Timeline Mauritania
Return to home
History: http://www.arab.net/mauritania/history/mauritania_history.html
The capital of Mauritania is Nouakchott.
(SFC, 8/4/05, p.A12)
1960
Nov 28, The Islamic Republic of Mauritania
proclaimed independence with Moktar Ould Daddah as president.
(PC, 1992, p.973)(EWH, 4th ed., p.1233)
1960 Dec 4, The USSR vetoed
Mauritania's application for UN membership.
(EWH, 4th ed., p.1233)
1961 Oct 27, Outer Mongolia and
Mauritania become the 102nd and 103rd members of UN.
(MC, 10/27/01)
1968-1973 A severe famine hit the Sahel region of
North Africa. Mauritania, Mali, Upper Volta (Burkina Faso) and Niger
were most affected.
(Econ, 8/20/05, p.57)
1975 May, Spain moved out of
Spanish Sahara and the native Sahrawi called for independ-ence. Both
Morocco and Mauritania laid claim to Spanish Sahara (Western Sahara)
following Spain’s withdrawal. The Polisario Front, an armed nationalist
movement, sought to turn West-ern Sahara into an independent state for
its largely nomadic people.
(www.africaaction.org/docs02/wsah0205.htm)(WSJ,
6/7/00, p.A1)(Econ, 9/24/05, p.56)
1980 Jul 5, In Mauritania, a west
African republic, the regime of colonel Ould Haidalla decreed abolition
and the imposition of the Islamic Sharia Law. Slavery was technically
abolished. Prior to the 1980 abolition, slavery had been declared
illegal in 1960 and 1966, but only on paper.
(WSJ, 7/11/96,
p.A10)(www.cwo.com/~lucumi/mauritania.html)
1981 Nov 9, In Mauritania the 1980
decree by Pres. Haidalla outlawing slavery was translated into law,
however the legislation failed to criminalize it.
(Econ, 5/5/07,
p.62)(http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engAFR380032002!Open)
1984 In Mauritania Maaoya
Sid'Ahmed Taya took power in a military coup and tried to legiti-mize
his rule in the 1990s through elections the opposition says were
fraudulent. He was ousted in a military coup in 2005.
(AP, 8/3/05)
1987 The EU inked its first
fishing deal with Mauritania.
(WSJ, 1/18/07, p.A13)
1989-1990 Clashes in Mauritania between Africans and
Arabs led to tens of thousands of blacks fleeing or being deported.
(Econ, 5/5/07, p.62)
1996 Jul, A US congressional
committee urged the West African republic to free its slaves.
(WSJ, 7/11/96, p.A10)
1997 Aug, From Chad a plague of
locusts began to spread across Mauritania with as many as 200 locusts
per square yard.
(SFC, 9/27/97, p.A21)
1997 Elections were held and
widely viewed as fraudulent. Light-skinned Moors dominated the
government under Pres. Maaouya Sid’Ahmed Ould Taya.
(SFC, 12/27/00, p.C2)
1998 Jan 24, Pres. Maaouya Ould
Sid’Ahmed Taya met with Yasser Arafat in Nouakchott.
(SFC, 1/26/98, p.B12)
1999 Oct 28, Mauritania
established full diplomatic relations with Israel.
(SFC, 10/29/99, p.D3)
2000 Oct, The government banned
the opposition Union of Democratic Forces.
(SFC, 12/27/00, p.C2)
2000 Dec, The government arrested
opposition leader Ahmed Ould Daddah. He was later re-leased for Iraqi
military and financial aid.
(SFC, 12/27/00, p.C2)
2000 Mauritania worked out a deal
with the World Bank and the IMF to save some $36 million a year in debt
payments.
(SFEC, 4/9/00, p.A12)
2000 Mauritania launched a radio
and television campaign to end gavage, the practice of force-feeding
girls to make them gain weight as a sign of health and fertility.
Illiteracy made progress slow.
(WSJ, 12/29/04, p.A1)
2002 Sep 1, Mauritania appealed
for international aid, saying lack of rain was causing a food crisis
that has put at risk nearly 1 million people and half of the desert
nation's cattle.
(AP, 9/1/02)
2002 Nov 7, Amnesty International
and other rights groups charged that slavery by north Afri-can Arabs
and Berbers and others persists in the West African nation of
Mauritania, two dec-ades after its official abolition.
(AP, 11/7/02)
2003 Jan 28, Mauritania, an
Arab-dominated West African nation, banned anti-U.S. protests and
deployed hundreds of security forces in the capital to enforce the
prohibition.
(AP, 1/29/03)
2003 Jun 9, In Mauritania heavy
explosions shook Nouakchott, the capital of the Arab-dominated west
African nation for a 2nd day as Pres. Maaouya Sid'ahmed Ould Taya, the
pro-Western leader, battled a coup attempt. Army officers were reported
to be angry over a cam-paign against Islamic extremists. Pres. Maaouya
Sid'Ahmed Ould Taya said the government had regained control.
(AP, 6/9/03)(WSJ, 6/9/03, p.A1)(SFC, 6/9/03,
p.A3)(AP, 6/12/03)
2003 Oct 22, The Arab-dominated
West African nation of Mauritania opened its first real presidential
campaign in more than a decade, with the grandson of black African
slaves of the Arabs among five opposition candidates competing.
(AP, 10/22/03)
2003 Nov 7, Arab-dominated
Mauritania held a presidential vote hoping to bring the West Af-rican
nation's 1st change of power without a coup. Pres. Maaoya Sid'Ahmed
Taya won the vote.
(AP, 11/6/03)(AP, 11/9/03)
2003 Nov 9, In Mauritania armed
security forces arrested Mohamed Ould Khouna Haidalla, the top losing
challenger from presidential elections in this Arab-dominated desert
nation, de-taining him after an overnight standoff at his campaign
headquarters.
(AP, 11/9/03)
2004 Jan 7, Mauritania armed
security force members stopped racers from the famed Paris-Dakar Rally,
demanding $65 from each vehicle to pass the border. The 26th
Paris-Dakar race crosses 6,920.4-miles, seven countries and the Sahara
Desert, ending Jan. 18 outside the Senegalese capital, Dakar
(AP, 1/9/04)
2004 Jan 10, A US anti-terror team
arrived in Mauritania. The US had received information of threats
against American interests in the West African nations of Mauritania
and Senegal.
(AP, 1/12/04)
2004 Feb 13, It was reported that
police in Mauritania had arrested of five suspected mem-bers of
Afghanistan's Taliban movement.
(AP, 2/13/04)
2004 Aug 9, Mauritania arrested
renegade officers and Islamic extremists to break up what officials
said was a brewing coup involving a terror campaign.
(WSJ, 8/10/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug, Swarms of locusts
descended on Mauritania. Hundreds of swarms were also re-ported in
Chad, Gambia, Mali, Niger, and Senegal.
(Econ, 8/14/04, p.43)
2004 Mauritania was the only
country in the world to raise its corporate income tax.
(Econ, 9/17/05, p.77)
2004 US Special Forces began
training local troops in Mauritania and Mali under a program called the
Pan-Sahel Initiative. The program was renamed the Trans-Sahara
Counter-Terrorism Initiative and taken over by Marines, who extended
the training to Chad and Niger.
(SFC, 10/2/04, p.A8)
2005 Jun 4-2005 Jun 5, An
overnight border raid by al-Qaida-linked insurgents in Mgheiti, a
remote Mauritanian army post in the northern desert, sparked a
gunbattle that killed 15 Mauri-tanian troops and nine attackers.
Algeria's Salafist Group for Call and Combat claimed respon-sibility
for the attack.
(AP, 6/5/05)(AP, 8/3/05)
2005 Jun, The Trans-Sahara
Counter-Terrorism Initiative began operations. The US funded plan
intended to provide military equipment and development aid to 9
north-east African coun-tries considered fertile ground for Muslim
militant groups. Participating countries included Alge-ria, Chad, Mali,
Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, and Tunisia.
(SFC, 12/27/05, p.A1)
2005 Aug 3, A group of Mauritanian
army officers, including Colonel Mohamed Ould Abde-laziz, announced the
overthrow of Pres. Maaouiya Ould Taya. The Military Council for Justice
and Democracy named Col. Ely Mohammed Vall as temporary leader. Vall
installed 17-member ruling junta and a 24-member cabinet of technocrats
to govern the country. The junta promised to create true democratic
institutions after a 2-year transitional period. A quick return to calm
in-dicated acceptance of Taya's bloodless overthrow. The UN and EU
denounced the coup and Washington called for Taya to be restored to
power.
(AP, 8/3/05)(AP, 8/5/05)(WSJ, 8/5/05, p.A7)(WSJ,
3/1/06, p.A7)(Econ, 8/16/08, p.50)
2005 The population of Mauritania
was about 3 million. The capital is Nouakchott.
(SFC, 8/4/05, p.A12)
2006 Feb, Mauritania began pumping
oil for export. 40% of its 3 million people lived below the poverty
line.
(AP, 4/24/06)
2006 Mar 3-2006 Mar 5, Wooden
canoes, carrying West Africans seeking a better life in Europe,
foundered off the coast of Mauritania over 3 days leaving at least 45
people dead.
(SFC, 3/7/06, p.A3)(Reuters, 3/7/06)
2006 Mar 16, The PM of Mauritania
asked the West for help in sealing his borders as mi-grants from
elsewhere in Africa were overwhelming the country as they set out from
there on an often deadly voyage to Europe.
(AP, 3/16/06)
2006 Apr 2, Mauritanian officials
said a boat packed with West Africans trying to reach Europe collided
with a fishing vessel, leaving 32 of the migrants missing and believed
drowned.
(CP, 4/2/06)
2006 Jun 25, Mauritanians voted
overwhelmingly to limit presidential terms in a referendum aimed at
ensuring they get a change of leadership at least once every 10 years.
(AP, 6/26/06)
2006 Jul, Mauritania netted $700
million from the EU for fishing rights over 6 years. The amount of fish
in West African waters has declined by 50% over the past 3 decades.
(WSJ, 1/18/07, p.A13)
2006 Aug 27, Mauritania police
said the bodies of 15 people found washed ashore on the beaches of
Nouakchatt, Mauritania's capital, are believed to be those of African
migrants who were trying to reach Spain's Canary Islands by boat.
Spain's Interior Ministry said more than 18,300 people have reached the
Canary Islands so far this year, the highest total ever.
(AP, 8/27/06)
2006 Sep 2, At least eight boats
carrying 674 migrants from Mauritania reached the Canary Islands in the
space of 24 hours.
(AP, 9/3/06)
2006 Nov 19, Mauritanians voted
for a national parliament in the first election since a military junta
seized control in 2005.
(AP, 11/19/06)
2007 Jan, The film “Bamako,” by
Mauritanian-born director Abderrahmane Sissako, opened in West Africa
after premiering at the 2006 Cannes film festival. It took its broadest
swipe at the "structural adjustment programs" championed by the World
Bank and IMF during the world re-cession of the late 1970s and early
1980s.
(Reuters, 1/12/07)
2007 Mar 11, Voters in Mauritania
went to the polls with hopes that whoever wins the first presidential
election since a coup two years ago will not plunge the country back
into totalitarian rule.
(AP, 3/11/07)
2007 Mar 25, Citizens of
Mauritania went to the polls for the second time this month, choosing
between two men vying to usher Mauritania into civilian rule. Sidi Ould
Cheikh Abdallahi won Mauritania’s first free presidential election.
(AP, 3/25/07)(AP, 3/25/08)
2007 Apr 10, The African Union
readmitted Mauritania to the pan-African organization from which it was
suspended after a coup in 2005.
(AFP, 4/10/07)
2007 Apr 16, A quarter of the 1.5
million women in Mauritania a barren, dune-enveloped country more than
twice the size of Texas, are obese, according to the World Health
Organiza-tion. That's lower than the 40 percent of American women who
the WHO says are obese, but surprisingly high in a country that has not
a single fast-food franchise. Obesity is popular across much of the
Arab world. Nomadic peoples struggling to survive the harsh desert came
to prize fatness as a sign of health.
(AP, 4/16/07)
2007 Apr 19, President Sidi
Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi took over from a military junta as
Mauritania's civilian head of state.
(Reuters, 4/19/07)
2007 May 5, The 3 million people
of Mauritania earned on average about $530 a year.
(Econ, 5/5/07, p.62)
2007 Jun 1, The government of
Mauritania appealed to international donors to help it reverse a food
shortage affecting more than 1 million people.
(AP, 6/2/07)
2007 Aug 8, Mauritania passed a
law promising prison time for people who keep slaves, a monumental step
in the northwest African nation's push to eliminate the long-standing
practice. The government officially abolished slavery in 1981, but no
one has ever been prosecuted for it and no law created a punishment.
(AP, 8/9/07)
2007 Aug 17, Saudi King Abdullah
ordered two aid packages worth 20 million dollars each be dispatched to
Sudan and Mauritania to help the impoverished African countries hit by
severe floods.
(AFP, 8/17/07)
2007 Nov 6, A Mauritanian patrol
boat found a drifting boat from Senegal with some 100 peo-ple aboard as
well as 2 dead bodies. The migrants had spent nearly 3 weeks at sea and
thrown 43 dead bodies overboard.
(SFC, 11/7/07, p.A3)
2007 Nov 17, Mauritanian President
Sidi Ould Sheikh Abdallahi met Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi at the
start of visit to Tripoli aimed at boosting relations after years of
tension.
(AFP, 11/17/07)
2007 Dec 24, Gunmen shot dead four
French tourists in Mauritania in West Africa. Sidi Ould Sidna, was
charged with planning and executing the killings of the French
tourists. He was ex-tradited by Guinea-Bissau in January but later
escaped from authorities. 2 other suspected ter-rorists were arrested
on April 30.
(AP, 12/24/07)(AP, 4/30/08)
2008 Jan 4, The annual 5,760 Dakar
Rally was canceled on the eve of the race across the Sahara Desert
because of terror threats and the recent Christmas Eve killings of a
French fam-ily in Mauritania blamed on al-Qaida-linked militants. The
race, organized by the France-based Amaury Sport Organization (ASO),
had been due to start in Lisbon, Portugal, and finish in Da-kar,
Senegal, on Jan. 20.
(AP, 1/4/08)(WSJ, 1/5/08, p.A1)
2008 Feb 1, In Mauritania at least
one gunman opened fire on the Israeli Embassy, setting off a battle
with guards that wounded one person. 8 people were soon detained, but
all were re-leased for lack of evidence. 2 suspected terrorists were
arrested on April 30.
(AP, 2/1/08)(AP, 2/19/08)(AP, 4/30/08)
2008 May 6, Mauritania’s President
Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi said in a statement he had named economist
Yahya Ould Ahmed Waqef (50) as prime minister.
(AP, 5/7/08)
2008 May, Mauritania’s President
Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi appointed 12 ministers, some accused of
corruption and all of whom had held prominent posts in the government
of former President Maaouya Sid'Ahmed Ould Taya, who was ousted in the
2005 coup.
(AP, 8/6/08)
2008 Aug 6, Army officers in
Mauritania, upset with government overtures toward Islamic hard-liners,
staged a coup overthrowing the first government to be freely elected in
more than 20 years. President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi was held at
his palace in Nouakchott by presi-dential guard soldiers, led by
Mohamed Ould Abdelaziz. Arab-dominated Mauritania, with a population of
3.4 million, has been wracked by more than 10 coups or attempted coups
since independence from France in 1960.
(AP, 8/6/08)(Econ, 8/9/08, p.44)
2008 Aug 9, AU spokesman
El-Ghassim Wane said the African Union has frozen Mauritania's
membership in the wake of a coup in the country.
(AP, 8/9/08)
2008 Aug 11, Mauritania's ousted
PM Yahya Ould Ahmed Waqef defiantly refused to recog-nize the African
country's ruling military junta, after he was freed from house arrest
under inter-national pressure.
(AP, 8/12/08)
2008 Aug 14, Military leaders in
Mauritania named former EU ambassador Moulaye Ould Mo-hamed Laghdaf as
prime minister.
(WSJ, 8/14/08, p.A8)
2008 Sep 15, In Mauritania
suspected al-Qaeda militants killed 12 soldiers. The terror group had
promised to avenge the country’s recent coup.
(SFC, 9/16/08, p.A3)
2008 Oct 7, In Mauritania police
fired tear gas and used batons to beat back union activists demanding
the reinstatement of the deposed president.
(AP, 10/8/08)
2008 Nov 13, In Mauritania the
military junta that ousted President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi
released him in response to international pressure.
(AP, 11/13/08)
2008 Dec 3, An international
rights group said the torture of prisoners including al-Qaida sus-pects
has increased under the military junta that rules Mauritania, where
security forces rou-tinely abuse detainees with electric shocks,
burnings, beatings and sexual violence.
(AP, 12/3/08)
2008 Dec 21, The deposed president
of Mauritania was set free after 4 1/2 months under house arrest and
immediately began working to retake power from the junta that overthrew
him.
(AP, 12/21/08)
2009 Jan 16, Mauritania and Qatar
suspended contacts with Israel to protest the Gaza blood-shed at an
Arab summit that deepened the divisions between pro-US Arab nations and
their ri-vals in the Middle East.
(AP, 1/17/09)
2009 Jan 29, The African Union
said the exclusion from its summit of Mauritania and Guinea, which both
suffered coups recently, proved the continent had moved on from its
checkered past. The summit was scheduled for Feb 1-3 in Ethiopia.
(Reuters, 1/29/09)
2009 Mar 6, The Israeli foreign
ministry said it had closed its embassy after the government of
Mauritania asked the Israeli ambassador and his staff to leave.
(AP, 3/6/09)
2009 Apr 15, In Mauritania Gen.
Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, the leader of a coup that ousted the elected
government, gave up power. This freed him to seek the presidency in
balloting aimed at returning civilian rule. Senate president Ba Mamadou
Mbare was quickly sworn in as interim leader of the desert nation in
western Africa.
(AP, 4/15/09)
2009 May 28, In Senegal UN,
African Union, EU and Arab League representatives met with Mauritian
political parties in Dakar to discuss upcoming polls and a political
stalemate since a coup.
(AFP, 5/28/09)
2009 Jun 16, The US added six
African countries to a blacklist of countries trafficking in peo-ple,
and put US trading partner Malaysia back on the list. Chad, Eritrea,
Niger, Mauritania, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe were added to the list in
the annual report. Removed from the list were Qatar, Oman, Algeria, and
Moldova.
(AFP, 6/16/09)
2009 Jun 23, In Mauritania gunmen
attempted to kidnap Christopher Ervin Leggett (39), an American
teacher, then shot and killed him when he tried to resist. Leggett had
taught at a cen-ter specializing in computer science in El Kasr, a
lower-class neighborhood in Nouakchott. Al-Qaida's North Africa branch
soon claimed responsibility for the killing. On July 17 police
ar-rested two suspects in the killing. On July 24 a 3rd suspect, Didi
Ould Bezeid (26), was arrested in Nouakchott.
(AP, 6/23/09)(AP, 6/25/09)(AP, 7/25/09)
2009 Jun 27, In Mauritania more
than 10 months after being overthrown in a military coup, President
Sidi Cheikh Ould Abdallahi, the country’s first freely elected
president, gave up his claim to power and officially resigned.
(AP, 6/27/09)
2009 Jun 30, The African Union
Executive Council announced it was lifting sanctions against Mauritania
despite the coup held there 10 months ago. The sanctions could be
enforced again if the presidential election due July 18 aren't
considered fair.
(AP, 7/1/09)
2009 Jul 17, In Nouakchott,
Mauritania, police exchanged fire with suspected Islamic extrem-ists,
killing one and wounding another who was wearing explosives wrapped
around his body. A 3rd suspect reportedly escaped.
(AP, 7/18/09)
2009 Jul 18, Mauritania held
post-coup elections. Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, a former military general
who ousted this Islamic nation's first freely elected president, vied
with 8 other candi-dates to become the legitimate ruler.
(AP, 7/18/09)
2009 Jul 19, In
Mauritania Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz (b.1956), former head of the junta
that toppled the country’s first freely elected leader, won the
presidency in a vote his opponents de-cried as a fraudulent "electoral
coup." The final result gave Aziz 52.47% of the vote, enabling him to
avoid a runoff. The Constitutional Court declared the result official
on July 23, just hours after the head of the election commission
resigned over doubts about the ballot.
(AP, 7/19/09)(AP, 7/23/09)
2009 Aug 8, In Mauritania a
suicide bomber killed himself outside the French Embassy, wounding two
embassy guards and a woman in the street. An African branch of Al-Qaida
later said the attack was a response to the aggression of "crusaders"
including former colonial ruler France, and to Mauritanian leaders
against Islam and Muslims.
(AP, 8/8/09)(AP, 8/18/09)
2009 Aug 16, The US Peace Corps
says it has pulled more than 100 American volunteers out of Mauritania
for security reasons. The volunteers left for neighboring Senegal and
will not re-turn to Mauritania.
(AP, 8/17/09)
2009 Sep 27, In Venezuela Pres.
Hugo Chavez proposed that South American and African nations unite to
create a cross-continental mining corporation to keep control of their
resources. Chavez made diplomatic inroads in Africa at a summit of
South American and African leaders where he offered Venezuela's help in
oil projects, mining and financial assistance. Venezuela signed
agreements to work together on oil projects with South Africa,
Mauritania, Niger, Sudan and Cape Verde.
(Reuters, 9/27/09)(AP, 9/28/09)
Go to http://www.timelinesdb.com
Subject = Mauritania
End of file