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