MEDIA REACTION: MAURITANIAN JUNTA VISIT TO TANZANIA

C O N F I D E N T I A L NOUAKCHOTT 000634 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/29/2013 TAGS: PGOV PREL MR SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION: MAURITANIAN JUNTA VISIT TO TANZANIA REF: NOUAKCHOTT 439 Classified By: CDA Dennis Hankins for reasons 1.4 (b and d) ¶1. (SBU) Summary: On Sunday October 26th, 2008 the President of Tanzania, Jakaya Kikwete, acting in his capacity as Chairman of the African Union, received a delegation from Mauritania's military junta. The Mauritania delegation was led by Mohamed Mahmoud Ould Mohamendou, who serves as the junta's Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation. The visit had caused concern in the anti-coup FNDD fearing the regime would be able to sell their "democratic correction" story to an African leader who has only passing knowledge of Mauritania. Mauritanian press coverage on the visit varied widely from that being reported out of Dar-es-Salaam revealing the skewed nature of state-sponsored press in the wake of the coup and the regression in local press liberty, one of the main tenants of democracy. End Summary ¶2. (SBU) Tanzania's view: In the wake of the Mauritanian delegation's visit, local Tanzanian wire service reports seen in Mauritania highlighted the harsh nature of the message from the AU Chairman towards the delegation. Kikwete is reported as saying, in no uncertain terms, that the AU constitution adopted in Lome, Togo in 2000 "opposes in very clear terms military juntas that forcefully replace elected governments" and that Mauritania "will remain a pariah in Africa until an elected democratic government is installed." Not even wanting to engage in talks with these junta-appointed, and therefore, illegitimate leaders, according to the Tanzanian Daily News Reporter (October 28th) President Kikwete's "clear advice was for them to respect the Mauritanian constitution, ditch the military junta and return to democratic rule." Furthermore, the Tanzanian News Reporter hammered home that "(President) Kikwete told the guests it was useless for Mauritanian rulers to send envoys to African capitals because no country would buy their case." Tanzania's Citizen Correspondent continued, quoting Kikwete "If your constitution says the President will be elected by people in the ballot box, then I don't know how you will convince the African continent." Charge contacted FNDD "Foreign Minister" Mohamed Ould Maouloud who said they were very pleased with the message coming from Kikwete. ¶3. (SBU) The state-sponsored view: In Mauritania, the story has been ignored for the most part by Arabic local press. The Arabic and French state-sponsored media who portrayed the visit as a success for the delegation. The story was front center on the Monday October 27th edition of the state paper cited the visit as a chance for delegation leader Mohamed Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou to brief Kikwete on the litany of woes facing Mauritania during the Abdallahi government. According to Horizons, Mohamedou explained to AU and Tanzanian President Kikwete that "the efforts of the rectification movement since August 6th have been to reinforce democracy in the country in line with the will of the Mauritanian people and their representatives." ¶4. (SBU) Another view: A minority view echoed by the independent Mauritanian French news agency CRIDEM picked up on many of the quotes used in the Tanzanian press, including the difficulty the junta would face in convincing the African continent of their legitimacy when Abdallahi had earned the Presidency "through the ballot box". They also mentioned the demand of Kikwete to "respect the constitution" and "return to democracy" as well as his difficulty in his role as AU president to support the junta considering their existence was a violation of the AU charter. A reader's comment to this article posted on the website confirms anti-coup sentiment. The comment claims that this story shows how "the military junta is increasingly ridiculed wherever they go." ¶5. (SBU) A little late: Several arabic-language websites and newspapers did not pick up on the story until Wednesday the 29th at which point their coverage was similar to the aforementioned French coverage. The Arabic website Taqadoumy combined the Sunday 26th visit with coverage of Kikwete's talk before the 10th session of African Parliamentarians in Johannesburg on October 28th. The Arabic daily Essiraj combined coverage of the visit and include the state-sponsored angle with much attention to the sufferings experienced during Abdallahi's regime and a last note on the Qatari initiative towards resolving the conflict. ¶5. (C) Comment: Conspicuously absent from the media coverage of the delegation visit to Tanzania with President Kikwete was the plethora of local Arabic press, other than state sponsored media. This either shows their deference to the state-sponsored media, or their interest in other events that their pro-coup audience would prefer to hear about, including the recent visit of to Libya of the junta's "Prime Minister" or the Qatar mediations being discussed. The only dissent seen was from typically anti-coup, pro-FNDD (Abdallahi) French website CRIDEM, and the late publishing Arabic websites Akhbar and Taqadomy that did similar coverage to that of their Tanzanian counterparts. The regression in progress made towards media liberty seen during Abdallahi's regime can be seen in the coverage of the junta delegation visit to Tanzania. This comes as the Reportes Without Borders unveiled its annual report on Freedom of the Press 2008, October 22nd, which was only covered in local press by CRIDEM, on October 29th. In this report, Mauritania ranked number 105, dropping 55 slots in the last year. According to the report "The democratic transition has been stopped in Mauritania, and it cannot continue." The Maghreb as a whole ranked poorly, Algeria ranking 121 and Morocco dropping to slot 122 but Mauritania's drop was by far the steepest and most preoccupying of the 5 country Maghreb collective. HANKINS