SUMMARY
[Note to reader: this Country page primarily contains brief information about state-based violence during the period 1946–1974, and to some extent 1975–1988. For more detailed information on organized violence after 1989, please consult the specific Conflict and Dyad pages available on the left-hand side of this page. These pages contain more detailed information regarding all three categories of organized violence in this country from 1989 and onwards (when applicable), as well as detailed information about state-based violence 1975–1988. The left-hand side menu also contains links to Actor pages for all groups involved in organized violence since 1989 in this country, as well as actors involved in state-based violence 1975–1988.]
Mauritania, formerly a French colony, gained its independence in 1960. Moktar Ould Daddah became the first president of independent Mauritania. Daddah established a one-party state in 1964 and ruled the country until 1978, when he was ousted in a military coup. After a few years of military government, Mauritania came under the rule of Colonel Taya, first being prime minister and then assuming full power in a coup in 1984. Under Taya the first multi-party elections were held in the 1990s, but were, however, regarded as flawed. After several unsuccessful coup attempts, a military junta ousted Taya and seized power in 2005. As the final stage of a democratic handover to civilian rule, Mauritania’s first free and fair presidential elections were held in 2007. They were won by Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi.
Towards the end of its colonial era, in 1957, Mauritania experienced an insurgency by the NLA (National Liberation Army) with a force made up of Moroccans, Western Saharans and Mauritanians against the French authorities. The Liberation Army strove for independence from France and Spain for the remaining colonial holdings in the region. Thus, it was also active in the Spanish territories in Morocco and Western Spanish Sahara. France suppressed the insurgency in Mauritania in early 1958 and in a joint counter-insurgency operation France and Spain put down the NLA rebellion in Western Sahara, where the NLA had its stronghold.
Independent Mauritania – like neighboring Morocco – presented territorial claims on Spanish Sahara, later known as Western Sahara, where large phosphate reserves had been discovered. Mauritania’s claim was based on alleged sovereignty over the area in precolonial times. This was, however, refuted by the International Court of Justice in 1975 and the United Nations called for a plebiscite on independence by the Saharan people. Nevertheless, Mauritania, Morocco and Spain first agreed on a tripartite transitional administration of Western Sahara in 1975 and after the departure of Spain in 1976, Mauritania and Morocco agreed on a partition of Western Sahara. Mauritania annexed Rio de Oro, the southern part of the Western Saharan territory.
Like the Moroccan forces controlling the northern two thirds of the Western Saharan territory, the Mauritanian army faced an insurgency by POLISARIO (Frente Popular para la Liberación de Saguia el-Hamra y de Río de Oro, Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el-Hamra and Río de Oro), a rebel movement fighting for the independence of Western Sahara. Mauritania suffered severe military losses in the costly conflict and the military junta that had assumed power in Mauritania as a result of the coup against President Daddah in 1978 eventually signaled its willingness to give up the territory. Mauritania signed an agreement with POLISARIO in 1979 in which it renounced its territorial claims to Western Sahara and declared its will to hand over power to Saharan insurgents. However, when Mauritania had withdrawn from Western Sahara, its claims on Rio de Oro were immediately taken over by Morocco that continued the fight against POLISARIO, now for the whole territory of Western Sahara.
Since 1946 Mauritania has experienced the extra-state, intrastate and non-state categories of UCDP organized violence.
