Thus the Spanish navy patrol Mauritanian waters not only to protect their trawlers, nine of which were caught in port in the 2005 coup d'etat but to intercept closer to origin the rafts and boats which bring sub-saharan workers to the EU via the beaches of the Canary island archipelago. The Spanish airforce and customs also monitor Mauritanian airspace to stop cocaine airlifts and monitor human movement from Senegal.

Likewise the potential subsoil resources of the desert republic have been divided between the Spanish Respol YPF and French Total. The Australian Woodside and British Energem companies are also present.

The first thing you have to know if you're going to analyse Mauritanian coup d'etats is that almost everyone in the country is named Uld and sort of related to everyone else with a gun or a job.

The next thing you need to know about is Locusts.

Mauritania does locusts & has absolutely no honey worth speaking about. In 2004 the EU gave 39,580,800 quid to 5 sub-saharan states to help them stop Locusts. It was felt that even though locusts rarely make it over the Sahara desert which is our natural frontier to the south - the voracious locusts encourage poor people to seek work in Europe by eating all the crops. To put precise figures on it - in Mauritania in 2004, 1,6 million hectares were eaten in 6 days.

that doesn't put poverty in perspective does it?

OK. the county of Kent occupies 3.736 km squared which is 373,600 hectares.
in 6 days little insects which measure less than 4 inches ate every edible thing in an area of land roughly equivalent to five times the size of Kent.

Or in other terms bugs ate about Kent every day.

people were well fucked off with mother nature as you can imagine.

Thankfully mother nature placed the Sahel region of Algeria and the tlemcen region where Algeria and Morocco and Western Sahara meet. They are very hot, you need special sun protection and not even locusts can cross it to piss us off in fortress Europe. But that doesn't help you understand why almost unique amongst the states of Africa and the islamic states at that, Israel enjoys such a healthy relationship with Mauritania. Nor does it help you understand how EU fisherfolk actually take more fish out of Mauritanian waters now than at any stage in history. It doesn't even help you understand whether ordinary Mauritanians on the ground - the Joe Uld Soap (remember everyone is surnamed Uld) feel about another military government or the frankly boring insistence that Al Qaeda use the place as a base of operations.


Well after fish, poor humans given to risking illegal human status and locusts - there is one other thing you need to know so as to understand Mauritanian coup d'etats. When the mlitary overthrew the government of Maaouya Ould Sid Ahmed Taya whilst he was the funeral of the Saudi King - people danced on the streets. Or to be precise the tracks, there is not a lot of asphalt in Mauritania and only two hours a day state telly. Perhaps the locusts ate it. (the asphalt not the telly time). The people who were dancing on the streets did not know who had led the coup d'etat. It could have been the Salafist Al Qaeda. It could have been the USA operation special services from neighbouring Mali. It could have been the Dakar rally. It could have been mutant locusts.
The point is - it didn't matter who it was. The news got out that the government had been overthrown and the ordinary people thought that was a bloody good idea.

In truth we have much to learn from these people.

Now last hard news for people who don't like talk of insects. The Mauritanian military who overthrew a one year old democratic regime today is the same Mauritanian military who gave power to that democratic regime and overthrew the last state 3 years ago.

Though the names have changed, the same "lobbies" apply. Abderahman Uld Bakr subsituted general El Ghazuani as chief of staff and colonel Mohamed Ahmed Uld Ismail substitude general Uld Abdelaziz as the head of the presidential guard. The hottest newswires suggest we look to the presidential guard for the usually slow "tell us who is in charge now" news briefings.

Meanwhile I suggest if Ely Uld Mohamed, doesn't pop up in a junta role then things really are looking bad for fighting the locust and stopping human migration to Europe at in its tracks. He had a close relationship to both the current and last Spanish state regimes. He was not only a fan of Zapatero allowing in the Spanish military but had cuddled up to Aznar before. IN 2003, he visited the police academy in Ávila, promised to set up the same type of facilities at home. & it appears Aznar's regime liked him, in September of 2003 the then suitable minister Angel Acebes gave him The "police cross of merit" (with a red bar), for co-operation in the control of illegal migration, an honour not yet given to any other african security worker. It thus seems that Ely Uld Mohamed has a close relationship with the CNI, or Spanish secret service as well as the CIA, Mossad (by allowing their embassy staff files on salafist suspects) and surprises of surprises - Venezuela.
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other press link to BBC  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7544834.stm
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the last international news reports in the "gurgle ribbid" series :-
"With Troops on the street, the Fascists must be in power". Italian deployment of military
 http://indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/08/405498.html
"El Salvador will not leave Iraq "till Iraqis control the situation" does just what it says on the can.
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/08/405281.html