FNDD STRATEGY FOLLOWING PRESIDENT ABDALLAHI'S

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 NOUAKCHOTT 000677 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/15/2013 TAGS: PGOV PREL MR SUBJECT: FNDD STRATEGY FOLLOWING PRESIDENT ABDALLAHI'S TRANSFER Classified By: Charge d'Affaires Dennis Hankins for reasons 1.4 (b and d) ¶1. (C) Summary: The FNDD sees President Abdallahi's transfer as "20% good news." The President's increased access to political leaders and the media are a plus, but his physical and communications isolation and an apparent regime effort to combat the FNDD directly off-set the benefits. The President is still collecting information and weighing his options. The FNDD wants him to "act presidential" but have few specific recommendations. The FNDD is increasingly interested in the mechanics of a parallel government. End Summary ¶2. (C) Charge met November 16 with FNDD co-leader and "Acting Foreign Minister" Mohamed Ould Maouloud who had been with President Abdallahi in Lemden over the weekend. Ould Maouloud said the President was in excellent spirits and committed to confronting the coup, although Abdallahi is still gathering opinions and information before setting out a strategy. Ould Maouloud noted that Abdallahi has limited communications capability but has been phoning media services and a number of foreign governments between a steady stream of visitors. Ould Maouloud said the one phone company with service in Lemden -- MAURITEL -- installed some extra equipment on Lemden's transmission tower which he assumed was meant to allow easier monitoring of the President's calls. The FNDD is procuring a Thuraya phone to provide the President more secure communications. In addition to meeting with his advisors, Abdallahi is trying to reach Arab and African leaders although finding the right numbers is difficult (Comment: Charge has asked the OPS Center whether we can provide contact numbers). ¶3. (C) Ould Maouloud said he and other FNDD leaders had briefed President Abdallahi on the events of the past three months and had made some policy recommendations but he stressed< "We are just the Front, we recognize he will make his own decisions as head of state." Ould Maouloud thought one of the President's first steps would be to make an address to the nation that they would try to have aired by Al Jezeera, RFI and other media outlets and via cassettes to be distributed throughout the country (in French, Arabic and local languages). Recognizing the President had not done well in his public outreach before the coup, Ould Maouloud said the address would be crucial and had to communicate effectively with both the masses and elites. ¶4. (C) Ould Maouloud noted the relatively good news of the President's transfer had been offset by the bad news of Prime Minister Waghef's arrest for malfeasance related to his time as director of the now-defunct national airline. Ould Maouloud saw the investigation as purely political and part of a post-transfer strategy to dismantle the FNDD at the same time the regime says Abdallahi is "now in retirement." In a press conference earlier in the day, Ould Maouloud had challenged the regime to investigate drug trafficking and the mistakes leading to the Tourine massacre before investigating the liquidation of Air Mauritanie. Ould Maouloud claimed a certain irony in the case claiming Waghef had supervised the closure of the airline under the assistance of Aziz' financial backer Mohamed Hamayenne Bouamatou who subsequently launched his own private Mauritania Airways. ¶5. (C) Ould Maouloud said he had told President Abdallahi that there would eventually be the need for someone to help negotiate an exit strategy. He said the FNDD saw Mali's Alpha Oumar Konare as someone who could play an effective Special Envoy role for the African Union. ¶6. (C) Charge will travel to Lemden on November 17 to meet with President Abdallahi -- this will be the first diplomatic visit to the President's home village of some 600 inhabitants. European Ambassadors and the European Commission representative will visit on November 18. French Ambassador Vandepoorter told Charge that initial thoughts of a joint U.S.-European visit were discarded because of differences within the European envoys. Even the idea of bilateral European visits proved difficult as one un-named envoy termed the visit as "seeing if we can resuscitate a NOUAKCHOTT 00000677 002 OF 002 corpse." The Europeans had agreed to a joint visit finally under the context of Article 96 Consultations -- giving President Abdallahi the chance to provide his prospective prior to the November 20 EU review. HANKINS