Mauritania’s Persecution of its Black Citizens
Since the creation of independent Mauritania in 1960, black Mauritanians have been suffering
from brutal state racism, slavery and dictatorship, under an international conspiracy of
indifference and silence.
By Garba Diallo ([email protected])
The International People’s College, Denmark
More than any other state on the African continent, Mauritania seems to be the most artificial
and nonviable entity that was created on the fault line between black West Africa and Arabised
North Africa, in order to serve the strategic interest of former colonial France. As such the
creation of this vast desert enclave was done in total disregard for the historical background,
current reality and future aspirations of the majority of its population. Occupying over one
million square km, the estimated 3 million inhabitants comprise black Africans and a minority of
white Moors (also known as Beydane or Arabo-Berber). An estimated 35% of the population are
free black Africans being Fulani, Soninke, Wolof and Bambara. The other black African group is
the Haratin (former and current slaves of the white Moors) who are estimated to make up some
40 % of the population. The remaining 25% white Moors have monopolized both the political
and economic affairs of Mauritanian since colonial France transferred power to them in 1960.
The successive Arab-Berber regimes have refused to make the results of the population census
conducted in 1978, 1988 and 1998 public. Thus, since the country was created in 1960, the
demographic situation and the ethnic distribution are matters of guessing, taboo and top state
secrecy. This is all aimed at creating and maintaining the myth that Mauritania is a mono-ethnic
Arab nation.
The manipulation of ethnic diversity for ethnic domination
In order to understand the current social tensions that exist between African Mauritanians and
Arab-Berbers, it is useful to comment briefly on Mauritania’s political situation and its
development as a multi-racial nation. Mauritanian is located on the fault line between West
African culture and Arabised North African cultures. Thus, it is an African-Arab state squeezed
between two opposing worldviews: on the one hand we have the indigenous, polyethnic,
multicultural and multilingual African worldview based on unity in humanity and diversity in
culture versus the monotheistic, monoethnic Arabo-Berber community. As noted above,
Mauritania’s population comprises: free black Africans, current and former black slaves (known
as Haratines) and Arab-Berbers. Black Africans belong to one of four ethnic groups: Halpulaar
(or Fulani), Soninke, Wolof, and Bambara, who are also found in Senegal, Mali, and across West
Africa. Like the African Americans, the Haratines (of black African descent) were stolen into
slavery by the Arab-Berbers during centuries of plundering and kidnapping of black slaves from
the south who were taken to the north desert. The Arab-Berbers (locally known as Beydanes,
Moors, or Maures) are of mixed descent from Arab immigrants, Berbers, and indigenous black
Africans.
Ethic cleansing
In a 1994 report entitled ‘Mauritania’s Campaign of Terror: State-Sponsored Repression of
Black Africans’, Human Rights Watch decries: ‘Since 1989, tens of thousands of black
Mauritanians have been forcibly expelled and hundreds more have been tortured or killed. An
undeclared military occupation of the Senegal River Valley, where many of the blacks live,
subjects those who remain to harsh repression. The campaign to eliminate black culture in
Mauritania, orchestrated by the white Moor rulers, peaked in the late 1980s and early 1990s and
continues today’. Together with various reports by Amnesty International, the International
League of Human Rights and other rights bodies document the range of human rights abuses that
the black Africans have been suffering under racist Arabo-Berber rule in Mauritania. The reports
demonstrates that the most brutal violations — such as massacres, extra-judicial executions,
torture, and slavery — have been accompanied by more insidious forms of systematic official
discrimination against the black Africans, aimed at ensuring their marginalization from the rest
of society and depriving them of their fundamental human rights aimed at driving them out of the
land of their birth.
What is happening today in the Darfur region of Sudan is a replica of what a similarly Islamic
fundamentalist regime did in Mauritania 15 years ago. As Janet Fleishman of Human Rights
Watch eloquently put it ten years ago: ‘Long before ‘ethnic cleansing’ entered popular parlance,
its pernicious effects were painfully apparent’ in Mauritania.(Janet Fleishman, Mauritania:
Ethnic Cleansing, Africa Report, January/February 1994).
Bloody Military Dictatorship
The current president of Mauritania, Colonel Taya, seized power through a military coup in 1984
and has used violence to remain in power since. Taya engaged in his first ‘campaign of terror’ in
September 1986 when he overreacted to the publication of the ‘Manifesto of the Oppressed
Negro Mauritanians’, by the African Liberation Forces of Mauritania (FLAM). FLAM is an
exiled political organization whose stated goal is to establish a federal state based on the ethnic
and economic reality of the country, viewing this as the best way to guarantee equal rights and
opportunity for all Mauritanians. More than 100 black intellectuals were arrested, charged with
fomenting national discord, and sentenced to long-term imprisonment with hard labor in
September 1986. The detainees were adopted as prisoners of conscience by Amnesty
International. Four of them died of torture and starvation in the desert camp of Walata in the east
of the country.
Reserved primarily for black political detainees, Walata is Mauritania’s equivalent of Robben
Island. Their ‘crime’ was documenting in detail the injustices suffered by blacks under Arab rule
and calling on the authorities as well as other political forces to begin a national dialogue to
address the root causes of these horrific injustices under which black Mauritanians live.
With increasing resistance against racist military rule, Taya’s undeclared war against black
Mauritanians escalated in October 1987, when he mounted a massive purge and detention of
African army personnel. Three black officers were summarily executed after being falsely
accused of plotting to overthrow Taya’s government. One of the officers was put to death on the
same day his wife was giving birth to their last child. The armed forces were ethnically cleansed
of their black African members. Former black African soldiers were either detained or banned
and confined to their original villages. They were replaced with docile slaves and ‘former’ slaves
under white Moor commanders. Together with the National Guard composed mainly of
Bedouins, the slaves were used, like the Janjaweed militia, as the long repressive arm of the
regime.
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Taya’s anti-black campaign reached unprecedented proportions from 1989 to 1991 when some
hundred thousand black Africans were stripped of their national documents (both as regards their
personal property and government identification documentation, in order to erase any trace of
their Mauritanian citizenship) and then deported across the borders to Senegal and Mali. This act
has been widely chronicled by both local and international human rights organizations. In order
to rid the country of its independent-minded black population and to consolidate control over the
fertile agricultural lands of the black people along the Senegal River Valley, Taya carried out
systematic human rights violations (e.g., arbitrary arrests, extra-judicial executions, expropriation
of land, and denial of cultural identity) against members of the black community.
With the regime’s systematic ethnic cleansing policies, all free black Mauritanians who question
the status quo have become prime targets of the Taya regime’s campaign against black Africans.
Moreover, those associated with FLAM are particularly vulnerable to persecution. Alleged
membership of FLAM is the usual pretext that the government employs to crack down on
individuals of the Halpulaar community. As the main black-led political organization that
challenges the status quo, the government portrays FLAM as a violent terrorist enemy of the
state. For example, the three Halpulaar officers who were arrested and put to death in October
1987, as well as the 515 Halpulaar individuals who were massacred in government detention
between October 1990 and December 1990, were all accused of being FLAM members.
The Mauritanian Government continues to disregard the Human Rights of Black Mauritanians.
Despite the documented evidence from, among other sources, the United States Department of
State and all major international human rights organizations, the Taya government has refused to
acknowledge the massive human rights atrocities that it has committed against black Africans
since seizing power in 1984.Moreover, Taya’s government has constantly made statements
disregarding the existence of black Mauritanians in the country.
Taya has declared that ‘Mauritania cannot be in the process of Arabization because it is already
an Arab country’. (Serge Trifkovic, Islam’s Other Victims: Africa, Frontpagemag.com, Feb. 14,
2003, citing Interview with Colonel Ould Taya, Jeune Afrique, Jan. 1, 1990). To undermine the
existence of black Mauritanians, Taya also uses the politics of denial to facilitate the persistence
of chattel slavery, the deportation to and continued presence of black Mauritanian refugees in
Senegal and Mali, the systematic violation of human rights, and the perpetuation of extra judicial
killings in the country.
The recurrent ‘Abolition’ of slavery
Thanks to its obsession with slavery, Mauritanian is the last country on earth to abolish this
shameful practice. Slavery was abolished in the country in 1905, 1969 and yet again in 1981. The
1981 abolition was reconfirmed by the 1991 constitution. The latest abolition of slavery was
announced in July 2003 following the failed coup attempt in June. The new law prohibits the
trade and trafficking in humans. Yet slavery lives on in Mauritania as if nothing was ever done by
the authorities to eradicate this crime against humanity in practice. The latest high profile
abolition directive was Ordinance no. 81.234 of November 9, 1981 which reads:

First article: Slavery in all its forms is definitively abolished throughout the territory of the
Islamic Republic of Mauritania.
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


Second article: In keeping with the Shari’a law, this abolition will imply a payment of
compensation to those (slave owners) entitled to such.
Third article: A National Commission, composed of ulama (religious leaders), economists,
and administrators will be instituted by decree to study the modalities of the
compensation. These modalities will be fixed by decree once the study is completed.
Fourth article: The ordinance will be published without delay and implemented as law.
Nouakchott, 9 November 1981
The President
Slavery continues alive and well
After a fact finding mission to Mauritania in 1982, the London based Anti-Slavery Society
estimated that there were at least 100,000 full time slaves and more than 300,000 semi-slaves are
still held in bondage by the white Moors1. Four years later, a UN mission confirmed the total
absence of any concrete measures by the authorities to put an end to slavery2. As Roland-Pierre
Paringaux writes in his paper entitled ‘The Desert of the Slaves’:
… ten years after the ‘final’ proclamation of abolition, slavery is far from being a
thing of the past in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania.3
On the 10th anniversary of the infamous abolition of 1981, Human Right Watch published a report
entitled, ‘Mauritania slavery Alive and Well, 10 Years after it was last abolished’. The report
argues:
Our criticism is not that the Mauritanian government has tried to eradicate slavery and
failed, but that it has not tried at all. We are not aware of any significant practical steps
taken by successive governments to fulfill the important responsibilities Mauritania
undertook when it passed laws and ratified international agreements prohibiting slavery4.
20 years later, Amnesty International published yet another report in November 2002 entitled:
‘Mauritania: A future free from slavery’
Despite the legal abolition of slavery in Mauritania twenty years ago, the government is
yet to take practical steps [to] ensure its abolition in practice. The Mauritanian
government must stop violating its own laws and urgently end slavery, which is an
abominable attack on human dignity and freedom. Mauritanian laws and international
human rights obligations prohibit slavery, but anyone escaping slavery has no legal
protection. There is considerable discrimination against former slaves. No government
official is willing to take the necessary remedial action to fully eradicate slavery and put
an end to impunity for the perpetrators.
1
Mercer, 1982, Slavery in Mauritania Today
Human Rights Watch, 1990, Slavery Alive and Well in Mauritania
3
Paringaux, 1990, the Desert of the Slaves
4
See Human Rights Watch, 1990, Slavery Alive and Well in Mauritania
2
4
In the same month of November 2002, the Dutch human rights Consultant Pieter Smit confirmed in
his report that slavery is not just practiced by the Mauritanian ruling class, but that this crime against
humanity is also rampant on World Bank projects in Mauritania:
Their [the slaves] number might be on the rise because of high birth rates, and because
development money and years of good rains have provided slave owners with many new
opportunities to exploit slave labour. The process of liberating slaves from their slave
status has come almost to a halt. An unresolved conflict exists between modern
Mauritanian law, (in which slavery is abolished, but in which also Islamic law is
recognized), and Mauritania’s version of Islamic law, in which slavery, including all the
political and economic exclusion measures to restrict slaves from getting away from
slavery, are still firmly in place and widely used by owners of slaves, are almost
unopposed by any government action. State courts in most cases refuse to take up cases
against slavery, and have never yet sentenced any person for keeping slaves… slavery has
moved into development, and exploited it successfully. A sizeable section of the well
educated political and economic upper class have used development funds, programs and
projects to continue with or even expand the application of slave labour, especially in
irrigation and livestock. In this way development money from the World Bank and other
donors has supported slavery. This has been known at different times by different
managers and staff within the World Bank since 1977, but they firmly believed that in the
end development would drive out slavery5.
Obsession with slavery
Although the Mauritanian government passed a decree abolishing slavery in 1981, there are still
no regulations, protocols, or measures for the implementation of this law. Following the bloody
coup attempt against the Taya government in June 2003, the regime introduced a new law in July
2003 which prohibits the trade in humans, but again provides neither concrete programs nor
guidelines as to how this decree is supposed to emancipate the estimated one million slaves and
former slaves. Like the previous abolition laws, the latest law was announced even as the
government categorically denied the existence of slavery in the country. The government has
not enacted any measures necessary to eradicate slavery in practice. Guidelines exist neither for
the slaves nor their Arab masters. Furthermore, no programs have been established by the
government for the education, training, employment, or provision of economic resources to the
would-be freed slaves. As the government denies the existence of slavery, it refuses to recognize
‘SOS-Slaves’, a non-governmental human rights organization that was formed in 1991 to help
eradicate slavery in Mauritania by providing counseling and legal support to deserted slaves and
their relatives.
The political culture of human rights violations
As its political survival depends on the massive use of violence, the Mauritanian government
continues to show disregard for the human rights of its citizens, particularly black Mauritanians.
As pointed out in the most recent United States Department of State country report on human
rights practices in Mauritania, ‘The Government’s human rights record remained poor; although
there were some improvements in several areas, serious problems remained. Democratic
5
Pieter Smit, 2002, Slavery on World Bank Projects in Mauritania
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institutions remained rudimentary, and the Government circumscribed citizens’ ability to change
their government. There were three reported unlawful killings by security forces. . . . Some
members of the security forces reportedly used excessive force, beat, or otherwise abused
detainees, and used arbitrary arrest and detention and illegal searches.’
Military regime in civilian disguise
To survive the blunder of allying itself to the defunct regime of Saddam Hussein in the 1991
Gulf War, the Mauritania military regime announced in April 1991 that a new constitution would
be adopted to open the country up for transformation after years of military rule by decree into a
democratic, multiparty system of government under the rule law. As expected it soon became
clear that the whole idea was just a tactical move of Ould Taya to survive the after shock of the
defeat of his political mentor in Baghdad. What happened was that the same military regime
proposed and wrote the constitution without involving the opposition or consulting the people.
The military regime then put this constitution to a referendum that it alone prepared and
controlled. Therefore there has not been meaningful improvement of the human rights situation
in the country. It is the same politicians carrying out ethnic coexistence. Slavery and dictatorship
are not being addressed and tackled. Accordingly, the Taya government today does not respect
the rule of law and has neither demonstrated nor even articulated a desire to protect the human
rights of black Mauritanians. For example, one of the alleged torturers, Colonel El Arby Ould
Sidi Aly, has just been promoted to Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces.
Although Taya has ruled Mauritania since 1992 as an elected head of state, the 1992, 1996, 1997,
and 2003 elections were indisputably marked by widespread fraud. Neither an independent
electoral commission nor foreigner observers were allowed to monitor the election process.
Indeed, Mauritania’s flirtation with democracy in the 1990s has not succeeded in bringing the
opposition into the political picture, nor has it tackled the country’s key national problems: state
racism, slavery, and military rule which have put the country at the bottom of the list of the least
developed nations of the world. The former military ruler of Mauritania, Colonel Mohamed
Khouna Ould Haidalla, whom the current ruler overthrew in 1984, challenged Taya in the
November 2003 elections. As soon as Haidalla announced his candidacy in August 2003, Taya
decided to make life impossible for Haidalla, his family, and supporters. Haidalla was not just
denied equal access to the public media, but he was arrested along with his two sons and other
associates on November 6, 2003, the day before the elections. The opposition leader and his 14
aides were once again arrested on November 9, 2003 and were held in custody throughout a
month-long trial.
During the month-long trial, the judge repeatedly suspended proceedings in view of the
prosecution’s failure to produce key witnesses. Haidalla and four other co-accuseds, including
his son Sidi Mohamed and his campaign spokesman Ely Ould Sneiba, were given five-year
suspended prison sentences and fines of US $1,600 each. A foreign journalist in Nouakchott,
who followed the trial closely, told IRIN that the sentencing of Haidalla would not diminish a
growing wave of anti-Taya sentiment in Mauritania
The banishment of blacks
As the ethnic conflict intensified within Mauritania in the late 1980s, the problem began to spill
over to the neighboring Senegal. Mauritanian border guards crossed into Senegal to support
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Mauritanian herders who were engaged in fighting with Senegalese farmers. The clashes resulted
in the killing of several Senegalese villagers and the kidnapping to Mauritania of 13 Senegalese
peasants. This violation of Senegalese sovereignty provoked a violent reaction against Moorish
shopkeepers in Senegal. The pro-Saddam Ba’thists and pro-Ghaddafi Nasserites within the
regime seized this opportunity to organize and execute a massacre of over 1000 Senegalese,
black Mauritanians and other West African nationals.
Thousands of people sought protection at the UN complex in the capital, Nouakchott. At the
beginning the attacks were directed against Senegalese, but soon the campaign escalated into
random attacks against all blacks. Diplomatic ties and all other links with Senegal were severed
and the two countries decided to repatriate their respective citizens. The Taya regime exploited
the events to deport over 100,000 black citizens to Senegal and Mali after having confiscated all
their properties and nationality papers. As indicated above, what happened in Mauritania 15
years ago is very similar to what is happening in the Darfur today.
The continued presence of tens of thousands of black Mauritanians refugees across the borders,
the growing discontent in the rank and file of the army following the June 2003 bloody coup
attempt, and the recent electoral fraud and violence testify to the instability and the danger of
escalating this deteriorating situation into a Liberian-style civil war. Some 120 members of the
armed forces who were arrested in connection with the failed June 2003 coup attempt are still
being held in custody without trial. 130 detainees remain in custody without trial more than one
year after many of them were arrested. Recently the government transferred them to a remote
secret location where they have no access to lawyers or family visits.
Back to one party regime
With the new George Bush war on terrorism, western powers no long put emphasis on good
governance and democracy. Taking stock of this, Ould Taya is rapidly degenerating back to one
party regime. The only two serious opposition parties: the Union of Democratic Forces and the
Action for Change have been dissolved, respectively in 2000 and 2002. Ironically, the regime
has gone full circle in its repression of opponents. First the war was directed against FLAM, then
against the Nasserites who were associated with Libya. Now it is the turn of the pro-Saddam
Ba’ath elements to become the new target of the wrath of the regime.
The past few years have seen the arrest of the entire leadership of the local Ba’ath accused of
running an illegal political organization. The next group in line is the Islamists including 13
imams who are accused of terrorist activities. The purpose is to demonstrate to the Bush
Administration that the regime is no longer pro Saddam or Islamic fundamentalism.
Denial of press freedom
Mauritania has one national TV channel and one radio station and two main dailies all owned
and run by the state. The few non-state owned media are under constant intimidation and subject
to regular closure. The regime uses article 11 in the constitution, which obliges publishers to
submit their materials to the interior minister for approval before any publication. The minister
has the power to ban or confiscate any publication without explanation.
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No room for independent civil society
Due to the repressive policies of the regime, Mauritania has virtually no independent legal civil
society organizations. Since their creation in 1991, the Mauritanian Association of Human Rights
and the SOS-Slaves have been operating under extremely difficulty conditions as the regime
refused them legal registration. Professor Kamara and Bobacar Ould Mesoud, respectively the
leaders of the two NGOs have been routinely arrested and charged for running illegal
associations. The government cannot tolerate any independent critical voices in the country.
Even the national Bar Association has not been allowed to choose its own president. The
association has been in disarray since the regime imposed its supporter to be president, while the
duly elected one was not allowed to take his position.
Indeed, the potential for Taya to manipulate the racial tensions in Mauritania to benefit his
government and the interests of his own Arab-Berber community as a whole was highlighted in
numerous speeches in which Colonel Ould Taya stated that, ‘those who campaign against slavery
are enemies of his government who want to tarnish the image of the country.’ This highlights
Taya’s attitudes towards exiled Mauritanians who speak out about human rights violations,
including slavery, in Mauritania.
Further evidence is Mauritania’s withdrawal from the West African Economic Community
(ECOWAS) in December 1999. These acts underscore the government’s belief that black
Mauritanians have no real right to return to their homeland and should not expect to be protected
against human rights abuses directed against them by the government or other parties should
such refugees return to Mauritania, whether voluntarily or involuntarily. In fact, the 1998
population census in Mauritania has been used to deny black citizens their Mauritanian
citizenship since their national papers had earlier been systematically confiscated and destroyed
by the authorities.
Dire Situation for Mauritanian Refugees in Senegal
Currently, Mauritanian refugees in Senegal are confronted with a potentially volatile political
situation and extremely dire living conditions. Objectively, both the Mauritanian and Senegalese
governments have an interest in returning the refugees to Mauritania: Senegal would like to
relieve the strain on its infrastructure and tensions between its citizens and the refugees, while
Mauritania would like to bolster its international image by claiming that the refugees have
voluntarily returned. However, according to the established policies of successive Mauritanian
minority regimes, the ruling Arab Berber regime would do whatever it can not only to keep the
black refugees permanently in Senegal but also send more across the borders. Thus, since their
deportation across the border to Senegal in 1989, there have been reports of violent clashes
between the refugees and local Senegalese farmers in the Boundou region on the borders
separating Senegal, Mauritania, and Mali. Several people have been killed on all sides.
According to reliable sources, the instigators of the clashes were armed bandits that Mauritania
had organized, armed, and sent across the Malian and Senegalese borders in order to create a
climate of insecurity between the refugees and the host countries, and to sow discord between the
refugees and the local population.
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Mauritanian refugees, have neither opportunity nor a secure and normal life in Senegal. With
increasing alliance between Taya and the current Senegalese President, Abdoulaye Wade, the
situation of the refugees has worsened. Following the June 2003 coup attempt against Taya, the
Senegalese government arrested one of the Mauritanian opposition leaders and handed him back
to Mauritania. Currently, it is almost impossible for Mauritanian opposition groups living in
Europe to get an entry visa to Senegal. Those who are living inside Senegal are under constant
surveillance and threat of deportation back to Mauritania. FLAM is no longer allowed to
conduct any political activities or publish its newsletter, Flambeau. The FLAM press secretary
had to be smuggled out of Senegal to Sweden with the help of the United Nations High
Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in 1999, as the Senegalese authorities were about to arrest
and hand him over to Mauritania.
Most of the Mauritanian refugees in Senegal have not received even temporary asylum status
from the Senegalese government. There was no system by which the government provided such
refugees with work permits or places to live other than the refugee camps. Thus, for many
Mauritanian refugees there is little hope of employment, long-term residency, or a stable life in
Senegal, either within or without a refugee camp. According to the refugees’ own associations,
hardly any Mauritanian refugee has received any sort of permanent legal status in Senegal,
including travel documents and work permits. Nevertheless, some refugees may have obtained
Senegalese citizenship or permanent legal status of some sort, by bribery and/or contacts
necessary to obtain such security.
Furthermore, conditions for Mauritanian refugees in Senegal have become increasingly difficult
since the UNHCR terminated its assistance to the refugees in December 1995. The termination
was caused by heavy political pressure from Mauritania, Senegal, France, and the United States.
Therefore, the abandonment by the UN body was seen by the refugees as a reward to the
Mauritanian government for breaking its long-standing ties with the defunct Iraqi regime of
Saddam Hussein. Prior to the fatal invasion of Kuwait, Iraq had been the principal ally and
supporter of the Mauritanian regime.
Auto Amnesty
In spite of the consistent denial of human violations, the Taya’s regime passed a blanket amnesty
law for all the crimes that were committed by the security and armed forces between 1986 and
1993. The auto amnesty was passed in the run up to the UN Conference on Human Rights in
Vienna in June 1993. This was done while the regime still denied any wrongdoing. The
associations of the widows and rights groups had collected information with the names of all the
victims along with those who gave the orders to torture and kill the political detainees in OctoberNovember 1990. The waves of arrest and torture to death took place in the shadow of the 1990-91
Gulf War over Kuwait. The local Arab nationalists were convinced that Saddam would win the
war. For them it was an opportunity for a final solution to the ‘black’ problem. All the 600
victims who were tortured to death or executed without any form of trial were black, while all the
commanding officers who ordered the crime were white Moors. 28 of the victims were put to
death on the occasion of the ‘national’ day on 28 November. 12 others were ‘sacrificed’ on the
anniversary of Taya’s seizure of power on 12 December. Some of the officers were forced to dig
their own graves, in a Nazi style massacre, to be buried alive in the burning sand.
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Thus, as outlined above, a large number of those black Mauritanian refugees living in Senegal
face persecution and danger if returned to Mauritania, and possess neither the resources nor the
opportunity for establishing a normal and secure life in Senegal. Although they appear to be
forgotten by the international community, they have not given up the hope to return to their
homes and land of birth, which they can daily see just across the Senegal River. Hopefully, their
inevitable return will not be under the same conditions as the return in 1994 of the former
Rwandan refugees in Uganda.
Conclusion
Although the Mauritanian regime has dropped its military uniforms in favour of civilian dress,
the critical fact is that the government has not changed its racist ideology, policies and human
rights violations, slavery and dictatorship, since Colonel Ould Taya seized power in the 1984
coup. In all human rights aspects, Mauritanian’s record is miserable including its ugliest features
of state racism, slavery and forced acculturation (Arabization), with continued presence of tens
of thousands of black Mauritanian refuges in Senegal and Mali. Like the situation in the Darfur,
the crisis in Mauritania has both local and far flung regional implications. As human rights is a
universal issue, four decades of racist and violent human rights violations call for international
intervention, before it becomes too little and too late, as we saw in Rwanda ten years ago and are
witnessing today in the Darfur region of Sudan.
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