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Elegant Memo
Land issues in Mauritania: A potential for communal conflicts
3/20/2009
INTEROFFICE MEMORANDUM
To: Julia Harrington (OSJI-NY); Romana Cacchioli (Anti-slavery)
From: Souleymane Sagna, Consultant on Mauritania
Subject: Land issues in
Mauritania: A Potential for conflicts
16/03/2011
Cc: Mamadou Sarr (FONADH);
Boubacar Messaoud (Sos-
Esclaves)
Memo
Land issues in Mauritania and the potential for communal
conflicts
[Type the abstract of the document here. The abstract is
typically a short summary of the contents of the document.
Type the abstract of the document here. The abstract is
typically a short summary of the contents of the
document.]
Souleymane Sagna
3/20/2009
Memo
Land issues in Mauritania: A potential for
communal conflicts
This memorandum sets out the issues of land in Mauritania and the potential for communal
conflicts between the Mauritanian refugees communities from Senegal and Mali voluntarily
returning home since January 28, 2008 under the aegis of the UNHCR, and the Beydans
communities who benefited from land redistribution after the lands were left behind by the
deportees during their deportation to Senegal or their flight to Mali; between the Haratin
communities who are progressively getting emancipated from their Beydan masters and; between
the Haratins communities reinforced by their fellows who had been forcibly returned from Senegal
in retaliation during the same conflict of 1989
2009
Souleymane Sagna
Consultant On Mauritania c/o Anti-Slavery, IHRDA
3/20/2009

2. - 2 - 2
This memorandum sets out the issues of land in Mauritania and the potential for communal conflicts
between the Mauritanian refugees communities from Senegal and Mali voluntarily returning home
since January 28, 2008 under the aegis of the UNHCR, the Beydans communities who benefited from
land redistribution after the lands were left behind by the deportees during their deportation to Senegal
or their flight to Mali; between the haratin communities who are progressively getting emancipated
from their Beydan masters and; between the haratin communities reinforced by their fellows who had
been forcibly returned from Senegal in retaliation during the same conflict of 1989
Objective of the memo:
1. The objective of this memo paper is to draw attention on the overt and latent conflicts over
land in the returnees sites in the region of Brakna, Trarza and Gorgol where Mauritanian
refugees from Senegal and Mali are been returning since January 29th
, 2008. It addresses the
issue of the compensation and land redistribution and shows that the status quo over the
handling currently maintained is likely to awake the demons of violence
Factual Background
2. Twenty years after their deportation, Mauritanian refugees in Mali and Senegal1 are
voluntarily returning to Mauritania to recover their citizenship rights, including their
property rights including their farming and grazing lands, their right to be re-instated since
they were illegally radiated from public office during their deportation and their right to due
process of law, made impossible due to the control of the Beydan class over the state
apparatus and their subsequent discriminatory practices over the black communities in
Mauritania, making of the Negro-Mauritanians and the Haratins second class citizens2
.
3. Although many refugees from Senegal started to return spontaneously without a UNHCR
voluntary return process by 1994; this time refugees are returning in their country after firm
engagements from the Mauritanian government to grant returnees a dignified return; clear
rules of engagement of UNHCR within the framework of a tripartite agreement signed
between Islamic Republic of Mauritania -their country of origin, the government of Senegal -
the country of asylum and the UNHCR signed on November 15th 2007.
4. The Mauritanian engagement under the tripartite agreement met with the Mauritanian
refugees conditions set as sine quo no for a dignified return; especifically an organized return
1
According various sources (refugees associations, media, UNHCR) between 1989 et 1991 more than 100000 persons had been
deported from Mauritania in inhuman conditions, including 25 000 Senegalese and more than 75 000 negro-Mauritanians,
mainly, Haal-Pulaaren (Fulani), Soninké, and Wolof.
2 As FONADH wrote the Negro-Mauritanians’ second class citizenship status is structured in the facts and extends to all level of
the state apparatus. The consequences vis-à-vis this population appears in the very low degree of sanction or the total impunity of
crime committed against them by individuals or by the state agents”. [...] As for the Hratins, especially those still in boundage,
their live under constraint or discriminations [...] it still remains that in case of litigation before the courts, for slavery cases,
judges never decide in favour of the victims. Cf. Alternative report of the Forum des Organisations Nationales de Defense des
Droits de l’Homme ( FONADH ) presented during the examination of governments reports at the 65th
session of the Committee
for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, United Nations, Geneva, Switzerland, held in 2-20 august 2004, at page 3

3. - 3 - 3
under the aegis of the UNHCR; the recovery of their citizenship rights; the reinstatement of
former civil servants; the resettlement of displaced villages at their place of origin and the
restitution of lands and lost properties, or failing that, a fair compensation.
The issue of Land restitution.
5. Fourteen months (14) after the voluntary return process in Mauritania, the issue of the
restitution of land to the returnees is still not addressed; which is not surprising seeing that
land is highly sensitive in Mauritania and communities are prone to conflict for their land. In
fact the issue of land had been the root cause of the deportations of the negro-Mauritanian
had been the issue of land.
6. Indeed, the introduction of the Land Reform Act in 1983 geared the radicalisation of the
black communities so called “Negro-Mauritanians” who perceived it as a state policy
destined to deprive them of their main source of living3. The pretext was found in a mere
conflict between a Mauritanian herdsman and a Senegalese farmer to deport more than 100
000 black Mauritanians to Senegal and Mali.
Impact of the Land refortm act (Act No 83.123 of June 1983)
7. Many factors makes the application of new land reform a source of communal and
protracted conflict in many part of Africa where land is intrinsically a means of dominance,
but also a space of historical and psychological identity. This is particularly true in the
Mauritanian context.
8. Confronted with the scramble to the valley due to severe droughts in the late seventies, and
the challenge to ensure food security through the involvement to the Senegal river dam, the
government of Mauritania introduced a land reform that stipulated that “the land belong to
the whole nation and any Mauritanian can become an owner without discrimination in
conformity with the law” (Art. 1). The law introduced also the individualisation of land
property, outlawing in the same token the traditional land tenure (Art. 3). As a result, tribes
and communities that pretended ownership on lands found their pretentions questionned by
the state, especially where there were not able to exploit such lands. Article 4 clearly specifies
that any land ownership not directly attached to a moral or physical person and that is not
do not result of an exploitation (mise en valeur ?) legally protected are inexistent. Last but
not least, the land reform stated that all lands that are not exploited or that do not show
trace of « exploitation » are the property of the state .
3 In fact in 1986, three years before the deportation, the leaders of the outlawed political movement so-called (Forces de
Liberation Africaines de Mauritanie) in a document so-called manifete du Negro-African opprimee” leaders calling for their
communities to boycott, ban, kill if necessary those who encourage the sale of lands, and to destroy, burn the properties of those
strangers who develop their lands3
. In reaction the state authorites organised a man hunt that resulted in the forced exile, torture,
extra-judiaciry killing, arrest, and radiation from office of hundreds of the Black elite suspected of being member of FLAM.

4. - 4 - 4
9. In its face the land reform act is quite fair in any modern society. However the application of
such law is the cause of many conflicts in Africa. It creates a feeling of grievance among
communities that do not have a sense of stateness or that ignore the state power to regulate
land for the social and economic development of the country, especially in the case of
communities that feel a social exclusion like the negro-mauritanians and the haratins. (e.g. this
feeling appeared in the Casamanace longstanding rebellion)
10. In the situation of Mauritania the rampant racist and discriminatory practices and attitude
vis-a-vis the haratins and negro-Mauritanian communities made the application of the so-
called act particularly prone to conflict. In the context where the state machinery is
dominated by the Beydan communal group irresponsive to the needs of the haratin and
negro-mauritanian communities; the fact that the local administrative Beydan authorities
backed by the tribal clienteles, are vested with the mission to implement the law paved the
way to community fragment and protracted social conflicts.
11. As revealed by a survey commissioned by the National Agencie for the insertion of returnees
and not yet made public); from 1985 to 1990 many abuses and mismanagement had been
noted:
 An anarchical land redistribution that ignored the principle of exploiter=owner,
 Confiscation of land yet showing trace of exploitation
 Deprivation of vital space to villages causing their isolation/stifling
 Politicization of land attribution of land to satisfy a clientele mainly influential Beydans
tribesmen or businessmen often from capital cities to the detriment of the
autochthones.
 Discriminatory attribution of land, or attribution without consting local communities
and without publicity, etc.
 Reattribution of land left vacant by owners had been deported by the same
administrative authorities
All actions that made the land reform act appear in the eyes of the negro-mauritanian as
a deliberate law and its insidious application as a new tool to deprive them of the sole
element of identity (ancestral land) that attached them to the country to which they feel
historically and nationally bonded.
12. The issue of land is also very salient between the Haratins and the Beydans from whom they
progressively got emancipated. Many cases involving emancipated Haratins and Beydans
have been reported to SOS-Esclaves. The Haratins, question the traditional system of
farming that consisted of giving a certain amount of farming products to the tribes of their
former masters who pretend ownership over lands that are legally under the Act the
property of those who exploit it (the haratins)
13. Most of the time, land conflict occurred between Haratins and the Beydans communities
who often attempted to take off the land from the Haratins in complicity with the local
administrative authorities mainly from the Beydans. In the past, haratins claimed violently
clear rights on land since in accordance with the principle that the land belong to those who

5. - 5 - 5
exploit it. In the beginning of the eighties revolts between haratins and Beydans occurred in
the El Ghabra area (1980) and at Tamecheket (1982) other areas acknowledged the same
type of conflict. However in the context of the refugees returning to their locations in the
valley, land conflict involving haratins takes a new dimension with the returnees.
14. This is due to the fact that at the moment of deportations of negro-mauritanians and
Senegalese nationals from Mauritania, the Mauritanian nationals mostly emancipated Haratins
long established in Senegal were forced to return in Mauritania as retaliation to the expulsion
of Senegalese communities in Mauritania. As reported by Centre of geopolitical information
of the French Commission des Recours des Refugies (CRR), the Mauritanians forcibly
repatriated from Senegal at the same period in 1989 have been settled by the Mauritanian
authorities on the land left behind by the deportees. Therefore, many farming perimeters
located in emptied villages had been reallocated by the administrative authorities to the latter
as a reinsertion. According to the CRR, for instance the local administrative authorities gave
1580 hectares of irrigated to 4959 families composed of repatriated Mauritanians and
Haratins and gave them weapons to fight the deported Fulani who frequently tried to cross
the border to raid the areas in desperate attempts to take back their cattle and other goods
left behind4
.
15. In its 2000 World Refugee Survey, the United States Committee for Refugees stated: the
government reinsertion of Mauritanian returnees initiatives as follow: “The government
operated a land reform program, ostensibly to provide land to returnees (those expulsed
from Senegal in 1989 and other landless families5
.
16. With the current voluntary return context, the negro-mauritanian refugees returning
to their place of origin are not only aware that Mauritania is under surveillance by the
international community owing to the UNHCR involvement, but also they clearly express
that will not accept to be intimidated by some local police as was the case of those who
returned previously in the late nineties in a quite clandestine manner and supported regular
harassment, abusive detention when they attempted to visit.
The new conflict mapping
17. In light of the land contentious that already appears in the field the ingredients are
put together to open new strife, and the ongoing repatriation process may bring the critical
mass of the returning communities that will finally enough strong to claim violently their
rights to the lands.
4 See the article « Réforme foncière et récupération des terres en Mauritanie” Centre d’information géopolitique,
Commission des Recours des Refugies 01/01/2005
5 See the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Mauritania: Conditions regarding the situation of returnees who
left the country after the 1989 exodus of black Mauritania, 15 May 2001. MRT37153.E. Available at:
http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/refworld/rwmain?docid=3df4be750 [accessed 15 July 2007]. Also,
in In November 2006, a Justice Initiative mission to Nouakchott spoke with several expelled civil servants who had been unable to regain their jobs
although they returned in 1995 or before. Some of them had also had great difficulties regaining their id cards.

6. - 6 - 6
The warning signs of land conflicts.
18. May 2008: Ibrahima Diop Case, after his return Ibrahima Diop realized that his land
was occupied by a Beydan. After the local authorities turned a deaf ear to his complaint he
did justice himself by dismantling the installation the latter made on his land. Mr Diop
affirms that he had all document property. He was arrested for some days for property
destruction. After intervention of our partner and other NGOs he was released.
19. July 2008: Keur Madicke case: after unresolved claims to the local administrative
authorities, the returnees communities seized our partner (FONADH) and made a press
conference where they stated that they reserved the right to use all options to get back their
land including demonstration. This was confirmed by the returnee leaders to Mr Sagna at
Keur Madicke in a mission with Bill Berkely on behalf of IHRDA and Open Society. The
returnees claim that132 hectares out of the 150 they used to exploit have been attributed to
Haratins that were expulsed from Senegal. They also claim that their vital space used as a
grazing land had been obstructed by a private (a Beydan agro-Businessman) to whom the
space reserved for the villagers as a vital space had been attributed after their deportation.
20. May 2008: the Madina Salam returnee claims that out 4 farming perimeters only two
had been given back to them. the other were given to Haratins expulsed from Senegal. The
coming returnees are therefore landless and want to get back their 2 perimeters (43 Hectares)
In almost all returnees sites there is a fait accompli; the lands that used to be exploited by
the negro-mauritanians before their deportation had been splitted and attributed either to
private Beydan agro-businessmen or to Haratins groups. Although no violent clash had
been noticed there are clear warning that the voice of hardliners are getting more and more
audible. In an unpublished report commissioned by ANAIR, the Returnees reinsertion
agency, the locality of Mbagne is mentioned as a preoccupying case because of the radical
position being taken by the returnee communities. If nothing done clashes may occur
between the Haratins of private agro-businessmen tribesmen.
Factors likely to fuel land conflicts.
21. The increasing value of the land: the lands are gaining more value in the valley
areas because of the development programs, in the forms of roads construction, (Rosso-
Bogué) ; and the state resolve to give more importance to agriculture6
to challenge food
insecurity caused by the so-called climate change;
22. The emotional and cultural ties to the land: the negro-mauritanian returnnes are
autochthonous to the valley, unlike the Haratins resettled in their land or the private Beydan
6
In May 2008 President Sidy reaffirmed the State determination to develop the valley areas in
order to securitize food for Mauritania during a visit to the refugee sites at PK 6 (Julia, Sheila
and Souleymane mission to refugee sites at Rosso and Madina Salam)

7. - 7 - 7
agro-businessmen who in many case got the land in confusing manner. therefore the land is
not a mere space for farming or housing use but a means of identification.
23. The land as livelihood security: the Haratins and Beydans will not surrender
without advantageous compensation the land to them reattributed under the Land Reform
Act. The onus will be placed to the local administrative authorities who gave it to them,
either in good faith or abusively.
24. The lack of trust in the institutions: through the land law, the local authorities
including the Wali (governors), the Hakem (prefects) were given power to allocate lands to
private or communities. Unfortunately, this constituted a means for them to distribute lands
to their tribesmen, their clientele, or to the best offering. Today, returnees feel that they are
vested the right to contest these administrative acts.
25. The increase of Haratins movement plight for equal citizenship: In the context
of voluntary return, a new law criminalizing slavery was passed on September 15th
2007. This
remobilised the Haratins movements to promote the emancipation of Haratins through
access to property as the only sustainable measure to emancipate from the former and earn a
decent living. Therefore there are concerns that watchword will be not to surrender lands to
returnees without land compensation.
The State authorities responses.
26. Discretionary power of local administrative: so far the state authorities avoided to
address the land issue after 14 months of voluntary return process when more than 9000
thousands are already back to their place of origin. However, some local administrative
authorities (hakems or Wali) have taken measures to alleviate tensions. For instance at Keur
Madicke, the dam that was built by a private and that were stifling the village had been
displaced to free two hectares of vital space. All the same with Ibrahima Diop case where the
Hakem intervene to get him released and offered to find a solution to his land claim.
Legal limits
27. Most of returnees claiming their land are not in position to produce ownership
document as a piece of evidence either because they lost or they got them destroyed or
confiscated by the security agents in 1989. Therefore this creates a confusion in a situation of
untrust and suspicion between the administration and the claimants.
28. Concerning the privates beydan to whom large surfaces of land had been allotted,
they manage to produce valid documents obtained from the authorities (minister of interior,
governors or hakems that were serving in those areas at the time of the deportation.
Therefore there people are legal tenders.
Options for tension alleviation:

8. - 8 - 8
29. Impact of the development programs: as part of the development programs launched
by President Sidy before his overturn, the construction of the road linking Rosso to Bogue
alongside the valley gives new opportunities for farming land arrangements. As a result, as
the ANAIR director revealed 140000 hectares are available and only 40000 are being
exploited. Therefore it is possible to attribute land to all claimants. However, the suspension
of bilateral funding by the International community subsequent to the military coup of 6th
of
June 2008 may seriously hampers the achievement of such programs.
30. Finally the governmental authorities may offer options as suggested by many actors
including ANAIR through the scheme land-for-land to returnees in this context of national
reconciliation project. In the case that state maintains the dynamics of national reconciliation
through pardon and dialogue. But the seeing the emotional and cultural ties of the returnees
to their familial or clanic land, will they accept to renounce to the land of their birth? That is
the question.
Recommendations:
From what precedes, conflict potentials are real, and may involve all the three main
communities fighting each others: the negro-Mauritanian group (Fulani, Wolof and Soninke)
the Haratins and the Beydans. Therefore it is recommendable to urge for the relevant actors
to actively commit themselves in order to prevent clashes
 NGOs should provide capacity building to the different protagonists by organising
conflict prevention training sessions for leaders of different community leaders
including the returnees, the Haratins and the Beydans,
 Advocacy/ activities with the state authorities should be done in order to open a
probationary period that allows to rebut the local administrative authorities decision
of land redistribution,
 The state authorities should follow the example of the Commission d’identification
et d’orientation set for the identification of the returnees as Mauritanian and lodged
at the ministry of the Interior, by creating a steering committee or a commission for
land management in order to deal with all land litigations.

9. - 9 - 9
References :
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Aldershot, Dartmouth.
Azar, E. and Moon. C. (1986). “Managing Protracted Social Conflicts in the Third World:
Facilitation and Development Diplomacy”, Millennium, Vol. 15, No.3, pp. 393-406.
Burton, J. W. 1998 "Conflict Resolution: The Human Dimension." International Journal of
Peace Studies, Vol. 3, No. 1. Available at: www.gmu.edu/academic/ijps/vol3_1/burton.htm
Fleischman, J. (1994) « Campagne de terreur en Mauritanie : La campagne de répression des Noirs africains soutenus par
l’Etat. », Human Rights Watch, April 1994,
Forum des Organisations nationales de defense des droits de l’Homme (2004). « Alternative country Report» .
In 65th
Session of the Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, 2-20 August 2004,
Geneva, Switzerland.
« Réforme foncière et récupération des terres en Mauritanie” Centre d’information géopolitique,
Commission des Recours des Refugies, 2005, France
Lechartier, .C. 2005 « L'espace nomade du pouvoir politique en Mauritanie. Des lieux de la bediyya
de l'Est à la capitale. » In Doctoral thesis of Geopgraphy University of Rouen.
Leservoisier, O. (1994) “La question fonciere en Mauritanie: Terres et pouvoirs dans la region
du Gorgol”. Harmattan, France.
Santoir, Ch. 1998 « Les naufragés du fleuve : le problème des réfugiés mauritaniensdans la vallée du fleuve Sénégal »
In Autrepart (5), 1998 pp. 95-119,