Monaco
I INTRODUCTION
Monaco, small country in southwestern Europe. Monaco lies on the Mediterranean Sea at the foot of the Maritime Alps, forming an enclave in southeastern France. After Vatican City, Monaco is the smallest nation in the world, with a land area of just 1.95 sq km (0.75 sq mi).
Located just east of Nice on the French Riviera and near the border with Italy, Monaco is one of Europe’s most popular resort areas. Sheltered by the lower slopes of the rugged Alps, Monaco enjoys a Mediterranean climate, with hot, dry summers and mild winters. Tourism is an economic mainstay of Monaco, which is famed for its fine beaches and hotels, its casinos, and the annual Monaco Grand Prix automobile race.
Tiny Monaco is highly urbanized, making it the most densely populated nation in the world. Villas, hotels, shops, and high-rise apartments climb up the rocky hills. To meet demands for more space, Monaco has created new land by dumping rock and earth along the shore. Monaco’s small harbor provides anchorage and docking facilities for cruise ships, luxury yachts, and smaller pleasure craft.
Although independent, Monaco is closely associated with France in economic matters and foreign affairs. Princes of the Grimaldi family from Genoa have ruled Monaco for most of the last seven centuries. Today, Monaco remains a principality (a territory ruled by a prince). Under a constitution adopted in 1962, the prince shares power with an elected legislature. In 1993 Monaco became a full member of the United Nations (UN), and in 2004 it joined the Council of Europe.
II PEOPLE
Monaco’s estimated population in 2008 was 32,796. Monaco’s population density, at 16,398 persons per sq km (42,471 per sq mi), is higher than any other nation. The citizens of Monaco are called Monégasques.
A Language and Religion
Less than 20 percent of Monaco’s residents are native-born citizens, or Monégasque. Most of the residents are French, with sizable Italian, American, and British communities. French, the official language, is spoken by about half the population as a mother tongue. About 16 percent of the population speaks Monégasque, a mixture of French and Italian dialects, as a first language. Italian and English are also spoken. Monaco is overwhelmingly Roman Catholic.
B Districts
Monaco is divided into four districts, or quartiers: Monaco-Ville, La Condamine, Fontvieille, and Monte Carlo. Monaco-Ville, an ancient fortified town, is the oldest district and capital of the principality. A scenic area of narrow streets, it covers a flat-topped rocky peninsula that rises 60 m (200 ft) above the Mediterranean. At the edge of the peninsula is Monaco’s royal palace, overlooking Monaco-Ville. An internationally respected Oceanographic Museum (Musée Océanographique), which contains one of Europe’s best aquariums and was once under the direction of Jacques-Yves Cousteau, is built into the peninsula’s steep face.
La Condamine, the chief port area and business district, lies at the foot of the peninsula, between Monte Carlo and Monaco-Ville. Fontvieille, an industrial and residential district west of Monte Carlo, is built largely on land reclaimed from the sea since the early 1980s.
Monte Carlo is the main residential and resort area, with its fashionable hotels, high-rise apartments, beaches, and the famed Monte Carlo Casino. Within the casino complex is the Grand Théâtre de Monte Carlo (designed by 19th century French architect Charles Garnier), an opera and ballet house, and the headquarters of the Ballets de Monte Carlo. Renowned as a glamorous playground for the wealthy, Monte Carlo hosts international fashion shows, sporting events, and is the center of the Monaco Grand Prix, a prestigious Formula One automobile racing event held annually in May. Auto racing fans also enjoy the Monte Carlo Rally, an event held every January.
III ECONOMY
Monaco is a prosperous country. Living standards are among the highest in the world. Tourism and financial services drive the economy. Each year millions of visitors flock to its beaches, four casinos, performing arts venues, boating facilities, and other attractions. In 2002 Monaco doubled the capacity of its port by installing a massive new floating dock designed to accommodate huge cruise ships.
Monaco’s strict banking secrecy laws and minimal rates of direct taxation have helped it build a profitable banking and finance sector. Citizens of Monaco pay no income tax. Low taxes have prompted many international corporations to establish offices in the principality. However, Monaco’s banking and tax policies have invited sharp criticism from the French government, which has accused the principality of allowing businesses and individuals to evade taxes and launder money in its banks and casinos.
Until 1962, Monaco refused to impose any income taxes on residents or international corporations with headquarters in the country. Wealthy tax exiles from France, among other nations, took up residence in Monaco, knowing their money was safe. Monaco’s status as a tax haven provoked a crisis with France, leading to a compromise arrangement in which noncitizens would be required to pay French income-tax rates and taxes would be levied on corporations with substantial business dealings outside Monaco.
Today, income taxes, in addition to sales taxes, have become an important source of government revenue. Monaco also generates revenue from state-controlled monopolies on the sale of tobacco and colorful postage stamps, which are popular among collectors.
In an effort to further diversify its economy, Monaco has developed some light industries, mainly in Fontvieille. They include pharmaceuticals, perfumes and cosmetics, electronic equipment, paper and cards, clothing and textiles, and plastic goods.
Monaco is in a customs union with France, an arrangement that governs the customs, postal services, telecommunications, and other economic activities. As in France, Monaco’s unit of currency is the euro, the monetary unit of the European Union (EU), although Monaco is not itself an EU member. Monaco’s economy relies heavily on migrant labor, mainly from France and Italy.
IV GOVERNMENT
By tradition, a hereditary prince of the Grimaldi family serves as Monaco’s head of state. The executive branch consists of the prince and a small Council of Government headed by a minister of state. The minister of state is a French civil servant chosen by the prince among several candidates proposed by the French government.
Under a constitution adopted in December 1962, the prince shares legislative authority with the National Council. The 24 members of the council are elected to 5-year terms. Only native Monégasques may vote. Naturalization, the prerogative of the prince, is limited to about 30 people a year. The leading political parties are the Union for Monaco (UNAM) and the National and Democratic Union (UND).
V HISTORY
Archaeological evidence displayed in Monaco’s Museum of Prehistoric Anthropology indicates the presence of Stone Age settlements in Monaco. The ancient Phoenicians, a Mediterranean seafaring people, probably visited Monaco’s shores. The area was subsequently inhabited by the ancient Greeks, and later it prospered under the rule of the Romans. For much of the Middle Ages, Monaco shared the history of the region of Provence in France.
In 1297 Monaco was acquired by the house of Grimaldi, a family from Genoa. The principality was closely allied with Spain from 1524 until 1642, when it became a protectorate of France. In 1793, during the French Revolution, France seized Monaco and the Grimaldi monarchy was deposed. The Congress of Vienna in 1814 restored the Grimaldis to power, and Monaco was made a protectorate of the Kingdom of Sardinia. The Franco-Monégasque treaty signed in 1861 restored Monaco’s sovereignty. In 1865 a customs union was established between Monaco and France.
Monaco’s development as a popular resort area dates from the 1860s, when the famously baroque casino was established in Monte Carlo. Prince Albert I, who reigned from 1889 until 1922, founded the Oceanographic Museum in 1910. The princes of Monaco ruled as absolute monarchs until 1911, when Monaco adopted its first constitution. The constitution established an elected assembly to share power with the prince. In 1918 Monaco entered a treaty with France that assigned France limited responsibility for protecting Monaco. The treaty also stipulated that Monaco would lose its independence and be incorporated into France if the reigning Grimaldi prince died without leaving an heir.
In 1949 Prince Rainier III assumed the throne. His 1956 marriage to the American film actress Grace Kelly focused international attention on Monaco. The marriage reinforced Monaco’s glamorous image and helped turn the tiny principality into a leading destination for wealthy tourists. Princess Grace died following an automobile accident in 1982 near Monte Carlo.
In 1962 Monaco proclaimed a new, more liberal, constitution that abolished capital punishment, extended suffrage to female citizens, and created a new, more powerful assembly elected by native Monégasques. Also in 1962, serious disagreements with France over customs and taxes led to the signing of a new agreement designed to limit the principality’s status as a tax haven for wealthy foreign residents and international corporations.
In 2002, due to Prince Rainier’s fragile health and the bachelor status of his son Prince Albert, Monaco amended its law of succession. The amendment aims to keep the Grimaldi family on the throne, even if Prince Albert fathers no male heirs, by putting Prince Rainier’s daughters, and the daughters’ children as well, in the line of succession.
Prince Albert assumed the regency in March 2005 when Rainier became too ill to perform his royal duties. He became Monaco’s reigning prince, as Albert II, following Rainier’s death on April 6, 2005.
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Friday, August 6, 2010
MOLDOVA
Moldova
I INTRODUCTION
Moldova, republic in southeastern Europe. In Moldovan, the state language, the country’s official name is Republica Moldova. Moldova is bordered on the north, east, and south by Ukraine and on the west by Romania. Moldovans are the country’s largest ethnic group, although other ethnic groups constitute a majority in some regions. Chişinău is Moldova’s capital and largest city.
Present-day Moldova comprises a large part of the eastern half of the historic principality of Moldavia (the principality is generally known by the Westernized form of the name). At its largest extent, in the Middle Ages, the principality stretched from the Dniester River in the east almost to the Carpathian Mountains in the west. Much of the eastern half of Moldavia, between the Prut and Dniester rivers, was traditionally known as Bessarabia (Bessarabiya). Moldavian territory was divided in 1812, when the Ottoman Empire took control of all of the land west of the Prut River and Russia took control of the rest. The Russian government gave the name Bessarabia to the territory under its control to distinguish it from neighboring Ottoman-controlled Moldavia.
In 1918 Bessarabia became independent and then united with Romania. Troops of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR, the successor to the Russian Empire) occupied Bessarabia in 1940. The Soviet government joined most of Bessarabia to part of the already existing Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR), across the Dniester River, to form the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR). Romania regained Bessarabia in 1941 but lost it again to the USSR in 1944. When the USSR collapsed in 1991, the republic became the independent country of Moldova. In addition to the region of Bessarabia, present-day Moldova also includes territory along the left bank of the Dniester known as Trans-Dniester. The remainder of the historic principality of Moldavia is now part of Romania and Ukraine.
After declaring independence in 1991, Moldova signed the agreement establishing the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), an organization composed of former Soviet republics. Moldova became a formal member of the CIS in 1994. That year the country adopted its first post-Soviet constitution. In the early 1990s secessionist movements among certain ethnic groups took hold in the Trans-Dniester region and in the Gagauz region in the south. While the status of the Trans-Dniester region remained an issue as of 1999, the armed conflict over Moldova’s territorial integrity was largely resolved by the mid-1990s.
II LAND AND RESOURCES
Moldova is a landlocked country that covers an area of about 33,700 sq km (about 13,000 sq mi). It was the second smallest republic of the former USSR, after Armenia. The terrain of Moldova is primarily a hilly plain interspersed with deep river valleys. The average elevation is 147 m (482 ft) above sea level. The Kodry Hills occupy the central portion of Moldova, rising to a maximum elevation of about 430 m (about 1,410 ft) at Mount Bălăneşti.
Moldova contains an extensive river system; more than 3,000 rivers and streams traverse the country. The two largest rivers are the Dniester and the Prut, both of which rise in the Carpathian Mountains in Ukraine, to the north of Moldova. The Dniester, the larger of the two rivers, flows through the eastern portion of Moldova in a southeasterly direction. It forms part of the country’s border with Ukraine in the northeast, cuts through Moldova’s interior, and meets the Ukrainian border again in the southeast, where it reenters Ukraine and then empties into the Black Sea. The Prut, a major tributary of the Danube River, forms Moldova’s entire western border with Romania. At the extreme southern tip of Moldova, the Prut joins the Danube, which flows eastward and empties into the Black Sea. Other major rivers include the Yalpug, the Byk, and the Reut.
The hills in the central portion of Moldova are densely forested, mostly with oak and hornbeam trees. Linden, maple, beech, and wild fruit trees also grow in Moldova. Cultivated crops have largely replaced the natural grass cover of the plains, or steppes, in northern and southern Moldova. Grassy salt marshes are common in some river valleys.
A wide variety of wildlife inhabits Moldova, although the population of certain animals, such as wolves, has declined dramatically during the last century. Roe deer, which are native to the region, are abundant. The spotted deer, which was introduced to Moldova, is also well established. Members of the weasel family, including badgers, martens, ermines, and polecats, are common. Other mammals include wild boars, foxes, and hares. Common birds include larks, jays, and blackbirds. Some species, such as the wild goose, are migratory.
Natural resources in Moldova include deposits of lignite, phosphorite, and gypsum. Three-quarters of the country is covered in chernozem, an exceptionally fertile type of soil that is ideal for agriculture.
Moldova’s climate is continental, with conditions modified somewhat by the Black Sea. Winters are fairly mild, with average daily temperatures in January ranging from –5° to –3°C (23° to 27°F). Summers are quite warm, with average daily temperatures in July generally exceeding 20°C (68°F) and daily highs occasionally reaching 40°C (104°F). Precipitation is fairly light and irregular and occurs least in the south, where it averages 350 mm (14 in) per year. Precipitation is greatest in the higher elevation areas, where it can exceed 600 mm (20 in) per year. Moldova’s climate is conducive to agriculture, especially grape growing.
The environment of Moldova suffered extreme degradation during the Soviet period, when industrial and agricultural development proceeded without regard for environmental protection. Excessive use of pesticides resulted in heavily polluted topsoil, and industries lacked emission controls. The Moldovan government is now burdened with the Soviet legacy of ecological mismanagement. Environmental initiatives are administered by the State Department for Environmental Protection. High levels of pesticide and fertilizer use have been linked with elevated rates of disease and infant mortality. Soil contamination and groundwater pollution are associated problems.
III THE PEOPLE OF MOLDOVA
Moldova has a population (2008 estimate) of 4,324,450, giving it an average population density of 130 persons per sq km (336 per sq mi). The country’s inhabitants are concentrated in the northern and central portions of the country. During the Soviet period, Moldova had the highest population density of any Soviet republic, although it was one of the least urbanized. Some 53 percent of the population lives in urban areas. Chişinău, the capital, is located on the Byk River in the central part of the country. Other important cities include Tiraspol and Tighina (also called Bender), both located on the Dniester River in eastern Moldova, and Bălţi, in north central Moldova. The rural population is clustered in large villages.
Ethnic Moldovans constitute about 65 percent of Moldova’s population. The next largest ethnic group is Ukrainians, who make up about 14 percent of the population, followed by Russians, who constitute about 13 percent. Russians and Ukrainians migrated to Moldova in large numbers after World War II (1939-1945), although settlement by these peoples also predated the war. Both groups live almost exclusively in Moldova’s major urban centers and in the Trans-Dniester region in the east, where they constitute slightly more than half of the population. Other ethnic groups include Gagauz (a Turkic people) and Bulgarians; these two groups reside primarily in the southernmost regions of Moldova, having settled there in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
The state language of Moldova is called Moldovan. It is essentially a dialect of Romanian, a Romance language derived mainly from the Latin language. In 1938 the Soviet government mandated that the Cyrillic alphabet (the script of the Russian language) be used for Moldovan instead of the Latin (or Roman) alphabet, in part to bolster its claim that the Moldovan and Romanian languages were separate. In 1989 Moldovan officials passed a law that made Romanian the official language and reintroduced the Latin alphabet. In the constitution adopted in 1994 the language was officially renamed Moldovan. Russian is widely spoken in Moldova and is the predominant language in the Trans-Dniester region. The Gagauz people traditionally speak Gagauz, a Turkic language, although many are also fluent in Russian. Russian missionaries created a Cyrillic alphabet for the Gagauz language in 1895.
Christianity is the predominant religion in Moldova. Nearly half of the population belongs to the Eastern Orthodox Church, and there is also a small Roman Catholic community. Unlike most other Turkic peoples, who are traditionally Muslim, the Gagauz are adherents of Orthodox Christianity. The Communist regime of the Soviet period was officially atheistic and hostile toward religion. Moldova began to experience an upsurge in religious practice in the late 1980s, when the regime relaxed restrictions. This increased after independence, when all restrictions on religious expression were lifted.
Moldova has an adult literacy rate of 99 percent. Illiteracy is slightly higher among the female population than the male population. Education in Moldova is compulsory between the ages of 6 and 16, or through the first cycle of secondary education (the second cycle lasts an additional three years). During the Soviet period, the government established a comprehensive system of universal and tuition-free education. Most schools taught in the Russian language, and education was the primary method of Communist indoctrination. In the early 1990s the government of independent Moldova introduced sweeping changes in educational content, especially in the areas of literature, language, and history. Institutes of higher education include Moldovan State University (founded in 1945), the Technical University of Moldova (1964), the State Agricultural University of Moldova (1932), and the Moldovan G. Musicescu Academy of Music (1940), all located in Chişinău. The capital is also the site of the Moldovan State Art Museum.
The cultural development of Moldova was tied historically to that of Romania, reflecting the Romanian origin of Moldova’s majority population. The first Moldovan books were religious texts that appeared in the mid-17th century. Prominent figures in Moldova’s cultural development include the author Ion Creanga and the poet Mihai Eminescu, both of whom wrote during the 19th century. After the USSR annexed Moldova in the 1940s, the Soviet government sought to sever the region’s close cultural ties with Romania. Romanian literature was officially banned, and many ethnic Romanian intellectuals were executed or deported. During the Soviet period, a government-mandated genre called socialist realism transformed art and literature into a form of Communist propaganda. The characteristics of socialist realism were strongly evident in the early works of Moldovan writers Emelian Bucov and Andrei Lupan, among others. Perhaps the most well-known Moldovan writer during the Soviet period was Ion Druţa, whose works include the play Casa mare (The Parlor, 1962) and the novel Balade de cîmpie (Ballad of the Steppes, 1963).
Moldova has a rich folk culture, which flourished during the Soviet period. The Soviet government strongly promoted Moldovan folk music and dance, but it also introduced subtle distortions to hide the folk traditions’ Romanian origins. For example, the national folk costume was changed to replace the Romanian opinca, a traditional moccasin, with the Russian boot. An ancient folk ballad, the Miorita, holds special significance in Moldovan folk culture. Folk traditions such as ceramics and weaving continue to be practiced in rural areas.
IV ECONOMY
Moldova’s rich black soil makes agriculture the foundation of its economy. When Moldova was part of the USSR, Soviet central planners made its primary role one of supplying food products to the rest of the Soviet Union. The Moldovan economy suffered from the disruption of trading relationships following the breakup of the USSR. The conflict in the Trans-Dniester region greatly compounded the economic turmoil. Moldova’s light industry, which is highly dependent on trade outside the republic, suffered the most. Moldova has survived many of the most severe hardships of its transformation to a free-market economy; however, the country’s economic vitality remains highly dependent upon the size of its crop harvest. The gross domestic product (GDP), which measures the value of goods and service produced, was $3.4 billion in 2006.
With assistance from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other international organizations, Moldova initiated widespread privatization and strict monetary controls soon after independence. The policies contained inflation—which had resulted in prices increasing by as much as 20 times annually in the early 1990s—to one of the lowest rates in the former Soviet republics. To privatize housing and industry, the government issued vouchers to residents based on the number of years they had worked for state enterprises. Residents exchanged the vouchers for ownership shares in enterprises or for housing. By 1997 the majority of former state enterprises were in private hands. Moldova was among the first of the former Soviet republics to allow private ownership of farmland.
Moldova’s economy is built upon agriculture, which contributed 18 percent of GDP in 2006. The country’s extremely fertile land and temperate climate allow for the cultivation of a variety of crops. Moldova is a leading producer of grapes, tobacco, and rose oil. Other crops include wheat; maize; vegetables, such as tomatoes and potatoes; sugar beets; and fruit. Livestock raising, particularly pigs, and milk production are also important.
Industry, which accounted for 15 percent of GDP in 2006, is dominated by food processing. The country has traditionally specialized in frozen and canned vegetables. It is also well known for sparkling wines and brandy produced from its grape harvest. Other industries use locally grown sunflowers and soybeans to make vegetable oil, and beets to process raw sugar. During the Soviet era, manufacturing plants were developed to produce military equipment and consumer goods, and Moldova remains a significant producer of carpets, refrigerators and freezers, washing machines, and televisions. Moldova also has a metal-refining industry, almost entirely dependent upon imported raw materials and fuels. More than one-quarter of Moldova’s industrial plants are in the disputed Trans-Dniester region.
While Moldova has small oil and natural gas reserves, it must import most of its fuels from Russia. Fuel payments are a constant drain on the country’s economy. In 2003, 88 percent of its electricity was produced in thermal plants burning fossil fuels; the remainder was produced in a single hydroelectric facility on the Dniester River.
Moldova’s principal trading relationships are with other former Soviet republics, chiefly Russia and Ukraine. Trade with countries to the west is increasing, led by exchanges with Romania and Germany. Food and agricultural products account for about one-half of exports, while the leading imports are fuel, electricity, and mineral products.
Moldova used the Russian ruble as its legal tender until November 1993, when it introduced its own currency, the leu (plural lei; 13.10 lei equal U.S.$1; 2006 average).
V GOVERNMENT
Moldova ratified a new constitution in 1994 to replace the one of the Soviet period. The constitution confirmed Moldova’s status as an independent and democratic republic. It guarantees that all citizens aged 18 and older may vote and provides for various other civil rights and freedoms.
The president of Moldova is head of state. The president is elected by the Parliament to a four-year term and may serve no more than two consecutive terms. Before 2000 the president was directly elected. The president nominates the prime minister and, upon his or her recommendation, the cabinet. The prime minister and the cabinet must be approved by the Parliament. The president is empowered to dissolve the Parliament. The constitution provides that the president may be impeached for criminal or constitutional offenses.
The Parliament (Parlamentul) is the supreme legislative body of Moldova. A unicameral (single-chamber) assembly, it consists of 101 deputies, who are directly elected for four-year terms. The Parliament convenes for two ordinary sessions per year and may hold extraordinary sessions as well. In addition to enacting laws and performing other basic legislative functions, the Parliament is empowered to declare a state of emergency, martial law, and war.
Moldova’s judicial system includes the Supreme Court of Justice (the country’s highest court), the Court of Appeal, and the Constitutional Court. Tribunals and courts of law adjudicate at the local level. There is also a Higher Magistrates’ Council, which is composed of 11 magistrates who serve for a period of five years. The council acts to ensure the appointment, transfer, and promotion of judges. The president of Moldova appoints judges to the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Justice after the Higher Magistrates’ Council makes its recommendations. The judges are initially appointed for five-year terms; their terms may then be renewed for a period of ten years, after which they may continue to serve until they reach retirement age. The Constitutional Court is the supreme authority on constitutional matters; its decisions are not subject to appeal. It is composed of six judges—two chosen by the president, two by the Parliament, and two by the Higher Magistrates’ Council—who each serve for six years.
For purposes of local government, Moldova is divided into 38 districts, 1 autonomous region (Gagauz-Eri), and 10 urban municipalities (including Chişinău). The municipalities are administered separately from the districts. All of the local jurisdictions are governed by locally elected councils. The prefects and mayors of districts and municipalities are appointed by Moldova’s president after being nominated by the local councils.
The 1994 constitution included a provision to give the Gagauz and Trans-Dniester regions autonomous status, although the terms of self-governance were to be determined through later negotiations. Revision of this special status would require a three-fifths vote of the Parliament. In December of that year, the Moldovan Parliament passed the Law on the Special Status of Gagauz-Eri. Ratified by a local election in the Gagauz region in March 1995, the law allows Gagauz-Eri substantial autonomy, while keeping foreign policy, defense, and monetary issues in the hands of the Moldovan government. The Moldovan government and leadership in the Trans-Dniester region have yet to reach a settlement on Trans-Dniester’s official status.
Moldova has many political parties. The Moldovan Party of Communists (formerly the Communist Party of Moldova), the Democratic Moldova Bloc, and the Christian Democratic People’s Party are represented in Parliament. The Party of Communists, which holds a majority of seats, used to be a pro-Russian party but now advocates closer ties with the European Union (EU). The Democratic Moldova Bloc is a centrist alliance of the Our Moldova Alliance, the Social Liberty Party, and the Democratic Party; it wants closer ties with both Russia and the West. The right-centrist Christian Democratic People’s Party supports closer ties with neighboring Romania.
During the Soviet period, all armed forces were part of a centralized security system. After Moldova gained independence from the USSR, the government of the republic began to create a national defense force. In 2004 Moldova’s armed forces numbered 6,750 personnel; most were in the army, with 1,040 in the air force. In addition, Moldova has a paramilitary force of about 2,500 (attached to the Ministry of the Interior) and a riot police force of 900. Military service is compulsory for 18-year-old males for up to 18 months. The 1994 constitution established Moldova as a permanently neutral state.
Moldova is a member of the United Nations (UN), the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the Partnership for Peace program of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and the Council of Europe (CE).
VI HISTORY
For most of its history, the majority of the territory that constitutes present-day Moldova was the region of Bessarabia, the eastern half of the historic principality of Moldavia. The name Bessarabia derives from a medieval prince, Basarab I, who at one time ruled the southern part of the region. The principality of Moldavia encompassed Bessarabia but extended west to the Siret River near the Carpathian Mountains. From north to south it stretched from the region of Bukovina to the Black Sea. Along with the principality of Walachia to the southwest, Moldavia was one of two principal regions inhabited by Romanian-speaking peoples (sometimes known as Vlachs).
In the mid-13th century Hungarian expansion had driven many Vlachs to settle south and east of the Carpathian Mountains. Legend suggests that in the 14th century Prince Dragos of Transylvania (then a Hungarian province) founded Moldavia and named it after a small mountain stream that his forces crossed upon entering the area. In about 1359 Bogdan I ruled the first independent Moldavian principality described in historical records. Moldavia was bordered to the southwest by Walachia, a feudal state that Basarab had unified in about 1310. Poland and Hungary lay to Moldavia’s north, often exerting some control over Moldavian princes. The Moldavians had to defend their eastern border against the Tatars and their southern border against the Ottoman Empire. During the late 15th century Moldavia came under increasing pressure from the Ottomans. Despite military victories by Stephen the Great, who ruled from 1457 to 1504, Moldavia ultimately succumbed and had to submit to the rule of the Ottoman Empire.
In 1599 Michael the Brave, a Walachian prince, led a revolt against the Ottomans and united Moldavia, Walachia, and Transylvania (a third principality where Romanian speakers lived). However, following Michael’s assassination in 1601, the previous divisions reappeared, with the Ottomans regaining control of Moldavia and Walachia and Hungary taking Transylvania. The differentiation between the eastern and western parts of Moldavia, with the eastern half often identified as Bessarabia, began around this time.
Russia annexed the region of Bessarabia after the Russo-Turkish War of 1806-1812 as part of the Treaty of Bucharest, leaving a greatly reduced Moldavia still under Ottoman domination. The Ottomans gradually relinquished control of Moldavia to Russia as well. With Russia’s defeat in the Crimean War (1853-1856), Moldavia and southern Bessarabia gained independence from the Ottoman Empire and Russia, and the two regions joined again. Moldavia united with independent Walachia in 1859, when assemblies of both principalities elected a single leader, Alexandru Ion Cuza, as their prince. The united principalities assumed the name Romania in 1862.
Romania’s territorial integrity did not last long. In 1878 Russia regained southern Bessarabia, and the region remained part of the Russian Empire until the Russian Revolution of 1917. In March 1918, toward the end of World War I, the legislature of Bessarabia voted in favor of unification with Romania. At the Paris Peace Conference of 1920, the United States, France, Britain, and other Western countries officially recognized Bessarabia’s incorporation into Romania.
A Soviet Period
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), which was founded in 1922 under Russian leadership, did not accept the unification of Bessarabia with Romania. In 1924 Soviet authorities established the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR) east of the Dniester River, within the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR). The Soviet government used the Moldavian ASSR as a base for agitation to pressure Bessarabia to reunify with the USSR. The Ukrainian town of Balta was the capital of the Moldavian ASSR until 1929, when the capital was transferred to Tiraspol.
In August 1939, shortly before the outbreak of World War II, the USSR acquired Bessarabia as a result of the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, which divided Central and Eastern Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence. Soviet forces occupied Bessarabia in June 1940. In August the Soviet government proclaimed the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR) and abolished the Moldavian ASSR. The new Moldavian republic included the central portion of Bessarabia and the Trans-Dniester region, a narrow slice of territory east of the Dniester River that had been part of the Moldavian ASSR. Chişinău (Russian Kishinev) was named the capital of the new republic. The remainder of Bessarabia, including its southern section that bordered the Black Sea, was merged into the Ukrainian SSR. In 1941 Romania, an ally of Nazi Germany, declared war on the USSR and reclaimed Bessarabia with German military assistance. Soviet forces reoccupied the territory in 1944 and formally reestablished the Moldavian SSR.
After World War II, Soviet policy in the Moldavian SSR was devoted to integrating the republic’s economy, politics, and culture into the Soviet Union. Private ownership of land was abolished, and the state established collective and state farms on expropriated farmland. The Moldavian SSR remained predominantly rural throughout the Soviet period, although new industries were introduced in urban areas. Russians, who were officially encouraged to settle in the republic, became the predominant ethnic group in the cities. Although no official language was ever named in the republic, Russian was the preferred language in government, business, and education. The Soviet government attempted to negate the Moldavian SSR’s cultural ties with Romania. This was most evident in the Soviet language policy, which maintained that the language of ethnic Moldovans was entirely separate from the Romanian language. To reinforce this idea, the Soviets mandated that the Moldovan language switch from the Latin to the Cyrillic alphabet.
The Communist Party of Moldavia (CPM), a branch of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), was the only party legally allowed to function in the republic. Two future leaders of the USSR, Leonid Brezhnev and Konstantin Chernenko, held prominent positions in the CPM during the early part of their careers; neither of the two leaders were ethnic Moldovans. Brezhnev served as first secretary (leader) of the CPM from 1950 to 1952, and Chernenko was head of the party’s propaganda department from 1948 to 1956. After Brezhnev’s term, the leadership of the CPM was given over to ethnic Moldovans, who faithfully followed the official course set by the CPSU. The Moldavian SSR was among the more conservative republics of the USSR.
In the mid-1980s Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev introduced political and economic reforms that fostered the formation of quasi-political groups in the USSR. In the Moldavian SSR, several such groups emerged in the late 1980s but were denied legal status. In May 1989 these groups allied to form the Popular Front of Moldova (PFM). In June an estimated 70,000 people attended an anti-Soviet demonstration organized by the PFM. This was followed by large demonstrations in Chişinău in support of a government proposal to make Romanian the official language. A majority of the Ukrainians, Russians, and other ethnic minorities in the republic opposed the proposal, which was amended as a result. Under pressure from the PFM, the republic’s Supreme Soviet (legislature) in August 1989 declared Romanian the official language of Moldavia. Russian was to remain the language of interethnic communication.
In the Trans-Dniester region, where Russians and Ukrainians make up slightly more than half of the population, the local authorities refused to enact the new language law. A political movement called Yedinstvo (Russian for “unity”), which was growing in several Soviet republics facing nationalist upheaval, formed in Moldavia to represent the interests of the republic’s Slavic minorities. Yedinstvo was particularly strong in Trans-Dniester. In January 1990 voters approved a local referendum advocating greater autonomy for the Trans-Dniester region. Tensions developed between ethnic Moldovans and the Russian speakers in Trans-Dniester and the Gagauz people in southern Moldavia. The tensions eventually escalated into secessionist movements in the eastern and southern portions of the republic. The Gagauz people in the south declared a separate Gagauz SSR in August, which was followed by a similar declaration in the Trans-Dniester region in September. Although the Moldavian Supreme Soviet annulled the declarations immediately, the two regions proceeded to hold local elections for their own newly created legislatures. Negotiations were held in Moscow in November, but the two secessionist groups and the Moldavian government failed to resolve the crisis.
Meanwhile, elections to the Moldavian Supreme Soviet took place in February 1990. Parties other than the CPM were not allowed to publicly support candidates in the election, although a number of independent candidates were openly sympathetic to the aims of the PFM. The new Supreme Soviet elected Mircea Snegur, a reform-oriented CPM member, as its chairperson. (Snegur became the first president of the republic in September, after that post was created.) Like many other reform-oriented ethnic Moldovan Communist leaders, Snegur shifted loyalty to the PFM as the strength of opposition to the Soviet regime grew. In June the Supreme Soviet changed the republic’s name from the Moldavian SSR to the Soviet Socialist Republic of Moldova. In the first major step toward secession from the USSR, the Supreme Soviet adopted a declaration of sovereignty later that month. The legislature also declared the Soviet Union’s annexation of Bessarabia in 1940 to have been illegal.
On May 23, 1991, the SSR of Moldova changed its name to the Republic of Moldova, and the Supreme Soviet was renamed the Parliament. On August 27, following a failed coup against Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in Moscow led by Communist hardliners, Moldova declared its independence from the USSR. The Moldovan parliament banned the CPM, CPM members became members of the PFM, and the PFM officially took control of government. In December Moldova held direct presidential elections, and Snegur was elected unopposed. Also that month, Moldova joined the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a loose organization of former Soviet republics, amid the USSR’s disintegration into 15 successor states.
B Moldova Since Independence
When Moldova became independent from the USSR, the PFM-led government under Prime Minister Mircea Druc began to advocate Moldova’s unification with Romania. Sporadic conflict occurred in the Trans-Dniester area in late 1991, as the secessionists consolidated control over the region. In early 1992 President Snegur authorized military action against the rebels. The secessionists, aided by a Russian Cossack contingent and the Russian army forces stationed in the region, retained control over the disputed area. In July a cease-fire agreement was reached, and a combined peacekeeping force of Russian, Moldovan, and Trans-Dniestrian troops was deployed in the region.
In June 1992, meanwhile, the PFM-dominated Council of Ministers resigned. The PFM, which had renamed itself the Christian Democratic Popular Front, had lost popular support for its policies advocating unification with Romania. Failed domestic initiatives also had eroded the party’s support. By August a new government was formed. It was led by the Agrarian Democratic Party (ADP)—composed mostly of former Communists—which opposed unification with Romania. President Snegur, who allied himself with the ADP, strongly supported this stance. The ADP favored closer relations with Russia and the other members of the CIS.
In February 1994 Moldova held its first multiparty elections to the Parliament. The ADP won the largest number of seats. A bloc of socialist parties won the next largest number. In April the legislature cemented Moldova’s status within the CIS by ratifying the 1991 agreement that established the organization. However, Moldova declared that it would not take part in CIS military or monetary alliances.
In July 1994 Moldova adopted its first post-Soviet constitution. The constitution reaffirmed Moldova’s status as an independent political and cultural unit and included provisions for the autonomy of the breakaway regions of Gagauz and Trans-Dniester. It also referred to the country’s official language as Moldovan, rather than Romanian. The Gagauz leadership and the Moldovan government quickly reached an agreement under which the Gagauz region was to enjoy broad powers of self-administration. Meanwhile, Snegur refused to meet the Trans-Dniester secessionists’ demands for recognition of Trans-Dniester as an independent state, and the dispute continued in that region. Also in 1994, the government reached an agreement with Russia to remove all Russian troops from the Trans-Dniester region within three years.
In December 1996 Moldova held its first multi-candidate presidential elections. Snegur, who had formed his own party, the Party of Rebirth and Conciliation of Moldova, resumed a pro-Romanian position and campaigned for more rapid reform. He was defeated in the elections by Petru Lucinschi, a former leader of the Communist Party of Moldova. Lucinschi advocated closer ties with Russia and pledged to work to resolve the Trans-Dniester issue. He also argued for more efficient government and less corruption.
B1 Status of Trans-Dniester
Negotiations between the Moldovan government and the Trans-Dniester leadership, which had been frozen since mid-1996, resumed in 1997. In early May both sides signed a memorandum calling for the peaceful settlement of their conflict. According to the agreement, which was mediated by Russia, Moldova was to retain its present borders, including Trans-Dniester. The document envisioned a large degree of autonomy for Trans-Dniester and called for future talks to determine the official status of the region. Since then, ongoing negotiations have failed to achieve a mutually acceptable settlement. The complete removal of remaining Russian troops from Trans-Dniester has been halted several times, despite deadlines set in internationally mediated negotiations in 1999 and 2002. Russia announced in 2004 that it would complete the withdrawal only when a final agreement was reached.
In 2006 voters in Trans-Dniester approved a referendum calling for independence from Moldova and eventual union with Russia. The referendum won by the overwhelming margin of 97 percent. The vote was expected to have little practical effect, however, as no outside country recognizes the region’s independence and Russia has indicated little interest in a union.
B2 Recent Elections
In parliamentary elections in March 1998, the reestablished Communist Party (renamed the Moldovan Party of Communists) won the largest number of seats. However, the party did not have a majority, and a coalition of parties, led by the centrist Bloc for a Democratic and Prosperous Moldova and the reformist Democratic Convention, formed a ruling majority. Ion Ciubuc was appointed prime minister that month. In February 1999 Ciubuc resigned, saying that parliament and the ruling coalition stymied his efforts at market reforms. The parliament appointed Ion Sturza to replace Ciubuc in March.
A power struggle between parliamentary deputies and President Lucinschi ended in 2000 when the Parliament voted to abolish direct presidential elections. However, in December 2000 the Parliament failed four times to elect a new president, so Lucinschi dissolved the Parliament and scheduled parliamentary elections for February 2001. In the elections the Party of Communists won 71 of the 101 seats. In April 2001 the Parliament elected the party’s leader, Vladimir Voronin, as president. In the 2005 parliamentary elections the Party of Communists retained its majority, winning 56 seats. Opposition parties gained some ground, with 34 seats going to the centrist Democratic Moldova Bloc and 11 seats to the right-centrist Christian Democratic People’s Party.
Reviewed By:
William Crowther
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
I INTRODUCTION
Moldova, republic in southeastern Europe. In Moldovan, the state language, the country’s official name is Republica Moldova. Moldova is bordered on the north, east, and south by Ukraine and on the west by Romania. Moldovans are the country’s largest ethnic group, although other ethnic groups constitute a majority in some regions. Chişinău is Moldova’s capital and largest city.
Present-day Moldova comprises a large part of the eastern half of the historic principality of Moldavia (the principality is generally known by the Westernized form of the name). At its largest extent, in the Middle Ages, the principality stretched from the Dniester River in the east almost to the Carpathian Mountains in the west. Much of the eastern half of Moldavia, between the Prut and Dniester rivers, was traditionally known as Bessarabia (Bessarabiya). Moldavian territory was divided in 1812, when the Ottoman Empire took control of all of the land west of the Prut River and Russia took control of the rest. The Russian government gave the name Bessarabia to the territory under its control to distinguish it from neighboring Ottoman-controlled Moldavia.
In 1918 Bessarabia became independent and then united with Romania. Troops of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR, the successor to the Russian Empire) occupied Bessarabia in 1940. The Soviet government joined most of Bessarabia to part of the already existing Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR), across the Dniester River, to form the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR). Romania regained Bessarabia in 1941 but lost it again to the USSR in 1944. When the USSR collapsed in 1991, the republic became the independent country of Moldova. In addition to the region of Bessarabia, present-day Moldova also includes territory along the left bank of the Dniester known as Trans-Dniester. The remainder of the historic principality of Moldavia is now part of Romania and Ukraine.
After declaring independence in 1991, Moldova signed the agreement establishing the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), an organization composed of former Soviet republics. Moldova became a formal member of the CIS in 1994. That year the country adopted its first post-Soviet constitution. In the early 1990s secessionist movements among certain ethnic groups took hold in the Trans-Dniester region and in the Gagauz region in the south. While the status of the Trans-Dniester region remained an issue as of 1999, the armed conflict over Moldova’s territorial integrity was largely resolved by the mid-1990s.
II LAND AND RESOURCES
Moldova is a landlocked country that covers an area of about 33,700 sq km (about 13,000 sq mi). It was the second smallest republic of the former USSR, after Armenia. The terrain of Moldova is primarily a hilly plain interspersed with deep river valleys. The average elevation is 147 m (482 ft) above sea level. The Kodry Hills occupy the central portion of Moldova, rising to a maximum elevation of about 430 m (about 1,410 ft) at Mount Bălăneşti.
Moldova contains an extensive river system; more than 3,000 rivers and streams traverse the country. The two largest rivers are the Dniester and the Prut, both of which rise in the Carpathian Mountains in Ukraine, to the north of Moldova. The Dniester, the larger of the two rivers, flows through the eastern portion of Moldova in a southeasterly direction. It forms part of the country’s border with Ukraine in the northeast, cuts through Moldova’s interior, and meets the Ukrainian border again in the southeast, where it reenters Ukraine and then empties into the Black Sea. The Prut, a major tributary of the Danube River, forms Moldova’s entire western border with Romania. At the extreme southern tip of Moldova, the Prut joins the Danube, which flows eastward and empties into the Black Sea. Other major rivers include the Yalpug, the Byk, and the Reut.
The hills in the central portion of Moldova are densely forested, mostly with oak and hornbeam trees. Linden, maple, beech, and wild fruit trees also grow in Moldova. Cultivated crops have largely replaced the natural grass cover of the plains, or steppes, in northern and southern Moldova. Grassy salt marshes are common in some river valleys.
A wide variety of wildlife inhabits Moldova, although the population of certain animals, such as wolves, has declined dramatically during the last century. Roe deer, which are native to the region, are abundant. The spotted deer, which was introduced to Moldova, is also well established. Members of the weasel family, including badgers, martens, ermines, and polecats, are common. Other mammals include wild boars, foxes, and hares. Common birds include larks, jays, and blackbirds. Some species, such as the wild goose, are migratory.
Natural resources in Moldova include deposits of lignite, phosphorite, and gypsum. Three-quarters of the country is covered in chernozem, an exceptionally fertile type of soil that is ideal for agriculture.
Moldova’s climate is continental, with conditions modified somewhat by the Black Sea. Winters are fairly mild, with average daily temperatures in January ranging from –5° to –3°C (23° to 27°F). Summers are quite warm, with average daily temperatures in July generally exceeding 20°C (68°F) and daily highs occasionally reaching 40°C (104°F). Precipitation is fairly light and irregular and occurs least in the south, where it averages 350 mm (14 in) per year. Precipitation is greatest in the higher elevation areas, where it can exceed 600 mm (20 in) per year. Moldova’s climate is conducive to agriculture, especially grape growing.
The environment of Moldova suffered extreme degradation during the Soviet period, when industrial and agricultural development proceeded without regard for environmental protection. Excessive use of pesticides resulted in heavily polluted topsoil, and industries lacked emission controls. The Moldovan government is now burdened with the Soviet legacy of ecological mismanagement. Environmental initiatives are administered by the State Department for Environmental Protection. High levels of pesticide and fertilizer use have been linked with elevated rates of disease and infant mortality. Soil contamination and groundwater pollution are associated problems.
III THE PEOPLE OF MOLDOVA
Moldova has a population (2008 estimate) of 4,324,450, giving it an average population density of 130 persons per sq km (336 per sq mi). The country’s inhabitants are concentrated in the northern and central portions of the country. During the Soviet period, Moldova had the highest population density of any Soviet republic, although it was one of the least urbanized. Some 53 percent of the population lives in urban areas. Chişinău, the capital, is located on the Byk River in the central part of the country. Other important cities include Tiraspol and Tighina (also called Bender), both located on the Dniester River in eastern Moldova, and Bălţi, in north central Moldova. The rural population is clustered in large villages.
Ethnic Moldovans constitute about 65 percent of Moldova’s population. The next largest ethnic group is Ukrainians, who make up about 14 percent of the population, followed by Russians, who constitute about 13 percent. Russians and Ukrainians migrated to Moldova in large numbers after World War II (1939-1945), although settlement by these peoples also predated the war. Both groups live almost exclusively in Moldova’s major urban centers and in the Trans-Dniester region in the east, where they constitute slightly more than half of the population. Other ethnic groups include Gagauz (a Turkic people) and Bulgarians; these two groups reside primarily in the southernmost regions of Moldova, having settled there in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
The state language of Moldova is called Moldovan. It is essentially a dialect of Romanian, a Romance language derived mainly from the Latin language. In 1938 the Soviet government mandated that the Cyrillic alphabet (the script of the Russian language) be used for Moldovan instead of the Latin (or Roman) alphabet, in part to bolster its claim that the Moldovan and Romanian languages were separate. In 1989 Moldovan officials passed a law that made Romanian the official language and reintroduced the Latin alphabet. In the constitution adopted in 1994 the language was officially renamed Moldovan. Russian is widely spoken in Moldova and is the predominant language in the Trans-Dniester region. The Gagauz people traditionally speak Gagauz, a Turkic language, although many are also fluent in Russian. Russian missionaries created a Cyrillic alphabet for the Gagauz language in 1895.
Christianity is the predominant religion in Moldova. Nearly half of the population belongs to the Eastern Orthodox Church, and there is also a small Roman Catholic community. Unlike most other Turkic peoples, who are traditionally Muslim, the Gagauz are adherents of Orthodox Christianity. The Communist regime of the Soviet period was officially atheistic and hostile toward religion. Moldova began to experience an upsurge in religious practice in the late 1980s, when the regime relaxed restrictions. This increased after independence, when all restrictions on religious expression were lifted.
Moldova has an adult literacy rate of 99 percent. Illiteracy is slightly higher among the female population than the male population. Education in Moldova is compulsory between the ages of 6 and 16, or through the first cycle of secondary education (the second cycle lasts an additional three years). During the Soviet period, the government established a comprehensive system of universal and tuition-free education. Most schools taught in the Russian language, and education was the primary method of Communist indoctrination. In the early 1990s the government of independent Moldova introduced sweeping changes in educational content, especially in the areas of literature, language, and history. Institutes of higher education include Moldovan State University (founded in 1945), the Technical University of Moldova (1964), the State Agricultural University of Moldova (1932), and the Moldovan G. Musicescu Academy of Music (1940), all located in Chişinău. The capital is also the site of the Moldovan State Art Museum.
The cultural development of Moldova was tied historically to that of Romania, reflecting the Romanian origin of Moldova’s majority population. The first Moldovan books were religious texts that appeared in the mid-17th century. Prominent figures in Moldova’s cultural development include the author Ion Creanga and the poet Mihai Eminescu, both of whom wrote during the 19th century. After the USSR annexed Moldova in the 1940s, the Soviet government sought to sever the region’s close cultural ties with Romania. Romanian literature was officially banned, and many ethnic Romanian intellectuals were executed or deported. During the Soviet period, a government-mandated genre called socialist realism transformed art and literature into a form of Communist propaganda. The characteristics of socialist realism were strongly evident in the early works of Moldovan writers Emelian Bucov and Andrei Lupan, among others. Perhaps the most well-known Moldovan writer during the Soviet period was Ion Druţa, whose works include the play Casa mare (The Parlor, 1962) and the novel Balade de cîmpie (Ballad of the Steppes, 1963).
Moldova has a rich folk culture, which flourished during the Soviet period. The Soviet government strongly promoted Moldovan folk music and dance, but it also introduced subtle distortions to hide the folk traditions’ Romanian origins. For example, the national folk costume was changed to replace the Romanian opinca, a traditional moccasin, with the Russian boot. An ancient folk ballad, the Miorita, holds special significance in Moldovan folk culture. Folk traditions such as ceramics and weaving continue to be practiced in rural areas.
IV ECONOMY
Moldova’s rich black soil makes agriculture the foundation of its economy. When Moldova was part of the USSR, Soviet central planners made its primary role one of supplying food products to the rest of the Soviet Union. The Moldovan economy suffered from the disruption of trading relationships following the breakup of the USSR. The conflict in the Trans-Dniester region greatly compounded the economic turmoil. Moldova’s light industry, which is highly dependent on trade outside the republic, suffered the most. Moldova has survived many of the most severe hardships of its transformation to a free-market economy; however, the country’s economic vitality remains highly dependent upon the size of its crop harvest. The gross domestic product (GDP), which measures the value of goods and service produced, was $3.4 billion in 2006.
With assistance from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other international organizations, Moldova initiated widespread privatization and strict monetary controls soon after independence. The policies contained inflation—which had resulted in prices increasing by as much as 20 times annually in the early 1990s—to one of the lowest rates in the former Soviet republics. To privatize housing and industry, the government issued vouchers to residents based on the number of years they had worked for state enterprises. Residents exchanged the vouchers for ownership shares in enterprises or for housing. By 1997 the majority of former state enterprises were in private hands. Moldova was among the first of the former Soviet republics to allow private ownership of farmland.
Moldova’s economy is built upon agriculture, which contributed 18 percent of GDP in 2006. The country’s extremely fertile land and temperate climate allow for the cultivation of a variety of crops. Moldova is a leading producer of grapes, tobacco, and rose oil. Other crops include wheat; maize; vegetables, such as tomatoes and potatoes; sugar beets; and fruit. Livestock raising, particularly pigs, and milk production are also important.
Industry, which accounted for 15 percent of GDP in 2006, is dominated by food processing. The country has traditionally specialized in frozen and canned vegetables. It is also well known for sparkling wines and brandy produced from its grape harvest. Other industries use locally grown sunflowers and soybeans to make vegetable oil, and beets to process raw sugar. During the Soviet era, manufacturing plants were developed to produce military equipment and consumer goods, and Moldova remains a significant producer of carpets, refrigerators and freezers, washing machines, and televisions. Moldova also has a metal-refining industry, almost entirely dependent upon imported raw materials and fuels. More than one-quarter of Moldova’s industrial plants are in the disputed Trans-Dniester region.
While Moldova has small oil and natural gas reserves, it must import most of its fuels from Russia. Fuel payments are a constant drain on the country’s economy. In 2003, 88 percent of its electricity was produced in thermal plants burning fossil fuels; the remainder was produced in a single hydroelectric facility on the Dniester River.
Moldova’s principal trading relationships are with other former Soviet republics, chiefly Russia and Ukraine. Trade with countries to the west is increasing, led by exchanges with Romania and Germany. Food and agricultural products account for about one-half of exports, while the leading imports are fuel, electricity, and mineral products.
Moldova used the Russian ruble as its legal tender until November 1993, when it introduced its own currency, the leu (plural lei; 13.10 lei equal U.S.$1; 2006 average).
V GOVERNMENT
Moldova ratified a new constitution in 1994 to replace the one of the Soviet period. The constitution confirmed Moldova’s status as an independent and democratic republic. It guarantees that all citizens aged 18 and older may vote and provides for various other civil rights and freedoms.
The president of Moldova is head of state. The president is elected by the Parliament to a four-year term and may serve no more than two consecutive terms. Before 2000 the president was directly elected. The president nominates the prime minister and, upon his or her recommendation, the cabinet. The prime minister and the cabinet must be approved by the Parliament. The president is empowered to dissolve the Parliament. The constitution provides that the president may be impeached for criminal or constitutional offenses.
The Parliament (Parlamentul) is the supreme legislative body of Moldova. A unicameral (single-chamber) assembly, it consists of 101 deputies, who are directly elected for four-year terms. The Parliament convenes for two ordinary sessions per year and may hold extraordinary sessions as well. In addition to enacting laws and performing other basic legislative functions, the Parliament is empowered to declare a state of emergency, martial law, and war.
Moldova’s judicial system includes the Supreme Court of Justice (the country’s highest court), the Court of Appeal, and the Constitutional Court. Tribunals and courts of law adjudicate at the local level. There is also a Higher Magistrates’ Council, which is composed of 11 magistrates who serve for a period of five years. The council acts to ensure the appointment, transfer, and promotion of judges. The president of Moldova appoints judges to the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Justice after the Higher Magistrates’ Council makes its recommendations. The judges are initially appointed for five-year terms; their terms may then be renewed for a period of ten years, after which they may continue to serve until they reach retirement age. The Constitutional Court is the supreme authority on constitutional matters; its decisions are not subject to appeal. It is composed of six judges—two chosen by the president, two by the Parliament, and two by the Higher Magistrates’ Council—who each serve for six years.
For purposes of local government, Moldova is divided into 38 districts, 1 autonomous region (Gagauz-Eri), and 10 urban municipalities (including Chişinău). The municipalities are administered separately from the districts. All of the local jurisdictions are governed by locally elected councils. The prefects and mayors of districts and municipalities are appointed by Moldova’s president after being nominated by the local councils.
The 1994 constitution included a provision to give the Gagauz and Trans-Dniester regions autonomous status, although the terms of self-governance were to be determined through later negotiations. Revision of this special status would require a three-fifths vote of the Parliament. In December of that year, the Moldovan Parliament passed the Law on the Special Status of Gagauz-Eri. Ratified by a local election in the Gagauz region in March 1995, the law allows Gagauz-Eri substantial autonomy, while keeping foreign policy, defense, and monetary issues in the hands of the Moldovan government. The Moldovan government and leadership in the Trans-Dniester region have yet to reach a settlement on Trans-Dniester’s official status.
Moldova has many political parties. The Moldovan Party of Communists (formerly the Communist Party of Moldova), the Democratic Moldova Bloc, and the Christian Democratic People’s Party are represented in Parliament. The Party of Communists, which holds a majority of seats, used to be a pro-Russian party but now advocates closer ties with the European Union (EU). The Democratic Moldova Bloc is a centrist alliance of the Our Moldova Alliance, the Social Liberty Party, and the Democratic Party; it wants closer ties with both Russia and the West. The right-centrist Christian Democratic People’s Party supports closer ties with neighboring Romania.
During the Soviet period, all armed forces were part of a centralized security system. After Moldova gained independence from the USSR, the government of the republic began to create a national defense force. In 2004 Moldova’s armed forces numbered 6,750 personnel; most were in the army, with 1,040 in the air force. In addition, Moldova has a paramilitary force of about 2,500 (attached to the Ministry of the Interior) and a riot police force of 900. Military service is compulsory for 18-year-old males for up to 18 months. The 1994 constitution established Moldova as a permanently neutral state.
Moldova is a member of the United Nations (UN), the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the Partnership for Peace program of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and the Council of Europe (CE).
VI HISTORY
For most of its history, the majority of the territory that constitutes present-day Moldova was the region of Bessarabia, the eastern half of the historic principality of Moldavia. The name Bessarabia derives from a medieval prince, Basarab I, who at one time ruled the southern part of the region. The principality of Moldavia encompassed Bessarabia but extended west to the Siret River near the Carpathian Mountains. From north to south it stretched from the region of Bukovina to the Black Sea. Along with the principality of Walachia to the southwest, Moldavia was one of two principal regions inhabited by Romanian-speaking peoples (sometimes known as Vlachs).
In the mid-13th century Hungarian expansion had driven many Vlachs to settle south and east of the Carpathian Mountains. Legend suggests that in the 14th century Prince Dragos of Transylvania (then a Hungarian province) founded Moldavia and named it after a small mountain stream that his forces crossed upon entering the area. In about 1359 Bogdan I ruled the first independent Moldavian principality described in historical records. Moldavia was bordered to the southwest by Walachia, a feudal state that Basarab had unified in about 1310. Poland and Hungary lay to Moldavia’s north, often exerting some control over Moldavian princes. The Moldavians had to defend their eastern border against the Tatars and their southern border against the Ottoman Empire. During the late 15th century Moldavia came under increasing pressure from the Ottomans. Despite military victories by Stephen the Great, who ruled from 1457 to 1504, Moldavia ultimately succumbed and had to submit to the rule of the Ottoman Empire.
In 1599 Michael the Brave, a Walachian prince, led a revolt against the Ottomans and united Moldavia, Walachia, and Transylvania (a third principality where Romanian speakers lived). However, following Michael’s assassination in 1601, the previous divisions reappeared, with the Ottomans regaining control of Moldavia and Walachia and Hungary taking Transylvania. The differentiation between the eastern and western parts of Moldavia, with the eastern half often identified as Bessarabia, began around this time.
Russia annexed the region of Bessarabia after the Russo-Turkish War of 1806-1812 as part of the Treaty of Bucharest, leaving a greatly reduced Moldavia still under Ottoman domination. The Ottomans gradually relinquished control of Moldavia to Russia as well. With Russia’s defeat in the Crimean War (1853-1856), Moldavia and southern Bessarabia gained independence from the Ottoman Empire and Russia, and the two regions joined again. Moldavia united with independent Walachia in 1859, when assemblies of both principalities elected a single leader, Alexandru Ion Cuza, as their prince. The united principalities assumed the name Romania in 1862.
Romania’s territorial integrity did not last long. In 1878 Russia regained southern Bessarabia, and the region remained part of the Russian Empire until the Russian Revolution of 1917. In March 1918, toward the end of World War I, the legislature of Bessarabia voted in favor of unification with Romania. At the Paris Peace Conference of 1920, the United States, France, Britain, and other Western countries officially recognized Bessarabia’s incorporation into Romania.
A Soviet Period
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), which was founded in 1922 under Russian leadership, did not accept the unification of Bessarabia with Romania. In 1924 Soviet authorities established the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR) east of the Dniester River, within the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR). The Soviet government used the Moldavian ASSR as a base for agitation to pressure Bessarabia to reunify with the USSR. The Ukrainian town of Balta was the capital of the Moldavian ASSR until 1929, when the capital was transferred to Tiraspol.
In August 1939, shortly before the outbreak of World War II, the USSR acquired Bessarabia as a result of the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, which divided Central and Eastern Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence. Soviet forces occupied Bessarabia in June 1940. In August the Soviet government proclaimed the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR) and abolished the Moldavian ASSR. The new Moldavian republic included the central portion of Bessarabia and the Trans-Dniester region, a narrow slice of territory east of the Dniester River that had been part of the Moldavian ASSR. Chişinău (Russian Kishinev) was named the capital of the new republic. The remainder of Bessarabia, including its southern section that bordered the Black Sea, was merged into the Ukrainian SSR. In 1941 Romania, an ally of Nazi Germany, declared war on the USSR and reclaimed Bessarabia with German military assistance. Soviet forces reoccupied the territory in 1944 and formally reestablished the Moldavian SSR.
After World War II, Soviet policy in the Moldavian SSR was devoted to integrating the republic’s economy, politics, and culture into the Soviet Union. Private ownership of land was abolished, and the state established collective and state farms on expropriated farmland. The Moldavian SSR remained predominantly rural throughout the Soviet period, although new industries were introduced in urban areas. Russians, who were officially encouraged to settle in the republic, became the predominant ethnic group in the cities. Although no official language was ever named in the republic, Russian was the preferred language in government, business, and education. The Soviet government attempted to negate the Moldavian SSR’s cultural ties with Romania. This was most evident in the Soviet language policy, which maintained that the language of ethnic Moldovans was entirely separate from the Romanian language. To reinforce this idea, the Soviets mandated that the Moldovan language switch from the Latin to the Cyrillic alphabet.
The Communist Party of Moldavia (CPM), a branch of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), was the only party legally allowed to function in the republic. Two future leaders of the USSR, Leonid Brezhnev and Konstantin Chernenko, held prominent positions in the CPM during the early part of their careers; neither of the two leaders were ethnic Moldovans. Brezhnev served as first secretary (leader) of the CPM from 1950 to 1952, and Chernenko was head of the party’s propaganda department from 1948 to 1956. After Brezhnev’s term, the leadership of the CPM was given over to ethnic Moldovans, who faithfully followed the official course set by the CPSU. The Moldavian SSR was among the more conservative republics of the USSR.
In the mid-1980s Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev introduced political and economic reforms that fostered the formation of quasi-political groups in the USSR. In the Moldavian SSR, several such groups emerged in the late 1980s but were denied legal status. In May 1989 these groups allied to form the Popular Front of Moldova (PFM). In June an estimated 70,000 people attended an anti-Soviet demonstration organized by the PFM. This was followed by large demonstrations in Chişinău in support of a government proposal to make Romanian the official language. A majority of the Ukrainians, Russians, and other ethnic minorities in the republic opposed the proposal, which was amended as a result. Under pressure from the PFM, the republic’s Supreme Soviet (legislature) in August 1989 declared Romanian the official language of Moldavia. Russian was to remain the language of interethnic communication.
In the Trans-Dniester region, where Russians and Ukrainians make up slightly more than half of the population, the local authorities refused to enact the new language law. A political movement called Yedinstvo (Russian for “unity”), which was growing in several Soviet republics facing nationalist upheaval, formed in Moldavia to represent the interests of the republic’s Slavic minorities. Yedinstvo was particularly strong in Trans-Dniester. In January 1990 voters approved a local referendum advocating greater autonomy for the Trans-Dniester region. Tensions developed between ethnic Moldovans and the Russian speakers in Trans-Dniester and the Gagauz people in southern Moldavia. The tensions eventually escalated into secessionist movements in the eastern and southern portions of the republic. The Gagauz people in the south declared a separate Gagauz SSR in August, which was followed by a similar declaration in the Trans-Dniester region in September. Although the Moldavian Supreme Soviet annulled the declarations immediately, the two regions proceeded to hold local elections for their own newly created legislatures. Negotiations were held in Moscow in November, but the two secessionist groups and the Moldavian government failed to resolve the crisis.
Meanwhile, elections to the Moldavian Supreme Soviet took place in February 1990. Parties other than the CPM were not allowed to publicly support candidates in the election, although a number of independent candidates were openly sympathetic to the aims of the PFM. The new Supreme Soviet elected Mircea Snegur, a reform-oriented CPM member, as its chairperson. (Snegur became the first president of the republic in September, after that post was created.) Like many other reform-oriented ethnic Moldovan Communist leaders, Snegur shifted loyalty to the PFM as the strength of opposition to the Soviet regime grew. In June the Supreme Soviet changed the republic’s name from the Moldavian SSR to the Soviet Socialist Republic of Moldova. In the first major step toward secession from the USSR, the Supreme Soviet adopted a declaration of sovereignty later that month. The legislature also declared the Soviet Union’s annexation of Bessarabia in 1940 to have been illegal.
On May 23, 1991, the SSR of Moldova changed its name to the Republic of Moldova, and the Supreme Soviet was renamed the Parliament. On August 27, following a failed coup against Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in Moscow led by Communist hardliners, Moldova declared its independence from the USSR. The Moldovan parliament banned the CPM, CPM members became members of the PFM, and the PFM officially took control of government. In December Moldova held direct presidential elections, and Snegur was elected unopposed. Also that month, Moldova joined the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a loose organization of former Soviet republics, amid the USSR’s disintegration into 15 successor states.
B Moldova Since Independence
When Moldova became independent from the USSR, the PFM-led government under Prime Minister Mircea Druc began to advocate Moldova’s unification with Romania. Sporadic conflict occurred in the Trans-Dniester area in late 1991, as the secessionists consolidated control over the region. In early 1992 President Snegur authorized military action against the rebels. The secessionists, aided by a Russian Cossack contingent and the Russian army forces stationed in the region, retained control over the disputed area. In July a cease-fire agreement was reached, and a combined peacekeeping force of Russian, Moldovan, and Trans-Dniestrian troops was deployed in the region.
In June 1992, meanwhile, the PFM-dominated Council of Ministers resigned. The PFM, which had renamed itself the Christian Democratic Popular Front, had lost popular support for its policies advocating unification with Romania. Failed domestic initiatives also had eroded the party’s support. By August a new government was formed. It was led by the Agrarian Democratic Party (ADP)—composed mostly of former Communists—which opposed unification with Romania. President Snegur, who allied himself with the ADP, strongly supported this stance. The ADP favored closer relations with Russia and the other members of the CIS.
In February 1994 Moldova held its first multiparty elections to the Parliament. The ADP won the largest number of seats. A bloc of socialist parties won the next largest number. In April the legislature cemented Moldova’s status within the CIS by ratifying the 1991 agreement that established the organization. However, Moldova declared that it would not take part in CIS military or monetary alliances.
In July 1994 Moldova adopted its first post-Soviet constitution. The constitution reaffirmed Moldova’s status as an independent political and cultural unit and included provisions for the autonomy of the breakaway regions of Gagauz and Trans-Dniester. It also referred to the country’s official language as Moldovan, rather than Romanian. The Gagauz leadership and the Moldovan government quickly reached an agreement under which the Gagauz region was to enjoy broad powers of self-administration. Meanwhile, Snegur refused to meet the Trans-Dniester secessionists’ demands for recognition of Trans-Dniester as an independent state, and the dispute continued in that region. Also in 1994, the government reached an agreement with Russia to remove all Russian troops from the Trans-Dniester region within three years.
In December 1996 Moldova held its first multi-candidate presidential elections. Snegur, who had formed his own party, the Party of Rebirth and Conciliation of Moldova, resumed a pro-Romanian position and campaigned for more rapid reform. He was defeated in the elections by Petru Lucinschi, a former leader of the Communist Party of Moldova. Lucinschi advocated closer ties with Russia and pledged to work to resolve the Trans-Dniester issue. He also argued for more efficient government and less corruption.
B1 Status of Trans-Dniester
Negotiations between the Moldovan government and the Trans-Dniester leadership, which had been frozen since mid-1996, resumed in 1997. In early May both sides signed a memorandum calling for the peaceful settlement of their conflict. According to the agreement, which was mediated by Russia, Moldova was to retain its present borders, including Trans-Dniester. The document envisioned a large degree of autonomy for Trans-Dniester and called for future talks to determine the official status of the region. Since then, ongoing negotiations have failed to achieve a mutually acceptable settlement. The complete removal of remaining Russian troops from Trans-Dniester has been halted several times, despite deadlines set in internationally mediated negotiations in 1999 and 2002. Russia announced in 2004 that it would complete the withdrawal only when a final agreement was reached.
In 2006 voters in Trans-Dniester approved a referendum calling for independence from Moldova and eventual union with Russia. The referendum won by the overwhelming margin of 97 percent. The vote was expected to have little practical effect, however, as no outside country recognizes the region’s independence and Russia has indicated little interest in a union.
B2 Recent Elections
In parliamentary elections in March 1998, the reestablished Communist Party (renamed the Moldovan Party of Communists) won the largest number of seats. However, the party did not have a majority, and a coalition of parties, led by the centrist Bloc for a Democratic and Prosperous Moldova and the reformist Democratic Convention, formed a ruling majority. Ion Ciubuc was appointed prime minister that month. In February 1999 Ciubuc resigned, saying that parliament and the ruling coalition stymied his efforts at market reforms. The parliament appointed Ion Sturza to replace Ciubuc in March.
A power struggle between parliamentary deputies and President Lucinschi ended in 2000 when the Parliament voted to abolish direct presidential elections. However, in December 2000 the Parliament failed four times to elect a new president, so Lucinschi dissolved the Parliament and scheduled parliamentary elections for February 2001. In the elections the Party of Communists won 71 of the 101 seats. In April 2001 the Parliament elected the party’s leader, Vladimir Voronin, as president. In the 2005 parliamentary elections the Party of Communists retained its majority, winning 56 seats. Opposition parties gained some ground, with 34 seats going to the centrist Democratic Moldova Bloc and 11 seats to the right-centrist Christian Democratic People’s Party.
Reviewed By:
William Crowther
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
FEDRATED STATES OF MICRONESIA
Federated States of Micronesia
I INTRODUCTION
Federated States of Micronesia, self-governing island country in free association with the United States, located in the western Pacific Ocean, forming, with the Republic of Palau, the Caroline Islands. The Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) includes four states. From east to west they are Kosrae, Pohnpei (formerly Ponape), Chuuk (formerly Truk), and Yap. The FSM is north of the equator, located more than 4,000 km (2,500 mi) southwest of Honolulu, Hawaii. Palikir, on Pohnpei Island, is the capital. The largest town is Kolonia, also on Pohnpei. The FSM, along with Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Palau, the Marshall Islands, Kiribati, and Nauru, is part of Micronesia, one of the three major divisions of Oceania.
II LAND AND RESOURCES
The FSM consists of more than 600 islands, of which about 60 are inhabited. From east to west, the FSM extends more than 2,700 km (1,700 mi), about twice the length of the country’s north-to-south distance. The contrast between land and sea area is great. The total land area is 702 sq km (271 sq mi), of which the islands of Pohnpei constitute well over one-half. The FSM’s exclusive economic zone, an area of the ocean where the FSM controls fishing and other rights, is more than 2.6 million sq km (1 million sq mi).
Most islands of the FSM are low-lying coral atolls (ring-shaped islands that enclose lagoons), although some of the larger islands were formed by volcanoes. Kosrae, the easternmost state, is usually considered to be one large volcanic island, but it also consists of several offshore islets, including Lelu, which is connected to the large island by a causeway. Pohnpei state contains the FSM’s largest island, the volcanic island of Pohnpei. There are also small offshore islands and outlying coral atolls. Chuuk state contains more than 200 islands and islets, including remnants of volcanic peaks in the lagoon of Chuuk Atoll and outlying coral islands. Yap, the westernmost state, consists of Yap proper (a small cluster of islands, three of which are connected by bridges) and more than 100 outlying coral islands. Unlike most other islands in the FSM, the islands of Yap proper are continental; they were formed by an uplifting of the Asian continental shelf. The volcanic islands have mountainous interiors, while the interiors of the continental islands of Yap have rolling hills. The country’s highest elevation is 790 m (2,595 ft) at Mount Ngihneni on Pohnpei.
The FSM has a tropical climate that is uniformly hot and humid. The average daily temperature range is 22° to 32°C (72° to 90°F). Rainfall varies greatly from one end of the country to the other. Yap receives about 4,570 mm (about 180 in) a year. Pohnpei receives twice that amount. Periodic droughts occur, particularly on the atolls. The FSM lies within the typhoon belt and thus destructive storms are common. They most frequently occur in the westernmost islands.
Vegetation on the volcanic islands is dense, but coconut palms thrive everywhere, including the coral atolls. The volcanic islands have relatively rich soils that support a variety of crops. Included are breadfruit, citrus and other fruits, taro, yams, and other root crops. The atolls have poorer soils and agriculture is much more limited. Although the volcanic and continental islands have rivers, the water is untreated. Thus the only source of drinking water in the FSM is rain collected in catchment systems. Water on the atolls is particularly scarce, and residents there must also rely on coconut milk.
The islands have few land animals. Chickens, pigs, dogs, cats, and rats were introduced by humans. Seabirds are numerous. Like coconuts, marine life is essential for atoll dwellers and it is abundant everywhere. There are no harmful reptiles or insects.
III THE PEOPLE OF THE FSM
The FSM’s 2008 estimated population was 107,673, indicating a population density of 153 persons per sq km (397 per sq mi). The population is unevenly distributed, however, with Chuuk state having one-half the population and Pohnpei, one-third. Some 29 percent of the population lives in the urban areas on the four main islands. The birth rate is high, but emigration partly offsets the population growth rate. Since the mid-1980s, Micronesians have migrated in sizable numbers to Guam, Hawaii, and the United States mainland.
The native Micronesians are divided among roughly ten language groups with varying cultural traditions. English is the official language of government and business, and most people have some command of it, although the range of ability is great. Many people also know two or more local languages.
The literacy rate is estimated at 89 percent, but educational achievement is very mixed. Elementary and secondary education is free and is compulsory for students between the ages of 6 and 14. Institutions of higher education include the Community College of Micronesia, established in 1987 on Pohnpei. Several hundred students from the FSM also pursue higher education in Guam and the United States.
With few exceptions, the people are Christians. Until recently, they were about evenly divided between mainstream Protestant denominations and Roman Catholicism. However, a number of Evangelical churches and other competing faiths have gained a following in the FSM, and religious differences have added an element of tension to island life.
Extended family life remains strong in the outer islands, but it is being eroded in the urban centers. The movement of people from rural to urban areas has been accompanied by an increased reliance on the money economy. Many basic traditional skills such as canoe making, fishing, and agriculture are being lost. Clothing and housing are increasingly more Western in style. Dependence on imported Western foods is also increasing. Even a basic necessity such as fish (canned) is imported. Many of the imported foods have a higher fat, sugar, and salt content than do the traditional foods they have replaced. As a result, there has been an increase in obesity, hypertension, and heart disease. Overcrowding in urban areas and the declining influence of the extended family have contributed to an increase in a number of social problems, including spouse and child abuse, alcohol abuse, juvenile delinquency, and youth suicides.
IV ECONOMY
The FSM’s economy is relatively simple. United States funds are the only major source of income. By the terms of the Compact of Free Association, the United States provided the FSM with about $1.39 billion between 1986 and 2001. With additional grants from the United States, the FSM’s total income from U.S. funds averages about $100 million a year. Small amounts of aid come from other donors as well. The FSM also receives income from the sale of licenses to foreign fleets to fish in its exclusive economic zone. Copra (dried coconut meat) is the only cash crop but it is of minor value.
The government is the largest employer. It provides all basic services and supports large bureaucracies at both the national and state levels. Even in remote areas, local officials, teachers, and health-care workers are government employees. Most outer islanders, however, still engage in subsistence activities.
Commercial enterprises flourish and provide additional employment in urban areas. Included are businesses that sell foodstuffs, household appliances, and motor vehicles.
Tourism also provides income and in the early 1990s more than 20,000 visitors arrived annually. However, significant growth is hampered by the remoteness of the islands and the country’s poor infrastructure.
The national currency is the United States dollar. The Federated States of Micronesia is a member of the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund.
Each state has an international air terminal and port facility. The four main islands have major airline service. Local enterprises manage air transport to some of the outer islands. Several shipping lines provide monthly service from elsewhere in the Pacific, Asia, and the United States. Small vessels shuttle among the islands. Roads are generally poor.
Given the large area that the islands cover, radio is the most important means of communication. Each state operates a station. There are television stations, but service is limited. The national government publishes a newsletter in English.
The production of electricity is also a government function. Diesel-powered generators are the sole source of energy.
V GOVERNMENT
From 1947 until 1979, the islands that now make up the FSM were part of the United States-administered Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. That year, the districts of Kosrae, Ponape (now Pohnpei), Truk (now Chuuk), and Yap approved a constitution, establishing the Federated States of Micronesia. The districts are distributed according to population and there are five in Chuuk, three in Pohnpei, and one each in Yap and Kosrae. The country has a unicameral legislature consisting of 14 members. One senator from each state is elected to a four-year term and one senator from each of the country’s ten districts is elected to a two-year term. Voters must be age 18 or older. The president and vice president are chosen by the legislature from among the four state senators. Special state elections are held to replace the senate seats vacated by the president and vice president.
The four states have considerable autonomy. Each has a unicameral legislature, a governor, and a lieutenant governor. All officials are elected. There are municipal governments at the village level. Some village leaders are elected while others are traditional chiefs.
The nation’s supreme court is headed by a chief justice and as many as five associate justices. All are appointed by the president with the consent of the legislature. The states and some municipalities have courts at the local level.
The Compact of Free Association, implemented in 1986, defines the political arrangement between the United States and the FSM. While the FSM is self-governing, the United States has the responsibility for defense. It may establish military bases and deny other nations access to Micronesia. In return, the FSM receives financial support and its citizens have the right of free entry to reside and work in the United States.
VI HISTORY
Pottery pieces and other archaeological evidence suggest the ancestors of today’s Micronesians settled the islands as early as ad 200. There are ruins in Kosrae state that date back to the 13th or 14th century. The ruins of Nan Madol, near the island of Pohnpei, consist of nearly 100 artificial islets. These stone structures served as the walled fortress of a kingdom that was powerful during the 13th century.
In the early 1500s Spanish explorers became the first Europeans to sight the islands. However, foreign influence was not significant until the early 1800s when American and British whalers began frequenting the islands. Missionary activities and a trade in coconut oil occurred by the mid-19th century. In the 1880s Spain unsuccessfully attempted to extend its control over the Caroline Islands (what is now the FSM and Palau). After the Spanish-American War in 1898, Spain lost its colonial empire in the Pacific and the Carolines came under German colonial rule. With the onset of World War I in 1914, Japan occupied the islands. Eventually, the Japanese-held islands in the region, which included the Caroline Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the Marshall Islands, became a League of Nations mandated territory.
Micronesia was a major battleground during World War II (1939-1945). The United States occupied the islands at the war’s end. In 1947 the islands came under U.S. administration, as the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, under the authority of the United Nations. United States interest in the trust territory was primarily strategic. American-style political institutions were introduced, but little economic development took place.
Negotiations for self-government in Micronesia began in the late 1960s with the assumption that a single nation would emerge from the trust territory. Fragmentation occurred during the 1970s, however, and differences in culture, history, and self-interest made unity impossible. The three island groups with the greatest strategic value—the Northern Marianas, the Marshall Islands and Palau—demanded to chart their own futures (see Northern Mariana Islands, Commonwealth of; Palau, Republic of). In spite of differences, the districts of Kosrae, Pohnpei (then Ponape), Chuuk (then Truk), and Yap were given little option but to remain together. They ratified a constitution in 1979 that established the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM). In 1986 the FSM and the United States signed the Compact of Free Association, officially making the FSM an internally sovereign, self-governing state. Under the compact, the United States assumes full responsibility for the FSM’s defense and provides the FSM with regular economic assistance in the form of U.S. grant funds and federal program assistance. These provisions were set to expire in November 2001. If an agreement for new provisions was not reached by then, the original terms were to be extended for two years. Other provisions of the compact, including the status of free association, continue indefinitely.
Contributed By:
Robert C. Kiste
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
I INTRODUCTION
Federated States of Micronesia, self-governing island country in free association with the United States, located in the western Pacific Ocean, forming, with the Republic of Palau, the Caroline Islands. The Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) includes four states. From east to west they are Kosrae, Pohnpei (formerly Ponape), Chuuk (formerly Truk), and Yap. The FSM is north of the equator, located more than 4,000 km (2,500 mi) southwest of Honolulu, Hawaii. Palikir, on Pohnpei Island, is the capital. The largest town is Kolonia, also on Pohnpei. The FSM, along with Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Palau, the Marshall Islands, Kiribati, and Nauru, is part of Micronesia, one of the three major divisions of Oceania.
II LAND AND RESOURCES
The FSM consists of more than 600 islands, of which about 60 are inhabited. From east to west, the FSM extends more than 2,700 km (1,700 mi), about twice the length of the country’s north-to-south distance. The contrast between land and sea area is great. The total land area is 702 sq km (271 sq mi), of which the islands of Pohnpei constitute well over one-half. The FSM’s exclusive economic zone, an area of the ocean where the FSM controls fishing and other rights, is more than 2.6 million sq km (1 million sq mi).
Most islands of the FSM are low-lying coral atolls (ring-shaped islands that enclose lagoons), although some of the larger islands were formed by volcanoes. Kosrae, the easternmost state, is usually considered to be one large volcanic island, but it also consists of several offshore islets, including Lelu, which is connected to the large island by a causeway. Pohnpei state contains the FSM’s largest island, the volcanic island of Pohnpei. There are also small offshore islands and outlying coral atolls. Chuuk state contains more than 200 islands and islets, including remnants of volcanic peaks in the lagoon of Chuuk Atoll and outlying coral islands. Yap, the westernmost state, consists of Yap proper (a small cluster of islands, three of which are connected by bridges) and more than 100 outlying coral islands. Unlike most other islands in the FSM, the islands of Yap proper are continental; they were formed by an uplifting of the Asian continental shelf. The volcanic islands have mountainous interiors, while the interiors of the continental islands of Yap have rolling hills. The country’s highest elevation is 790 m (2,595 ft) at Mount Ngihneni on Pohnpei.
The FSM has a tropical climate that is uniformly hot and humid. The average daily temperature range is 22° to 32°C (72° to 90°F). Rainfall varies greatly from one end of the country to the other. Yap receives about 4,570 mm (about 180 in) a year. Pohnpei receives twice that amount. Periodic droughts occur, particularly on the atolls. The FSM lies within the typhoon belt and thus destructive storms are common. They most frequently occur in the westernmost islands.
Vegetation on the volcanic islands is dense, but coconut palms thrive everywhere, including the coral atolls. The volcanic islands have relatively rich soils that support a variety of crops. Included are breadfruit, citrus and other fruits, taro, yams, and other root crops. The atolls have poorer soils and agriculture is much more limited. Although the volcanic and continental islands have rivers, the water is untreated. Thus the only source of drinking water in the FSM is rain collected in catchment systems. Water on the atolls is particularly scarce, and residents there must also rely on coconut milk.
The islands have few land animals. Chickens, pigs, dogs, cats, and rats were introduced by humans. Seabirds are numerous. Like coconuts, marine life is essential for atoll dwellers and it is abundant everywhere. There are no harmful reptiles or insects.
III THE PEOPLE OF THE FSM
The FSM’s 2008 estimated population was 107,673, indicating a population density of 153 persons per sq km (397 per sq mi). The population is unevenly distributed, however, with Chuuk state having one-half the population and Pohnpei, one-third. Some 29 percent of the population lives in the urban areas on the four main islands. The birth rate is high, but emigration partly offsets the population growth rate. Since the mid-1980s, Micronesians have migrated in sizable numbers to Guam, Hawaii, and the United States mainland.
The native Micronesians are divided among roughly ten language groups with varying cultural traditions. English is the official language of government and business, and most people have some command of it, although the range of ability is great. Many people also know two or more local languages.
The literacy rate is estimated at 89 percent, but educational achievement is very mixed. Elementary and secondary education is free and is compulsory for students between the ages of 6 and 14. Institutions of higher education include the Community College of Micronesia, established in 1987 on Pohnpei. Several hundred students from the FSM also pursue higher education in Guam and the United States.
With few exceptions, the people are Christians. Until recently, they were about evenly divided between mainstream Protestant denominations and Roman Catholicism. However, a number of Evangelical churches and other competing faiths have gained a following in the FSM, and religious differences have added an element of tension to island life.
Extended family life remains strong in the outer islands, but it is being eroded in the urban centers. The movement of people from rural to urban areas has been accompanied by an increased reliance on the money economy. Many basic traditional skills such as canoe making, fishing, and agriculture are being lost. Clothing and housing are increasingly more Western in style. Dependence on imported Western foods is also increasing. Even a basic necessity such as fish (canned) is imported. Many of the imported foods have a higher fat, sugar, and salt content than do the traditional foods they have replaced. As a result, there has been an increase in obesity, hypertension, and heart disease. Overcrowding in urban areas and the declining influence of the extended family have contributed to an increase in a number of social problems, including spouse and child abuse, alcohol abuse, juvenile delinquency, and youth suicides.
IV ECONOMY
The FSM’s economy is relatively simple. United States funds are the only major source of income. By the terms of the Compact of Free Association, the United States provided the FSM with about $1.39 billion between 1986 and 2001. With additional grants from the United States, the FSM’s total income from U.S. funds averages about $100 million a year. Small amounts of aid come from other donors as well. The FSM also receives income from the sale of licenses to foreign fleets to fish in its exclusive economic zone. Copra (dried coconut meat) is the only cash crop but it is of minor value.
The government is the largest employer. It provides all basic services and supports large bureaucracies at both the national and state levels. Even in remote areas, local officials, teachers, and health-care workers are government employees. Most outer islanders, however, still engage in subsistence activities.
Commercial enterprises flourish and provide additional employment in urban areas. Included are businesses that sell foodstuffs, household appliances, and motor vehicles.
Tourism also provides income and in the early 1990s more than 20,000 visitors arrived annually. However, significant growth is hampered by the remoteness of the islands and the country’s poor infrastructure.
The national currency is the United States dollar. The Federated States of Micronesia is a member of the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund.
Each state has an international air terminal and port facility. The four main islands have major airline service. Local enterprises manage air transport to some of the outer islands. Several shipping lines provide monthly service from elsewhere in the Pacific, Asia, and the United States. Small vessels shuttle among the islands. Roads are generally poor.
Given the large area that the islands cover, radio is the most important means of communication. Each state operates a station. There are television stations, but service is limited. The national government publishes a newsletter in English.
The production of electricity is also a government function. Diesel-powered generators are the sole source of energy.
V GOVERNMENT
From 1947 until 1979, the islands that now make up the FSM were part of the United States-administered Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. That year, the districts of Kosrae, Ponape (now Pohnpei), Truk (now Chuuk), and Yap approved a constitution, establishing the Federated States of Micronesia. The districts are distributed according to population and there are five in Chuuk, three in Pohnpei, and one each in Yap and Kosrae. The country has a unicameral legislature consisting of 14 members. One senator from each state is elected to a four-year term and one senator from each of the country’s ten districts is elected to a two-year term. Voters must be age 18 or older. The president and vice president are chosen by the legislature from among the four state senators. Special state elections are held to replace the senate seats vacated by the president and vice president.
The four states have considerable autonomy. Each has a unicameral legislature, a governor, and a lieutenant governor. All officials are elected. There are municipal governments at the village level. Some village leaders are elected while others are traditional chiefs.
The nation’s supreme court is headed by a chief justice and as many as five associate justices. All are appointed by the president with the consent of the legislature. The states and some municipalities have courts at the local level.
The Compact of Free Association, implemented in 1986, defines the political arrangement between the United States and the FSM. While the FSM is self-governing, the United States has the responsibility for defense. It may establish military bases and deny other nations access to Micronesia. In return, the FSM receives financial support and its citizens have the right of free entry to reside and work in the United States.
VI HISTORY
Pottery pieces and other archaeological evidence suggest the ancestors of today’s Micronesians settled the islands as early as ad 200. There are ruins in Kosrae state that date back to the 13th or 14th century. The ruins of Nan Madol, near the island of Pohnpei, consist of nearly 100 artificial islets. These stone structures served as the walled fortress of a kingdom that was powerful during the 13th century.
In the early 1500s Spanish explorers became the first Europeans to sight the islands. However, foreign influence was not significant until the early 1800s when American and British whalers began frequenting the islands. Missionary activities and a trade in coconut oil occurred by the mid-19th century. In the 1880s Spain unsuccessfully attempted to extend its control over the Caroline Islands (what is now the FSM and Palau). After the Spanish-American War in 1898, Spain lost its colonial empire in the Pacific and the Carolines came under German colonial rule. With the onset of World War I in 1914, Japan occupied the islands. Eventually, the Japanese-held islands in the region, which included the Caroline Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the Marshall Islands, became a League of Nations mandated territory.
Micronesia was a major battleground during World War II (1939-1945). The United States occupied the islands at the war’s end. In 1947 the islands came under U.S. administration, as the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, under the authority of the United Nations. United States interest in the trust territory was primarily strategic. American-style political institutions were introduced, but little economic development took place.
Negotiations for self-government in Micronesia began in the late 1960s with the assumption that a single nation would emerge from the trust territory. Fragmentation occurred during the 1970s, however, and differences in culture, history, and self-interest made unity impossible. The three island groups with the greatest strategic value—the Northern Marianas, the Marshall Islands and Palau—demanded to chart their own futures (see Northern Mariana Islands, Commonwealth of; Palau, Republic of). In spite of differences, the districts of Kosrae, Pohnpei (then Ponape), Chuuk (then Truk), and Yap were given little option but to remain together. They ratified a constitution in 1979 that established the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM). In 1986 the FSM and the United States signed the Compact of Free Association, officially making the FSM an internally sovereign, self-governing state. Under the compact, the United States assumes full responsibility for the FSM’s defense and provides the FSM with regular economic assistance in the form of U.S. grant funds and federal program assistance. These provisions were set to expire in November 2001. If an agreement for new provisions was not reached by then, the original terms were to be extended for two years. Other provisions of the compact, including the status of free association, continue indefinitely.
Contributed By:
Robert C. Kiste
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
MEXICO
Mauritius
I INTRODUCTION
Mauritius, independent island republic in the western Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar, a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. The country includes the island of Mauritius, with an area of 1,865 sq km (720 sq mi); the island of Rodrigues (104 sq km/40 sq mi) to the east; the Agalega Islands to the north; and the Cargados Carajos Shoals to the northeast, which have a combined area of 71 sq km (27 sq mi). The country has a total area of 2,040 sq km (788 sq mi).
II LAND AND RESOURCES
The island of Mauritius is of volcanic origin. From a low-lying plain in the north, the terrain rises to a plateau that covers the central part of the island. The south is mostly mountainous, rising to a maximum elevation in Piton de la Petite Rivière Noire (828 m/2,717 ft). Several lakes are located in the plateau region, and numerous streams rise in the highlands and radiate to the coast. The island is almost entirely surrounded by coral reefs, but Port Louis, the capital, has a fine harbor, accessible to oceangoing ships. The climate is tropical and generally humid. The average annual temperature is 23°C (73°F) on the coast but is lower in the central plateau. Average annual precipitation ranges from about 1,000 mm (about 40 in) on the coast to about 5,000 mm (about 200 in) in the plateau region. Strong cyclonic storms occur often during the hot season (December to April). The main natural resource is the relatively fertile soil of the island.
III POPULATION
The population of Mauritius (2008 estimate) is 1,260,781. The overall population density of 621 persons per sq km (1,609 per sq mi) is one of the highest in the world for countries. Port Louis, the capital and largest city, has a population (2003 estimate) of 143,000. More than two-thirds of the people are Indian immigrants and their descendants. People of mixed African and European descent, known as Creoles, constitute about a quarter of the total. Chinese and European minorities also exist. The majority of the Indo-Mauritians are Hindus; the rest are Muslims. Most Creoles are Roman Catholics. English is the official language, but Creole, a French patois, is commonly spoken. Other common languages are French, Hindi, and Bhojpuri.
IV ECONOMY
The economy of Mauritius has traditionally been dominated by a single cash crop, sugarcane. More than half the cultivated land is planted with sugarcane; sugar and molasses are major exports. Other crops include tea, peanuts, tobacco, and vegetables. Manufactures include refined sugar and sugar by-products, fertilizers, beverages, electronic components, and leather goods. The clothing and textile industry boomed during the 1980s, and tourism is increasingly important. The currency of Mauritius is the Mauritian rupee, which consists of 100 cents (31.70 rupees equal U.S.$1; 2006 average).
V GOVERNMENT
From 1968 through 1991 Mauritius was a constitutional monarchy; executive power was nominally vested in the British monarch, as represented by a governor-general. In March 1992 the country became a republic. Under the 1992 constitution, the head of state is a president, elected to a five-year term by the legislature. The president appoints a prime minister (traditionally the leader of the majority party in the legislature), who is the chief executive. The legislative body is the National Assembly, which consists of 62 directly elected representatives and 4 others appointed by the Supreme Court to ensure representation of various ethnic groups. National Assembly members serve five-year terms.
VI HISTORY
Although it has been settled for less than 400 years, Mauritius was probably visited by the Arabs before the 10th century, the Malays in the 1400s, and the Portuguese in the early 1500s. It was occupied in 1598 by the Dutch, who named it for Maurice of Nassau, then stadtholder of The Netherlands. The Dutch left in 1710, and in 1715 the French took possession, renaming it Île de France. It was captured by the British in 1810 during the Napoleonic Wars and was formally ceded to Britain in 1814. To offset the labor problem arising from abolition of slavery in the British Empire, the planters were allowed to import indentured laborers from India, and since 1861 the population has been mainly Indian.
Mauritius was granted independence on March 12, 1968. A member of the Commonwealth of Nations, the Afro-Malagasy Mauritian Common Organization, and the Organization of African Unity, Mauritius also has a special arrangement with the European Union under the Lomé Convention.
The Mauritius Labor Party (MLP), headed by Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam, governed Mauritius during the first 14 years of independence. The opposition Mauritian Militant Movement (MMM) gained strength throughout the 1970s and in 1982 swept to power, under the leadership of Anerood Jugnauth. Ousted from the MMM in a power struggle, Jugnauth formed a new party, the Mauritian Socialist Movement (MSM), which, in alliance with the MLP, won a parliamentary majority in 1983. Jugnauth’s coalition was reelected in 1987 and 1991.
In 1992 Mauritius became a republic, and the Mauritian National Assembly elected Cassam Uteem president. In December 1995 legislative elections the MSM was unanimously voted out in favor of a coalition of the MLP and the MMM. Navin Ramgoolam, leader of the MLP and son of Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam, replaced Jugnauth as prime minister. The MLP-MMM coalition fell apart in 1997. In September 2000 a MSM-MMM coalition swept legislative elections, and Jugnauth became prime minister once again. Jugnauth resigned in 2003 and was replaced as prime minister by longtime Mauritian political figure Paul Bérenger. Jugnauth was subsequently elected president by the National Assembly.
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
I INTRODUCTION
Mauritius, independent island republic in the western Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar, a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. The country includes the island of Mauritius, with an area of 1,865 sq km (720 sq mi); the island of Rodrigues (104 sq km/40 sq mi) to the east; the Agalega Islands to the north; and the Cargados Carajos Shoals to the northeast, which have a combined area of 71 sq km (27 sq mi). The country has a total area of 2,040 sq km (788 sq mi).
II LAND AND RESOURCES
The island of Mauritius is of volcanic origin. From a low-lying plain in the north, the terrain rises to a plateau that covers the central part of the island. The south is mostly mountainous, rising to a maximum elevation in Piton de la Petite Rivière Noire (828 m/2,717 ft). Several lakes are located in the plateau region, and numerous streams rise in the highlands and radiate to the coast. The island is almost entirely surrounded by coral reefs, but Port Louis, the capital, has a fine harbor, accessible to oceangoing ships. The climate is tropical and generally humid. The average annual temperature is 23°C (73°F) on the coast but is lower in the central plateau. Average annual precipitation ranges from about 1,000 mm (about 40 in) on the coast to about 5,000 mm (about 200 in) in the plateau region. Strong cyclonic storms occur often during the hot season (December to April). The main natural resource is the relatively fertile soil of the island.
III POPULATION
The population of Mauritius (2008 estimate) is 1,260,781. The overall population density of 621 persons per sq km (1,609 per sq mi) is one of the highest in the world for countries. Port Louis, the capital and largest city, has a population (2003 estimate) of 143,000. More than two-thirds of the people are Indian immigrants and their descendants. People of mixed African and European descent, known as Creoles, constitute about a quarter of the total. Chinese and European minorities also exist. The majority of the Indo-Mauritians are Hindus; the rest are Muslims. Most Creoles are Roman Catholics. English is the official language, but Creole, a French patois, is commonly spoken. Other common languages are French, Hindi, and Bhojpuri.
IV ECONOMY
The economy of Mauritius has traditionally been dominated by a single cash crop, sugarcane. More than half the cultivated land is planted with sugarcane; sugar and molasses are major exports. Other crops include tea, peanuts, tobacco, and vegetables. Manufactures include refined sugar and sugar by-products, fertilizers, beverages, electronic components, and leather goods. The clothing and textile industry boomed during the 1980s, and tourism is increasingly important. The currency of Mauritius is the Mauritian rupee, which consists of 100 cents (31.70 rupees equal U.S.$1; 2006 average).
V GOVERNMENT
From 1968 through 1991 Mauritius was a constitutional monarchy; executive power was nominally vested in the British monarch, as represented by a governor-general. In March 1992 the country became a republic. Under the 1992 constitution, the head of state is a president, elected to a five-year term by the legislature. The president appoints a prime minister (traditionally the leader of the majority party in the legislature), who is the chief executive. The legislative body is the National Assembly, which consists of 62 directly elected representatives and 4 others appointed by the Supreme Court to ensure representation of various ethnic groups. National Assembly members serve five-year terms.
VI HISTORY
Although it has been settled for less than 400 years, Mauritius was probably visited by the Arabs before the 10th century, the Malays in the 1400s, and the Portuguese in the early 1500s. It was occupied in 1598 by the Dutch, who named it for Maurice of Nassau, then stadtholder of The Netherlands. The Dutch left in 1710, and in 1715 the French took possession, renaming it Île de France. It was captured by the British in 1810 during the Napoleonic Wars and was formally ceded to Britain in 1814. To offset the labor problem arising from abolition of slavery in the British Empire, the planters were allowed to import indentured laborers from India, and since 1861 the population has been mainly Indian.
Mauritius was granted independence on March 12, 1968. A member of the Commonwealth of Nations, the Afro-Malagasy Mauritian Common Organization, and the Organization of African Unity, Mauritius also has a special arrangement with the European Union under the Lomé Convention.
The Mauritius Labor Party (MLP), headed by Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam, governed Mauritius during the first 14 years of independence. The opposition Mauritian Militant Movement (MMM) gained strength throughout the 1970s and in 1982 swept to power, under the leadership of Anerood Jugnauth. Ousted from the MMM in a power struggle, Jugnauth formed a new party, the Mauritian Socialist Movement (MSM), which, in alliance with the MLP, won a parliamentary majority in 1983. Jugnauth’s coalition was reelected in 1987 and 1991.
In 1992 Mauritius became a republic, and the Mauritian National Assembly elected Cassam Uteem president. In December 1995 legislative elections the MSM was unanimously voted out in favor of a coalition of the MLP and the MMM. Navin Ramgoolam, leader of the MLP and son of Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam, replaced Jugnauth as prime minister. The MLP-MMM coalition fell apart in 1997. In September 2000 a MSM-MMM coalition swept legislative elections, and Jugnauth became prime minister once again. Jugnauth resigned in 2003 and was replaced as prime minister by longtime Mauritian political figure Paul Bérenger. Jugnauth was subsequently elected president by the National Assembly.
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
MAURITIUS
Mauritius
I INTRODUCTION
Mauritius, independent island republic in the western Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar, a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. The country includes the island of Mauritius, with an area of 1,865 sq km (720 sq mi); the island of Rodrigues (104 sq km/40 sq mi) to the east; the Agalega Islands to the north; and the Cargados Carajos Shoals to the northeast, which have a combined area of 71 sq km (27 sq mi). The country has a total area of 2,040 sq km (788 sq mi).
II LAND AND RESOURCES
The island of Mauritius is of volcanic origin. From a low-lying plain in the north, the terrain rises to a plateau that covers the central part of the island. The south is mostly mountainous, rising to a maximum elevation in Piton de la Petite Rivière Noire (828 m/2,717 ft). Several lakes are located in the plateau region, and numerous streams rise in the highlands and radiate to the coast. The island is almost entirely surrounded by coral reefs, but Port Louis, the capital, has a fine harbor, accessible to oceangoing ships. The climate is tropical and generally humid. The average annual temperature is 23°C (73°F) on the coast but is lower in the central plateau. Average annual precipitation ranges from about 1,000 mm (about 40 in) on the coast to about 5,000 mm (about 200 in) in the plateau region. Strong cyclonic storms occur often during the hot season (December to April). The main natural resource is the relatively fertile soil of the island.
III POPULATION
The population of Mauritius (2008 estimate) is 1,260,781. The overall population density of 621 persons per sq km (1,609 per sq mi) is one of the highest in the world for countries. Port Louis, the capital and largest city, has a population (2003 estimate) of 143,000. More than two-thirds of the people are Indian immigrants and their descendants. People of mixed African and European descent, known as Creoles, constitute about a quarter of the total. Chinese and European minorities also exist. The majority of the Indo-Mauritians are Hindus; the rest are Muslims. Most Creoles are Roman Catholics. English is the official language, but Creole, a French patois, is commonly spoken. Other common languages are French, Hindi, and Bhojpuri.
IV ECONOMY
The economy of Mauritius has traditionally been dominated by a single cash crop, sugarcane. More than half the cultivated land is planted with sugarcane; sugar and molasses are major exports. Other crops include tea, peanuts, tobacco, and vegetables. Manufactures include refined sugar and sugar by-products, fertilizers, beverages, electronic components, and leather goods. The clothing and textile industry boomed during the 1980s, and tourism is increasingly important. The currency of Mauritius is the Mauritian rupee, which consists of 100 cents (31.70 rupees equal U.S.$1; 2006 average).
V GOVERNMENT
From 1968 through 1991 Mauritius was a constitutional monarchy; executive power was nominally vested in the British monarch, as represented by a governor-general. In March 1992 the country became a republic. Under the 1992 constitution, the head of state is a president, elected to a five-year term by the legislature. The president appoints a prime minister (traditionally the leader of the majority party in the legislature), who is the chief executive. The legislative body is the National Assembly, which consists of 62 directly elected representatives and 4 others appointed by the Supreme Court to ensure representation of various ethnic groups. National Assembly members serve five-year terms.
VI HISTORY
Although it has been settled for less than 400 years, Mauritius was probably visited by the Arabs before the 10th century, the Malays in the 1400s, and the Portuguese in the early 1500s. It was occupied in 1598 by the Dutch, who named it for Maurice of Nassau, then stadtholder of The Netherlands. The Dutch left in 1710, and in 1715 the French took possession, renaming it Île de France. It was captured by the British in 1810 during the Napoleonic Wars and was formally ceded to Britain in 1814. To offset the labor problem arising from abolition of slavery in the British Empire, the planters were allowed to import indentured laborers from India, and since 1861 the population has been mainly Indian.
Mauritius was granted independence on March 12, 1968. A member of the Commonwealth of Nations, the Afro-Malagasy Mauritian Common Organization, and the Organization of African Unity, Mauritius also has a special arrangement with the European Union under the Lomé Convention.
The Mauritius Labor Party (MLP), headed by Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam, governed Mauritius during the first 14 years of independence. The opposition Mauritian Militant Movement (MMM) gained strength throughout the 1970s and in 1982 swept to power, under the leadership of Anerood Jugnauth. Ousted from the MMM in a power struggle, Jugnauth formed a new party, the Mauritian Socialist Movement (MSM), which, in alliance with the MLP, won a parliamentary majority in 1983. Jugnauth’s coalition was reelected in 1987 and 1991.
In 1992 Mauritius became a republic, and the Mauritian National Assembly elected Cassam Uteem president. In December 1995 legislative elections the MSM was unanimously voted out in favor of a coalition of the MLP and the MMM. Navin Ramgoolam, leader of the MLP and son of Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam, replaced Jugnauth as prime minister. The MLP-MMM coalition fell apart in 1997. In September 2000 a MSM-MMM coalition swept legislative elections, and Jugnauth became prime minister once again. Jugnauth resigned in 2003 and was replaced as prime minister by longtime Mauritian political figure Paul Bérenger. Jugnauth was subsequently elected president by the National Assembly.
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
I INTRODUCTION
Mauritius, independent island republic in the western Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar, a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. The country includes the island of Mauritius, with an area of 1,865 sq km (720 sq mi); the island of Rodrigues (104 sq km/40 sq mi) to the east; the Agalega Islands to the north; and the Cargados Carajos Shoals to the northeast, which have a combined area of 71 sq km (27 sq mi). The country has a total area of 2,040 sq km (788 sq mi).
II LAND AND RESOURCES
The island of Mauritius is of volcanic origin. From a low-lying plain in the north, the terrain rises to a plateau that covers the central part of the island. The south is mostly mountainous, rising to a maximum elevation in Piton de la Petite Rivière Noire (828 m/2,717 ft). Several lakes are located in the plateau region, and numerous streams rise in the highlands and radiate to the coast. The island is almost entirely surrounded by coral reefs, but Port Louis, the capital, has a fine harbor, accessible to oceangoing ships. The climate is tropical and generally humid. The average annual temperature is 23°C (73°F) on the coast but is lower in the central plateau. Average annual precipitation ranges from about 1,000 mm (about 40 in) on the coast to about 5,000 mm (about 200 in) in the plateau region. Strong cyclonic storms occur often during the hot season (December to April). The main natural resource is the relatively fertile soil of the island.
III POPULATION
The population of Mauritius (2008 estimate) is 1,260,781. The overall population density of 621 persons per sq km (1,609 per sq mi) is one of the highest in the world for countries. Port Louis, the capital and largest city, has a population (2003 estimate) of 143,000. More than two-thirds of the people are Indian immigrants and their descendants. People of mixed African and European descent, known as Creoles, constitute about a quarter of the total. Chinese and European minorities also exist. The majority of the Indo-Mauritians are Hindus; the rest are Muslims. Most Creoles are Roman Catholics. English is the official language, but Creole, a French patois, is commonly spoken. Other common languages are French, Hindi, and Bhojpuri.
IV ECONOMY
The economy of Mauritius has traditionally been dominated by a single cash crop, sugarcane. More than half the cultivated land is planted with sugarcane; sugar and molasses are major exports. Other crops include tea, peanuts, tobacco, and vegetables. Manufactures include refined sugar and sugar by-products, fertilizers, beverages, electronic components, and leather goods. The clothing and textile industry boomed during the 1980s, and tourism is increasingly important. The currency of Mauritius is the Mauritian rupee, which consists of 100 cents (31.70 rupees equal U.S.$1; 2006 average).
V GOVERNMENT
From 1968 through 1991 Mauritius was a constitutional monarchy; executive power was nominally vested in the British monarch, as represented by a governor-general. In March 1992 the country became a republic. Under the 1992 constitution, the head of state is a president, elected to a five-year term by the legislature. The president appoints a prime minister (traditionally the leader of the majority party in the legislature), who is the chief executive. The legislative body is the National Assembly, which consists of 62 directly elected representatives and 4 others appointed by the Supreme Court to ensure representation of various ethnic groups. National Assembly members serve five-year terms.
VI HISTORY
Although it has been settled for less than 400 years, Mauritius was probably visited by the Arabs before the 10th century, the Malays in the 1400s, and the Portuguese in the early 1500s. It was occupied in 1598 by the Dutch, who named it for Maurice of Nassau, then stadtholder of The Netherlands. The Dutch left in 1710, and in 1715 the French took possession, renaming it Île de France. It was captured by the British in 1810 during the Napoleonic Wars and was formally ceded to Britain in 1814. To offset the labor problem arising from abolition of slavery in the British Empire, the planters were allowed to import indentured laborers from India, and since 1861 the population has been mainly Indian.
Mauritius was granted independence on March 12, 1968. A member of the Commonwealth of Nations, the Afro-Malagasy Mauritian Common Organization, and the Organization of African Unity, Mauritius also has a special arrangement with the European Union under the Lomé Convention.
The Mauritius Labor Party (MLP), headed by Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam, governed Mauritius during the first 14 years of independence. The opposition Mauritian Militant Movement (MMM) gained strength throughout the 1970s and in 1982 swept to power, under the leadership of Anerood Jugnauth. Ousted from the MMM in a power struggle, Jugnauth formed a new party, the Mauritian Socialist Movement (MSM), which, in alliance with the MLP, won a parliamentary majority in 1983. Jugnauth’s coalition was reelected in 1987 and 1991.
In 1992 Mauritius became a republic, and the Mauritian National Assembly elected Cassam Uteem president. In December 1995 legislative elections the MSM was unanimously voted out in favor of a coalition of the MLP and the MMM. Navin Ramgoolam, leader of the MLP and son of Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam, replaced Jugnauth as prime minister. The MLP-MMM coalition fell apart in 1997. In September 2000 a MSM-MMM coalition swept legislative elections, and Jugnauth became prime minister once again. Jugnauth resigned in 2003 and was replaced as prime minister by longtime Mauritian political figure Paul Bérenger. Jugnauth was subsequently elected president by the National Assembly.
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
MAURITANIA
Mauritania
I INTRODUCTION
Mauritania, officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, country in northwestern Africa. It is bounded on the north by Western Sahara and Algeria, on the east by Mali, on the south by Mali and Senegal, and on the west by the Atlantic Ocean. The country has a total area of 1,031,000 sq km (398,000 sq mi).
II LAND AND RESOURCES
With the exception of a narrow strip in the south along the Sénégal River, the country lies entirely within the Sahara. The elevation varies from 150 m (500 ft) in the southwest to 460 m (1,500 ft) in the northeast. Daytime temperatures in much of the country reach 38°C (100°F) for more than six months of the year, but the nights are cool. Annual rainfall varies from less than 130 mm (less than 5 in) in the north to 660 mm (26 in) in the Sénégal Valley.
A Natural Resources
Mauritania contains large deposits of iron ore in the Fdérik area. Other mineral resources of the country include deposits of phosphates, sulfur, copper, and gypsum. Significant offshore reserves of oil and natural gas were discovered in the early 21st century.
B Plants and Animals
Upper Mauritania has little plant life and few animals. In the south, however, in a belt of steppe with trees of the genera Acacia and Commiphoa, lions and monkeys are found.
C Environmental Issues
Eighty percent of Mauritania lies within the Sahara, and years of drought combined with overgrazing and deforestation have increased the country’s risk of desertification. Agricultural production has been maintained in the face of water shortages (primarily through groundwater mining), although high population growth has meant that per capita production has declined significantly. A project to dam the Sénégal River would increase and regulate water availability, but some ecosystems would inevitably be adversely affected.
III POPULATION
Two-fifths of the population is of mixed Moor and black African heritage. Another 30 percent of Mauritania’s people are Moors (of mixed Arab and Berber ancestry), many of whom lead nomadic existences. More than 90 percent of the population lives in the southern quarter of the country. About 30 percent of the people are black African farmers, who are settled in the Sénégal Valley.
A Population Characteristics
According to the 1988 census, Mauritania had 1,864,236 inhabitants. The 2008 estimated population was 3,364,940, giving the country an overall population density of 3 persons per sq km (9 persons per sq mi).
B Political Divisions and Principal Cities
Mauritania is divided into 12 regions, each administered by a council, and 1 district, which encompasses the country’s capital and largest city, Nouakchott (population, 2003 estimate, 600,000). Other principal towns are Kaédi (34,227), a farming center on the Sénégal, Nouadhibou (72,337), a fishing center and seaport, the exports of which include iron ore sent by rail from Fdérik, and Rosso (48,922).
C Religion and Language
Islam, the state religion, is professed by nearly all of the people. Hasaniya Arabic (a Moorish dialect of Arabic) is the official language, and Fulfulde, Wolof, Soninke, and French are also widely spoken.
D Education
The government of Mauritania attempts to provide free primary education. The effort, however, has been hindered by the nomadic character of the people. In 2002–2003 some 88 percent of eligible children, or 360,700 pupils, attended primary school. Just 23 percent of secondary school-aged children were enrolled. Higher education is provided by the University of Nouakchott (1981) and by a college of public administration, also in the capital.
IV ECONOMY
The Mauritanian economy is predominantly pastoral, with mining and fishing increasing in importance. Mauritania has depended heavily on foreign aid. However, the country has offshore reserves of oil and natural gas that may bring a more prosperous future. In 2006 the gross domestic product (GDP), which measures the total value of goods and services produced in the country, was $2,662,577,900, or $874.80 per inhabitant.
A Agriculture
Animal raising is the most important agricultural activity. Livestock in Mauritania in 2005 was estimated to include 8.8 million sheep, 5.6 million goats, 1.7 million cattle, and 4.2 million poultry. Crop farming is mostly restricted to the south. The leading crops are millet, pulses, rice, dates, watermelons, yams, and maize.
B Fishing
Mauritania has a large saltwater fishing potential, and the government has taken measures to protect its offshore fishing areas. In 2005 the country’s catch was 247,577 metric tons.
C Mining
Production of iron ore, mainly from Mauritania’s rich deposits in the Fdérik area, totaled 6.9 million metric tons in 2004. Copper mining, once an important industry, was discontinued in 1978. Reserves of oil and natural gas were discovered in 2001 and 2005. The offshore fields are expected to yield hundreds of millions of barrels of oil once they are fully exploited.
D Currency and Foreign Trade
The monetary unit in Mauritania is the ouguiya, which is divided into five khoums (266 ouguiyas equal U.S.$1; 2005 average). The Central Bank of Mauritania (founded in 1973) is the bank of issue.
In 2000 exports totaled $499 million. Imports amounted to $294 million. Iron ore is the principal export; imports typically consist of food products, machinery, construction materials, petroleum, and consumer goods. Leading purchasers of exports are Japan, France, Italy, and Belgium and Luxembourg (which operate together as a single trading unit). Chief sources for imports are France, Algeria, Spain, China, and the United States. Mauritania also exports cattle to Senegal.
E Transportation and Communications
Transportation facilities include air routes and 7,660 km (4,760 mi) of roads and tracks. The 1,100-km Trans-Mauritanian highway was completed in 1985. A 670-km (416-mi) railroad links Nouadhibou to the Fdérik ore fields. Deep-water port facilities and international airports are located at Nouadhibou and Nouakchott. The country has 3 daily newspapers; the Chaab is published in French and Arabic in Nouakchott.
F Manufacturing and Energy
Manufacturing accounts for only 5 percent of Mauritania’s economic base and is limited primarily to fish processing and the production of other foodstuffs. In 2003 the country generated 185.6 million kilowatt-hours of electricity, 78.45 percent of which was produced in thermal facilities.
V GOVERNMENT
A 1961 constitution, promulgated soon after Mauritania became an independent republic, was suspended in 1978 following a coup d’état. Subsequently, legislative and executive power was vested in what became known as the Military Committee for National Salvation. The committee was headed by a chairman, who served as president of the country, and included 23 other permanent members in the late 1980s. A council of ministers, appointed by the committee, consisted of 22 members and included the prime minister. A new constitution was approved by referendum in July 1991. All citizens aged 18 and older may vote.
A Executive and Legislature
The 1991 constitution provides for an executive president, who is limited to two five-year terms under constitutional amendments approved by voters in 2006. The president appoints a prime minister to head the government. Mauritania has a legislature with two chambers, the National Assembly and the Senate. The 95 members of the National Assembly are directly elected to serve five-year terms, and the 56 members of the Senate are indirectly elected by municipal leaders to serve six-year terms.
B Judiciary
The highest court of appeal is the Supreme Court, which sits in Nouakchott. The High Court of Justice, whose members are elected by the parliament, adjudicates cases involving the executive branch of government. Islamic law plays an important role in the Mauritanian judicial system. The High Council of Islam advises the president on matters of religion and law. The Constitutional Council, established in 1992, rules on all matters relating to the constitution.
C Defense
In 2004 Mauritania had an army of 15,000 persons, a navy of 620, and an air force of 250.
VI HISTORY
Remnants of Stone Age cultures have been found in northern Mauritania. Berber nomads moved into the area in the 1st millennium ad and subjugated the indigenous black population. The newcomers belonged to the Sanhaja Confederation that long dominated trade between the northern parts of Africa and the kingdom of Ghana, the capital of which, Kumbi Saleh (Koumbi Saleh), was in southeastern Mauritania. Under Almoravid leadership, the Sanhaja razed Kumbi Saleh in 1076, although Ghana survived until the early 13th century. The Berbers, in turn, were conquered by Arabs in the 16th century. The descendants of the Arabs became the upper stratum of Mauritanian society, and Arabic gradually displaced Berber dialects as the language of the country. French forces, moving up the Sénégal River, made the area a French protectorate by 1905 and a colony in 1920. In 1946 Mauritania became an overseas territory of the French Union. Under French occupation, slavery was legally abolished.
The Islamic Republic of Mauritania was proclaimed on November 28, 1958, under the constitution of the Fifth French Republic, and on November 28, 1960, it became fully independent. It joined the United Nations in 1961. That same year Moktar Ould Daddah was elected its first president; he was reelected in 1966, 1971, and 1976.
Mauritania was severely affected by a drought in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Nevertheless, its economy expanded as newly discovered iron and copper deposits were exploited. In 1976 it annexed the southern third of adjacent Spanish Sahara (see Western Sahara), which at that time was ceded by Spain; Morocco received the rest of the territory. A Saharan nationalist movement, the Polisario Front, seeking to make the Western Sahara an independent nation, weakened Mauritania with guerrilla warfare. In July 1978, President Daddah was ousted in a coup led by Lieutenant Colonel Mustafa Ould Salek. After he was replaced by another army officer, Mohamed Ould Louly, Mauritania agreed, in August 1979, to withdraw from the Western Sahara.
Another change of leadership occurred in 1980, when the prime minister, Mohamed Ould Haidalla, assumed the presidency. He subjected the nation to strict enforcement of Islamic law. Haidalla survived a coup in 1981 but was deposed by his chief of staff, Colonel Maaouya Ould Sidi Ahmed Taya, in 1984.
A Taya’s Years in Power
Tensions with Senegal in 1989 resulted in the repatriation of 100,000 Mauritanian nationals from Senegal and the repatriation or expulsion of 125,000 Senegalese nationals from Mauritania. Faced with rising domestic pressures and international criticism of his human rights record, Taya implemented a new constitution and legalized opposition parties in 1991. He was elected executive president in 1992. Opposition parties claimed the vote was rigged, charges that were repeated when Taya was reelected in 1997.
Starting in the mid-1990s, Taya sought to limit the influence of Islamist groups in Mauritania and improve relations with Israel and Western powers. Mauritania established full diplomatic relations with Israel in 1999, becoming one of only a few Arab states to do so. The 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq (see U.S.-Iraq War) sparked widespread protests and popular unrest in Mauritania. The government responded by cracking down on pro-Iraqi and Islamist political groups. Taya survived a coup attempt in June 2003 and was reelected in a disputed election in November.
B Military Coup
A military coup in August 2005 ousted Taya while he was out of the country attending the funeral of Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd. Many Mauritanians welcomed the coup, which ended Taya’s repressive regime of 21 years. The Military Council for Justice and Democracy declared it would rule the country for a two-year transition period but promised to relinquish power following democratic elections. The leader of the coup and president of the military council, Colonel Ely Ould Mohamed Vall, had been the head of national security. Analysts said Taya had alienated many Islamic leaders in the country by establishing diplomatic relations with Israel and dealing harshly with his political opponents. Former president Mohamed Ould Haidalla, who had ruled Mauritania by strict Islamic law, was among 200 people who were put on trial in early 2005 for allegedly fomenting coup attempts against Taya.
C Democratic Elections
In June 2006 Mauritania held a referendum on amendments to the 1991 constitution. Mauritanians voted overwhelmingly to limit the president’s mandate to two five-year terms. (The constitution had allowed the president to serve an indefinite number of six-year terms.)
Mauritania held its first fully democratic elections since independence with voting in November and December 2006 for a new National Assembly. No single party or coalition won an absolute majority in the elections. The Coalition of Forces for Democratic Change, comprising the Rally of Democratic Forces and other parties that had formerly opposed Taya, won 41 of the 95 seats. Independent candidates won 39 seats, the Renewed Republican Democratic Party (formerly Taya’s ruling Democratic and Social Republican Party) won 7, and smaller parties won the remainder. Many Islamist candidates stood as independents because Islamist parties and movements were banned. Members of the military junta were also banned from contesting the elections.
Presidential elections followed in March 2007, as the final phase in the transition to civilian and democratic rule. The independent candidate, Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, won the runoff election with 53 percent of the vote against Ahmed Ould Daddah, leader of the Rally of Democratic Forces. Abdallahi, a former minister in Taya’s government, was considered the favorite candidate of the military. An election observation mission of the European Union (EU) determined that Mauritania’s historic elections were free and fair.
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
I INTRODUCTION
Mauritania, officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, country in northwestern Africa. It is bounded on the north by Western Sahara and Algeria, on the east by Mali, on the south by Mali and Senegal, and on the west by the Atlantic Ocean. The country has a total area of 1,031,000 sq km (398,000 sq mi).
II LAND AND RESOURCES
With the exception of a narrow strip in the south along the Sénégal River, the country lies entirely within the Sahara. The elevation varies from 150 m (500 ft) in the southwest to 460 m (1,500 ft) in the northeast. Daytime temperatures in much of the country reach 38°C (100°F) for more than six months of the year, but the nights are cool. Annual rainfall varies from less than 130 mm (less than 5 in) in the north to 660 mm (26 in) in the Sénégal Valley.
A Natural Resources
Mauritania contains large deposits of iron ore in the Fdérik area. Other mineral resources of the country include deposits of phosphates, sulfur, copper, and gypsum. Significant offshore reserves of oil and natural gas were discovered in the early 21st century.
B Plants and Animals
Upper Mauritania has little plant life and few animals. In the south, however, in a belt of steppe with trees of the genera Acacia and Commiphoa, lions and monkeys are found.
C Environmental Issues
Eighty percent of Mauritania lies within the Sahara, and years of drought combined with overgrazing and deforestation have increased the country’s risk of desertification. Agricultural production has been maintained in the face of water shortages (primarily through groundwater mining), although high population growth has meant that per capita production has declined significantly. A project to dam the Sénégal River would increase and regulate water availability, but some ecosystems would inevitably be adversely affected.
III POPULATION
Two-fifths of the population is of mixed Moor and black African heritage. Another 30 percent of Mauritania’s people are Moors (of mixed Arab and Berber ancestry), many of whom lead nomadic existences. More than 90 percent of the population lives in the southern quarter of the country. About 30 percent of the people are black African farmers, who are settled in the Sénégal Valley.
A Population Characteristics
According to the 1988 census, Mauritania had 1,864,236 inhabitants. The 2008 estimated population was 3,364,940, giving the country an overall population density of 3 persons per sq km (9 persons per sq mi).
B Political Divisions and Principal Cities
Mauritania is divided into 12 regions, each administered by a council, and 1 district, which encompasses the country’s capital and largest city, Nouakchott (population, 2003 estimate, 600,000). Other principal towns are Kaédi (34,227), a farming center on the Sénégal, Nouadhibou (72,337), a fishing center and seaport, the exports of which include iron ore sent by rail from Fdérik, and Rosso (48,922).
C Religion and Language
Islam, the state religion, is professed by nearly all of the people. Hasaniya Arabic (a Moorish dialect of Arabic) is the official language, and Fulfulde, Wolof, Soninke, and French are also widely spoken.
D Education
The government of Mauritania attempts to provide free primary education. The effort, however, has been hindered by the nomadic character of the people. In 2002–2003 some 88 percent of eligible children, or 360,700 pupils, attended primary school. Just 23 percent of secondary school-aged children were enrolled. Higher education is provided by the University of Nouakchott (1981) and by a college of public administration, also in the capital.
IV ECONOMY
The Mauritanian economy is predominantly pastoral, with mining and fishing increasing in importance. Mauritania has depended heavily on foreign aid. However, the country has offshore reserves of oil and natural gas that may bring a more prosperous future. In 2006 the gross domestic product (GDP), which measures the total value of goods and services produced in the country, was $2,662,577,900, or $874.80 per inhabitant.
A Agriculture
Animal raising is the most important agricultural activity. Livestock in Mauritania in 2005 was estimated to include 8.8 million sheep, 5.6 million goats, 1.7 million cattle, and 4.2 million poultry. Crop farming is mostly restricted to the south. The leading crops are millet, pulses, rice, dates, watermelons, yams, and maize.
B Fishing
Mauritania has a large saltwater fishing potential, and the government has taken measures to protect its offshore fishing areas. In 2005 the country’s catch was 247,577 metric tons.
C Mining
Production of iron ore, mainly from Mauritania’s rich deposits in the Fdérik area, totaled 6.9 million metric tons in 2004. Copper mining, once an important industry, was discontinued in 1978. Reserves of oil and natural gas were discovered in 2001 and 2005. The offshore fields are expected to yield hundreds of millions of barrels of oil once they are fully exploited.
D Currency and Foreign Trade
The monetary unit in Mauritania is the ouguiya, which is divided into five khoums (266 ouguiyas equal U.S.$1; 2005 average). The Central Bank of Mauritania (founded in 1973) is the bank of issue.
In 2000 exports totaled $499 million. Imports amounted to $294 million. Iron ore is the principal export; imports typically consist of food products, machinery, construction materials, petroleum, and consumer goods. Leading purchasers of exports are Japan, France, Italy, and Belgium and Luxembourg (which operate together as a single trading unit). Chief sources for imports are France, Algeria, Spain, China, and the United States. Mauritania also exports cattle to Senegal.
E Transportation and Communications
Transportation facilities include air routes and 7,660 km (4,760 mi) of roads and tracks. The 1,100-km Trans-Mauritanian highway was completed in 1985. A 670-km (416-mi) railroad links Nouadhibou to the Fdérik ore fields. Deep-water port facilities and international airports are located at Nouadhibou and Nouakchott. The country has 3 daily newspapers; the Chaab is published in French and Arabic in Nouakchott.
F Manufacturing and Energy
Manufacturing accounts for only 5 percent of Mauritania’s economic base and is limited primarily to fish processing and the production of other foodstuffs. In 2003 the country generated 185.6 million kilowatt-hours of electricity, 78.45 percent of which was produced in thermal facilities.
V GOVERNMENT
A 1961 constitution, promulgated soon after Mauritania became an independent republic, was suspended in 1978 following a coup d’état. Subsequently, legislative and executive power was vested in what became known as the Military Committee for National Salvation. The committee was headed by a chairman, who served as president of the country, and included 23 other permanent members in the late 1980s. A council of ministers, appointed by the committee, consisted of 22 members and included the prime minister. A new constitution was approved by referendum in July 1991. All citizens aged 18 and older may vote.
A Executive and Legislature
The 1991 constitution provides for an executive president, who is limited to two five-year terms under constitutional amendments approved by voters in 2006. The president appoints a prime minister to head the government. Mauritania has a legislature with two chambers, the National Assembly and the Senate. The 95 members of the National Assembly are directly elected to serve five-year terms, and the 56 members of the Senate are indirectly elected by municipal leaders to serve six-year terms.
B Judiciary
The highest court of appeal is the Supreme Court, which sits in Nouakchott. The High Court of Justice, whose members are elected by the parliament, adjudicates cases involving the executive branch of government. Islamic law plays an important role in the Mauritanian judicial system. The High Council of Islam advises the president on matters of religion and law. The Constitutional Council, established in 1992, rules on all matters relating to the constitution.
C Defense
In 2004 Mauritania had an army of 15,000 persons, a navy of 620, and an air force of 250.
VI HISTORY
Remnants of Stone Age cultures have been found in northern Mauritania. Berber nomads moved into the area in the 1st millennium ad and subjugated the indigenous black population. The newcomers belonged to the Sanhaja Confederation that long dominated trade between the northern parts of Africa and the kingdom of Ghana, the capital of which, Kumbi Saleh (Koumbi Saleh), was in southeastern Mauritania. Under Almoravid leadership, the Sanhaja razed Kumbi Saleh in 1076, although Ghana survived until the early 13th century. The Berbers, in turn, were conquered by Arabs in the 16th century. The descendants of the Arabs became the upper stratum of Mauritanian society, and Arabic gradually displaced Berber dialects as the language of the country. French forces, moving up the Sénégal River, made the area a French protectorate by 1905 and a colony in 1920. In 1946 Mauritania became an overseas territory of the French Union. Under French occupation, slavery was legally abolished.
The Islamic Republic of Mauritania was proclaimed on November 28, 1958, under the constitution of the Fifth French Republic, and on November 28, 1960, it became fully independent. It joined the United Nations in 1961. That same year Moktar Ould Daddah was elected its first president; he was reelected in 1966, 1971, and 1976.
Mauritania was severely affected by a drought in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Nevertheless, its economy expanded as newly discovered iron and copper deposits were exploited. In 1976 it annexed the southern third of adjacent Spanish Sahara (see Western Sahara), which at that time was ceded by Spain; Morocco received the rest of the territory. A Saharan nationalist movement, the Polisario Front, seeking to make the Western Sahara an independent nation, weakened Mauritania with guerrilla warfare. In July 1978, President Daddah was ousted in a coup led by Lieutenant Colonel Mustafa Ould Salek. After he was replaced by another army officer, Mohamed Ould Louly, Mauritania agreed, in August 1979, to withdraw from the Western Sahara.
Another change of leadership occurred in 1980, when the prime minister, Mohamed Ould Haidalla, assumed the presidency. He subjected the nation to strict enforcement of Islamic law. Haidalla survived a coup in 1981 but was deposed by his chief of staff, Colonel Maaouya Ould Sidi Ahmed Taya, in 1984.
A Taya’s Years in Power
Tensions with Senegal in 1989 resulted in the repatriation of 100,000 Mauritanian nationals from Senegal and the repatriation or expulsion of 125,000 Senegalese nationals from Mauritania. Faced with rising domestic pressures and international criticism of his human rights record, Taya implemented a new constitution and legalized opposition parties in 1991. He was elected executive president in 1992. Opposition parties claimed the vote was rigged, charges that were repeated when Taya was reelected in 1997.
Starting in the mid-1990s, Taya sought to limit the influence of Islamist groups in Mauritania and improve relations with Israel and Western powers. Mauritania established full diplomatic relations with Israel in 1999, becoming one of only a few Arab states to do so. The 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq (see U.S.-Iraq War) sparked widespread protests and popular unrest in Mauritania. The government responded by cracking down on pro-Iraqi and Islamist political groups. Taya survived a coup attempt in June 2003 and was reelected in a disputed election in November.
B Military Coup
A military coup in August 2005 ousted Taya while he was out of the country attending the funeral of Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd. Many Mauritanians welcomed the coup, which ended Taya’s repressive regime of 21 years. The Military Council for Justice and Democracy declared it would rule the country for a two-year transition period but promised to relinquish power following democratic elections. The leader of the coup and president of the military council, Colonel Ely Ould Mohamed Vall, had been the head of national security. Analysts said Taya had alienated many Islamic leaders in the country by establishing diplomatic relations with Israel and dealing harshly with his political opponents. Former president Mohamed Ould Haidalla, who had ruled Mauritania by strict Islamic law, was among 200 people who were put on trial in early 2005 for allegedly fomenting coup attempts against Taya.
C Democratic Elections
In June 2006 Mauritania held a referendum on amendments to the 1991 constitution. Mauritanians voted overwhelmingly to limit the president’s mandate to two five-year terms. (The constitution had allowed the president to serve an indefinite number of six-year terms.)
Mauritania held its first fully democratic elections since independence with voting in November and December 2006 for a new National Assembly. No single party or coalition won an absolute majority in the elections. The Coalition of Forces for Democratic Change, comprising the Rally of Democratic Forces and other parties that had formerly opposed Taya, won 41 of the 95 seats. Independent candidates won 39 seats, the Renewed Republican Democratic Party (formerly Taya’s ruling Democratic and Social Republican Party) won 7, and smaller parties won the remainder. Many Islamist candidates stood as independents because Islamist parties and movements were banned. Members of the military junta were also banned from contesting the elections.
Presidential elections followed in March 2007, as the final phase in the transition to civilian and democratic rule. The independent candidate, Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, won the runoff election with 53 percent of the vote against Ahmed Ould Daddah, leader of the Rally of Democratic Forces. Abdallahi, a former minister in Taya’s government, was considered the favorite candidate of the military. An election observation mission of the European Union (EU) determined that Mauritania’s historic elections were free and fair.
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
MASHAL ISLAND
Marshall Islands
Marshall Islands, island republic in the central Pacific Ocean, located north of the equator in Micronesia. The Marshall Islands comprises 29 atolls, each made up of numerous islets, in two generally parallel groups: the southeastern Ratak Chain and the northwestern Ralik Chain. The chief industries are agriculture and fishing; the major export is copra. The islands are atolls and coral reefs, and the inhabitants are Micronesian. Kwajalein is the largest atoll; Majuro is the capital island.
The islands were sighted by the Spanish in 1526 but remained essentially uncolonized until the late 19th century. They were a German protectorate from 1885 to 1914, when they fell to Japan. In 1920 the archipelago was mandated to Japan. In February 1944 American forces took Majuro, the first Japanese possession captured in World War II. Other islands were subsequently occupied. The archipelago remained under American military control for the duration of the war. In 1946 an American task force used Bikini atoll as a nuclear testing ground. The Marshalls became a trusteeship of the United States in 1947 and self-governing in 1979, with a locally drafted constitution, a popularly elected legislature, and a president. A Compact of Free Association, delegating to the U.S. the responsibility for defense, was approved by plebiscite in 1983 and came into effect in 1986. The trusteeship was formally dissolved by the UN Security Council in 1990, and the country was admitted to the United Nations in 1991. Area, 181 sq km (70 sq mi); population (2008 estimate) 63,174.
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Marshall Islands, island republic in the central Pacific Ocean, located north of the equator in Micronesia. The Marshall Islands comprises 29 atolls, each made up of numerous islets, in two generally parallel groups: the southeastern Ratak Chain and the northwestern Ralik Chain. The chief industries are agriculture and fishing; the major export is copra. The islands are atolls and coral reefs, and the inhabitants are Micronesian. Kwajalein is the largest atoll; Majuro is the capital island.
The islands were sighted by the Spanish in 1526 but remained essentially uncolonized until the late 19th century. They were a German protectorate from 1885 to 1914, when they fell to Japan. In 1920 the archipelago was mandated to Japan. In February 1944 American forces took Majuro, the first Japanese possession captured in World War II. Other islands were subsequently occupied. The archipelago remained under American military control for the duration of the war. In 1946 an American task force used Bikini atoll as a nuclear testing ground. The Marshalls became a trusteeship of the United States in 1947 and self-governing in 1979, with a locally drafted constitution, a popularly elected legislature, and a president. A Compact of Free Association, delegating to the U.S. the responsibility for defense, was approved by plebiscite in 1983 and came into effect in 1986. The trusteeship was formally dissolved by the UN Security Council in 1990, and the country was admitted to the United Nations in 1991. Area, 181 sq km (70 sq mi); population (2008 estimate) 63,174.
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
MALTA
Mali (country)
I INTRODUCTION
Mali (country), landlocked country in northwestern Africa. Desert covers much of Mali, and the country is thinly populated. The southern part of the country is well watered by the Niger River, and most of Mali’s people live in valleys along the Niger or the Sénégal rivers. The people in this largely rural country live primarily by farming and fishing. Drought is a recurrent problem, often bringing famine with it. The largest city is Bamako, Mali’s capital, which has about 1 million people.
Although Bamako is the capital, the town of Tombouctou, or Timbuktu, is far more famous. Founded in the 11th century, this trading post on the southern edge of the Sahara was celebrated for centuries for its splendor. Camel caravans, carrying gold and ivory, passed through it. So did slaves. Tombouctou linked the rest of West Africa with the Mediterranean Sea to the north. In time, to Westerners it came to stand for all that was remote, mysterious, and unimaginable.
From the 5th century through the 19th century, Mali was the core of a series of West African empires that sought control of Tombouctou’s lucrative caravan routes and the gold to its south. In the late 19th century Mali became a colony of France. Under French rule the territory was known as the French Sudan. In 1960 Mali gained independence, taking the name of one of the medieval empires that had formed in the region. Mali has struggled economically since independence. In 2007 the United Nations Development Program ranked Mali 175th out of 178 countries on the human development index, a measure of poverty, literacy, life expectancy, and other criteria of a nation’s well-being. The World Bank had previously classified Mali as one of the poorest countries in the world.
French remains the official language of Mali, and Islam is by far the major religion. However, the people of Mali belong to a number of ethnic groups and speak a variety of African languages.
II LAND AND RESOURCES
Most of Mali consists of low plains broken occasionally by rocky hills. The country has three natural regions. The southern region is a tropical grassland, or savanna, with occasional scattered trees. The central region is a semiarid belt known as the Sahel. The vegetation here consists of thorny plants and shrubs. The northern region lies within the Sahara, a vast desert that extends over northern Africa.
Mali has two major rivers, the Niger and the Sénégal. Both of them flow through the southern part of the country. The Niger turns east in the Sahel and cuts a large arc through the region. Between the town of Mopti, where the Bani River flows into the Niger, and the city of Tombouktou is a large inland delta with river channels and many lakes. The Sénégal and its tributaries flow northward in the extreme west of Mali. High ground is found in the southwest, where sandstone plateaus ring the plains of the Niger and Bani river basins.
In the southeast are the Hombori Mountains, the highest peaks in Mali. Hombori Tondo, the highest point, rises to 1,155 m (3,789 ft) above sea level. The Bambouk and Mandingue mountains are in the southwest.
Mali is bounded by Algeria on the north; by Niger on the east; by Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, and Guinea on the south; and by Senegal and Mauritania on the west. The area of the country is 1,240,192 sq km (478,841 sq mi), making it the largest country in West Africa.
A Climate
The climate of the parts of Mali not in the Sahara is hot and dry with average temperatures ranging from about 24° to 32°C (about 75° to 90°F) in the south. Temperatures are higher in the north. The hottest weather comes just before the rainy season of June to September. Annual rainfall declines from about 1,400 mm (about 55 in) in the south to some 1,120 mm (some 44 in) at Bamako and less than 127 mm (5 in) in the Sahara of the north. Periodic droughts cause considerable hardship in this largely agricultural country. Because of the short rainy season, water shortage is a major problem.
B Natural Resources
Mali is a predominantly agricultural country. The country’s most valuable resource is the Niger River, which abounds in fish; its waters are used for irrigation. Mali’s mineral resources include gold, salt, phosphate rock, iron ore, diamonds, and uranium. Gold is the most important mineral being mined.
C Plants and Animals
In the southern Saharan zone of Mali are found mimosa and gum trees; in the central region, thorny plants; and in the south, kapok, baobab, and shea trees. Animals include cheetah, oryx, gazelle, warthog, lion, leopard, antelope, and jackal.
D Environmental Issues
Mali’s environment suffers from an ongoing drought that has lasted for decades. Despite the drought, most of the population depends on agriculture for its livelihood. Traditional fuels, particularly wood and charcoal, provide the bulk of all energy used in the country. Drought, deforestation, and increased farming of marginal lands have caused soil degradation and dramatic desertification in Mali, and the Sahara has expanded southward at an alarming rate. The drought and loss of habitat, combined with poaching of threatened species, has helped drive animal species to the brink of extinction.
The country also suffers from water pollution due to poor sanitation. Only a small percentage of all Malians have access to adequate sanitation. As a result, water from rivers and wells is often contaminated with bacteria, and much of the population lacks access to safe drinking water.
The government of Mali has protected some areas as natural parks or preserves. It has ratified international environmental agreements pertaining to biodiversity, climate change, desertification, endangered species, and ozone layer protection.
III PEOPLE
Many different ethnic groups live in Mali. About half of Mali’s people speak related Mande languages. The Bambara are the largest Mande-speaking group and make up about a quarter of Mali’s population. They are descended from the people who founded the Mali Empire in western Africa. Today, they live along the Niger River. According to the 1987 census, Mali had 7,696,348 people. The 2008 estimated population was 12,324,029.
Mali’s other major ethnic groups, besides the Bambara, are the Dogon, Fulani, Mandinka (also known as Mandingo or Malinke), Senufo, Songhai, Soninke, and Tuareg. The Dogon and Senufo are cliff-dwelling people who live in south-central Mali. The Mandinka, like the Bambara, are Mande-speaking and live mainly by farming and fishing. The Songhai are farmers in southeastern Mali, and the Soninke are mainly traders in the northwestern region. The Fulani have traditionally been cattle herders; they speak a language called Fulfulde. Nomadic Tuaregs and other Berbers roam the Sahel and parts of the Sahara. The Tuaregs have kept Berber as their language.
Islam is the religion of about 80 percent of Mali’s population. Most of the remainder follow traditional African religions. Less than 2 percent of the people are Christians. French is the official language of the country, but African languages, such as Bambara and Songhai, are widely spoken.
A Principal Cities
The largest city in Mali is Bamako (population, 2003 estimate, 1,264,000), the capital. Bamako is situated on the Niger River, in southwestern Mali. A large market fills the center of the city. Other cities include Ségou (107,000); Sikasso (90,000); Mopti (86,000); Gao (63,000), and Kayes (62,000). Ségou and Mopti, both located on the Niger, are important fishing centers. The port city of Mopti is at the point where the Bani River joins the Niger.
Djenné is a town of mud brick houses and a magnificent mosque, also built of mud brick. Although the current mosque dates from the early 20th century, it is based on the original 13th-century design. The mosque at Djenné has been designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.
Tombouctou was important for centuries as a trading post on the caravan routes that linked West Africa with the Mediterranean. Because of its situation in the African interior, near the southern edge of the Sahara, Tombouctou came to stand for everything distant and unreachable to Western people. Tombouctou is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the most popular tourist destination in Mali.
B Education
Education is free and officially compulsory between the ages of 7 and 16. However, only 58 percent of Malian children of primary school age attended schools in 2002–2003. Only 57 percent of men and 43 percent of women in Mali are literate. Bamako has colleges of administration, medicine, law and economics, education, and engineering.
C Art and Music
West Africa is the home of many of the sculptural traditions for which African art has become internationally known. Among these are the carvings of the Dogon and Bambara of Mali. Terra cotta sculptures have been uncovered from a large burial site at Djenné. These sculptures include images of people on horseback and standing and seated figures of both men and women, many with elaborate jewelry and decorative marks on the skin made by scarring. Since most of these sculptures were unearthed in the course of unauthorized digging, little is known about their context or original use.
Djenné is also known today for its immense mud-built Friday Mosque. Built in 1906-1907, it is the third of a series of grand mosques on this site dating back to the 13th century, and one of the most impressive achievements of African architecture.
Although Islam has been a constant presence in Mali for many centuries, many of the local peoples outside the towns resisted conversion, at least until recently. The Dogon fled to the isolated Bandiagara cliffs in south-central Mali sometime between the 10th and 13th centuries rather than convert to Islam. There they have held on to their ancient traditions, including masked religious dances and figural sculpture. A number of figures, together with fragments of textiles and other objects dating from the 11th century, have been found in burial caves above Dogon villages and are attributed by some scholars to a people known as the Tellem.
The Bambara live in the countryside around the Malian capital Bamako. Among their numerous art forms are large wooden sculptures, mostly of women, used in the initiation and annual ceremonies of associations called Jo and Gwan. Elegant carved wooden antelope headdresses, called chi wara, were used in dances by associations that honored the strongest farmers. The Bambara are also noted for their bogolanfini cloth, made by a unique method in which patterns are outlined in a dark mud dye on locally woven narrow-strip cloth.
The music of Mali, which stands at the cultural crossroads of North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa, merges Islamic influences of the north with the rhythmic complexity of music to the south. For thousands of years, professional musicians called griots played an important role as historians in the kingdoms that developed in Mali. Among the Mande people, professional bards still recount the histories of powerful lineages and offer counsel to contemporary rulers. Perhaps because of a strong female griot tradition, women have attained more success in popular music in Mali than in any other African country.
Contemporary musicians such as Salif Keita of Mali carry on the griot tradition. Keita is descended from 13th-century Malian ruler Sundiata Keita, and his music is suffused with the ancient traditions of the West African griots, as seen in his song “Mandjou,” written in praise of Guinean president Ahmed Sékou Touré. The melodic inflections of his singing also show the Malian inheritance of Islamic music, as well as the increasing influence of jazz and rock music.
Malian guitarist Ali Farka Touré comes from the village of Niafounké, where life centers around the Niger River, and he sings predominantly traditional songs about village life. His adaptation to the guitar of West African vocal and instrumental music shows striking similarities to the early development of African American blues. He has toured internationally and collaborated on recordings with numerous Western musicians.
Drums are important in West African music, although many other types of percussion instruments are used as well. The West African hourglass-shaped tension drum is sometimes called a talking drum because it can be used to imitate the pitch contours of speech. The balo (or balaphon) is a xylophone constructed of a frame with 17-19 keys, each suspended over a hollowed-out gourd resonator, tuned to a seven-note scale. Found throughout the Mande cultures of West Africa, it is played only by male griots, usually as an accompaniment to poetry that is sung.
IV ECONOMY
Mali is one of the poorer African countries. The economy’s largest sector is agriculture. Drought has hampered the country’s economic development, as have inadequate transportation facilities, especially rail and road links to the sea. The Niger River remains a major transportation route within Mali. Most of Mali’s energy comes from hydroelectric power but is insufficient to meet the country’s needs.
A Agriculture and Fishing
The cultivation of food crops occupies 86 percent of the economically active population of Mali. Agriculture also contributes more to the gross domestic product than any other sector. Crops grown in Mali depend almost entirely on irrigation or flooding from the Niger River and its tributaries. The main crops are millet, rice, sorghum, corn, and sugarcane. Livestock raising, principally in the north, also makes a significant contribution to the food supply. Livestock are also exported. The country has millions of cattle, goats, and sheep, although herds were decimated in a drought of the mid-1980s. Mali is one of the major producers and exporters of cotton in Africa, and 160,000 tons of cotton were harvested in 2006.
Fish from the Niger are important to the diet of the people living along the river. The fishing industry produces a surplus, and these fish are dried and smoked for local use and for export.
B Manufacturing and Mining
Industrial output in Mali is small and mainly based on local raw materials, including the processing of cotton and other crops. Consumer goods for local use are also produced. The manufacturing center is Bamako.
Mineral resources are being surveyed, and gold, salt, marble, and phosphate rock (used for fertilizer) have been exploited. Deposits of other minerals have been reported but are not extracted in significant amounts. They include bauxite, copper, iron ore, manganese, and uranium. Gold is by far the most import mining product.
C Currency, Banking, and Trade
The monetary unit is the CFA franc, consisting of 100 centimes (523 francs equal U.S.$1; 2006 average). The Central Bank of the West African States assumes Mali’s central banking functions.
Most foreign trade operations are in the hands of the state. Principal exports include gold, cotton, livestock, processed foodstuffs, and mangoes. The value of exports in 2001 was $519 million. Imports, typically petroleum products, motor vehicles, food products, machinery, and chemicals, amounted to $1,013 million. Chief purchasers of Mali’s exports are Belgium, China, Spain, France, Côte d’Ivoire, and Germany; leading sources of imports are Côte d’Ivoire, France, the United Kingdom, Belgium, China, Germany, and Spain.
D Transportation and Communications
The Niger is the lifeline of Mali. During the rainy season (June to September) and for a few months afterward, most of the course of the Niger is navigable by larger ships, while canoes and small craft can use the river year-round. The Sénégal River is navigable from Kayes to Saint-Louis, in Senegal. A railroad links Koulikoro, Bamako, and Kayes with the port of Dakar in Senegal. Mali has 18,709 km (11,625 mi) of roads, of which 18 percent are paved. The country’s main road links Bamako with Gao at the edge of the Sahara. An international airport is located near Bamako. Air Mali, the state airline, offers international and domestic service. Telephone, telegraph, and radio services are publicly owned and operated.
V GOVERNMENT
A constitution approved by popular referendum in 1992 established Mali as a multiparty republic with a directly elected president. The president is elected to a five-year term and is limited to two terms in office. This official appoints the prime minister, who selects the other members of the council of ministers. The unicameral National Assembly consists of 147 deputies elected to five-year terms.
Until 1991, Mali was governed under a constitution drawn up in 1974 and made effective, with amendments, in 1979. Elected twice without opposition, President Moussa Traoré ruled as a dictator through the nation’s sole legal political party, the Democratic Union of the Malian People, founded in 1976. After a coup in March 1991, this party was dissolved.
For the purposes of regional government, Mali is divided into eight administrative regions plus the capital district of Bamako. The larger towns have elected mayors and council members.
VI HISTORY
The recorded history of the area now included in Mali goes back to writings, largely Arabic, of about the 4th century ad. Between then and the 19th century, Mali was the core area of the great empires of the western Sudan: Ghana, Mali, and Songhai. Such cities as Djenné, Tombouctou, and Gao became centers of trade, learning, and culture.
A The Early Empires
The kingdom of Ghana originated early in the Christian era and reached its apogee between 950 and 1050. For most of its history it was ruled by Mande-speaking Soninke people. By the 8th century it was known to the Muslim world as “the land of gold.” This metal was traded from the gold fields further south in Ghana proper and from there across the desert by Berber nomads in exchange for salt and other commodities from North Africa. Ghana declined after the 11th century. Its capital at Koumbi Saleh, north of modern Bamako, was captured in 1076 by Berber forces who owed allegiance to the Almoravid dynasty. After the Almoravid invasion many of the peoples of the kingdom of Ghana embraced Islam, but the empire itself disintegrated.
The Mali Empire originated in the 11th century, but its period of greatness began under Sundiata Keita, who ruled from around 1235 to 1255. By this time the empire stretched westward from Gao to Tekrur (in modern Senegal) and had become one of the world’s largest suppliers of gold.
The most famous king of Mali was Mansa Musa, who ruled in the early 14th century. His pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324 with 500 slaves and some 50,000 ounces of gold to distribute along the way startled the Mediterranean world by its splendor. Mansa Musa brought back with him Muslim scholars and architects to enhance the reputation for learning and culture of cities such as Tombouctou and Goa. When he died, he left an empire extending across the southern Sahara and the grasslands fringing the Niger River. The Arab traveler Ibn Battūta, who visited the empire a few years later, found there a rule of law that might well have been envied in medieval Europe.
Mali declined in the later 14th and 15th centuries. Its decline was due less to internal instability than to pressures on its frontiers from the Mossi people in the south, the Wolof and Tekrur in the west, and the desert Tuareg in the north. In the 15th century its role in the area was slowly taken over by the Songhai kingdom of Gao.
The Songhai Empire, whose capital was at Gao, is believed to have begun around the 9th century. For a short time in the 14th century, it formed the easternmost province of Mali. It recovered its independence in 1335 but did not begin to expand until more than a century later, during the reign of King Sunni Ali, from 1464 to 1492. Timbouctou was taken from the Tuareg in 1468, and the whole area of the middle Niger delta was under Songhai control by about 1478. The reign of Sunni Ali was marked by the construction of a canal linking Tombouctou with the Niger. A second canal project had to be abandoned because of Mossi raiders. It would have extended some 400 km (250 mi) into the desert and linked the Niger with the commercial center of Oualâta (Walata, in what is now Mauretania).
After Sunni Ali died one of his leading counselors usurped the throne and was proclaimed Askia Muhammad. He ruled from 1493 to 1528. During his reign Songhai extended its authority eastward to the Hausa states (in what is now northern Nigeria), which were forced to pay tribute, and westward to the borders of Tekrur in Senegal. To the north, various trading centers were wrested from Tuareg control. In the south, however, Songhai arms were less successful, for although the Mossi capital was destroyed the Mossi kingdom was never subjugated.
At the end of the reign of Askia Muhammad, the Songhai were beset by a series of internal struggles for power. As a result of these struggles the empire was weakened and the sultan of Morocco, Ahmad al-Mansur, was encouraged to try to break Songhai power. The Songhai army was finally defeated near Gao in 1591 by Judar Pasha, a Spaniard in the service of the sultan, and the Songhai empire was absorbed into the Moroccan territory of Tombouctou.
B Moroccan and French Rule
The Moroccans, however, never really controlled the sprawling empire. Most of the Moroccan soldiers married local women, and their sons came to constitute a military caste known as the Arma, which selected the pashas (local leaders). The countryside was fleeced by the pashas and army. But by 1780 these authorities were so weak that the area broke up into petty states. Only the Bambara states of Ségou and Kaarta were stable.
In the 19th century unifying tribal movements emerged ender the banner of Islam and the leadership of Umar Tal, a Muslim preacher, and military leader Samory Touré. Umar declared a holy war, armed his followers with guns, and formed a theocratic empire that extended from Tombouctou to the headwaters of the Niger and Sénégal. His son and successor, Ahmadu, was defeated by the French in 1893. South of Umar’s empire, Samory united Mandinke peoples into an Islamic state that provided stiff resistance to French troops as they advanced into the area.
By the 1890s, after the defeat of Ahmadu and Samory, French administration was installed in the area. In 1904 what is now Mali was made part of the French colony of Haut-Sénégal-Niger. In 1920 the name Sudan was restored, and as the French Sudan it was made a constituent territory of French West Africa.
African political activity was banned by the French in Mali until after World War II (1939-1945). Various parties that were then formed eventually merged to form the Sudanese Union, a militantly anticolonial party. It gained strength rapidly during the 1950s. In 1956 France passed a reform that gave autonomy to leaders from within its colonial territories. By the time the reforms took place in 1957, the union was the main party.
In 1958 a referendum was held. Instead of voting to separate itself completely from France, the Sudanese Union accepted the alternative of autonomy within the new French Community as the Sudanese Republic. It then sought to unite several French West African states in a new political federation. But only Senegal and Sudan agreed and in 1959 formed the Federation of Mali.
C Independence
Mali proclaimed its independence in June 1960, with Modibo Keita as president. The federation broke up in September, the former French Sudan retaining the name Mali and Keita remaining president of the new Republic of Mali. Underlying the breakup was a conflict over economic gradualism and radicalism, between a broadly pro-French and a strongly pan-African orientation. Mali undertook the later course. After independence Mali pursued a policy of economic development along socialist lines.
C1 Keita’s Presidency
President Modibo Keita committed the ruling political party, the Sudanese Union, to a policy of consolidating state power for the purpose of modernizing the country. Ideologically, the party was inspired by a combination of Marxist ideas, pride in the country’s political heritage, and a sense of mission derived from Islam. Organizationally, it was both a mass party and an alliance of major regional leaders. It absorbed all organized opposition parties and controlled most voluntary associations, such as labor unions, women’s organizations, youth groups, and veterans’ clubs, leaving no legitimate outside channels for the expression of political dissent. The party and the government had parallel structures.
The new Mali franc, with little foreign-exchange backing, could not be used for international payments. Adding to the country’s financial strain were inefficient state-owned firms, which Keita expanded. By mid-1967 he had to agree to broad French supervision of the economy so Mali could reenter the French franc zone. Opposition to his policies within the Sudanese Union caused Keita to suppress dissent, until he was overthrown in 1968 by a military committee of national liberation.
C2 Military Rule
In 1969 the leader of the military junta, Lieutenant Moussa Traoré, emerged as president and premier. His government modified the economic policies of Keita, but not until 1976 did Traoré allow a political party to form, the Democratic Union of the Malian People. He then blocked the start of its activity for three years.
Traoré’s rule was marked by four coup attempts, numerous cabinet shuffles, and growing unrest among students and unemployed graduates. Searing droughts in the mid-1970s and early 1980s, coupled with low cotton prices and extremely bad economic management, left the Malian people among the world’s poorest. Many leading nations provided aid, but ties were slowly reduced with China and the Soviet Union. As the only candidate for the presidency, Traoré was returned to office in 1979 and 1985.
A border war with Burkina Faso (Upper Volta) was halted by a cease-fire in late 1985. Under pressure from its creditors, Mali restructured its economy in the late 1980s to privatize unprofitable government enterprises. Traoré was overthrown in 1991 by a group of army officers, led by Lieutenant Colonel Amadou Toumani Touré, who pledged to return the country to democratic rule. Swiss authorities later revealed that Traoré had transferred $1 billion to personal bank accounts over the years.
D Recent Developments
A new constitution providing for a multiparty republic was approved in 1992. Alpha Oumar Konaré, leader of the Alliance for Democracy in Mali, became the country’s first democratically elected president later that year. Rioting students opposed to Konaré’s austerity measures damaged numerous government buildings in Bamako in April 1993. An attempted coup by supporters of Traoré collapsed in December of that year.
From 1990 on, strife in the north has become a focus of concern for Mali’s government. After the drought of the 1980s ended, Tuareg who had migrated to Algeria and Libya began to return to West Africa. Fighting broke out between the settled African population and the nomadic Tuareg. At the same time the region became involved in a general rebellion of Tuareg demanding greater autonomy from the governments of Mali, Niger, and Algeria, whose borders cross traditional Tuareg territory.
In 1992 a peace agreement, the Bamako Accord, was reached with the main Tuareg groups. Conflict between the army and smaller Tuareg groups continued into 1995. In 1996 more than 2,000 Tuareg former rebels were integrated into the regular army. Thousands of Malian Tuareg refugees were repatriated from Niger.
In addition to a troubled economy and the Tuareg rebellion, Konaré also had to deal with the trials of former president Moussa Traoré. In 1993 Traoré was sentenced to death for his role in the deaths of protesters a few years earlier. This sentence was commuted to life imprisonment by Konaré, but in 1998, Traoré, his wife Mariam Cissoko, and his brother-in-law Abraham Cissoko, went on trial for embezzlement. All three were sentenced to death in 1999, but the death sentences were commuted in 1999 to life imprisonment and hard labor. Before leaving office in 2002, Konaré announced that he had pardoned them.
In the meantime, democracy was having a hard time. The constitutional court declared that legislative elections held in 1997 were invalid because of fraud and lack of organization. Opposition groups urged that presidential elections scheduled for May be postponed. The elections were held nonetheless, although all but one of the opposition groups boycotted them. Konaré was elected to a second five-year term. Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter visited Mali in 1998 to mediate between the government and the opposition. Despite Carter’s recommendation, the opposition continued to call for Konaré’s resignation. For the 2002 presidential election, 24 candidates registered. Touré, the leader of the 1991 coup, was elected president, after two rounds of voting.
Touré was reelected in 2007. The constitutional court declared that he won the first round of voting with more than 70 percent of the vote, more than enough to avoid a runoff.
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I INTRODUCTION
Mali (country), landlocked country in northwestern Africa. Desert covers much of Mali, and the country is thinly populated. The southern part of the country is well watered by the Niger River, and most of Mali’s people live in valleys along the Niger or the Sénégal rivers. The people in this largely rural country live primarily by farming and fishing. Drought is a recurrent problem, often bringing famine with it. The largest city is Bamako, Mali’s capital, which has about 1 million people.
Although Bamako is the capital, the town of Tombouctou, or Timbuktu, is far more famous. Founded in the 11th century, this trading post on the southern edge of the Sahara was celebrated for centuries for its splendor. Camel caravans, carrying gold and ivory, passed through it. So did slaves. Tombouctou linked the rest of West Africa with the Mediterranean Sea to the north. In time, to Westerners it came to stand for all that was remote, mysterious, and unimaginable.
From the 5th century through the 19th century, Mali was the core of a series of West African empires that sought control of Tombouctou’s lucrative caravan routes and the gold to its south. In the late 19th century Mali became a colony of France. Under French rule the territory was known as the French Sudan. In 1960 Mali gained independence, taking the name of one of the medieval empires that had formed in the region. Mali has struggled economically since independence. In 2007 the United Nations Development Program ranked Mali 175th out of 178 countries on the human development index, a measure of poverty, literacy, life expectancy, and other criteria of a nation’s well-being. The World Bank had previously classified Mali as one of the poorest countries in the world.
French remains the official language of Mali, and Islam is by far the major religion. However, the people of Mali belong to a number of ethnic groups and speak a variety of African languages.
II LAND AND RESOURCES
Most of Mali consists of low plains broken occasionally by rocky hills. The country has three natural regions. The southern region is a tropical grassland, or savanna, with occasional scattered trees. The central region is a semiarid belt known as the Sahel. The vegetation here consists of thorny plants and shrubs. The northern region lies within the Sahara, a vast desert that extends over northern Africa.
Mali has two major rivers, the Niger and the Sénégal. Both of them flow through the southern part of the country. The Niger turns east in the Sahel and cuts a large arc through the region. Between the town of Mopti, where the Bani River flows into the Niger, and the city of Tombouktou is a large inland delta with river channels and many lakes. The Sénégal and its tributaries flow northward in the extreme west of Mali. High ground is found in the southwest, where sandstone plateaus ring the plains of the Niger and Bani river basins.
In the southeast are the Hombori Mountains, the highest peaks in Mali. Hombori Tondo, the highest point, rises to 1,155 m (3,789 ft) above sea level. The Bambouk and Mandingue mountains are in the southwest.
Mali is bounded by Algeria on the north; by Niger on the east; by Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, and Guinea on the south; and by Senegal and Mauritania on the west. The area of the country is 1,240,192 sq km (478,841 sq mi), making it the largest country in West Africa.
A Climate
The climate of the parts of Mali not in the Sahara is hot and dry with average temperatures ranging from about 24° to 32°C (about 75° to 90°F) in the south. Temperatures are higher in the north. The hottest weather comes just before the rainy season of June to September. Annual rainfall declines from about 1,400 mm (about 55 in) in the south to some 1,120 mm (some 44 in) at Bamako and less than 127 mm (5 in) in the Sahara of the north. Periodic droughts cause considerable hardship in this largely agricultural country. Because of the short rainy season, water shortage is a major problem.
B Natural Resources
Mali is a predominantly agricultural country. The country’s most valuable resource is the Niger River, which abounds in fish; its waters are used for irrigation. Mali’s mineral resources include gold, salt, phosphate rock, iron ore, diamonds, and uranium. Gold is the most important mineral being mined.
C Plants and Animals
In the southern Saharan zone of Mali are found mimosa and gum trees; in the central region, thorny plants; and in the south, kapok, baobab, and shea trees. Animals include cheetah, oryx, gazelle, warthog, lion, leopard, antelope, and jackal.
D Environmental Issues
Mali’s environment suffers from an ongoing drought that has lasted for decades. Despite the drought, most of the population depends on agriculture for its livelihood. Traditional fuels, particularly wood and charcoal, provide the bulk of all energy used in the country. Drought, deforestation, and increased farming of marginal lands have caused soil degradation and dramatic desertification in Mali, and the Sahara has expanded southward at an alarming rate. The drought and loss of habitat, combined with poaching of threatened species, has helped drive animal species to the brink of extinction.
The country also suffers from water pollution due to poor sanitation. Only a small percentage of all Malians have access to adequate sanitation. As a result, water from rivers and wells is often contaminated with bacteria, and much of the population lacks access to safe drinking water.
The government of Mali has protected some areas as natural parks or preserves. It has ratified international environmental agreements pertaining to biodiversity, climate change, desertification, endangered species, and ozone layer protection.
III PEOPLE
Many different ethnic groups live in Mali. About half of Mali’s people speak related Mande languages. The Bambara are the largest Mande-speaking group and make up about a quarter of Mali’s population. They are descended from the people who founded the Mali Empire in western Africa. Today, they live along the Niger River. According to the 1987 census, Mali had 7,696,348 people. The 2008 estimated population was 12,324,029.
Mali’s other major ethnic groups, besides the Bambara, are the Dogon, Fulani, Mandinka (also known as Mandingo or Malinke), Senufo, Songhai, Soninke, and Tuareg. The Dogon and Senufo are cliff-dwelling people who live in south-central Mali. The Mandinka, like the Bambara, are Mande-speaking and live mainly by farming and fishing. The Songhai are farmers in southeastern Mali, and the Soninke are mainly traders in the northwestern region. The Fulani have traditionally been cattle herders; they speak a language called Fulfulde. Nomadic Tuaregs and other Berbers roam the Sahel and parts of the Sahara. The Tuaregs have kept Berber as their language.
Islam is the religion of about 80 percent of Mali’s population. Most of the remainder follow traditional African religions. Less than 2 percent of the people are Christians. French is the official language of the country, but African languages, such as Bambara and Songhai, are widely spoken.
A Principal Cities
The largest city in Mali is Bamako (population, 2003 estimate, 1,264,000), the capital. Bamako is situated on the Niger River, in southwestern Mali. A large market fills the center of the city. Other cities include Ségou (107,000); Sikasso (90,000); Mopti (86,000); Gao (63,000), and Kayes (62,000). Ségou and Mopti, both located on the Niger, are important fishing centers. The port city of Mopti is at the point where the Bani River joins the Niger.
Djenné is a town of mud brick houses and a magnificent mosque, also built of mud brick. Although the current mosque dates from the early 20th century, it is based on the original 13th-century design. The mosque at Djenné has been designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.
Tombouctou was important for centuries as a trading post on the caravan routes that linked West Africa with the Mediterranean. Because of its situation in the African interior, near the southern edge of the Sahara, Tombouctou came to stand for everything distant and unreachable to Western people. Tombouctou is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the most popular tourist destination in Mali.
B Education
Education is free and officially compulsory between the ages of 7 and 16. However, only 58 percent of Malian children of primary school age attended schools in 2002–2003. Only 57 percent of men and 43 percent of women in Mali are literate. Bamako has colleges of administration, medicine, law and economics, education, and engineering.
C Art and Music
West Africa is the home of many of the sculptural traditions for which African art has become internationally known. Among these are the carvings of the Dogon and Bambara of Mali. Terra cotta sculptures have been uncovered from a large burial site at Djenné. These sculptures include images of people on horseback and standing and seated figures of both men and women, many with elaborate jewelry and decorative marks on the skin made by scarring. Since most of these sculptures were unearthed in the course of unauthorized digging, little is known about their context or original use.
Djenné is also known today for its immense mud-built Friday Mosque. Built in 1906-1907, it is the third of a series of grand mosques on this site dating back to the 13th century, and one of the most impressive achievements of African architecture.
Although Islam has been a constant presence in Mali for many centuries, many of the local peoples outside the towns resisted conversion, at least until recently. The Dogon fled to the isolated Bandiagara cliffs in south-central Mali sometime between the 10th and 13th centuries rather than convert to Islam. There they have held on to their ancient traditions, including masked religious dances and figural sculpture. A number of figures, together with fragments of textiles and other objects dating from the 11th century, have been found in burial caves above Dogon villages and are attributed by some scholars to a people known as the Tellem.
The Bambara live in the countryside around the Malian capital Bamako. Among their numerous art forms are large wooden sculptures, mostly of women, used in the initiation and annual ceremonies of associations called Jo and Gwan. Elegant carved wooden antelope headdresses, called chi wara, were used in dances by associations that honored the strongest farmers. The Bambara are also noted for their bogolanfini cloth, made by a unique method in which patterns are outlined in a dark mud dye on locally woven narrow-strip cloth.
The music of Mali, which stands at the cultural crossroads of North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa, merges Islamic influences of the north with the rhythmic complexity of music to the south. For thousands of years, professional musicians called griots played an important role as historians in the kingdoms that developed in Mali. Among the Mande people, professional bards still recount the histories of powerful lineages and offer counsel to contemporary rulers. Perhaps because of a strong female griot tradition, women have attained more success in popular music in Mali than in any other African country.
Contemporary musicians such as Salif Keita of Mali carry on the griot tradition. Keita is descended from 13th-century Malian ruler Sundiata Keita, and his music is suffused with the ancient traditions of the West African griots, as seen in his song “Mandjou,” written in praise of Guinean president Ahmed Sékou Touré. The melodic inflections of his singing also show the Malian inheritance of Islamic music, as well as the increasing influence of jazz and rock music.
Malian guitarist Ali Farka Touré comes from the village of Niafounké, where life centers around the Niger River, and he sings predominantly traditional songs about village life. His adaptation to the guitar of West African vocal and instrumental music shows striking similarities to the early development of African American blues. He has toured internationally and collaborated on recordings with numerous Western musicians.
Drums are important in West African music, although many other types of percussion instruments are used as well. The West African hourglass-shaped tension drum is sometimes called a talking drum because it can be used to imitate the pitch contours of speech. The balo (or balaphon) is a xylophone constructed of a frame with 17-19 keys, each suspended over a hollowed-out gourd resonator, tuned to a seven-note scale. Found throughout the Mande cultures of West Africa, it is played only by male griots, usually as an accompaniment to poetry that is sung.
IV ECONOMY
Mali is one of the poorer African countries. The economy’s largest sector is agriculture. Drought has hampered the country’s economic development, as have inadequate transportation facilities, especially rail and road links to the sea. The Niger River remains a major transportation route within Mali. Most of Mali’s energy comes from hydroelectric power but is insufficient to meet the country’s needs.
A Agriculture and Fishing
The cultivation of food crops occupies 86 percent of the economically active population of Mali. Agriculture also contributes more to the gross domestic product than any other sector. Crops grown in Mali depend almost entirely on irrigation or flooding from the Niger River and its tributaries. The main crops are millet, rice, sorghum, corn, and sugarcane. Livestock raising, principally in the north, also makes a significant contribution to the food supply. Livestock are also exported. The country has millions of cattle, goats, and sheep, although herds were decimated in a drought of the mid-1980s. Mali is one of the major producers and exporters of cotton in Africa, and 160,000 tons of cotton were harvested in 2006.
Fish from the Niger are important to the diet of the people living along the river. The fishing industry produces a surplus, and these fish are dried and smoked for local use and for export.
B Manufacturing and Mining
Industrial output in Mali is small and mainly based on local raw materials, including the processing of cotton and other crops. Consumer goods for local use are also produced. The manufacturing center is Bamako.
Mineral resources are being surveyed, and gold, salt, marble, and phosphate rock (used for fertilizer) have been exploited. Deposits of other minerals have been reported but are not extracted in significant amounts. They include bauxite, copper, iron ore, manganese, and uranium. Gold is by far the most import mining product.
C Currency, Banking, and Trade
The monetary unit is the CFA franc, consisting of 100 centimes (523 francs equal U.S.$1; 2006 average). The Central Bank of the West African States assumes Mali’s central banking functions.
Most foreign trade operations are in the hands of the state. Principal exports include gold, cotton, livestock, processed foodstuffs, and mangoes. The value of exports in 2001 was $519 million. Imports, typically petroleum products, motor vehicles, food products, machinery, and chemicals, amounted to $1,013 million. Chief purchasers of Mali’s exports are Belgium, China, Spain, France, Côte d’Ivoire, and Germany; leading sources of imports are Côte d’Ivoire, France, the United Kingdom, Belgium, China, Germany, and Spain.
D Transportation and Communications
The Niger is the lifeline of Mali. During the rainy season (June to September) and for a few months afterward, most of the course of the Niger is navigable by larger ships, while canoes and small craft can use the river year-round. The Sénégal River is navigable from Kayes to Saint-Louis, in Senegal. A railroad links Koulikoro, Bamako, and Kayes with the port of Dakar in Senegal. Mali has 18,709 km (11,625 mi) of roads, of which 18 percent are paved. The country’s main road links Bamako with Gao at the edge of the Sahara. An international airport is located near Bamako. Air Mali, the state airline, offers international and domestic service. Telephone, telegraph, and radio services are publicly owned and operated.
V GOVERNMENT
A constitution approved by popular referendum in 1992 established Mali as a multiparty republic with a directly elected president. The president is elected to a five-year term and is limited to two terms in office. This official appoints the prime minister, who selects the other members of the council of ministers. The unicameral National Assembly consists of 147 deputies elected to five-year terms.
Until 1991, Mali was governed under a constitution drawn up in 1974 and made effective, with amendments, in 1979. Elected twice without opposition, President Moussa Traoré ruled as a dictator through the nation’s sole legal political party, the Democratic Union of the Malian People, founded in 1976. After a coup in March 1991, this party was dissolved.
For the purposes of regional government, Mali is divided into eight administrative regions plus the capital district of Bamako. The larger towns have elected mayors and council members.
VI HISTORY
The recorded history of the area now included in Mali goes back to writings, largely Arabic, of about the 4th century ad. Between then and the 19th century, Mali was the core area of the great empires of the western Sudan: Ghana, Mali, and Songhai. Such cities as Djenné, Tombouctou, and Gao became centers of trade, learning, and culture.
A The Early Empires
The kingdom of Ghana originated early in the Christian era and reached its apogee between 950 and 1050. For most of its history it was ruled by Mande-speaking Soninke people. By the 8th century it was known to the Muslim world as “the land of gold.” This metal was traded from the gold fields further south in Ghana proper and from there across the desert by Berber nomads in exchange for salt and other commodities from North Africa. Ghana declined after the 11th century. Its capital at Koumbi Saleh, north of modern Bamako, was captured in 1076 by Berber forces who owed allegiance to the Almoravid dynasty. After the Almoravid invasion many of the peoples of the kingdom of Ghana embraced Islam, but the empire itself disintegrated.
The Mali Empire originated in the 11th century, but its period of greatness began under Sundiata Keita, who ruled from around 1235 to 1255. By this time the empire stretched westward from Gao to Tekrur (in modern Senegal) and had become one of the world’s largest suppliers of gold.
The most famous king of Mali was Mansa Musa, who ruled in the early 14th century. His pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324 with 500 slaves and some 50,000 ounces of gold to distribute along the way startled the Mediterranean world by its splendor. Mansa Musa brought back with him Muslim scholars and architects to enhance the reputation for learning and culture of cities such as Tombouctou and Goa. When he died, he left an empire extending across the southern Sahara and the grasslands fringing the Niger River. The Arab traveler Ibn Battūta, who visited the empire a few years later, found there a rule of law that might well have been envied in medieval Europe.
Mali declined in the later 14th and 15th centuries. Its decline was due less to internal instability than to pressures on its frontiers from the Mossi people in the south, the Wolof and Tekrur in the west, and the desert Tuareg in the north. In the 15th century its role in the area was slowly taken over by the Songhai kingdom of Gao.
The Songhai Empire, whose capital was at Gao, is believed to have begun around the 9th century. For a short time in the 14th century, it formed the easternmost province of Mali. It recovered its independence in 1335 but did not begin to expand until more than a century later, during the reign of King Sunni Ali, from 1464 to 1492. Timbouctou was taken from the Tuareg in 1468, and the whole area of the middle Niger delta was under Songhai control by about 1478. The reign of Sunni Ali was marked by the construction of a canal linking Tombouctou with the Niger. A second canal project had to be abandoned because of Mossi raiders. It would have extended some 400 km (250 mi) into the desert and linked the Niger with the commercial center of Oualâta (Walata, in what is now Mauretania).
After Sunni Ali died one of his leading counselors usurped the throne and was proclaimed Askia Muhammad. He ruled from 1493 to 1528. During his reign Songhai extended its authority eastward to the Hausa states (in what is now northern Nigeria), which were forced to pay tribute, and westward to the borders of Tekrur in Senegal. To the north, various trading centers were wrested from Tuareg control. In the south, however, Songhai arms were less successful, for although the Mossi capital was destroyed the Mossi kingdom was never subjugated.
At the end of the reign of Askia Muhammad, the Songhai were beset by a series of internal struggles for power. As a result of these struggles the empire was weakened and the sultan of Morocco, Ahmad al-Mansur, was encouraged to try to break Songhai power. The Songhai army was finally defeated near Gao in 1591 by Judar Pasha, a Spaniard in the service of the sultan, and the Songhai empire was absorbed into the Moroccan territory of Tombouctou.
B Moroccan and French Rule
The Moroccans, however, never really controlled the sprawling empire. Most of the Moroccan soldiers married local women, and their sons came to constitute a military caste known as the Arma, which selected the pashas (local leaders). The countryside was fleeced by the pashas and army. But by 1780 these authorities were so weak that the area broke up into petty states. Only the Bambara states of Ségou and Kaarta were stable.
In the 19th century unifying tribal movements emerged ender the banner of Islam and the leadership of Umar Tal, a Muslim preacher, and military leader Samory Touré. Umar declared a holy war, armed his followers with guns, and formed a theocratic empire that extended from Tombouctou to the headwaters of the Niger and Sénégal. His son and successor, Ahmadu, was defeated by the French in 1893. South of Umar’s empire, Samory united Mandinke peoples into an Islamic state that provided stiff resistance to French troops as they advanced into the area.
By the 1890s, after the defeat of Ahmadu and Samory, French administration was installed in the area. In 1904 what is now Mali was made part of the French colony of Haut-Sénégal-Niger. In 1920 the name Sudan was restored, and as the French Sudan it was made a constituent territory of French West Africa.
African political activity was banned by the French in Mali until after World War II (1939-1945). Various parties that were then formed eventually merged to form the Sudanese Union, a militantly anticolonial party. It gained strength rapidly during the 1950s. In 1956 France passed a reform that gave autonomy to leaders from within its colonial territories. By the time the reforms took place in 1957, the union was the main party.
In 1958 a referendum was held. Instead of voting to separate itself completely from France, the Sudanese Union accepted the alternative of autonomy within the new French Community as the Sudanese Republic. It then sought to unite several French West African states in a new political federation. But only Senegal and Sudan agreed and in 1959 formed the Federation of Mali.
C Independence
Mali proclaimed its independence in June 1960, with Modibo Keita as president. The federation broke up in September, the former French Sudan retaining the name Mali and Keita remaining president of the new Republic of Mali. Underlying the breakup was a conflict over economic gradualism and radicalism, between a broadly pro-French and a strongly pan-African orientation. Mali undertook the later course. After independence Mali pursued a policy of economic development along socialist lines.
C1 Keita’s Presidency
President Modibo Keita committed the ruling political party, the Sudanese Union, to a policy of consolidating state power for the purpose of modernizing the country. Ideologically, the party was inspired by a combination of Marxist ideas, pride in the country’s political heritage, and a sense of mission derived from Islam. Organizationally, it was both a mass party and an alliance of major regional leaders. It absorbed all organized opposition parties and controlled most voluntary associations, such as labor unions, women’s organizations, youth groups, and veterans’ clubs, leaving no legitimate outside channels for the expression of political dissent. The party and the government had parallel structures.
The new Mali franc, with little foreign-exchange backing, could not be used for international payments. Adding to the country’s financial strain were inefficient state-owned firms, which Keita expanded. By mid-1967 he had to agree to broad French supervision of the economy so Mali could reenter the French franc zone. Opposition to his policies within the Sudanese Union caused Keita to suppress dissent, until he was overthrown in 1968 by a military committee of national liberation.
C2 Military Rule
In 1969 the leader of the military junta, Lieutenant Moussa Traoré, emerged as president and premier. His government modified the economic policies of Keita, but not until 1976 did Traoré allow a political party to form, the Democratic Union of the Malian People. He then blocked the start of its activity for three years.
Traoré’s rule was marked by four coup attempts, numerous cabinet shuffles, and growing unrest among students and unemployed graduates. Searing droughts in the mid-1970s and early 1980s, coupled with low cotton prices and extremely bad economic management, left the Malian people among the world’s poorest. Many leading nations provided aid, but ties were slowly reduced with China and the Soviet Union. As the only candidate for the presidency, Traoré was returned to office in 1979 and 1985.
A border war with Burkina Faso (Upper Volta) was halted by a cease-fire in late 1985. Under pressure from its creditors, Mali restructured its economy in the late 1980s to privatize unprofitable government enterprises. Traoré was overthrown in 1991 by a group of army officers, led by Lieutenant Colonel Amadou Toumani Touré, who pledged to return the country to democratic rule. Swiss authorities later revealed that Traoré had transferred $1 billion to personal bank accounts over the years.
D Recent Developments
A new constitution providing for a multiparty republic was approved in 1992. Alpha Oumar Konaré, leader of the Alliance for Democracy in Mali, became the country’s first democratically elected president later that year. Rioting students opposed to Konaré’s austerity measures damaged numerous government buildings in Bamako in April 1993. An attempted coup by supporters of Traoré collapsed in December of that year.
From 1990 on, strife in the north has become a focus of concern for Mali’s government. After the drought of the 1980s ended, Tuareg who had migrated to Algeria and Libya began to return to West Africa. Fighting broke out between the settled African population and the nomadic Tuareg. At the same time the region became involved in a general rebellion of Tuareg demanding greater autonomy from the governments of Mali, Niger, and Algeria, whose borders cross traditional Tuareg territory.
In 1992 a peace agreement, the Bamako Accord, was reached with the main Tuareg groups. Conflict between the army and smaller Tuareg groups continued into 1995. In 1996 more than 2,000 Tuareg former rebels were integrated into the regular army. Thousands of Malian Tuareg refugees were repatriated from Niger.
In addition to a troubled economy and the Tuareg rebellion, Konaré also had to deal with the trials of former president Moussa Traoré. In 1993 Traoré was sentenced to death for his role in the deaths of protesters a few years earlier. This sentence was commuted to life imprisonment by Konaré, but in 1998, Traoré, his wife Mariam Cissoko, and his brother-in-law Abraham Cissoko, went on trial for embezzlement. All three were sentenced to death in 1999, but the death sentences were commuted in 1999 to life imprisonment and hard labor. Before leaving office in 2002, Konaré announced that he had pardoned them.
In the meantime, democracy was having a hard time. The constitutional court declared that legislative elections held in 1997 were invalid because of fraud and lack of organization. Opposition groups urged that presidential elections scheduled for May be postponed. The elections were held nonetheless, although all but one of the opposition groups boycotted them. Konaré was elected to a second five-year term. Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter visited Mali in 1998 to mediate between the government and the opposition. Despite Carter’s recommendation, the opposition continued to call for Konaré’s resignation. For the 2002 presidential election, 24 candidates registered. Touré, the leader of the 1991 coup, was elected president, after two rounds of voting.
Touré was reelected in 2007. The constitutional court declared that he won the first round of voting with more than 70 percent of the vote, more than enough to avoid a runoff.
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
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