The head of the Presidential Guards took over the president’s palace and units of the army surrounded a key state building in the capital Nouakchott on 6 August 2008, a day after 48 lawmakers from the ruling party resigned.

The army surrounded the state television building after the president sacked two senior officers, including the head of the presidential guards. The president, the prime minister and the minister of internal affairs were arrested.

The coup was organized by General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, former chief of staff of the Mauritanian army and head of the Presidential Guard, whom the president had just dismissed. Mauritania’s presidential spokesman, Abdoulaye Mamadouba, said President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, Prime Minister Yahya Ould Ahmed Waghf and the interior minister, were arrested by renegade Senior Mauritanian army officers, unknown troops and a group of generals, and were held under house arrest at the presidential palace in Nouakchott.

In the apparently successful and bloodless coup d’etat, Abdallahi’s daughter, Amal Mint Cheikh Abdallahi said: “The security agents of the BASEP (Presidential Security Battalion) came to our home and took away my father.” The coup plotters, all dismissed in a presidential decree shortly beforehand, included General Muhammad Ould ‘Abd Al-‘Aziz, General Muhammad Ould Al-Ghazwani, General Philippe Swikri, and Brigadier General (Aqid) Ahmad Ould Bakri.

A Mauritanian lawmaker, Mohammed Al Mukhtar, announced that “many of the country’s people were supporting the takeover attempt and the government was “an authoritarian regime” and that the president had “marginalized the majority in parliament.”

The European Union lead by France has given a one month ultimatum to the millitary junta to free the president Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, that has expired today.

“On October 20, the European Union gave the junta one month to make proposals for the return to constitutional order,” said foreign ministry spokesman Frederic Desagneaux, speaking for the French EU presidency.

“Given that the junta’s proposals have been deemed insufficient by the international community, EU member states will examine, based on the proposals of the European Commission, appropriate measures,” he said.

Desagneaux welcomed a decision to allow the ousted president to return to his home village, 250 kilometres (185 miles) from the capital, but noted that he was still under house arrest despite EU demands for his release.

A member of the High State council said the ex-president had been “freed this morning” and taken to his home town of Lemden, some 200 km (125 miles) south of the capital Nouakchott. “He can meet whoever he likes, but he may not leave the town until further notice. It’s a security measure.”

A member of the military government said Abdallahi would quit political life, though Abdallahi earlier told television channel Al Jazeera that he still considered himself the legitimate president of Mauritania.

“He is going to retire from politics and leave Mauritanians to freely choose the way out of the current situation, that is what he told us,” Communications Minister Mohamed Abderrahmane Ould Moine told a press briefing.

The United States has imposed travel restrictions on some members of the military government and frozen some of its aid to Mauritania, the world’s seventh biggest exporter of iron ore which also started producing oil in 2006. The World Bank and former colonial ruler France have also frozen some aid.

The African Union has suspended Mauritania’s membership over the coup, but several AU members in the region appear to have given tacit approval to the military takeover.

Aziz and other coup leaders accused Abdallahi of bringing government to a standstill, and of failing to tackle economic and security challenges like high food and fuel prices and attacks by al Qaeda militants.

This will certainly hit the Saharan nation and bring further alienation, after last year’s Al-Qeada attacks that were targeting tourists.

The number of visitors plunged 60 percent in the 2007-2008 season to 29,000, according to the country’s tourism ministry, and hopes are not high for the 2008-2009 season which got underway last month.

The brutal fall has forced the government to plan a “count-attack” to lure tourists back and save the budding industry which employs 45,000 people and brought the country 31 million euros (39 million dollars) last year.

The plan entails stepping up promotional trips for travel writers and marshalling friends of the country to talk it up.

Mauritania related links

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/mr.html

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/370109/Mauritania

http://news.google.ca/news?q=mauritania&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wn