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    Primary Navigation Secondary Navigation Search: Mauritania braces for anti-coup protest on eve of AU ultimatum by Laurence Boutreux Sun Oct 5, 1:12 PM ET NOUAKCHOTT (AFP) - Supporters of Mauritania 's ousted president vowed Sunday to push ahead with a peaceful protest despite a ban on demonstrations by the military junta that took power in a recent coup. "We are determined to protest peacefully, if the government decides to intervene to stop the march, that will be its responsibility," Ahmedou Ould Wedia, spokesman for the coalition of political parties that called the march, told AFP Sunday. "We will do anything to ensure they will not succeed in stopping us from gathering and protesting," said Ladji Traore, a leading figure in the People's Progressive Alliance (APP). The protest, due to start at 4:00 pm local time (1600 GMT), comes a day before an African Union (AU) deadline for the country's military rulers to reinstate the ousted president. The August 6 coup was widely condemned by the international community and the AU has issued an ultimatum for the junta to return ousted president Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi to power "no later than Monday October 6". Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, Mauritania's first democratically-elected president, has been held under house arrest since the coup. Last week the west African country's junta-appointed prime minister , Moulaye Ould Mohamed Leghdaf, banned public demonstrations, saying Mauritanians had "protested enough". "They are looking for a confrontation ... we are looking for dialogue," a source close to the military leadership said of the planned protests Sunday. He added that the parties planning the protest had refused to take part in a so-called "states generals of democracy" that the prime minister has called for mid-October to talk about the situation in the country "without taboos". The junta source called the demonstration a provocation. "We will see what they are made of ... There will be 200 or 300 of them," he said. "They want to show the international opinion that they are victims of a totalitarian and authoritarian regime ..." The AU has warned the military regime that it risked "sanctions and isolation" if it failed to yield to its demands, but the junta has resisted all diplomatic pressure to restore the elected government. The president was ousted hours after he issued a decree firing the Mauritanian military's top brass, including junta leader Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, who was the commander of the presidential guard . Since the coup, the junta has taken over the powers of the president and formed a new government with the support of a majority of the deputies in parliament. The new leadership has promised to hold elections quickly, but no date has been set and parliament has voted to delay a presidential vote by at least a year. The leadership has categorically refused international demands to reinstate the president, saying it would not move backwards. On Sunday another source close to the junta's State Council, led by general Ould Abdel Aziz, dismissed the AU ultimatum as "pipe dreams". "The worst sanction they could impose on Mauritania would be to force this person (president Ould Cheikh Abdallahi) on us," the source said. RECOMMEND THIS STORY Recommend It: Average ( Not Rated ) AP AP AP AP AP AP AP AP AP The Christian Science Monitor Australia 7 News - 33 minutes ago AFP - 47 minutes ago Reuters - 1 hour, 16 minutes ago BBC - 1 hour, 37 minutes ago Mauritanian junta-appointed prime minister, Moulaye Ould Mohamed Leghdaf, is seen here in Nouakchott in August... World Video News Search Related Searches: Elsewhere on the Web Time.com: McClatchy Newspapers: ABC News: Yahoo! Autos See the latest Land Rover vehicles on Yahoo! Autos. NEWS ALERTS Get an alert when there are new stories about: prime minister African Union Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi Mauritania presidential guard - - Search: Primary Navigation Copyright © 2008 . All rights reserved. The information contained in the AFP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Agence France Presse.