Mauritania Watch: More Developments

Apparently the opposition parties in Mauritania are saying positive things about last week's coup, which deposed twenty-one year ruler "President" Taya.

One of Mauritania's main opposition leaders, Ahmed Ould Dadda, has welcomed last week's military coup.

Mr Dadda told the BBC that he did not generally support coups, but there was no other way of changing the regime.

The military council which overthrew the president has promised to end "totalitarian repression" and hold elections within two years.

The takeover was greeted with street parties in the capital, but the African Union has suspended Mauritania.

Of course, there's a flipside to every story, and the money shot from this first article may be that very flipside.

On Sunday, the military council freed from prison 21 men accused of Islamic extremism, to cheering crowds.

Members of the Islamic movement say their leaders were imprisoned as part of an attempt by the ousted president, Mr Taya, to crush all opposition.

Under Mr Taya, the Islamic Republic of Mauritania became one of only three members of the Arab League to establish diplomatic ties with Israel.

The move was unpopular with the public, as was the presence of American special forces in the vast desert country.

The new leader, Colonel Vall, has vowed to honor the preexisting treaties and agreements that the previous government made with foreign powers. Hopefully that will include Israel, and the United States. Promoting Islamism isn't a particularly good thing; then again, neither was the detention of opposition leaders. I'm still optimistic, but it's a cautious optimism. That's more than I can say for the African Union.

African Union officials have gone to Mauritania to meet the junta which seized power in a bloodless coup.

The delegation - which includes ministers from Nigeria and South Africa - will urge that constitutional rights be restored.

The visit came as ousted leader Maaouiya Ould Sid Ahmed Taya pledged to return to power and called on the army to re-instate him.

The AU, as well as the EU and USA, had initially condemned the coup.

"As the president of the republic, I order officers, non-commissioned officers and soldiers of the armed forces and security forces to put an end to this criminal operation in order to restore the situation to normal," Mr Taya told Al-Arabiya television.

Here's the alternate link from CNN, which carries the headline "Mauritania's ousted leader orders resistance". It could just be me, but I don't think that Taya's going to be reinstated. If nothing else, this episode has made the entire world aware that Taya had been in power for twenty-one years. That's a dictatorship, no matter how many times he'd been "re-elected" in rigged elections. Basically, there are two options.

Returning Taya to power would be beneficial on the surface, because at least the Taya government was stable. Do you remember the last time Mauritania was even in the news before this? That's because they weren't, and when it comes to African countries, particularly Islamic African countries, no news is good news. However, given that there was partying in the streets when people found out that he'd been ousted, I'm guessing that his reinstallation would probably lead to riots and civil unrest, which is bad for everyone concerned; that includes us.

The other option is to not reinstall Taya, and I think that's what's going to happen. The African Union can whine about reestablishing constitutional rights; it sounds to me like that's the entire point of the coup. The prospect of an elected extreme Islamist government isn't a particularly inviting one, but when it comes down to it, an elected government is preferable to a dictatorship.

I've got no (current) beef with Muammar Qaddafi, and I'll admit that, at least in previous years, Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan were all "stable" under Saddam Hussein, the mullahs, and the Taleban. In the end, it doesn't matter, because when it comes to politics and international relations, there's no such thing as stability. Would I trade the lives of Americans and Iraqis that have been lost in the fight for freedom in Iraq for the stability of Saddam Hussein? No. If the mullahs were deposed in a popular revolution (God willing), and things weren't stable, would I pine for the days of stability under the oppressive regime of the Islamofascists? Absolutely not. Do I ever long for the days before we smacked the Taleban upside their collective empty heads? Not a chance. And, even though I have no beef with Muammar Qaddafi, and even though I think that he's actually been a good leader for the Libyan people in recent years (what with owning up to Lockerbie, renouncing weapons of mass destruction and state sponsorship of terrorism, inviting Western companies and diplomats back to Libya, et cetera), if he were deposed tomorrow in order to create a free and pluralistic Libyan democracy, I wouldn't lobby for his reinstatement.

(Actually, I'd probably send him a letter encouraging him to get on the lecture circuit; as opposed to Michael Moore or Bill Clinton or Al "The Snore" Gore, I'd be willing to pay to see Muammar Qaddafi speak in public.)

Taya's out, and my guess is that he's going to stay out. The African Union can grouse all it wants, and the European Union and the U.S. government can all condemn the coup initially, and to be honest, that's the right thing to do; there's going to be no good that comes from condoning coups in Africa. Even so, I remain optimistic, and I'll keep covering the developments in Mauritania here at TSTF.