As a soldier who has just ousted another civilian government and is facing international criticism for his undemocratic action, how do you respond to such censure? You hold your hand up and accept that you were wrong to stage the coup but say you had no alternative because the ousted government had been up to dastardly deeds. The chances are that you will be allowed go get away with your illegal act with the undertaking that you will fashion a timetable to return the country to civilian rule. That is what the renged army in Mauritania proves to be doing after they announced the release of ousted President Sidi Cheikh Abdallahi who has been under house arrest.
This is what has become a common practise in Mauritania. After the African Union huffed and puffed over the August 2005 coup that removed President Ould Taya from power, the pan-African body agreed to allow Colonel Ely Ould Mohamed Vall, the country’s strongman, to stay in power for two years.
This is the same AU that says it will not brook any unconstitutional changes of governments. At a summit of the organisation’s forerunner, the Organisation of African Unity, in Lome in 2000, the continent’s leaders decided that they would not recognise military coups.
However, when an AU delegation faced Col Vall in Nouakchott to read him the riot act, the soldier delivered a knockout punch. He catalogued the various violations of human rights by the Taya regime that gave rise to the coup.
This is what the AU’s report said: “The Chairman of the CMJD, while recognising that ‘to change the institutions by force is execrable,’ added: ‘We have not carried out the coup d’état against the institutions. We are rather carrying a counter coup to restore the institutions in our country.’
“These were some of the problems, which confirmed the danger in which the country was sinking. Faced with this impasse, there was only one alternative: allow the authoritarian drift to take root and head for civil war or opt for change.
The armed and security forces, unanimously effected the change, convinced that it was the expectation of the Mauritanian people. As if to convince himself, the Chairman of the CMJD added: ‘You are free to meet all those with whom you want to discuss, they will confirm [this] to you.’”
Indeed, when the delegation met civil society groups, the organisation was lambasted for turning a blind eye to the excesses of the ousted regime and for daring to claim the moral high ground. The AU reported that “the Mauritanian Bar supported the change because it was the expression of the people’s will and that of the civil society”.
And “because the programme put forward by the CMJD met the aspirations of the Mauritanian people”. The lawyers took the delegation to task for “the passive attitude of the OAU/AU to the sufferings of the Mauritanian people”. This was the tone of the other meetings. The report noted that “the condemnation by the AU [of the coup], judged by some as an insult to the Mauritanian people, was the subject of most vitriolic criticisms. The reference to the painful times which marked the political history of Mauritania and the drift of the former regime described by almost all the speakers confirmed the unanimous legitimacy of the use of force, which some called “the coup d’etat of recovery ”.
It was not surprising that after this major setback, the AU delegation recommended that the military be allowed to stay on in power. After all, according to the report, the coup was “peaceful”. So it is obvious that if a coup is “peaceful” and civil society accepts the military rulers, an unconstitutional change of government will be allowed to stand.
However, a more important lesson has been learned from the Mauritania-AU encounter: that is, African leaders are only out to look after their own interests. It is obvious that not all “democratically-elected” governments abide by the rule of law. But when the OAU came up with its unconstitutional change of government declaration, the continent’s leaders were thinking only of their own security.
After the Mauritanian experience, the Chairman of the AU, President Jakaya Kikwete, should call for order in the organisation and take another look at this business of unconstitutional changes of governments. The events in Mauritania underscore the urgency once more, of revisiting the Lome Declaration on unconstitutional changes of government.
The OAU had originally proposed to include in the definition of unconstitutional changes, the situation in which a government in power systematically violates the provisions of the constitution and human rights and impedes all possible democratic change. This proposal has never been adopted as governments in Africa begin to fall.
