace coup on December 12, 1984
(see Political Disintegration
, ch. 1). 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 (see Glossary).
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.
Data as of June 1988
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