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| Mauritania Man Appeals for Enslaved Family |
| 2004-02-19 |
| EFL A free man in Mauritania pleaded for the liberation of a wife and children he said were still caught in slavery, saying they were being held by their owners in Mauritania’s remote east. The account of Cheikhna Ould Beilil, a free-born man who says he is married to a slave, Kelizima Mint Bota, was the second case to emerge in recent weeks of traditional slavery that international rights groups say still binds hundreds of thousands into servitude in West Africa. Local anti-slavery and rights groups brought his case forward this week. "It’s good fortune" to have had two cases of slavery come to light in such a short period, said Boubacar Ould Messaoud, president of SOS Esclave. "It’s not from the same family. It’s not from the same region. That’s because slavery exists everywhere in Mauritania," Ould Messaoud said. Africa is a parallel universe, in which Jefferson Davis triumphed. Mauritania, a nation of some 3 million people, outlawed slavery in 1981, and says the practice no longer exists within its borders. A top Interior Ministry official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the government would have no comment on the allegation. Ould Beilil’s story started eight years ago, when he met alleged slave Mint Bota at the market in Guerrou, a town in the Mauritanian desert 300 miles east of Nouakchott. It must be tough being an alleged slave. I bet all the good jobs go to the fully qualified slaves. He later married her -- a rare event between free Mauritanians and slaves. Ould Beilil and his wife, both black Africans, settled just outside the compound of the Arab family that owned her, he said. After Ould Beilil squabbled with Mint Bota’s masters, he attempted to move his family away from the compound -- but the owners prevented her and the children from leaving in March. "That’s when the problems started," said Ould Beilil. "The masters said no, ’Because your wife is our slave and she has to stay with us.’" Traditionally, a slavewoman’s children become her masters’ property, even if the father is a free man. I remember that tradition from the mini-series of Alex Haley’s book Roots. I Must have misunderstood the show’s premise though. I thought it was a historical drama. Ould Beilil provided the AP with a copy of what he said was a ruling from a local Sharia court, enforcing Islamic law, in June. The alleged ruling said the family should be together under Ould Beilil’s direction. It said nothing about slavery. Despite the ruling, Mint Bota’s masters still will not allow his family to leave their conditions of forced work -- and local police have told him to forget the family, Ould Beilil said... While slavery has been outlawed across Africa, the United Nations, U.S. State Department and human rights groups have said it persists in the continent’s north and west. The American Anti-Slavery Group says more than 200,000 people currently labor as slaves in Mauritania, Niger and Sudan, nations on centuries-old Arab-African Saharan trade routes. Some 100,000 of those are in Mauritania, the Boston-based group says. The question of slavery remains a taboo topic in Mauritania, with the government jailing Ould Messaoud and other rights activists in the 1990s for charging that slavery persists. We’ll show you some slavery. Get to work on that rock pile. The other recent, rare public case of Mauritanian slavery saw Matalla, a 20-year-old camel herder, allegedly flee his masters, ultimately winding up in the protection of a free relative. Officials for SOS Esclave -- who fear that Matalla could be recaptured by his masters -- said Tuesday he is still free. Don’t let him come to America, I don’t know that Dred Scott was ever repealled. |
| Posted by:Super Hose |
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| Posted by: Mike Sylwester 2004-2-19 7:32:15 PM |
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| Posted by: phil_b 2004-2-19 7:21:58 PM |
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| Posted by: TS 2004-2-19 6:29:48 PM |
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| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2004-2-19 4:10:23 PM |
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| Posted by: Raj 2004-2-19 12:12:15 PM |
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| Posted by: GK 2004-2-19 12:11:53 PM |