Exclusive 'La Tribune: For the first time a president speaks to a Mauritanian newspaper ... A first in the history of our independent press that has existed since the mid-80s. Never has a president in office agreed to give an interview to a newspaper in the country.
Whenever I submitted a request, the response was the same: "We can not give you this favor for you and let others". At the time Moawiya Ould Taya, never reply, or even pretending. At the time
Eli Ould Mohamed Val and Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, the "cell communication" had found a solution for avoiding face to face: every time they have called press conferences restricted or open.
This interview - historic because unprecedented - has a story. In recent month we try to have it. On the first anniversary of the election of President Ould Abdel Aziz. But there was this desire to create a new exercise which is to speak directly to people through more than two hours of live coverage of the debate (August 2010). Then we re on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary.
The idea was to publish the last interview I made with the late Mokhtar Ould Daddah, the country's first president, and the first interview I do with the current (I was the first to interview fire Mokhtar Ould Daddah in 1995). A little concern to connect the two men, two visions, the two eras.
Ould Abdel Aziz has decided to renovate Ould Daddah the rank of Father of the Nation, especially with plans to build a new Mauritania reconciled with itself and with its environment and be proud of.
In June 2003 I first met Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, at that time colonel commanding the Presidential Security Battalion (BASEP). He had just experienced the ordeal of the putsch of June 8 It was - I wrote at the time - the driving force behind the failure of the coup that took cheapest countries (17 deaths, including Mohamed Ould Lemine Ndeyane, Chief of Staff at the time).
His office still bore the stigma of mad enterprise: broken windows, punched walls, bullet holes everywhere, enough to say that the commander of BASEP was a goal. "You know, if this type (Ould Taya, ed) does not draw the lesson from what just happened, the country risk of drift."
That's about what Colonel Ould Abdel Aziz told me by telling me the team's epic return to the presidency after 24 hours spent either fighting (for him) either by hiding in the camp guard (for the President and his entourage). It was not easy for an officer's time to make such remarks in front of a stranger who is more a journalist.
The January 28, 2006, Palais des Congres, Colonel Eli Ould Mohamed Val just hold forth on the white vote, presenting him as a third way to avoid civilian candidates. The room is shocked. Colonel Ould Abdel Aziz, commander of BASEP always gets up. Our eyes meet. I read the furor over his face. He adjusts his dress and went immediately to his headquarters.
He ordered the deployment of its units. I will speak later in an attempt blow on the process from his cousin and president of the CMJD. "An officer has to give his word and we are committed to conducting a process that must necessarily result in a free election. Or extension of the transition or sprain in the process will be permitted. "
June 2008, I am called by Amal Mint Cheikh Abdallahi, daughter of President Sidi who headed the de facto communication cell. She wants to discuss the political situation, I do understand what is happening.
At the expression on his face, I see that things get tough. As I'm president, I will see General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz - became head of the military cabinet of the President. "You see how the cell communication exploits the press against me," he said, exposing articles peppered with insults against his person and his allies. I can tell you that there will be no coup, it will be undertaken will comply with the Constitution. " I gather that the crisis is profound. I go into the office Boydiel Ould Hoummoid, newly appointed minister secretary general of the presidency.
I give my reading: his predecessor, Yahya Ould Waghf, and overall the surrounding civilian Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, has started a tussle with the military wing of power, a suicidal and dangerous approach to the balance of the country and for democracy, I call him by his wisdom and his non-involvement in this dispute to try to pick up what can be.
will follow the events that are known: an attempt to resolve the dispute by members interposed, the civilian wing of offensive power, dismissal of all military commanders at night and coup on August 6.
October 2008, I am summoned to the presidency. General Ould Abdel Aziz seems serene despite all the threats to his power: Refusal the international community to recognize, domestic disputes and shortness of the country that is unstable in recent months. He speaks of the States General of democracy. I told him that they mean nothing if the opposition does not participate.
"She will participate. There will be no political process that does not include all actors or at least most of them. Even if there are elections, it will be with everyone. "
four times that sum for me this personality: straight talk, firmness, boldness and determination. Qualities otherwise perceived by its detractors who see him as a man "introverted," "away," "boorish" and "contemptuous." Forgetting that this man has taken for a ride so far.
First during the first transition by taking them, mostly to vote Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, a candidate out of nowhere. Then in 2008, playing the constitutional order to denounce the resurgence of the discredited system by August 2005. Finally getting them to sign the Dakar Accord and to jointly organize an election in which he presented himself as the promoter change against an alliance against nature between supporters and opponents of the former regime. Duly noted.
Tribune: This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of national independence. What do you remember these fifty years of Mauritania?
Answer: A lot of sadness for my country. Compared to our possibilities, what has been done is saddening. In terms of mismanagement of our resources, missed appointments, missed opportunities, not to mention the poverty of people, their ignorance, lack of basic infrastructure ... We can always say that we started from nothing and that some thing has been done since 1960. But we still have plenty to do.
Our country is conspicuous by its delays in many areas, if not all. At least in terms of the foundations of a state. We have always been porous borders, few controlled because of a defense system obsolete and in some cases, the resignations of the civilian and military authorities. We can say that the minimum area was not achieved all these years. The State Civil
whose importance has been neglected for years, nothing gained reliability. Who is Mauritanian, who is not? How are we? How do we live? Nothing is really identified accurately. It is perhaps a harsh criticism but we have to see us face to be able to go ahead and fix what needs to be.
Do you know for example that we can not control even the number of civil servants? What about state property? Some will not hesitate to tell you that it is useless to know how the state owns buildings, furniture, equipment ...
Everyone tends to be locked in a spirit of wanton forgetting that the fact of not knowing the exact state property, sometimes causes huge expenses. Each year, significant expenditures are made to procure office equipment - computers, desks, chairs. To the Presidency for example, equipment that an'a not need to be changed for the next fifteen years, or almost.
It's sad when we know that we are all responsible for this situation: the illiterate in the super-frame, the senior orderly. We created, maintained, promoted for some, while others have not criticized, denounced if not applauded.
Tribune: How to cope?
Answer: You should change your attitude and for that we need a global awareness and effective in this situation. We can not heal when you're sick if you know what we suffer. Our country is vast but it is full of resources that should have been used for its development.
Finally all these delays are the result of mismanagement, corruption and recklessness of a supreme national interest. This is not the result of colonization, nor that of neighboring countries, nor that of the multinationals, it is the Mauritanians who are responsible what happened to them.
The day everyone, we realize the price we pay because of the mismanagement of our resources, our assets, the fight against mismanagement will be a social requirement. Today we do a program because we believe it is homesickness. But it must happen at a time when it is the people themselves who refuse to suffer prevarication.
should see public service users refuse to pay tribute in return for a fee. See them complain and protest this refusal, do everything for it to go to the next level.
must see people vilify thieves and treat as such. That's how we can achieve something. This must be the effort of everyone for the good of all.
personally I am not asking to be sung, I refuse elsewhere. I want to break with the pomp and receptions celebrating the person of the President. Why? I think that participating in the culture of the indignity of Mauritanian citizen. Past practices were rooted corruption of morals and minds. Today we need to free the citizens of this yoke, allowing him to regain his dignity.
I'm happy the day when people will not come to me and ask a fishing license, a blank check, a favor, but to ask me about community issues, national issues. I tell you that the country is rich but its systematic looting has undermined development. We'll have to straighten everything including the person.
Tribune: But in this case everything is urgent, what are the priority areas for you?
Answer: As I said earlier, it must first change the mentality, to make more rational, focused on the general interest, more dynamic, more confident. The Mauritanian today must cope. For this he needs an education system able to offer him what he aspires.
How is it that fifty years after independence, we are still in the plaintiff's position in all specialties? We need medicine specialists, engineers, technicians in all areas, even in small businesses.
The only area where we seem to have some semblance of self-sufficiency is one of the carriers. In fact, the education system does not meet the needs of the country's development. For fifty years we have been prisoners of controversy around the issue languages, while education was deteriorating in the wanton.
It has continued to train in the humanities that are not development. How? 85% of the thousands of graduates are in the humanities and therefore can not produce.
We must reverse this ratio in the years to come. Have 85% of our graduates in scientific and technical subjects particularly as the country saw its mineral wealth, is called upon to develop expertise in this area to cope with the voracity of the operators, make the best development plans and impose more beneficial holdings of our wealth.
Instead of continuing to face the problem of languages, we must devote ourselves to provide quality education to train the men of tomorrow.
Tribune: But the States General of Education soon as you promised ...
Answer: We have a global view of the matter. The States General will be an opportunity for all the living forces of the nation to speak on the issue. But from the perspective of creating a school able to meet modern requirements and needs of the country's jobs. Do not mistake : If education works, everything will work.
Tribune: And after education, what other priorities?
Answer: The priority is that. He must accept it. This is also what determines the change of mentality that I advocated earlier.
We have the infrastructure are equally critical in the formation of the new Mauritanian man. Roads, electricity, availing piped water, health centers ... all offer better conditions for people, for teachers who refuse to go further in their jobs assignment because they feel more differences in the quality of life within and between major urban centers.
There is also the Justice who is also affected by the crisis in the education system. Yet the problem of training and match between curriculum and needs in the courts. People tend to believe that the only problem of justice is corruption.
There is also the need for magistrates to be trained to understand all the problems of the modern world. Recently a boat flying the French flag was convicted for carrying a cargo rice to the port of Nouakchott. What has played around the rice is not its responsibility, but that did not stop him from being convicted.
Ultimately when I look at the legacy we've had, I tell myself that everything is a priority. That's why I do not want to lose any more time to seek what dowry be done first. Why not hire the same time, finally going to fight on all fronts of underdevelopment and backwardness?
Tribune: Mr. President, compels news, talking about the last rally of the Presidential Majority Adil. Are you the ultimate outcome of the dialogue with the opposition which you have called recently? And especially is there any discomfort for the return of those who were yesterday decried as dishonest?
Answer: The dialogue that I mentioned does not inevitably participation as it does absolutely no turning back. Regarding Adil, I would say that all Mauritanians are equal before us. I argue here that there is a fact to which no negotiation is possible: the desire for change. Let me go back.
In 2005, we decided to change to avoid a drift to Mauritania certain. On the political front, we wanted and provided the political opening that allows political actors to enter quietly into the game
Economically we managed to restore the confidence of donors who are finally engaged with Mauritania. On the social front, we wanted to liberate man Mauritanian burdens and pressures hitherto exercised over him. We have partly succeeded. We thought when we got out of this first transition of free and transparent elections.
Less than a year after these elections, we witnessed the first attempts to regain control of power by the very people who have served more than two decades and have been responsible for multiple blockages which justified the change in August 2005. We then encouraged a democratic and legal resistance. The response has been to strengthen the camp which enshrined the back.
With the same figures, the same level of mismanagement, as saying that the stage was set including dedicated to folklore. Lacked only the conductor of the assembly who had plundered the country for 25 years.
There followed the inevitable change we know then that the transition has allowed to organize free and transparent elections where the people of Mauritania has made his choice by giving him 53% of the votes cast. With this legitimacy, I tell you here that I have made no commitment for a politician, a clan leader or another.
The only commitment I have is that I have contracted with the Mauritanian people and revolves around the change in the fight against corruption, mismanagement, ignorance, poverty, injustice, insecurity, ultimately to build a Modern state to serve its citizens and proud to be himself.
These are not supporters of the first or last time that I will change course. But I tell you that the project is that one is happy to be served by any Mauritanian who believes. Any one who wants to participate in our business is welcome.
Tribune: But when you call to dialogue, we not entitled to ask "in what context?
Answer: I have said and I repeat: we are all here in our country. We are all affected by his problems. We are all called, power and opposition, to imagine solutions to these problems. But ultimately it is the power to implement its development choices, not the opposition.
We therefore accept to discuss all the problems but not to share decision-making that is rightfully to the one the program has convinced the majority of the Mauritanian people. Talk does not mean share. If one accepts this, it will remain only give shape and a framework for dialogue.
La Tribune: You've always talked about institutional reforms necessary to rebalance powers. Is not this a topic of dialogue?
Answer: I am ready to discuss all topics. The framework could be that one or more days of reflection that could be held either at the request of the Majority or the Opposition. And then everything can be discussed.
But yal'Assemblée national who is now a space for ongoing dialogue. Is there anyway that major decisions are taken and it is important that these decisions are subject to criticism and comments from elected officials. You should know that there are members of the majority who criticize the decisions. Sometimes to excess.
We sometimes see people blame situations they have supported in the past, at least they never complained. But fortunately, those listening did not have a short memory and intelligence enough to discern right from wrong.
The Tribune: We said in our community that you go to a speed that can keep your employees. Do you sometimes feel?
Answer: It's not just in your midst as they say. Even members of the government came to complain about the pace that I imposed on them. Some say they are overworked. But the country needs to catch up lost time. We must go quickly. But above all get rid of this tendency to always want to start from scratch. For that build on the experience of others.
When we wanted to have a hospital oncology, we were told that it is better to treatment with cobalt, an old system that apparently familiar frameworks of health. But I wanted to have the latest technology. If our people can work on it immediately, so much the better. Otherwise we will call upon foreign experts waiting to train specialists.
is this option that was finally adopted despite lack of confidence with us. I ask here: why admit its failure in advance? Leaving without faith in success is mainly what prevents us from moving forward.
The wait to have this or that to do what needs to be in a hurry, is the worst attitude. How many times I have heard some say they expect the support of individual donors to launch this or that vital project. We are now what we can by ourselves.
Look for example, everywhere I went I was asked the water problem. And it is true that we are late and very late. Look at what has been done just on the state budget, without outside assistance. For Magta Lahjar the water issue has been raised. We always waited for outside help to enable people of this great city to have safe drinking water.
But I decided to stop and quickly to this sad situation. Today the Military Engineering was asked to make this a priority. This will be done, insha'Allah, in a few months. The example of the power of neighborhoods like Arafat is instructive in this regard.
Tribune: There is still a fact : Your employees do not embody the values that you necessarily want to grow. What do you think, Mr. President?
Answer: They will eventually embody these values. We return to the question of attitudes, attitudes vis-à-vis the public welfare, education ... This country has suffered for 20 long years, management at the base of which is a lie. Each of us has criticized in his time, would do secretly. But it is time to recognize where we are and change.
Today, there are ministers who work honestly to push things, to advance. What I keep telling them is there any solution to the problem. I return to the example of water.
We are surprised when we made the state polls and their capabilities. How three million Mauritanians are they not fed enough? Is that each small family wants to have his poll, his school, his clinic. Many of irrationality in the distribution of all public infrastructure. With the addition result, the fragmentation of efforts of the state, social fragmentation and the inability of authorities to meet the needs of citizens. We
have opted for the political groupings of populations. Instead of following and support the leaders of tribes or cantons, states should take things in hand. It supports combinations by first choosing a viable and building infrastructure that can provide basic services. The state has the means of servicing the villages but only on a sound footing.
In time, this fragmentation has been wanted by the authorities, often for political reasons. Me, I do not need or want to divide people for votes or to control the votes in opposition to each other. We need people to understand that it is their interest to come together to enable the State to ensure minimum services to improve their living conditions.
Another problem posed by the lack of vision in terms of urbanization, the development sprawl cities. Our cities today are growing throughout the paved road. Imagine that in fifty years we will have a megalopolis from Nouakchott to Nbayket Lahwash but shops open on both sides of the tar.
Nonsense, accept it. But more and more absurd and unfair, having a few wealthy businessmen who have concessions Rural over 20,000 ha in Nouakchott, when people suffer overcrowding in Gazri pending lots less than 200 m2. And when these people receive awards, the rich just buy them back their land.
Tribune: Let's talk about the news related to security. How do you assess the work that was done?
Answer: The terrorism that struck our country has lacked effective response. We can say that the country had not mobilized the resources and therefore lacked the capacity to face the security challenge. All because means were squandered, misappropriated by individuals.
It is true that we have a vast and difficult to control, but this constraint arises as to potential aggressors. Must still be willing to take things in hand and face. We, we're at home, it's the advantage we have over others. We decided to react. Today we believe we have the bare minimum to ensure the security of the country and protect its borders.
We first decided to take control of all military posts of the country. The position of Ain Bintili has not been occupied since February 1976. Lemreya was that of the end of the world today is a base that use water, electricity and where it is now planned to build an international airport clearance.
There is no point in the Mauritanian desert who sees a Mauritanian military group several times a day. Between the temporary and permanent occupation, there is no vacuum, which may benefit traffickers and criminals.
The results speak for themselves: since the attacks of September 2008, there was no frontal attack, or incursion of armed terrorist Restructuring the Army was successful. But more importantly, the drug traffickers no longer feel safe in our territory. So does it say that in our country there is no basis for terrorists, no training camp.
The security approach has been successful thanks to the strong coordination with relevant neighboring brotherly countries. The perfect agreement of these countries is needed to counter this scourge.
Internally and to complete the security approach, action has been commenced. It aims at sensitizing public opinion on the phenomenon. This awareness aims to immunize younger generations and to prevent recruitment. It all boils down to education. But in the meantime to work on it, was to present these groups in their true face has nothing to do with Islam. Mauritanians in their entirety condemn the phenomenon of extremism.
same time, there were those graces that have freed the youth involved to varying degrees, but weakly, in particular shares. This rule of forgiveness opens the door to opportunity for others to get back on track. Nevertheless, this approach is deeply committed by the recovery of the education system and the fight against poverty.
Tribune: Still on the news, you inspire Wikileaks revelations about our country?
Answer: I take very seriously because it is in fact consistent exemplars of telegrams sent by the U.S. Embassy in Nouakchott to his administration in Washington. However, I believe that what is past is past. Although I think our policies should be, now more cautious when dealing with foreigners. They must also do what they say in all circumstances.
I knew my life was in danger, but it never changed anything on my program. I also know that opponents of the day had the right to fight by all means change because they feared he did not serve their interests. I understand them.
That said, those we talked about are only the visible face of the iceberg. Large alligators that are behind are still holed up waiting for an opportunity to affect change.
Whether they tried to liquidate me or stop the process of change, I do not hold it against them. I have no resentment, no hate. I tell you that I understand them. In 2003, I personally am opposed to an attempt to change because I felt it was an adventure that involved too many risks for the country. Ill-conceived and poorly implemented, I felt the need to combat by all means.
Tribune: Mr. President, there is much talk of an imminent cabinet reshuffle. What is it?
Answer: The change of government will arrive when needed. I will not say that all Mauritanians are equal, but I think we should give those who are appointed to positions of responsibility during to prove themselves. The government will not change until it is proven and it provides the service. For me
any change must be motivated, thoughtful and considered, if we return inevitably back. A minister who has not committed an act decried proven, I do not see why I resign. It's not worth it to change every six months or every year. I think it is fairer to let the ministers adapt to the personality of the President, at his own pace in an attempt to harmonize the action for the achievement of predefined objectives.
Thank you Mr. President Republic
Interview by Ould Oumeïr
Tribune
