www.africa-confidential.com 9 February 2001 Vol 42 No 3 AFRICA CONFIDENTIAL AFRICA/ 2 AFRICA/FRANCE I How high the summit? Winners and losers in Angolagate Politicians, soldiers and corporations are reeling in and President is getting ambivalent about Africa. The but some wily operators are capitalising on the scandal unwinding of the Angolagate The political cost of the arms-for-oil scandal is growing fast in Luanda and Paris. It reaches right across scandal has hit two of his former aides, Michel Roussin and Charles the power elite in two countries. In Angola, it has put under scrutiny the financial affairs of the presidency Pasqua, and is damaging his and President’s family at Futungo de Belas, and their relations with a circle of foreign and local business chances in the 2002 elections. people. Also in the spotlight are Angola’s military elite, particularly Generals Manuel Van Helder Vieira ‘Kopelipa’, the National Security Advisor, and Fernando Miala, the Director of Military C.A.R. 3 Intelligence, whose unorthodox methods of arms procurement find frequent mention in French police documents. The two principals in the affair are Franco-Angolans - Pierre Falcone, in French police Saved by the cash custody since 1 December, and Arkady Gaydamak, based in Israel since the French authorities issued an international warrant for his arrest on 6 December. Less than a year after the UN Gaydamak insists Angolagate is a political plot by supporters of French Premier Lionel Jospin, the withdrew its MINURCA observer mission, there is a new crisis. probable Parti Socialiste contender in the 2002 presidential election against the incumbent Jacques President Patassé’s government Chirac of the Rassemblement pour la République. Nevertheless, the scandal touches several PS notables. owes state workers arrears of up The most high profile of these is Jean-Christophe Mitterrand, son of the late President, who cultivated to two years’ salary and the his African networks as assiduously as Chirac’s friend, the late Jacques Foccart, and, until now, with resulting unrest has prompted UN more commercial success. Nor can ‘les Anglo-Saxons’ stand smugly aloof. The French police Secretary General Kofi Annan to describe the situation as explosive. investigation has tripped over a number of British and American intermediaries in some of the more bizarre financing arrangements of Angolan arms purchases. Two of the key figures in the French probe have been running businesses out of London and remarkably, one of them, Gaydamak, has indefinite 5 leave to remain in Britain (AC Vol 42 No 2).

Go north, ould Holding companies to account Taya! Once more, questions are being asked about the accountability of oil majors and diamond mining Colonel Ould Taya’s assertive companies operating in Angola: how the funds they generate are used to buy arms - with or without their foreign policy, based on closer ties assistance. Three companies - Pro Dev, Falcon Oil and Naphta - which have signed up for equity to the West - notably the USA and positions in two of Angola’s most promising deepwater oil exploration blocks are under investigation by its key ally Israel - and to Maghreb neighbours, shows a ruler who major oil companies, journalists and now the French police. The scandals date back to Angola’s 1992 feels comfortable at home in the elections, when both the ruling Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola and the rebel União face of considerable . Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola had signed up to the Bicesse peace accord. This included a United Nations’ ban on arms sales to both sides, the handing over of existing matériel to a new national army and the integration of both sides’ armed forces into that new army under UN supervision. So when 6 UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi rejected the result of the October 1992 elections and launched a highly Arms for oblivion effective ‘war of the cities’, the MPLA could mount little effective defence. The economy was in a downturn, party funds had been spent on a slick election campaign, military morale was low and the The row over alleged corruption in government armoury was depleted. the government’s 43 billion Rand (US$5.4bn.) arms deal is damaging Enter Falcone and his former Soviet partner Gaydamak, with plan. They would source the necessary the ANC. And as some of the weapons from Russia, Ukraine and Bulgaria and, in a triangular deal, raise finance through France, their Western arms companies and their business headquarters at the time, for the transhipment and purchase of arms to Angola (AC Vol 41 No agents involved in the deal have 24). The problem was that French law, in accordance with the UN resolution, prohibited the sale of arms been linked to commission to either side in Angola. However, a deal was struck under which ZTS-Osos, based in Czechoslovakia, payments and sanctions-busting in Asia and elsewhere in Africa, supplied US$135 million of arms to Angola’s Simportex, the state-owned arms procurement company. suspicion is mounting that there At the core of the French police investigation is the allegation that the finance for this and subsequent might be something to hide. arms deals was raised illicitly through French institutions such as the government export agency, Sofremi, which handles sales of security equipment to Africa. The investigating magistrate, Philippe Courroye, is examining claims that the 1993 arms purchases from ZTS-Osos were disguised as police and security POINTERS 8 equipment, which would have been exempt from the UN and French arms embargoes. If so, it would have Djibouti, Ghana, been a remarkable deal: two arms traders raise finance through a French government export credit agency to break French law. More interesting, Falcone and Gaydamak were given Angolan citizenship, which Mozambique & DRC enabled them to sign the credit agreement to purchase the arms consignment in 1993. 9 February 2001 Africa Confidential Vol 42 No 3

After a raid on the sumptuous offices of Falcone’s firm Brenco at 64 London without interference from the British authorities. Avenue Kléber in Paris and on the residence of Falcone’s assistant, Perhaps the biggest questions will be raised by Gaydamak’s business Isabelle Delubac, French police widened the investigation to cover a partners. His important new partner in Africa-Israel Investments is series of arms deals between 1993 and mid-2000 involving the triangle Lev Leviev. Gaydamak has a 10.8 per cent stake in this Tel Aviv- of Russia (or Eastern Europe)-France-Angola. Initially, arrest warrants registered holding company; Leviev holds 47.25 per cent. Leviev also were issued for Falcone himself, Gaydamak and Jean-Christophe holds Gaydamak in the highest esteem, asking British journalists last Mitterrand. Falcone and Gaydamak face the prospect of charges of year to check his own business credentials by speaking to Arkady illegal arms trading and money laundering, while Mitterrand faces Gaydamak. Commercial rivals are less generous to them both. Chief possible charges of trafficking in influence and receiving embezzled among these is South Africa’s De Beers, incensed by Leviev’s company funds. All three strenuously deny wrongdoing, although success in sewing up diamond mining contracts in Congo-Kinshasa Gaydamak, from Israel, speaks of a political plot and seems in no hurry and Angola and securing exclusive diamond buying and marketing to discuss the issue with the French investigators. Mitterrand finally rights in the Ascorp joint venture with the Angolan government. was given bail in January after an anonymous benefactor produced the Leviev, 44, whose personal fortune is reckoned at more than $500 required $700,000 surety. mn., has presided over the meteoric rise to prominence of Leviev When a press report indicated that the police had found documents International Diamonds, which after its African successes, is bidding in Falcone’s office that showed an association with former Interior to displace De Beers in Russia. Leviev is said to have helped Russian Minister Charles Pasqua and his political ally Jean-Charles President Vladimir Putin in his battles with oligarch Vladimir Marchiani, another politician - Philippe de Villiers - went to help the Gusinsky; this helps the Leviev-Gaydamak partnership build on police investigation. De Villiers, who co-founded the right-wing Gaydamak’s already strong ties with Russian securocrats. Eurosceptic Rassemblement pour la France (RPF) with Pasqua in The Leviev-Gaydamak partnership in Africa-Israel is expanding 1999, told journalists that he could ‘confirm explicitly that the into the oil sector. Their Africa-Energy company recently purchased Mitterrand-Pasqua affair is a serious scandal, a state scandal with all TotalFina’s assets in the United States, a $400 mn. deal that intercontinental ramifications’. After an interview with the Paris included an oil refinery in Texas and a franchise for 1,700 filling investigation team, Pasqua pronounced: ‘The RPF has never received stations. This Russian-Israeli alliance is attracting attention. If a centime from Dos Santos, from Falcone or from God knows who!’ Leviev and Gaydamak use their combination of business acumen and political connections in the oil business as effectively as they have in Probing the arms triangle the diamond business, some of the oil majors operating in Angola may However, the investigations into the arms triangle have gathered pace. be taking a closer look at this newcomer. Or indeed they may seek to There are three parallel French investigations into Gaydamak’s business. capitalise on Gaydamak’s troubles with the French police. Firstly, by the Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire (DST) into the unlicensed sale of telecommunications surveillance equipment to Angola. The equipment enables Luanda’s intelligence agency to listen AFRICA/FRANCE II in to GSM cell-phones and to track down the coordinates of satellite telephones. On the only occasion that the MPLA has got close to eliminating Savimbi, it used the coordinates from his satellite phone as How high the summit guidance for a MiG bomber. This inquiry is under investigating magistrate Marc Brisset-Foucaud. The English-speakers stayed away and the The second investigation, under Judge Courroye, covers the bulk of meeting was cosy but bland the arms deals between 1993 and last year. Investigators are looking President Jacques Chirac is growing ambivalent about Africa. A at the use of Sofremi but also the involvement of Banque Paribas and critical observer of Franco-African affairs, the Chairman of the non- several Russian banks, including Menatep, which was linked to the governmental organisation Survie, François-Xavier Verschave, has Bank of New York money laundering scandal in 1998. Paribas, and called the Angolagate affair (see Feature) ‘the longest scandal of the one of its leading financial engineers, Jean-Didier Maille, set up a Fifth ’. Its unwinding has hit, firstly, Jean-Christophe complex system of oil-backed credits to finance Angola’s arms ‘Papa-m’a-dit’ Mitterrand, the former Minister for Development purchases from 1994 onwards. Maille now works for Swiss-based Cooperation, Michel Roussin, and former Interior Minister Charles commodity dealers Glencore, which has marketed the crude in many Pasqua (AC Vol 41 No 25). Chirac is open to accusations of guilt by of the oil-backed credit deals. Also under the spotlight is Angola’s association: did he know what his key political aides, Pasqua (still Banque Africaine d’Investissement, the biggest shareholder of which head of the Ile-de-France Region) and Roussin (an ex-external security is Angola’s state oil company, Sonangol; Falcone’s Brenco also has a officer), were up to in past decades and if he knew, why didn’t he stop 4 per cent stake. them? Prudently, Chirac insists that justice take its course. Thirdly, Gaydamak is also under investigation in Magistrate Eva In the gentler days of the late 1970s, President Valéry Giscard Joly’s probe of Elf-Aquitaine’s operations in Angola, Congo- d’Estaing was laid low by Africa. His closeness to, and acceptance Brazzaville and Gabon. André Tarallo, a business associate of of a gift of diamonds from, the late Central African Emperor Jean- Gaydamak’s and former head of Elf-Africa, last year told Joly’s probe Bedel Bokassa, helped to lose him the presidency to François about a series of slush funds the oil major was running in Africa. Mitterrand in 1981. Mitterrand, Papa to Jean-Christophe, pledged How will this affect Gaydamak’s business? For now, he is able to that he would clean up the Franco-African village but within a few commute between Israel and Angola and Russia: he has rights of years, this declared socialist was running the French réseaux in Africa residence in all three countries. Sources in Paris suggest that part of the as cunningly as his rivals to the right. Now journalists smell blood in French establishment is happy that he is out of the French investigation’s the Angolagate scandal. reach, as he might reveal some embarrassing, if not incriminating, Many in the French establishment want political and commercial information under interrogation. His son Alexandre operates in diplomacy to focus on Europe - Germany and Russia, especially - and 2 9 February 2001 Africa Confidential Vol 42 No 3 on Asia. They have grown bored with and cynical about Africa, seeing travel to Bamako, Mali, in February, expressly to meet Obasanjo. If it as full of political and commercial risks, exemplified by the growing Biya goes, it will be a clear indication of the weight of French pressure. scandals. Chirac inherits his African opinions from the Gaullist line In Yaoundé, Chirac held his first meeting with Côte d’Ivoire’s through Giscard d’Estaing and the veteran éminence grise, Jacques Gbagbo, who was thus fully accepted into the Franco-African club. Foccart, who until his death would telephone Chirac daily with Chirac said that France supported ‘the established institutions in Côte diplomatic advice (some of it very odd). Yet for the Parti Socialiste d’Ivoire, as it does everywhere’; in this ‘difficult period of adaptation’ Premier Lionel Jospin, Africa is just part of the general modernising every effort must be made to avoid the country’s destabilisation. agenda. He has no special line even to former PS allies, such as Chirac and Gbagbo also held a mini-summit with regional leaders Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo or Senegal’s ex-President Abdou Blaise Compaoré, Gnassingbé Eyadéma, Alpha Omar Konaré, and Diouf, nor does he seem to want them. Abdoulaye Wade to discuss security in Côte d’Ivoire. They agreed that their security ministers should meet in Yamoussoukro this month to One coup too many consider ways of securing their borders and protecting their émigré Consequently, the Africa ‘cell’ (cellule ) in the Elysée Palace (headed citizens. This attempt at a regional entente seems to have been damaged by a paid-up Foccartiste, long-time Ambassador in Abidjan Michel by the blunt statement from Senegal’s President Wade, at the World Dupuch) has been left the initiative in several areas, such as Angola Conference against Racism in on 22 January, that a Burkinabè and Congo-Kinshasa. Several dubious commercial-diplomatic in Côte d’Ivoire suffers worse racism than an African in Europe. schemes slipped through the net, until the end of 1999, when Jospin’s Guinean security was not discussed: Presidents Lansana Conté, ministers put their feet down hard on Dupuch’s proposal of a military Tejan Kabbah and Charles Taylor were not present. There is little expedition to rescue overthrown President Henri Konan-Bédié. sign that Paris is rethinking its diplomatic support for Liberia’s Taylor, After nine months of General Robert Gueï and three of Gbagbo on the although the UN expert panel on the trafficking of Sierra Leonean throne in Abidjan, when Côte d’Ivoire’s crisis is discussed, Dupuch diamonds named him as the rebel Revolutionary United Front’s key dons a knowing look. supporter. Now the escalation of fighting along the Guinean border Chirac clearly enjoyed the Franco-African summit in Cameroon on threatens to destabilise Guinea’s President Conté; that could shift 17-19 January, finding respite in Yaoundé from the tides of scandal France from its support for Taylor and lead Burkina’s President Compaoré (AC Vol 42 No 2). On the African stage, French presidents can still (also mentioned, unfavourably, in the UN report) to put some distance deploy influence and grandeur and the jovial President likes glad- between himself and his erstwhile revolutionary comrade. handing and back-slapping, nourishing the apparently warm though Biya had little to say at the gathering’s closing press conference but uneven rapport he enjoys with African leaders. Yet travelling without answered questions on his country’s ‘dialogue crisis’ by asserting that his wife Bernadette, he spent the long state banquet at the Etoudi the presence of opposition journalists showed that dialogue was Palace on 18 January flanked by the Cameroonian presidential couple encouraged. The Social Democratic Front leader, John Fru Ndi, who and found conversation with President ’s wife, Chantal claims (with some justification) that Biya’s victories at the 1992 and Biya, some forty years his junior,something of a strain, we hear. 1997 presidential elections were fraudulent, thought the summit a Chirac condemned the assassination of President Laurent-Désiré missed opportunity for reconciliation. He did attend the opening Kabila more strongly than many of his African colleagues. He said ceremony, though, to welcome visiting heads-of-state as guests of the that many delegates shared France’s view that the occupation of parts country, not of Biya or his party. Opposition plans for a counter- of Congo-Kinshasa and the pillage of its resources were illegal and summit, street demonstrations and lobbying of delegations, collapsed in unacceptable. He wanted respect for all United Nations resolutions on the face of state pressure and - perhaps more - a failure of organisation. the withdrawal of foreign forces, condemnation of those who ignored Paris reportedly poured cold water on attempts to agree a ‘Yaoundé their commitments under the Lusaka peace agreement and declaration’ on the West’s moral and financial obligations to Africa. implementation of the national dialogue - by implication, in that order. Clear policy statements are not the stuff of Franco-African summits, He tried to link Kabila’s murder to the presence of Rwanda and especially when they look like no more than Francophone club meetings. Uganda in eastern Congo and to imply that they were responsible. His If the Euro-African summit held in Cairo in 2000 is to be repeated, it is call for economic sanctions against those who did not conform, hard to see how the exclusively Franco-African axis can compete. apparently backed by at least some of the delegations present, indicates strongly that France’s pro-Kinshasa stance is likely to be unchanged by Kabila’s death. It looks as though France will back the new Kabila CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC regime if it stalls national dialogue by demanding Ugandan and Rwandan withdrawal as a precondition. War and scandal did not hamper the summit’s cosiness; in the absence of key Anglophone and Lusophone leaders, it more closely Saved by the cash resembled Giscard-era ‘family’ gatherings. Absentees included A quick subsidy helps the Patassé Presidents , , Benjamin Mkapa, Yoweri government out of a crisis Kaguta Museveni and . Their absence was keenly regretted by the French sponsors. Since the early 1980s, the The United Nations Security Council on 23 January expressed its summits have attracted most of the continent’s heads of state. All ‘grave preoccupation’ with the situation in the Central African Republic those attending hailed the presence of Algerian President Abdelaziz - less than a year after it had withdrawn its Mission des Nations Unies Bouteflika and ’s King Mohammed VI. en République Centrafricaine (Minurca) observer mission there (AC The decision of Nigeria’s Obasanjo to stay away frustrated Chirac’s Vol 41 No 1). Minurca was then hailed as a rare success for UN hope of convincing him and Biya to settle the Bakassi Peninsula military intervention in Africa. It had restored civilian rule under dispute before the International Court of Justice’s expected ruling elected President Ange-Félix Patassé, following army mutinies in later this year. Undaunted, Chirac has urged the reclusive Biya to 1996 and 1997. Many public-sector workers were owed arrears of up 3 9 February 2001 Africa Confidential Vol 42 No 3

to two years’ salary, though. By late January, the resulting unrest led l’Unité Nationale (PUN), Jean-Paul Ngoupandé. Ngoupandé says it UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to describe the situation as was an assassination attempt; he escaped and remains in hiding at a ‘explosive’, urging Patassé’s government to engage in constructive safe house outside Bangui. On 19 December, French Ambassador dialogue with the opposition. Jean-Marc Simon went to the police commissariat following the Separate outside interventions cooled the air. The International arrest of a French citizen during the forcible dispersal of that day’s Monetary Fund released some cash, Libya and France chipped in protest demonstration. He was insulted and manhandled by Codos with bilateral help (in the old days, Paris would cover salary arrears outside the police station and a shot was fired in the air before the single-handedly) and the Bangui government paid out three months’ Ambassador was extricated by his bodyguards. Some think Patassé salary arrears. The trades unions abandoned their planned 24-hour has lost control to hardline MLPC supporters who, witnessing the pays mort (‘ghost country’) protest and the capital began to look mass protests organised by the opposition and the unions, fear and normal again. Streets and markets were busy, as many citizens resent the threat to their power. enjoyed their first square meal for months. Taxi drivers had passengers once more, plus cash to buy scarce, expensive petrol. Flood of weapons The cash injection came in the nick of time, after four months of Though weak, demoralised and powerless to ensure security, the army escalating protest and an increasingly heavy-handed government could still threaten CAR’s fragile . The government says response. Union leaders claimed the three months’ payments as it has tried to improve the armed forces’ living conditions but pay is vindication of the strike and protest tactics which the government had a year in arrears: less than the debt to civilian public employees but labelled subversive; but they recommended that teachers should wrecking army morale and discipline. Under the 1997 Bangui accords, continue their four-month strike until the remaining nine months’ the UN proposed the demobilisation of 800 of the total 5,000 soldiers. arrears were paid. This, unions emphasise, is only part of the total two- This has not happened. Since the river frontier with Congo-K is wide year backlog of pay owed to state employees since the early 1990s. open, there is an open market in cheap, small arms. A Kalashnikov The effect is that the 2000-01 school year has not yet started. assault rifle can be bought in Bangui for 25,000 CFA (US$36); petty The government blames its financial difficulties on the war across thieves are often armed. In August 2000, the Libyan Ambassador was the river in Congo-Kinshasa. The fighting between the Kinshasa shot dead during an apparent attempt to steal his car while outside government and Jean-Pierre Bemba’s Mouvement pour la Libération Bangui armed groups from Chad, Congo-Kinshasa and Sudan freely du Congo (MLC) in Equateur Province has blocked commercial move about. traffic on the Congo and Oubangui rivers, the main access to the sea. The UN maintains a Peace-Building Support Office (Bonuca), with All exports, along with key imports including fuel, must travel by road a limited role and sparse resources - in contrast to its predecessor to and from the Cameroonian port of Douala. Costs and inflation Minurca, which ran much of the country until last year. Bonuca’s have spiralled. When fuel is available, supplies run out fast. The mandate, due to expire next week, has been extended until the end of government claims that it is an innocent victim, its plight ignored by 2001 and Foreign Minister Marcel Metefara insists on the importance the international community. of a continued UN presence. He argues that the CAR is an island of Veteran union leader Théophile Sonny Cole, Secretary General of stability in a troubled region and that, given the weakness of its armed the Union Syndicale des Travailleurs de la Centrafrique (USTC), forces, it cannot secure its borders. disagrees. He says he has fought for salary arrears with every Officially, the CAR has full diplomatic relations and a defence government, civilian and military, since Independence in 1960, and cooperation agreement with the government in Kinshasa. However, that the current government’s refusal to discuss the matter has politicised Patassé’s government must face the fact that Bemba’s MLC - now it to an unprecedented extent. merged with the Rassemblement Congolais pour la Démocratie- Unions and opposition blame the salary crisis mainly on government Kisangani into the Front pour la Libération du Congo - is the sole mismanagement, only secondarily on the effects of the fighting in authority in the territory immediately across the border and is larger Congo. They claim the government’s own revenue figures suggest and better armed than the CAR army. The government takes care to that, given management and no embezzlement, there would be maintain regular contact and consultation with Bemba’s rebels and its funds to pay everyone. reward is that MLC forces claim no right of hot pursuit into CAR. The opposition, cooperating closely with the unions to exploit During Bemba’s successful offensive in Equateur in mid-1999, several genuine grievances, has been radicalised and united. Nevertheless, hundred troops of the then President Laurent-Désiré Kabila’s Forces just a year after presidential and parliamentary elections, calls for Armées Congolaises (FAC) fled across the Oubangui River into CAR. Patassé’s resignation have won little support. The governing The Bangui authorities persuaded them to disarm and Libya sent an Mouvement pour la Libération du Peuple Centrafricain (MLPC) Antonov transport aircraft to take them away to Kinshasa. dominates political life; the fragmented opposition is supported The refugee situation is, for now, stable. The UN High Commissioner exclusively by the educated elite. for Refugees reckons there are some 6,000 Congolese and/or Rwandan However secure its base, the government has reacted to the strikes refugees at Zinga, in south-western CAR near the border with Congo- and protests by accusing union and opposition leaders of plotting its Brazzaville, where the UNHCR is settling them in a purpose-built overthrow. Its unconstitutional acts have included forcibly dispersing camp, with tools and seed. Neither the UNHCR nor the CAR a protest demonstration and gaoling opposition members of parliament government knows much about the refugees in eastern CAR, near the despite their legal immunity. On 25 January, the opposition leader, Sudanese border. former President David Dacko, was prevented from leaving the In 1999, Patassé finessed the problem of recognition in Congo-K by country for a prearranged trip to the United States. The MLPC is saying: ‘Kabila is my brother and Bemba is my son’. He has not yet believed to have recruited a militia from southern Chadian ex- declared his relationship to the younger Joseph Kabila, now President commandos (Codos) to intimidate opposition and union leaders. (a cousin, perhaps?). Security problems in Kinshasa meant that he did Militiamen accompanied by police last month attacked, at night, the not go to the funeral of Kabila père but sent Foreign Minister Metefara home of a former Prime Minister and leader of the opposition Parti de instead. Patassé has, however, indicated that he would like a role for 4 9 February 2001 Africa Confidential Vol 42 No 3 himself in the Congo peace process. On 30 January, he met the Diouf, who brought a message from President Abdoulaye Wade Organisation of African Unity-appointed facilitator of the Congolese about the French- and Moroccan-backed Europe-Mali trans-Saharan national dialogue, Botswana’s ex-President Ketumile Masire, to road project. Senegal, Mali and Mauritania say that electricity propose that he be a member of a ‘Council of African Presidents’, production will finally start in September at the giant Manantali Dam, probably alongside of Gabon and Denis Sassou- their shared project on the Senegal River. Mauritania will remain a Nguesso of the other Congo. key player in the Comité Inter-Etats de Lutte contre la Sécheresse au Meanwhile, donors have put the country on a financial drip. Ten Sahel (CILSS), which has diplomatic weight out of proportion to its days after salary arrears were paid, on 1 February, the government met nominal brief to fight drought and desertification in the Sahel Belt. its promise that payment would henceforth be monthly. The opposition Water issues cause tension among the three-country organisation has benefited from its recent militancy but the crisis has been postponed meant to develop the Senegal River basin, the Organisation pour la and most people are chiefly concerned with their day-to-day problems, Mise en Valeur du Fleuve Sénégal (OMVS); and is still not with political upheavals. under fire from African neighbours for its tolerance of racism and slavery. In late January, it was excoriated in Dakar at a conference MAURITANIA hosted by a Senegalese human rights body, the Rencontre Africaine des Droits de l’Homme (Raddho), which accuses Nouakchott of doing nothing to stop the enslavement of Halpulaar and other black Go north, Ould Taya! Mauritanians. Domestic concerns take second place as a Head in the homesand confident President redraws diplomatic policy Other potential opponents seem less worrying to Nouakchott. The Dakar-based Forces de Libération Africaine de Mauritanie remain Colonel Maaouiya Ould Sid’Ahmed Taya’s increasingly assertive vocal and while their appeals find few takers in Nouakchott, FLAM foreign policy, based on closer ties to the West - notably the United enjoys the ear of several of Senegalese President Wade’s advisors. States and its key ally Israel - and to Maghreb neighbours, shows a They are unhappy with Nouakchott’s continuing intransigence over ruler who feels comfortable at home (AC Vol 35 No 19) in the face of thousands of black Mauritanian refugees in the Bakel area, who are considerable potential opposition. His taste for taking diplomatic considered a security risk. Moreover, Dakar suspects a Mauritanian risks was underlined by Nouakchott’s determination to maintain ties hand in the Casamance conflict. with Israel; along with Egypt and Jordan, it is now the only member Taya is unfazed by such criticism and seems more interested in of the League of Arab States to take such a position since the current shuffling his allies in the ruling Parti Républicain Démocratique et Palestinian intifada (uprising) began. In a total about-turn from the Social (PRDS) than tackling structural ethnic and economic anomalies. years when Baathist and Nasserite tendencies vied for influence, Taya The latest government reshuffle, in late January, underlined the has shrugged off protests from leading domestic critics such as emergence of politicians from the Brakna area, including Taya’s old Ahmed Ould Daddah and the disquiet of most Mauritanians over this friend Dah Ould Abdi, who becomes Foreign Affairs Minister, the issue. Protests have been violently suppressed. new Central Bank Governor, Sidi el Mokhtar Ould Nagi, and the Taya’s efforts to win friends in the West have yielded economic Minister in the Presidential Liaison Office, Sidi Mohamed Ould dividends. His government has finalised a debt reduction deal with the Boubacar. Appointments included a new Finance Minister, Mahfoudh International Monetary Fund and World Bank, including a US$56.6 Ould Mohamed Ali, his predecessor Kamara Ali Gueladio as million IMF poverty reduction and growth facility (PRGF). Mauritania Equipment and Transport Minister, Water and Energy Minister Kane is emerging as a favoured country for the Bretton Woods institutions, Moustapha, National Education Minister Deddoud Ould Abdellahi a process speeded along by Taya’s willingness to liberalise and Health and Social Affairs Minister Biodiel Ould Houmeid. telecommunications and other key sectors. On 26 January, the IMF The regime has been cracking down on the relatively timid opposition disbursed the second PRGF tranche, making congratulatory noises press. The banning in mid-December of -language opposition about the government’s poverty reduction strategy and interest rate newspaper Al Alam came after nine different editions were seized policy. However, half the population still lives in poverty and donors during 2000. Al Alam had been critical of government moves against have recently expressed deep concern that social services don’t work. Ould Daddah’s now-banned Union des Forces Démocratiques/Ere Taya’s regime is looking northwards, favouring close ties with Nouvelle (UFD/EN). Ould Daddah is a half-brother of founding Morocco and backing efforts to revive the Union du Maghreb Arabe President Moktar Ould Daddah, overthrown in 1978 in the coup that (UMA). (Ironically, the name ‘Mauritania’ once meant , eventually brought Taya to power. The heat is on the UFD/EN, which Morocco and Tunisia, the key members and, with Libya and modern is alleged to have formed close relations with the circle around Libyan Mauritania, founders, of the UMA). Mauritania celebrated Eid el Fitr leader Moammar el Gadaffi with the help of Burkinabè ministers. at the end of Ramadan by withdrawing from the Economic Community Interior Minister Dah Ould Abdeljellil, a hard-liner in Taya’s inner of West African States to ‘concentrate on the UMA’, as Nouakchott circle, is unmoved by foreign criticism. The French-based pressure put it in its withdrawal notice. The push by ECOWAS for a shared group for journalists’ rights, Reporters sans Frontières, has protested currency among its non-Francophone members had worried strongly, which won’t help ticklish relations with Paris. These have Nouakchott, which has been running an independent monetary policy been poor at least since a long-running saga over the arrest in southern based on a stable ouguiya for several years and sees no reason to tie its France in mid-1999 of army officer Ely Ould Dah on torture charges. fortunes to the vicissitudes of Ghana’s cedi or Nigeria’s naira. Recent books and reports on the torture of black Mauritanians keep the Not all links with West Africa are being dumped, especially as racism and human rights issues on the international agenda, above all Mauritania can gain from promoting itself as a Euro-African in France. Last year, French Embassy First Secretary Georges communications corr