Background
He was born in 1935, at the northern port of Nouadhibou in a Moorish Chief's family.
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Hamdi Ould Mouknass
Edit ProfileEducation
Educated at Medersa Koranic School and other local institutions. He joined the civil service and rose rapidly to Chef de Cabinet in the Ministry of Civil Service, Labour and Social Affairs, before going to College Michelet in Nice, France, for teacher training in 1960. He then went to the Faculty of Law and Economics at Paris, getting a diploma in Overseas Law, followed by a diploma in Higher Legal Studies, between 1964 and 1965.
Career
He returned to Mauritania in June 1966, became Legal Counsel in President Moktar Ould Daddah’s office, an active member of the Mauritanian Peoples’ Party and was immediately appointed Government Commissioner for State Security. In February 1966 he was given his first portfolio as High Commissioner for Youth and Sports.
Close to the President, and with many influential contacts in government, he was a natural choice in October 1966, as Social Charge d’Affaircs. By January 1968, still only 33, the President considered him ready to become Minister of Youth, Information and Cultural Affairs and in July- Minister of Foreign Affairs. He arrived in the Foreign Office at the time Mauritania was helping to form the Organisation of Senegal River States, a primarily economic organisation for the development of the Senegal river basin, but he managed to get the group to adopt an important principle “in supporting the African Liberation Movements and the Arab peoples in their struggle against Israeli aggression”. He continued to develop the President’s policy of closer relations with the Arab states and the Maghreb in particular, opening diplomatic relations with Libya and a few other Arab states in 1970.
In June 1972 he launched the campaign to revise the irksome co-operation agreements with France. Important «sues were French overflying rights and |he need for an independent Mauritanlan currency. New agreements were signed in February 1973.
Personality
A clever Foreign Minister with strong party connections who ranks second only to the President on the government 284 lists. He has been quite happy to go along with the President’s radical views on foreign policy, including friendship with China and the East and a detente with France. He is also keen on closer relations with the militant Arab states. He has held the Foreign Ministry for an exceptionally long period by Mauritanian standards.
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Born
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Nationality
Mauritanian -
Political Party
Mauritanian Peoples’ Party
Education
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1960
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1964 - 1965
Career
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July, 1968