Par Abderrahman EL YESSA<\/p>\n
En 1989, un incident sur la fronti\u00e8re entre le S\u00e9n\u00e9gal et la Mauritanie d\u00e9clenche une spirale d’\u00e9meutes x\u00e9nophobes dans les deux pays. Les violences ont men\u00e9 \u00e0 la mise en place d’un pont a\u00e9rien aux allures de vaste \u00e9change de populations. Un conflit \u00ab\u00a0classique\u00a0\u00bb de coexistence entre nomades et s\u00e9dentaires \u00e9voluait ainsi en une crise ouverte entre deux Etats. En Mauritanie, les autorit\u00e9s ont proc\u00e9d\u00e9 \u00e0 de vastes rafles, suivies d’expulsions massives, le gouvernement d\u00e9cidant d’expulser outre les S\u00e9n\u00e9galais, ses propres nationaux suppos\u00e9s \u00ab\u00a0originaires\u00a0\u00bb du S\u00e9n\u00e9gal. Quelques dizaines de milliers de personnes se r\u00e9clamant de la nationalit\u00e9 mauritanienne ont ainsi \u00e9t\u00e9 refoul\u00e9es au-del\u00e0 de la fronti\u00e8re commune, y compris au Mali. Le probl\u00e8me des \u00ab\u00a0r\u00e9fugi\u00e9s\u00a0\u00bb prenait ainsi naissance, devenant, au fil des ans, un th\u00e8me r\u00e9current du d\u00e9bat interne en Mauritanie. Chass\u00e9s de leur pays, les r\u00e9fugi\u00e9s n’arrivaient toutefois pas en terre inconnue puisqu’ils avaient l’habitude de traverser le Fleuve dans les deux sens, poss\u00e9dant des terres et des relations de famille de part et d’autre d’une fronti\u00e8re que les populations locales per\u00e7oivent souvent comme artificielle. Ce rapport de recherche propose de tenter une analyse des causes et des d\u00e9terminants, mais aussi des cons\u00e9quences juridiques et des perspectives de r\u00e8glement de cette question. Au-del\u00e0 des explications dominantes v\u00e9hicul\u00e9es par les m\u00e9dias, ax\u00e9es sur une suppos\u00e9e opposition atavique entre nomades sahariens et s\u00e9dentaires noirs, l’hypoth\u00e8se est qu’il s’agit d’un ph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne complexe, puisant ses racines autant dans les d\u00e9s\u00e9quilibres \u00e9cologiques que dans la lutte pour l’acc\u00e8s aux ressources, notamment fonci\u00e8res, et la concurrence de nationalismes exclusifs.<\/p>\n
In 1989, an incident on the border between Senegal and Mauritania started a spiral of xenophobic riots on the both parts. Because of the violence of the events, a airlift for exchanging the populace was settled. A classical conflict between nomad and \u201csedentary people\u201d turned into an opened crisis between the two countries. In Mauritania, authorities have massively arrested and deported Senegalese people but among those, Mauritanian were also expelled because of their presumed Senegalese origin. Around 10.000 Mauritanian citizens have been expelled through the common border as well as into Mali. The issue of the \u201cMauritanian refugees\u201d was born and will last for years, constituting a recurrent polemical issue for Mauritanian politics. The expelled refugees, were not living on an unknown land, before the conflict, they were used to go back and forth the River, owing lands and having family ties on both sides of the border, often perceived by them as artificial. The research report analyses root causes and determinants of the issue as well as its legal consequences and perspectives for its resolution. The Media tend to spread a dominant explanation of the conflict which is based upon atavistic oppositions between Saharan nomads and black \u201csedentary people\u201d, while this research report hypotheses is that a more complex explanation is needed, integrating both the loss of balance in the ecological system and for accessing fundamental resources, lands i.e., and the competition between exclusive nationalisms.<\/p>\n