MONGABAY.COM
Mongabay.com seeks to raise interest in and appreciation of wild lands and wildlife, while examining the impact of emerging trends in climate, technology, economics, and finance on conservation and development (more)
WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
|
|
Mauritania
Index
Focusing on internal affairs prior to independence,
Mauritania was reluctant to participate in the Common Saharan
States Organization proposed by France in 1957, and the
organization collapsed when Algeria gained its independence. From
the mid-1970s, Mauritania's ties with Libya and, to a greater
extent, Algeria were inextricably linked to the Western Sahara
conflict and the larger confrontation between Algeria and
Morocco. As relations with Morocco cooled following Mauritania's
unilateral withdrawal from the conflict, ties with Algeria
improved. Within days after the March 1981 coup attempt, Algeria
dispatched military reinforcements to Nouakchott. In December
1983, Algeria joined Mauritania and Tunisia in pledging to
negotiate conflicts according to the terms of the Treaty of Peace
and Friendship. Algeria also refurbished the oil refinery at
Nouadhibou in 1982, and again in 1987, after the refinery had
been shut down for several years for lack of adequate
maintenance.
Since the 1984 coup that brought Taya to power, Mauritania
has been scrupulous in its efforts to balance its contacts with
Algeria and Morocco. A visit to one capital by a Mauritanian
diplomat is quickly followed by a visit to the other. When the
sixth berm was completed in May 1987, bringing Moroccan troops to
within a few kilometers of Mauritanian territory, Algeria offered
to send troops to Nouadhibou, ostensibly to discourage hotpursuit raids by Moroccan armed forces. Taya refused the offer,
but at the same time he accorded Algeria special fishing rights
without the joint participation required of other national fleets
fishing Mauritania's waters.
Libya's relations with Mauritania were generally
confrontational. On several occasions, Libya has expressed its
intention of absorbing Mauritania into an Islamic federation, and
Libya allegedly backed a coup attempt in Mauritania in December
1980. The Oujda Agreement between Morocco and Libya, signed in
1984, was viewed as a serious threat in Mauritania that was
removed only when the agreement collapsed in 1986. Although
Mauritania has repeatedly professed neutrality in the Western
Sahara, Taya's unwillingness to lend support to the Polisario was
interpreted by Libya as a pro-Moroccan stance. In 1987 Taya
suggested that Libya was supporting efforts by black separatists
in Mauritania to destabilize his government and possibly exact a
modicum of revenge against King Hassan II of Morocco, Libya's
erstwhile ally.
Data as of June 1988
|
|