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NOUAKCHOTT-The military coup that toppled Mauritanian President Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi this month threatens the future of democracy in Africa if left unchallenged, the deposed president's son said on Sunday.In an interview with Reuters in Nouakchott, Abdallahi's youngest son Ahmed said he believed his father would eventually be restored to power by pressure from within Mauritania and from the international community, which has cut millions of dollars of aid following the August 6 coup in the West Saharan state."I've no doubt that he'll return, it could take 15 days, it could take a month, but there's no doubt that this country can't live without economic aid," Ahmed Ould Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi said.He complained that the coup leaders were preventing members of Abdallahi's family from visiting the toppled president, who has been kept in detention since the latest military takeover in the country that became Africa's newest oil producer in 2006.President Abdallahi, Mauritania's first freely elected head of state, was deposed by officers led by the chief of his own presidential guard, General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, barely 15 months after he took office after winning elections.That vote was organized after a 2005 coup-also instigated by Abdel Aziz-which toppled authoritarian ruler Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya, who had taken power in a coup 20 years earlier.The August 6 coup followed Abdallahi's sacking of senior military officers, including Abdel Aziz, who were widely seen as supporting the president's opponents. Abdel Aziz says he took over because Abdallahi had shown poor leadership.The African Union has suspended Mauritania after the coup, which has also been strongly condemned by the United Nations, the European Union and the United States.To read more go to:
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSLO17337720080825
As in the days of Noah....
