thousands back junta in mauritania

Thousands back junta in Mauritania
AHMED MOHAMED


NOUAKCHOTT, Mauritania - Thousands rallied Thursday to support the military junta that toppled Mauritania's pro-Western president a day earlier, as the African country's top leader met with the U.S. and French ambassadors.

The meetings with the envoys of former colonial power France and counterterrorism partner America were among the first Col. Ely Ould Mohamed Vall held, and appeared designed to assure the international community it had nothing to fear from the new regime.

The junta also issued a statement announcing the dissolution of the country's bicameral legislature.

Western and other African nations and the United Nations condemned the coup. The African Union's Peace and Security Council suspended Mauritania on Thursday until "the restoration of constitutional order in the country."

But many Mauritanians applauded the ouster of President Maaoya Sid'Ahmed Ould Taya, saying he was a brutal dictator and that they hoped the junta would keep its promise to usher in democracy. Taya was out of the country when the junta struck.

Tens of thousands of people swept through Nouakchott on Thursday on foot and in cars to express their support for the junta. Some carried huge portraits of Vall.

Vall made no public statements Thursday. U.S. Ambassador Joseph LeBaron refused to comment on the meeting and other diplomats were not immediately available.

Mauritanian officials said Vall had assured the ambassadors that his junta would quickly arrange elections. The junta has promised to yield to democratic rule within two years.

U.S. State Department spokesman Tom Casey said LeBaron has also spoken with Taya's chief of staff in Niger, where Taya's plane was diverted when news of the coup broke. "We intend to work with the African Union ... to restore constitutional rule in Mauritania."

When asked if that included continued support of Taya, Casey said, "The president is the head of the constitutional government in Mauritania."

Shops, businesses and the international airport reopened and traffic was flowing again in Mauritania's capital Thursday.

This sparsely populated nation on the northwestern edge of the Sahara had been strictly controlled by Taya, who had seized power in a coup and tried to legitimize his rule in the 1990s through elections the opposition says were fraudulent.

Taya dealt ruthlessly with those who opposed him. He had allied his overwhelmingly Muslim nation with the United States in the war on terror and with Israel.

The junta had indicated in statements Wednesday it planned no changes in foreign policy.


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