At first glance the news that the 147th richest (or 36th poorest) state on the planet with less than 4 million population has had yet another coup d'etat might not seem newsworthy. Until you realise that current European migration & "drug war" policies hinge on the amenability of the regime in the desert state.
Although the EU has only set aside €156 million of aid for 2008-2013 or roughly 54 million sterling a year - a myriad of agreements made since the last coup d'etat have allowed for the EU to start their southern border against migration in the buffer zone just the other side of our 2,720 km long security fence for Africa.
Although the EU has only set aside €156 million of aid for 2008-2013 or roughly 54 million sterling a year - a myriad of agreements made since the last coup d'etat have allowed for the EU to start their southern border against migration in the buffer zone just the other side of our 2,720 km long security fence for Africa.
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.
__________________________________
other press link to BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7544834.stm
__________________________________
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
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.
__________________________________
other press link to BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7544834.stm __________________________________
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
Comments
Hide the following comment
business as usual then. - honour contracts - fish fish - track those locusts.
07.08.2008 13:35
So the situation as of this afternoon is that the African Union is agin the Mauritanian military undermining their star project in emergent democracy. If you didn't spend too much head space associating the AU with Darfur you would have noticed that twinkling star. The toughest voices come from Nigeria who with not even the dimmest sense of inter-stellar irony have clucked clucked about the duty of Africa's newest oil exporting state to play by the rules.
Why did I start with the hard stuff? As you know if you read the article, Mauritania is really about men with guns and jobs whose surname contains the honorific "Uld", lots of fish and locusts.
Fish :
On the 1st of August 2008 the latest fishing agreement between the EU and Mauritania entered into force. Accordingly the 30 trawlers registered to Spain (I haven't bothered checking the other states which were given a higher quota such as Poland, Lithuania and Latvia) which are in Mauritanian waters now are legally fishing - they are not be considered pirates of protein. They have confirmed to the Spanish state news agency that they are working normally.
& as we now know the new regime offers biz as usual - so that treaty expires in August 2012.
that agreement
Locusts :
If indeed you are interested in the swarming potential of the locust of Biblical lore (Schistocerca gregaria) there is indeed a website for you. The "Food and Agricultural Organisation of the UN" keep track on the bugs - from space! using a satelite system launched by NASA with the primary purpose of military intelligence, secondary purpose of weather forecasting and fringe benefit of helping people confirm that clouds of bugs spotted by superstitious locals on the ground are indeed clouds of bugs.
The FAO locust index is "calm" at the beginning of the breeding season. The largest concentrations of adults (with only 2 clusters including the nasty hoppers) at present are in Mauritania, the middle of the Algerian Sahara and the border between Pakistan and India.
gurgle ribbid