Exit Daddah

A costly war provokes a coup

Citizens of the quiet, sand-swept Mauritanian capital of Nouakchott (pop. 103,500) were trudging to their jobs early one morning last week when a brusque military order was broadcast: Go home. A political storm had blown up in the hot Sahara wind. Shortly afterward, as army Land Rovers equipped with machine guns appeared on street corners, the nature of the tempest became clear. Officers of the 15,000-man Mauritanian army, led by Lieut. Colonel Mustapha Ould Mohammed Salek, 42, had overthrown the regime of President Moktar Ould Daddah, 53, the mild-mannered strongman who had ruled the poverty-stricken country of 1.5 million Muslims since it gained independence from France in 1960.

The coup--which leaves 22 of Africa's 50 independent countries controlled by the military--was a bloodless one. Daddah was arrested at home and bundled off unharmed to a site outside the capital. Salek, the chief of staff, announced that government was in the hands of an 18-man "Military Committee for National Redress," composed of 16 other officers and a police commissioner.

The officers accused Daddah of corruption, but a more likely reason for the coup was Mauritania's woeful record in the drawn-out guerrilla war it is fighting, alongside Morocco, in the former Spanish Sahara. The two countries moved into the phosphate-rich colony in 1975, when Spain agreed to withdraw its troops. Despite military help from Morocco and France, Mauritania has been battered by the 5,000 members of the Marxistoriented, Algerian-backed, Polisario guerrilla movement, which demands independence for the region.

The change of regime, however, does not necessarily mean that Mauritania will abandon its costly prize. While announcing that he would "confront the problem of the Sahara," Salek had by week's end not yet taken up a cease-fire offer from the Polisario guerrillas.

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