Mauritania lies across one of the great trans-Saharan trade routes. For over 500 years, up to 1674 when the Arabs defeated them, the Almoravid Dynasty controlled the trade in gold, slaves and salt. Various European navigators made sporadic contact with the region, but French domination of the area was only established in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Mauritania achieved full independence from France in 1960. Since the mid-1970s, the country has been locked in dispute with its two northern neighbors, Algeria and Morocco, concerning the future of the Western Sahara (formerly Spanish Sahara),
which was ceded jointly to Morocco and Mauritania by Spain in 1975. The main opposition to the 1975 settlement came from the Polisario Front, backed by Algeria, which demanded self-determination for Western Sahara (and achieved recognition by the UN as the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic). Mauritania’s first post-independence ruler, Mukhtar Ould Daddah, was able to keep control of his poor, sparsely populated desert country only by playing his two powerful neighbors, Morocco and Algeria, off against one another.
Daddah was deposed in a military coup in 1978. The dominant political figure in Mauritania for the last two decades has been Maaouiya Ould Sid’Ahmed Taya, a former army officer who first seized power in a military coup in 1984. In the early 1990s, similar to many other African nations, Mauritania came under pressure to introduce representative civilian government. A new constitution was introduced in 1991; elections for a presidency and a bicameral parliament were held the following year. Taya reinvented himself as a civilian politician and comfortably won the presidential race. His supporters in the Democratic and Social Republican Party (DRSP) secured a healthy majority in both houses; those results were confirmed in 1996 and again in 2001. Taya was elected to a second six-year term in 1998, and to a third term in the most recent, hotly disputed presidential poll in November 2003.
Despite the DSRP’s firm grip on Mauritanian politics, it has not gone unchallenged and there has been growing discontent over its conduct of elections and the government’s often heavy-handed approach to political opposition. The main opposition comes from the organized labor movement and Islamist organizations. Both are subject to periodic crackdowns. There are also tensions between black Mauritanians and those of Arab origin (reflected in a notorious pogrom of blacks in 1989, during which thousands were killed and exiled).
Mauritania is a member of the Union of the Arab Maghreb, the North African political and economic union formed in February 1989 with Morocco, Libya, Tunisia and Algeria. Relations with Morocco, in particular, have improved since the change of regime in Rabat. To the south, there have been a number of border disputes between Mauritania and Senegal over agricultural rights, although current diplomatic relations are normal. Mauritania was once one of the few countries in the world to maintain a good relationship with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, and offered support in the 1991 Gulf war. However, in 1999, President Taya executed a complete about-face by establishing diplomatic relations with Israel and aligning with the United States. Mauritania’s financial plight and desperate need for aid was the main reason for the policy switch. Opposition to Taya’s new pro-Western line steadily grew until, in June 2003, rebel army units mounted a coup attempt. Although the coup was put down, political tension is still high.
Government The latest constitution, which allows for a multi-party political system, was introduced in July 1991 after approval in a national referendum. Executive power rests with the President, elected by universal suffrage, for a six-year term. The bicameral legislature, also popularly elected, comprises a 79-seat National Assembly (elected for five years) and a 56-member Senate with a six-year mandate. The President appoints a Prime Minister who is Head of Government.
Economy Successive years of drought and encroaching desert have consumed large areas of Mauritania’s cultivable land. More than half the population is engaged in subsistence agriculture, producing vegetables, millet, rice and dates, and rearing livestock, mostly in the Senegal River valley. The quantities produced are insufficient to meet domestic needs and Mauritania relies on imports of basic foodstuffs.
Fishing is essential both to domestic needs and the country’s export income, also for the revenue from licenses granted to foreign fleets from Korea, Japan and Russia.
Mining is Mauritania’s principal industry: the main products are iron ore (output of which has been cut due to falling demand), gypsum and gold. There are plans to exploit the country’s copper reserves, which were long thought uneconomic, as well as newly located diamond deposits. Offshore drilling for oil and gas fields has recently begun.
Nonetheless, Mauritania’s financial position remains precarious and it will remain an exceptionally poor country for the foreseeable future and a major aid recipient, with other Arab countries as the main donors. The economy grew by 5.4% in 2005; inflation was 17.1% in the same year. The IMF and World Bank have given some economic support in exchange for the standard economic reform program.
Mauritania is a member of the Union of the Arab Maghreb. It was also a member of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) until its withdrawal from the organization in 2000.
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