Opinion ID: 168640
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Mauritania

Text: 2 The Islamic Republic of Mauritania is located in northwest Africa, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean, Senegal, Mali, Algeria, and Western Sahara. Formerly a French colony, the country gained its independence in 1960, an event that triggered a large migration of native sub-Saharan peoples to the area north of the Senegal River. 1 Among these peoples were the Pulaar, or Fulani, a black African nomadic group with roots in the region dating back to at least the fourteenth century. 2 The country's ethnic makeup is now approximately forty percent African-Arab-Berber (often called Black Moor), thirty percent Arab-Berber (White Moor), and thirty percent Black African (mostly Wolof, Tukulor, Soninke, and Fulani). 3 Over time, conflict arose between the majority Moor population, which viewed Mauritania as an Arab nation, and the black Africans, who sought a more substantial role for sub-Saharan peoples and their way of life. The conflict came to a head in 1989 when violence erupted between the groups and thousands of black Africans were forced to leave the country and had their land and property confiscated. Though the Mauritanian government denies the allegations, a human rights group maintains that [s]ince 1989, tens of thousands of black Mauritanians have been forcibly expelled, and hundreds more have been tortured or killed .... The campaign to eliminate black culture in Mauritania, orchestrated by the white Moor rulers, reached its height in the late 1980s and early 1990s.... Human Rights Watch/Africa, Mauritania's Campaign of Terror 1 (1994), Admin. R. at 270. The State Department has also recognized the intercommunal violence that broke out in April 1989. Mauritania Note, supra note 1.