| Publication |
2009.
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| Summary/Abstract |
On August 6, 2008, a military coup in
Mauritania ousted the 15-month-old administration
of President Sidi Mohamed
Ould Cheikh Abdallahi. Soldiers seized Abdallahi
(known popularly as Sidi) and his prime minister,
Yahya Ould Ahmed Waghf, and also took control
of the state television and radio stations. They announced
that Mauritania would be ruled by a 12-
man military junta, the High State Council (Haute
conseil d'état, or HCE).
Since Mauritania won its independence from
France in 1960, it has endured nine coup d'états,
though most barely made Western headlines. This
coup was different, however. It occurred exactly
three years after a coup that had been expected to
end all coups-a seizure of power that had prepared
the way for the nation's first democratically
elected government. Mauritania is a desperately
poor country of over 3 million, straddling Arab
and black West Africa and the Sahara and Sahel
regions, and its short-lived democratic experiment
had inspired optimism among those interested in
democratization in the Arab world and Africa.
The 2008 coup was therefore a symbolic defeat.
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