| Current affairs | |
| 18 Aug 2008, NewAgeIslam.Com | |
| Did Mauritania really need a coup? Only Riyadh knows for sure! | |
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By: Hassan Al-Haifi
There we go again! It just seems that the Arabs have the worst misconception about what men in uniform, military or just even those who are on guard duty should really be doing, which has nothing to do with taking the helms of authority in their homelands to satisfy their immature lust for power. In the poorest of the poor countries, the military brass and the security muggers seem to think that they have an open mandate to keep their people under repression and deprivation, while they exercise the worst examples of governance anyone has come up with.
Needless to say, it is not an inescapable secret that what prompted the generals of Mauritania to come wrest their people of their God given and hard won freedom and democracy is that bastion of anti-democratic maturity, were the Bedouins who have been the enemies of all oppressed people in the region from the Atlantic to the Gulf (Persian that is, according to the standard definition of "Gulf", as much as it is to the dislike of our Northern neighbours). Yes, from Yemen to the Sudan and now to Mauritania, there is no doubt in the observer's intuition that our beloved northern neighbours have a hobby of pouring their dough on the barracks of deprived soldiers, who are all of a sudden awash with hundred dollar bills, which they could never in the past dream of seeing with their very eyes, let alone holding in their very hands! Time and again, the Saudi penchant for overthrowing democratic regimes, before they have a chance to get off the ground has sprung up again in the far corner of the Maghreb Al-Arabi to ensure that the model democracy initiated by Col. Ely Ould Mohamed Vall, who took over at Nouakchott to free Mauritania from a previous oppressive military regime to herald his country onto the path of righteous government: for the people, by the people and for the eternal welfare of the people – a distant cry from the idea of governance as the Saudis understand it.
Surely the middle level ousted officers, who now make up the ruling Junta in Nouakchott had an agenda in their minds long before their ouster by the rightfully elected legitimate President of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, and there is very little to convince the observer otherwise than that this is indeed a coup that was planned in the plush meeting rooms of the scheming luxurious Government buildings of the House of Saud, who wish to be known as the "Servants of the Two Sanctified Homes of Allah (Mecca and Medina)". They may have also been assisted elsewhere, at the covert operations rooms of their Western Masters.
Really now, it has come time to call a spade a spade in this region and for all intents and purposes there is very little to go on to try to free the Saudis from the havoc in governance that has plagued this region. We can even understand how the Saudis might be nervous about any democratic developments knocking at the gates of Riyadh. But, for Heaven's sake can't our Saudi brothers mind their own business when it comes to the running of affairs in other Arab states? It is bad enough that the regime in Riyadh is on the "watch list" of every advocacy group in the world for their notorious contempt for human rights and even religious freedom (including the intolerance against their fellow Moslems!) at home and abroad. If the people of Saudi Arabians are content with this façade of do-goodness that characterizes the Saudi regime, all is well and dandy.
But why should the regime in Riyadh find it appetizing to meddle in the affairs of sovereign states by taking advantage of their power hungry and formerly food hungry generals, who take it upon themselves to despoil the scanty resources of their own countries after having been tempted by the scanty bag loads of dollar bills delivered to them for their cooperation with the Saudi regime in removing this hated phenomenon in their vocabulary called democratic government.
Surely, the Saudis have proven that they are not capable of managing this vast wealth that has been given to them as a burden from the Lord to further make them eligible for hell. After all, aren't they responsible for their wasteful plunder of the resources of their people and all Moslems of the world? They could have made a good name for themselves in more attractive ways by investing these resources to help harness the energies of the people of Yemen, the Sudan, Mauritania, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Lebanon, Pakistan and elsewhere where the Saudi penchant for evil has been allowed to instil suffering and agony, just so Moslems and Arabs should forget about the idea of democratic rule. The problem with the Saudis, like the Israelis and all other oppressive regimes, is that democracy is their worst enemy. It was democracy that produced Hezbollah and it was democracy that was going to wrest the Sudan, Mauritania and Yemen, and many other states that had great potential if they had their house in order.
But alas, the Saudi monarchy saw any such developments as feeding grounds for unrest in their own turf, or simply playgrounds, where they could threw a few pennies to some eager half naked soldiers to take on the job of bringing pain and distress to their very own people while being operated on by remote control keys from Riyadh. Look at how pathetic all these states are and one can see why the observer is not at all delighted by the turn of events in Mauritania.
To help the reader get prepared, Saudi Arabia saw no qualms in assuring the death of Benazir Bhutto to make way for the re-rise of Nawaz Sharif, who brought on the Taliban and all the mess that Central Asia is going through now. Just wait and see!
Hassan Al-Haifi has been a Yemeni political economist and journalist for more than 20 years. View Source article: |
9:07 AM
Sultan Shahin
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