Back of the Envelope

So, what's new in Mauritania recently? Here's what a search of the news shows:

• The President of the African Union has some tough words for the military junta, asking it to abolish slavery and help fight terrorism. It's good to hear that the African Union isn't quite as uncritical of the junta as earlier articles suggested.


• The junta has banned its members from running for elections. It had said they wouldn't run, but this step does seem to indicate that they're serious about that. We'll see whether this holds until the elections.


• A pro-democracy group, Democrats without Borders, has called for the return of President Taya, with a number of conditions:
  

  It suggested that upon resuming duties, Ould Taya should step down as chairman of his party, promise to no longer lead, support or be a member of any political party, and appoint a transitional government with a Prime Minister who is not a member of any political party.
  
  Chaired by Ahmed Ould Saleck, DWB maintained that its proposals were based on the "universally accepted principle that putsches [coups] can in no way, whatever the motives, be a means to access and devolve power."

  
  They seem sincere enough, if a bit naive believing that it's possible to let Taya back into power. No one's suggesting we return Saddam to power with promises that he step down in a few years.


• And the junta has succeeded in winning more people to supporting the transition, including the OIF (the International Francophone Organization) and the RDU (the Rally for Unity and Democracy), both organizations whose Acronyms get all scrambled in translation.


• I guess it shouldn't come as a surprise that the junta is expanding oil exploration. It's too soon to tell what to make of it.


• Qatar, which you will remember offered asylum to Mauritania's ex-President Taya, is praising the military junta as well. Hmm, whose side are they on?

And that's all for today. I'll report more next week.

So what's happened in Mauritania since I posted last week? Well, this sounds promising, although it doesn't necessarily mean much in itself:

Leader of the opposition Progressive Popular Alliance (APP) party, Messaoud Ould Belkheir, said Friday that he has discussed the 1989 turmoil that shook the country concerning its humanitarian record, especially problem of slavery and expulsions, with the new military rulers here.

According to Belkheir, Colonel Ely Ould Mohamed Vall, who is the chairman of the ruling Military Council for Justice and Democracy (MCJD), initiated the Thursday meeting.
...
Observers said this was the first time that an opposition official had evoked the humanitarian issue and the question of slavery with a Mauritanian president, a move likely to "break the ice."

The new leader did not give a firm pledge, but mere listening to Belkheir`s views was a positive development compared to ousted President Ould Taya`s attitude, according to observers.

Meanwhile, former president Taya has left Gambia and gone to Qatar, where he's reportedly been offered asylum. Although he's gone, his political party has been reorganizing, while the junta has at least recognized the legitimacy of other opposition parties. One thing I noticed while doing my news search is that most of the articles that come up are about the famine there. The nation's cereal crop is 36% lower than the five-year average.

If you're looking for more news about Mauritania, one of the quick and easy ways is to do a search on "Mauritania coup" on one of the news search engines. When I did it, the first article to turn up was that the President of Nigeria is urging the coup leaders to restore democracy, from, interestingly enough, Al Jazeera. Lexis-Nexis is probably the best engine for this, but it's not free and you probably only have access if your institution does.

Meanwhile, I've heard from other bloggers who've been covering this, including Elizabeth at Military Christians. She takes a look at the ethical questions concerning coups. Jason Coleman, whom I mentioned in my previous posts, also has lots on this.

Update: Armchair Capitalists has more, and Dean Esmay recommends Freedom House's report.

This month's most underreported news story has got to be the military coup in Mauritania, a West African country whose president had aligned it with the US in the war on terror. I only know about the coup because a co-worker mentioned both it and its lack of coverage in the media, and I decided to look into it. The coup took place on Wednesday, August 3rd, while President Taya was attending the funeral of King Fahd of Saudi Arabia. The former President has since gone into exile in Gambia, while the military and security forces which seized control installed Colonel Ely Ould Mohamed Vall as the new leader.

Now, before we all side with the rightful president, it should be noted that Taya is no great prize. He came to power in a coup in 1984, and was confirmed by seriously flawed elections in 1997 and 2003. He has a history of jailing political opponents, some of whom have been freed since the coup, claiming that they are plotting the overthrow of his government and labelling them as Islamic extremists. While many experts dispute that these opponents are violent extremists, apparently someone in the military Taya tried so hard to purge was plotting his overthrow. His failure to root out his enemies may have something to do with his purges being more about racism than ideology, such as when he emptied his military of black Africans in the nineties.

So, clearly Taya is an unsavory type, going so far as to side with Saddam in the first Gulf War. However, he also knew which way the political winds were blowing, and decided to align himself with the US in the late nineties. He even established diplomatic ties with Israel six years ago, making Mauritania one of only three Arab League nations to do so. Mauritania has assisted the US in the War on Terror, and US troops have trained Mauritanian forces.

Now this military junta, calling itself the Military Council for Justice and Democracy, has taken over, and it promises to hold elections within two years, not only allowing opposition political parties but promising that no member of the 17-man junta will run for office. They have also said that they will honor all international obligations currently in place--although what they may have in mind are the oil contracts for the offshore drilling that has begun there more than anything else.

The spread of democracy is good, and if the military junta can be trusted to keep to its promises, then the removal of Taya isn't in itself a bad thing. However, the leaders of coups don't often make a successful transition to democracy. Equally troubling is that the things which have made Taya so unpopular recently were his attempts to get on our good side, especially his recognition of Israel: some of the leadership in the new government is calling that a mistake. The new leadership seems to be aligning itself with the Islamic political parties, which loudly claim that they are not extremist. This may be true, but if the recently freed political prisoners are the brothers which the terrorist organization Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat claimed to be supporting in their June 4th attack which killed dozens, they're probably not what we would call moderates.

Originally, the US, the UN, and the African Union strongly condemned the coup. Since then, however, the African Union has been thoroughly won over, and the US has begun negotiating with the new government, which says it is still committed to the War on Terror. While I have my qualms about the new government, I think that this is probably the right thing to do. Democracy has a better chance of happening under it than it did under Taya.

Update: Welcome Instapundit readers. When I was looking for information about the coup in my favorite blogs, I discovered that Glenn was one of the few to have noticed it, and he linked to a couple of other blogs with more information, including Gateway Pundit and Publius. Glenn even links to an eyewitness account. Jason Coleman has also been following it. I'm glad it didn't pass the blogosphere by entirely, but it has received so little attention that I had overlooked these posts until after I had written this and gone looking for more information. I would have expected significant debate over whom the US ought to support when there's no one who's clearly aligned with our interests and ideals.

Steven Vincent, an American journalist in Iraq and a frequent contributor to National Review Online, was murdered in Basra today. CNN has the details:

An American freelance journalist was found shot to death in the Iraqi city of Basra early Wednesday, officials said.

A U.S. Embassy spokesman confirmed Steven Vincent's body was found, and that his family has been notified.

A Western official said Vincent suffered multiple gunshot wounds. He had been abducted earlier by unknown gunmen.

A Basra police official said Vincent and his female interpreter, Nuriya Tiays, were abducted about 12:30 a.m. (4:30 p.m. Tuesday) in the Ashar area of central Basra.

Vincent's body was found about a 10-minute drive from where the abduction took place, the official said. Tiays suffered a gunshot wound to the chest and was being treated in a hospital.

Kathryn Lopez at the Corner has a listing of his articles which have appeared at National Review Online.

I didn't hear about this until I read Mark Steyn's column:

If it were only the bomber, it would be relatively easy. The more we know about the events of July 7, the more it seems likely that at least some of the suicide bombers were set up, that they were happy to kill others but not themselves. That's good news: it suggests that the jihad has limited appeal in Leeds, at least as a participatory sport. If, as the clichés have it, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were really creating "a thousand bin Ladens" every day, there'd be bombs on the Tube every day. But, if you have to sucker suicide bombers into signing up for the gig, that indicates a certain operational weakness.

More details can be found at Fox News:

They bought roundtrip train tickets and paid for long-term parking — two of the details that are prompting the intelligence community to question if the four London bombers intended to die.

While some experts point to these and other tidbits that hint that they weren't intending to die (they had ID on them, did not leave any suicide notes, and had jobs), others say that they did these things simply to make themselves as inconspicuous as possible. After all, if you're going to kill yourself, there's no reason to save money.

My take is that they did intend to kill themselves. The second group certainly did. While Mark Steyn might hope that they were unwitting suicide bombers, I think he's mistaken.