Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T06:12:46.755Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Senegal–Mauritania Conflict of 1989: a Fragile Equilibrium

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Ron Parker
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Though the issues of the 1989 Senegal–Mauritania conflict were deep-rooted, the unexpected passions unleashed within the respective populations caught both Governments off-guard, leading to a total stand-off and the failure of all attempts at resolution. This occured among states which previously had experienced peaceful relations, were making progress in joint economic development efforts, and whose markets were intertwined through trade and labour migration.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 29 , Issue 1 , March 1991 , pp. 155 - 171
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Gerteiny, Alfred G., Mauritania (London and New York, 1967), p. 116.Google Scholar

2 Doyle, Mark, ‘One Foot in Black Africa’, in West Africa (London), 24–30 07 1989, p. 1200.Google Scholar

3 Gerteiny, op. cit. p. 116.

4 Bessis, Sophie, ‘Le Sénégal, la Mauritanie et leurs boucs émissaires’, in Le Monde Diplomatique (Paris), 1 07 1989, p. 14. Throughout the early independence period, Morocco maintained its land claims and the majority of Arab states refused to recognise Mauritania's sovereignty. French diplomatic support for the régime in Nouakchott was crucial in these years.Google Scholar

5 Fritscher, Frederick, ‘Maures contre nègre-africains’, in Le Monde (Paris), 18 05 1989.Google Scholar

6 According to Decraene, Philippe, ‘La Poursuite des mutations de la République Islamique de Mauritanie’, in L'Afrique et l'Asie modernes (Paris), 160, 1989, p. 86, Haratines are sometimes referred to as ‘Beydanes’, though this means ‘white’ in Arabic.Google Scholar

7 ‘Mauritania: war on black citizens’, in Africa Confidential (London), 30, 14, 07 1989, p. 2.Google Scholar

8 Doyle, Mark, ‘The Rift Widens’, in West Africa, 29 May–4 June 1989, p. 868.Google Scholar

9 Derrick, Jonathan, ‘West Africa's Worst Year of Famine’, in African Affairs (London), 83, 332, 07 1984, pp. 282–4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 Bessis, loc. cit. p. 14.

11 Andriamirado, Sennen, ‘Comment Nouakchott et Dakar ont géré la crise’, in Jeune Afrique (Paris), 2 08 1989, p. 34.Google Scholar

12 Fritscher, Frederic, ‘Entre le Sénégal et la Mauritanie: l'échec d'une “communauté de destin”’, in Le Monde, 18 May 1989, p. 10.Google Scholar

13 Andriamirado, loc. cit. p. 34.

14 Doyle, ‘The Rift Widens’, p. 868.

15 Andriamirado, loc. cit. p. 34.

16 Ibid. p. 37.

17 Ibid. p. 36.

18 Ibid. pp. 36–7.

19 Fritscher, ‘Entre le Sénégal et la Mauritanie’, p. 10.

20 Andriamirado, loc. cit. p. 37.

21 Belotteau, Jacques, ‘Sénégal-Mauritanie: les graves événements du printempts 1989’, in Afrique contemporaine (Paris), 152, 4, 1989, pp. 41–2.Google Scholar

22 Doyle, Mark, ‘Nouakchott's New Nationalism’, in Africa Report (New York), 09–10 1989, p. 38.Google Scholar

23 Bessis, loc. cit. p. 14.

24 Fritscher, ‘Maures contre nègre-africains’, p. 10.

25 Ibid.

26 ‘Mauritania: war on black citizens’, in Africa Confidential, 30, 14, 7 07 1990, p. 3.Google Scholar

27 Doyle, Mark, ‘Blood Brothers’, in Africa Report, July–August 1989, p. 15.Google Scholar

28 ‘On the War Path’, in Africa Confidential, 30, 19, 22 September 1989, p. 4, and ‘Mauritania: war on black citizens’, loc. cit. pp. 2–3.

29 Amadou Mactar Gueye, ‘Herculean Tasks’, in West Africa, 18–24 September 1989, p. 1551.

30 Mark Doyle and Chris Simpson, ‘Another Week of Terror’, in ibid. 8–14 May 1989, p. 725.

31 Sopi (Dakar), 11 April 1989.

32 Doyle and Simpson, loc. cit. p. 725.

33 Andriamirado, Sennen, ‘Pourquoi le sang a coulé, in Jeune Afrique, 10 May 1989, p. 8.Google Scholar

34 Ibid.

35 Doyle, ‘Blood Brothers’, p. 16.

36 ‘Mauritania: war on black citizens’, pp. 2–3.

37 Shelley, Toby, ‘The Arab View’, in West Africa, 8–14 May 1989, p. 725.Google Scholar

38 Andriamirado suggests this in ‘Pourquoi le sang a coulé’, p. 8.

39 Jean de la Guerivière, ‘La Rupture diplomatique avec Nouakchott accroît la tension dans la région’, in Le Monde, 23 August 1989, p. 4.

40 Doyle, ‘Nouakchott's New Nationalism’, p. 38.

41 François, Soudan, ‘Mauritanie: la tentation du repli’, in Juene Afrique, 6 November 1989, pp. 31–2.Google Scholar

42 Doyle, ‘Nouakchott's New Nationalism’, p. 38. According to West Africa, 18–24 September 1989, pp. 1578–9, the new opposition set up in Paris, known as the Resistance Front for Unity, Independence and Democracy in Mauritania, aims to ‘find a just solution to national problems, especially those concerned with the different ethnic groups’, and condemns the régime's ‘banishments and deportations, arrests and torture… which have become the daily lot of its black African citizens’.

43 Bourgi, Albert, ‘Frontières: après la coexistence quel trace?’, in Jeune Afrique, 9 August 1989, p. 42.Google Scholar

44 Gueye, ‘Herculean Tasks’, p. 1551.

45 ‘Senegal: an embattled government’ in Africa Confidential, 30, 19, 22 09 1989, p. 5.Google Scholar

46 ‘On the War Path’, p. 4.

47 Fall, Elimane, ‘Sénégal: peut-on se passer des Maures?’, in Jeune Afrique, 24 May 1989, pp. 22–4.Google Scholar

48 Soudan, ‘Mauritanie: la tentation du repli’, p. 30.

49 Doyle, ‘Nouakchott's New Nationalism’, p. 38.

50 Nicolaj, Andrea, ‘The Senegal Mauritanian Conflict’ in Africa (Rome), 45, 3, 09 1990, p. 479.Google Scholar

51 Tordoff, William, Government and Politics in Africa (London and Bloomington, 1984), p. 5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

52 Nicolaj, loc. cit. p. 475.

53 François Soudan, ‘Sahara: la Mauritanie entre deux guerres’, in Jeune Afrique, 16 October 1989, p. 11, and Arlette Benld, ‘Sénégal/Mauritanie: escaramouches dans la vallée’, in ibid. 5 February 1990, p. 74.

54 ‘Mauritania: war on black citizens’, p. 4.

55 Gueye, ‘Herculean Tasks’, p. 1551.

56 According to Zartman, I. William, International Relations in the New Africa (Lanham, New York, and London, 1987), p. 106, ‘All boundaries are artificial in the sense that it is not natural to draw lines separating neighbours from contact with each other’. It is still important, however, to note varying degrees of contestability in specific cases.Google Scholar

57 Tordoff, op. cit. pp. 9–10.

58 Touval, Saadia, ‘Partitioned Groups and Inter-State Relations’, in Asiwaju, A. I. (ed.), Partitioned Africans (London, 1984), pp. 224–5.Google Scholar

59 This is the ‘We/they distinction’ identified by Launay, Robert, ‘Ethnic “Boundaries” in Africa: working paper’, in Asiwaju, A. I. and Ivor, Wilks (eds.), Borders in Africa (Evanston, 1990), Northwestern University Program of African Studies, Fall/Winter 1989–1990, pp. 17–18.Google Scholar

60 Zartman, op. cit. pp. 108–9.

61 This has been proposed by A. I. Asiwaju, ‘The Conceptual Framework’, in Asiwaju (ed.), op. cit. p. 13.

62 A. I. Asiwaju, ‘The Global Perspective and Border Management Policy Options’, in ibid. pp. 233–9.

63 Zartman, op. cit. p. 106.

64 See Launay, loc. cit. p. 6, for evidence that ethnicity designations changed as a result of the creation of modern national boundaries in the post-World War II era.

65 Zartman, op. cit. p. 109.

66 Azarya, Victor and Chazan, Naomi, ‘Disengagement from the State in Africa’, in Comparative Studies in Society and History (Cambridge), 29, 1, 01 1987, pp. 106–31.Google Scholar