Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
06NOUAKCHOTT480
2006-04-24 17:08:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Nouakchott
Cable title:  

EXTRAORDINARY SLAVE CASE DEMONSTRATES PERSISTENCE

Tags:  PREL PGOV PHUM PINR EAID KPAO MR 
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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 NOUAKCHOTT 000480 

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/23/2016
TAGS: PREL PGOV PHUM PINR EAID KPAO MR
SUBJECT: EXTRAORDINARY SLAVE CASE DEMONSTRATES PERSISTENCE
OF MASTER-SLAVE MENTALITY IN MAURITANIA


Classified By: Amb. Joseph LeBaron, Reasons 1.4 (b),(d)

--------------
(C) Key Points
--------------

-- A recent slave case here demonstrates that Mauritanians in
remote villagers continue to believe in the 21st century that
legal master-slave relationships exist. Slavery has been
prohibited in Mauritania for decades.

-- In early 2006, a Black Moor "slave" gave cattle worth 500
euros, a very large sum here, to his "master" to buy his
freedom. The transaction was even "legalized" in a contract
signed between the two and witnessed by the village chief and
eight others(!) in the central Mauritanian village.

-- Significantly, both SOS Esclaves and the government agreed
on the details of the case, including the fact that the slave
believed he was a slave, and the master a master.

-- A nephew of the "slave" soon reported the transaction to
the local gendarmerie. To their credit, the gendarmerie
immediately launched an investigation, and the "slave master"
was forced to return the cattle.

-- In an extraordinary turn, the "freed slave" objected to
his nephew's action. According to the nephew, his uncle told
him, "the deal has already been made and I am happy...I am
free."

-- The "slave master" will not be prosecuted. The prosecutor
determined that the "master" was mentally ill and that the
transaction was fraudulent, "a case of a swindler taking
advantage of a victim," according to a Ministry of Justice
official.

------------
(C) Comments
------------

-- We disagree with the prosecutor's description of the case
as that of a swindler taking advantage of a victim.

-- Rather, it is an extraordinary case from the remote
reaches of the country where at least 11 Mauritanians,
continued to believe, even in the 21st century, that
master-slave relationships legally exist.

-- The government still has much work to do to get the word
out to all Mauritanians in all parts of the country that
slavery has been outlawed in Mauritania for decades. That
will be an uphill battle in a large Saharan country where
illiteracy is rampant and vast regions of the country are
still unreachable by any road, paved or unpaved.

End Key Points and Comments.

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 NOUAKCHOTT 000480

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/23/2016
TAGS: PREL PGOV PHUM PINR EAID KPAO MR
SUBJECT: EXTRAORDINARY SLAVE CASE DEMONSTRATES PERSISTENCE
OF MASTER-SLAVE MENTALITY IN MAURITANIA


Classified By: Amb. Joseph LeBaron, Reasons 1.4 (b),(d)

--------------
(C) Key Points
--------------

-- A recent slave case here demonstrates that Mauritanians in
remote villagers continue to believe in the 21st century that
legal master-slave relationships exist. Slavery has been
prohibited in Mauritania for decades.

-- In early 2006, a Black Moor "slave" gave cattle worth 500
euros, a very large sum here, to his "master" to buy his
freedom. The transaction was even "legalized" in a contract
signed between the two and witnessed by the village chief and
eight others(!) in the central Mauritanian village.

-- Significantly, both SOS Esclaves and the government agreed
on the details of the case, including the fact that the slave
believed he was a slave, and the master a master.

-- A nephew of the "slave" soon reported the transaction to
the local gendarmerie. To their credit, the gendarmerie
immediately launched an investigation, and the "slave master"
was forced to return the cattle.

-- In an extraordinary turn, the "freed slave" objected to
his nephew's action. According to the nephew, his uncle told
him, "the deal has already been made and I am happy...I am
free."

-- The "slave master" will not be prosecuted. The prosecutor
determined that the "master" was mentally ill and that the
transaction was fraudulent, "a case of a swindler taking
advantage of a victim," according to a Ministry of Justice
official.

--------------
(C) Comments
--------------

-- We disagree with the prosecutor's description of the case
as that of a swindler taking advantage of a victim.

-- Rather, it is an extraordinary case from the remote
reaches of the country where at least 11 Mauritanians,
continued to believe, even in the 21st century, that
master-slave relationships legally exist.

-- The government still has much work to do to get the word

out to all Mauritanians in all parts of the country that
slavery has been outlawed in Mauritania for decades. That
will be an uphill battle in a large Saharan country where
illiteracy is rampant and vast regions of the country are
still unreachable by any road, paved or unpaved.

End Key Points and Comments.


1. (U) On March 28, the local human rights NGO SOS Esclaves
(SOS Slaves) publicized the case of Sidi Ould El Mijriya, a
Black Moor living in the small village of Daber II in the
central Mauritanian province of Tagant. According to SOS
Esclaves, Mijriya recently had to buy his freedom from his
former master. The details of the story were told to SOS
Esclaves by Mijriya's nephew, Ahmed Ould Lagdaf, who claimed
that he, too, had been a former slave "through association,"
because all his family had been slaves or former slaves.


2. (U) PolOff Morris talked to Lagdaf, SOS Esclaves'
officials, and a representative from the Ministry of Justice
during the course of the investigation. Unlike in past
slavery investigations, both SOS Esclaves and the government
agreed on the details of the case.

--------------
THE DETAILS
--------------


3. (U) According to Lagdaf, his uncle was born a slave to a
master named N'Dahid Ould Mohamed Dahid. Mijriya did not
work directly for Dahid, nor was he ever physically harmed by

NOUAKCHOTT 00000480 002 OF 003


him. Rather, Mijriya worked as a kind of sharecropper,
raising crops and herding cattle, of which Dahid claimed a
share as Mijriya's "slave master." "He would come at harvest
time and take some of our crops...or take a goat or a sheep
whenever he wanted," Lagdaf said.


4. (U) In early 2006, Dahid told Mijriya that he could buy
his freedom for cattle worth approximately 500 euros.
Mijriya, considering himself to be a slave to Dahid, agreed
to the proposal. He gave Dahid one heifer, five goats and
one billy-goat. The two men, both believing the master-slave
relationship to exist, even signed a contract covering the
transaction, and the transaction was duly witnessed by the
village chief and eight villagers, who, themselves,
apparently believed that master-slave relationships were
still legal.


5. (U) When Lagdaf found out what had happened, he pleaded
with his uncle to get the cattle back. "I told him that
slavery was abolished and that such a transaction was
illegal," Lagdaf said, adding that "I threatened to inform
the authorities if he didn't act." According to Lagdaf,
Mijriya told him that "the deal has already been made and I
am happy...I am free." Mijriya also said that he did not
want any trouble with the authorities and that Lagdaf should
not "draw attention to this matter."


6. (U) Ignoring his uncle's request, Lagdaf went to the local
gendarmerie to report what had happened. After receiving
mild threats from the gendarmerie that he would be arrested
if the case was found to lack merit, they followed Lagdaf to
his village. The gendarmerie arrested both Dahid and
Mijriya, and held them for 10 days. According to Haimoud
Ramdan, an advisor within the Ministry of Justice who sits on
the inter-ministerial Anti-TIP Committee, the gendarmerie
held the two men to "facilitate their investigation of the
claim."


7. (U) Following the men's release, the gendarmerie
confiscated the contract the two had signed and ordered Dahid
to return the cattle to Mijriya. When asked for a copy of
the contract, Ramdan said he did not know where it was or if
it had been destroyed.

--------------
THE GOVERNMENT'S POSITION
--------------


8. (C) Ramdan said the case was not one of slavery, but "a
case of a swindler taking advantage of a victim." However,
Ramdan then said that "the public prosecutor decided not
pursue the slave master (under the 2003 anti-slavery law)
because the slave master was mentally ill and Mijriya had his
cattle returned to him and was therefore not hurt by the
act." Ramdan said he thought the man would have been
prosecuted if he had not been judged to be mentally ill.


9. (C) Ramdan added that "the prosecutor has the discretion
to decide if the case is one of slavery or not, and how to
proceed with each case. In this case the prosecutor decided
that because of the slave master's mental illness, and the
sensitivity of the slavery issue, that it was better to let
the government focus on slavery public awareness, rather than
a public prosecution."


10. (C) Note: Ramdan used the word "slave master," rather
than the man's name, Dahid. While this may have been done
intentionally to simplify the case, Ramdan acknowledged that
"the slave in this case believed he was a slave, and the
slave master believed he was a slave master. End Note.

--------------
SOS ESCLAVES AND LAGDAF'S PERSPECTIVE
--------------


11. (C) Both SOS Esclaves and Lagdaf said that it was a good
thing that the gendarmerie had gotten involved and had forced
Dahid to return the cattle. "The government has made
progress on addressing slavery cases, and we are very pleased
with that," SOS Esclaves President Boubacar Messaoud said.
Lagdaf echoed this sentiment saying that "slavery is illegal

NOUAKCHOTT 00000480 003 OF 003


and if someone brings a case of slavery to the government
they will come in and fix it." He added that "I was born a
slave, because my mother and father were slaves...but I am no
longer a slave.


11. (C) Boubacar was frustrated with the government's
decision not to prosecute. "As with all the past cases of
slavery we have publicized, the government has done nothing
to punish the slave master," he said, adding that "without
well-publicized trials of slavery cases and slave masters,
slavery will never be destroyed." "We need to send a message
to all the slave masters who have not yet been caught,"
Boubacar concluded.


12. (C) Lagdaf, a Haratine (Black Moor) who comes from the
village of Daber II in the central province of Tagant, said
that the form of slavery that his uncle had just escaped from
was very common in his region. "Many people know that
slavery was abolished," he said, adding however that "it is
still quite common."
LeBaron