Mauritania: Coup crushed
2003-06-09 17:18
Nouakchott - Residents of the Mauritanian capital Nouakchott celebrated in the streets on Monday after the government announced it had crushed a bid at the weekend to oust President Maaouiya Ould Taya.
"Viva Maaouiya, viva Maaouiya," shouted residents as they drove through the city centre blasting their horns, after fresh fighting that had broken out at dawn in the northwest African city fizzled out.
The government had announced overnight that the attempted coup had been put down in this pro-Western Islamic republic.
But fighting broke out anew early on Monday between Ould Taya's backers and mutineers who had holed up at the headquarters of the gendarmerie - police administered by the defence ministry.
Monday's fighting broke out when government forces opened fire on mutineers as they tried to slip out of the gendarmerie building at 06:00, a government source said. It continued for about four hours.
At the end of the morning, Communication Minister Hammoud Ould Mhamed went to the offices of the state-run media and told staff that the coup had been put down and broadcasting could resume, journalists at the government-run radio, television and press agency said.
Sought refuge
At about the same time, the head of Ould Taya's office was seen travelling to the presidential palace in his car, and several other government ministers were seen returning to work.
But Ould Taya, who has ruled Mauritania since himself coming to power in a coup in 1984, had still not addressed the nation since the coup bid was launched at 01:00 on Sunday.
Nor had he been seen in public, leading to rumours he had sought refuge in a foreign embassy.
A senior US diplomat in Mauritania on Monday formally denied rumours that Ould Taya had taken refuge in the US embassy, close to the presidential palace in the Mauritanian capital that lies on the Atlantic Ocean.
Paris denied similar rumours that the president was sheltering in its embassy and on Monday announced that it had stepped up security at its embassy in Nouakchott at the request of diplomatic staff.
By midday on Monday, as word of the government announcement that the coup had been quashed spread through the capital, a giant traffic jam brought Nouakchott to a standstill as thousands of residents took to the streets, leaning on their car horns to celebrate the end of the 36-hour putsch.
The abortive coup had been launched amid heightened tensions in the country, where the pro-Western government has launched a crackdown on Islamic militants.
A government minister has singled out Salah Ould Hnana, a former colonel sacked from the Mauritanian army, as the mastermind of the coup.
Ould Hnana was said to have worked with accomplices in army tank units and the air force to launch the abortive bid.
But Moustapha Ould Bedredine, head of the opposition Union of Forces for Progress (UPF) said he thought the coup bid was the product of "internal discontent within the army.
Favourable
The putschists probably thought the "current political climate was favourable to their plans," he said.
Early last month, police here carried out some dozen raids on Islamist groups accused by the government of having "terrorist intentions" and being linked to international fundamentalist movements. Dozens of suspected Islamic extremists were arrested.
At the same time, about a dozen activists from Mauritania's Baathist movement, said to be close to the regime of ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, were arrested.
Nine have since been given suspended three-month suspended prison sentences for setting up a banned organisation.
Mauritania is due to hold elections in November, and Ould Taya will run for a third term as the former French colony's elected leader.
His regime undertook at the end of the 1990s to strengthen ties with the United States, going even further down that road after the September 11 attacks of 2001.
Mauritania also established diplomatic relations with Israel in 1999, bringing stern criticism from some Arab states and opponents to the move within the desert country.