MAURITANIA: Soldiers arrested but was it a coup or a purge?

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

NOUAKCHOTT, 10 Aug 2004 (IRIN) - Ten soldiers, some of them high-ranking members of the National Guard, have been detained in Mauritania in connection with an alleged coup attempt, police and army sources said on Tuesday. However, analysts close to the opposition said the arrests bore all the hallmarks of an army purge by President Maaouiya Ould Taya.

Officials at the presidency contacted by IRIN declined to say whether a fresh coup plot had been uncovered or whether any military personnel had been arrested. There was no evidence of increased security around the presidential palace or other key installations in the capital Nouakchott and people went about their business normally.

Police sources told IRIN that the director of national security had summoned Mauritania's police chiefs on Sunday night to inform them of "a conspiracy against the republic and an attempt on the president's life."

By Monday morning it became widely known within the police force that a group of National Guard soldiers had been planning to assassinate Ould Taya as he left for a visit to France on 14 August, they added.

The sources said no civilians had been arrested in the latest crackdown.

The president is a former army colonel who seized power in a 1984 coup. He has ruled this Islamic desert state of 2.5 million people with a firm hand, keeping the country's divided opposition parties on a short leash.

Ould Taya has survived several coup attempts during his 20 years in power. The most recent came on 8 June last year when rebel troops shelled the presidential palace using tanks and fought a two-day battle for control of the capital Nouakchott before succumbing to forces loyal to the president.

A total of 120 military officers and three civilians were arrested following that failed putsch and are still in detention awaiting trial. Three weeks ago, they were transferred to a new detention centre at a gendarmerie base in the desert, 50 km east of the city.

Relatives of some of those detained in the latest wave of arrests noted that they came from the same ethnic group as those accused of planning the 2003 coup attempt.

They included three colonels and a major in the National Guard, a lightly armed unit of the security forces, which, like the police and the gendarmerie, has not been closely involved in previous coup attempts.

Some sceptics questioned whether there really had been a fresh plot to overthrow Ould Taya.

"It's all about a new purge at the heart of the army and more settling of accounts after 8 June 2003," one analyst close to the opposition told IRIN. This was a view echoed by several of his colleagues.

A leading member of an Islamic group accused in some news reports of having close links with the latest group of military officers to be arrested, dismissed the idea of any involvement with a fresh coup attempt.

"The acquisition of power by force is something that we denounce," said the activist, who asked not to be identified..

"The current situation and the crisis which has led to all this is the result of the behaviour of the current leader," he added. "He doesn't want to share anything with the people or cede an ounce of his dictator's power to his political partners and he can't control his army properly."

[ENDS]