There was a coup in Mauritania last week. Lead by General Abdelaziz, the military seized power and arrested the only democratic president the country has had in over 40 years, Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi.

Most Americans have never heard of this country situated on the west coast of Africa, between Morocco and Senegal. But I had spent several weeks there in April, and I learned through conversations with the people, that sometimes coups are not as bad as the press reports- especially in Africa.
An editorial in African  news site, This Day, wrote: “This is indeed one coup too many.  There is no justification for it and the wrong signal it sends is condemnable. Mauritania has had a history of military putsches, the news of which was received in bad taste by the rest of the world.”

Reuters reported that the U.S. threatened to cut aide to the country if they didn’t reinstate Abdallahi: “The August 6 coup provoked virtually unanimous condemnation from the United Nations, the European Union and other quarters. The African Union suspended the Islamic republic and the United States and France quickly suspended non-humanitarian aid.”

While the press presented this is as a terrible development, most of the people I spoke with said the president was ineffective and corruption and payoffs were boundless. The rumors had long simmered that the military would take over.

In late December, four French tourists were murdered outside of the capital; the international press called it a terrorist attack.

While I was there, the police killed three of the men in a shootout somewhere near the capital, Nouakchott.  I was on the other side of town and missed the “excitement. ”
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