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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Mauritania
Index
From independence until the mid-1970s, Mauritania's policy on
the Western Sahara vacillated as the government sought to balance
its own interests against those of a more powerful Morocco. Until
1974 the Daddah government supported self-determination for the
Western Sahara, to be exercised by means of a referendum, under
the assumption that the Sahrawis would choose to join with
Mauritania. This assumption was reasonable: there were close
ethnic ties between the Sahrawis and the Maures; a large number
of Sahrawi nomads had migrated into Mauritania; and many Maures
were living in the Western Sahara. During the period from 1974 to
1975, however, after Morocco had made clear its intention of
occupying the Western Sahara, Mauritania pursued policies fraught
with contradictions. To please the international community, on
which Mauritania depended for economic aid, Daddah continued to
support policy of self-determination for the Sahrawi population.
But to please the dominant Maures of Mauritania, the government
reintroduced the concept of Greater Mauritania (see Glossary),
asserting the country's rights over all of the Western Sahara. A
third policy, acknowledging the reality of Moroccan power, called
for a partition of the Western Sahara, which led Mauritania into
a long and costly guerrilla war with the Polisario.
The Mauritanian campaign to annex Tiris al Gharbiyya (the
southern province of the Western Sahara) did not have much
support within Mauritania. Some Mauritanians favored instead the
full integration of the Western Sahara, while others, who
identified themselves as Sahrawi refugees, supported
independence. Adamantly opposing absorption was Mauritania's
southern black population, which viewed the resultant increase in
the number of Maures as a threat. To the blacks, the Western
Shara conflict was an Arab war.
Data as of June 1988
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