Mo Baldeh,
I believe this was meant for general readership and not management.
Malanding
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: FW: Jeune Afrique Interview with Ely Vall (Mauritanian
President)
Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2006 08:41:34 -0700 (PDT)
From: Mo Baldeh <[log in to unmask]>
To: Gambia-L <[log in to unmask]>
Bambalaye,
Thanks for the forward. I find Vall's interview quite illuminating. His
position on the participation of women in politics and self-perpetuating
rule are noteworthy.
If anything, the current Gambian leadership needs to take a cue from the
following statement:
"When the same person and the same system remain in power for three
decades, and the people have no prospect of change, this opens the door to
all kinds of incidents and violence."
A lesson that Jawara woefully failed to learn until 22nd July 1994.
What I found inadequate in Vall's interview with Jeune Afrique was his
response to the question of returnees. Hundreds of thousands of black
Mauritanians (Wollofs, Fulas, and Serahulles) are still stranded on the
Senegalese and Malian sides of the border after having been forcefully
evicted from their homes in 1988. Most of them lost their belongings
including their national identification documents as their homes were
attacked and their women gang-raped by marauding groups of Moors.
FLAM, the Mauritanian rebel movement in exile, has already denounced
Vall's government for not doing enough to speed up the return of these
refugees. The system of admitting only those with ID sounds arbitrary.
It is a façade aimed at reducing the black population in the country.
Vall can make all the promises he wants on leadership, but so far as the
thorny issues of slavery and the rights of the black people are not
seriously addressed, Mauritania is bound to be a cauldron of instability
in that part of the continent.
Momodou.
BambaLaye <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Special Dispatch Series - No. 1304
October 4, 2006 No.1304
Mauritanian President Ely Ould Mohamed Vall on Reform in His
Country: 'It
Was Necessary to Break... the Logic of Lifelong Rule'
Colonel Ely Ould Mohamed Vall came to power on August 3, 2005, through a
bloodless coup that toppled the 20-year dictatorship of Maaouiya Ould
Taya. He was named President of Mauritania by the Military Council for
Justice and Democracy (MCJD), which he headed. It should be noted
that on
Monday, October 1, 2006, an official ceremony was held to mark a new law
putting an end to the Interior Ministry's control over the press; in
practice, no censorship has been exercised since President Mohamed Vall
assumed power in 2005. During the July 2006 African Union summit at
Banjul, a motion congratulating Ely Ould Mohamed Vall was thwarted
by the
opposition of the president of the AU commission, Alpha Oumar Konaré.
In July, the Paris-based newsweekly Jeune Afrique published an interview
with the Mauritanian president, in which he discussed the reforms he has
implemented - a new constitution, limitation of the presidential term,
minimum representation level of 20% for women in political parties - as
well as his plans for the future.
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