EU weighs measures against Mauritania

(PARIS) - The European Union will consider "appropriate measures" to punish Mauritania after it failed to take sufficient steps toward restoring constitutional rule, the French foreign ministry said Thursday.

The move to impose sanctions came as a one-month deadline set by the European Union for Mauritania's ruling junta to free deposed president Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi expired, with no sign of a breakthrough.

"On October 20, the European Union gave the junta one month to make proposals for the return to constitutional order," said foreign ministry spokesman Frederic Desagneaux, speaking for the French EU presidency.

"Given that the junta's proposals have been deemed insufficient by the international community, EU member states will examine, based on the proposals of the European Commission, appropriate measures," he said.

Desagneaux welcomed a decision to allow the ousted president to return to his home village, 250 kilometres (185 miles) from the capital, but noted that he was still under house arrest despite EU demands for his release.

The spokesman did not give specifics, but the European sanctions could in theory include breaking off diplomatic relations to suspending development aid, although humanitarian assistance would not be affected.

The European Union is Mauritania's biggest aid donor and France, the region's former colonial power, still wields economic influence there. Nevertheless, Nouakchott dismissed the threat.

"My country is a sovereign and independent state," declared Communication Minister Mohammed Ould Moine. "That means that no-one, and I mean no-one, has the right to make decisions for my country.

"My country doesn't need a guardian," he told AFP.

Criticism of Mauritania did not come solely from Europe, however. The African Union Peace and Security Council also expressed its "grave concern". Ould Moine was unmoved.

"This is a purely Mauritanian matter. It won't be solved in Washington, Paris or Addis Ababa," he insisted, adding that within days Mauritania would hold a national constitutional conference to decide its own way forward.

Mauritania's first democratically-elected president was ousted on August 6, just hours after he issued a decree firing the military's top brass, including General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz.

Ould Abdel Aziz led the putschists and, since the coup, his junta has taken over the powers of the president and formed a new government with the support of a majority of deputies in parliament.

It has categorically refused international demands to reinstate Abdallahi and has failed to set a date for fresh elections.

Pro-democracy activists held small-scale protests Wednesday but the coup leaders appear secure in power.