The information herein is from a generally reliable source, although it has not been corroborated by third party sources.
WESTERN SAHARA / SITUATION REPORT
05/07/13
A year and a half ago, in the wake of the election of the PJD-led government in Morocco, a heady rush of optimism with regard to Moroccan-Algerian relations in general and the question of the border in particular swept through the region. At the end of January 2012, Algerian Interior Minister Dahou Ould Kablia himself publicly described the future reopening of the border as « very plausible ». In private a former adviser to the Algerian presidency suggested that, while reopening the border had not been broached officially with the Moroccans, the idea had indeed been discussed at the El Mouradia presidential palace. Although this initial impetus fizzled out in the following months, the goal of bringing Algiers and Rabat closer together came to the fore again at the end of November 2012, when Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s Personal Envoy Christopher Ross presented his report to the UN Security Council in which he argued, in effect, that progress on the Western Sahara question depended on improved relations between Algeria and Morocco and promised to engage in a a round of shuttle diplomacy largely to this end.
Instead of the hoped for rapprochement, however, Rabat and Algiers have descended over the past weeks and months into an increasingly virulent war of words, beginning with the media and leaders of political parties and spreading to government spokesmen, to the point where by mid-June Algerian news portal TSA was evoking a full blown « diplomatic crisis »[1]. By the end of June, Algerian Foreign Minister Mourad Medelci was complaining to the Arabic service of the Russia Today news channel that Algeria was « more or less a deliberate target » for Moroccan narcotics exports, while Foreign Ministry spokesman Amar Belani grumbled in a statement to official Algerian news agency APS about the « premeditated escalation » in Moroccan media attacks on Algeria. There has been speculation in the media that this could degenerate still further – with some of the more alarmist commentators even wondering whether it might result in armed confrontation. While such a dramatic outcome remains highly unlikely, it is clear that tension between the two neighbours is at a peak. How and why have we arrived at this situation, and what are the implications?
If the hoped for rapprochement has failed to materialise, it does not seem to have been for lack of trying on Christopher Ross’ part at least. Touring the region this spring, the UN envoy added a second, unscheduled visit to Morocco on April 11 during which he met King Mohammed VI at his palace in Fes for discussions that centred chiefly on Moroccan-Algerian relations and the security situation in the Sahara-Sahel region. This unexpected stop-over was greeted with dismay by a majority of Polisario’s leadership, according to an Algiers-based Saharawi activist (especially given that Ross had contented himself with politely listening to their positions when he had visited Tindouf shortly before, without engaging any substantive discussions). Most members of the Polisario leadership, including Secretary General Mohammed Abdelaziz, saw Ross’ surprise audience with the King as a sign that he was moving towards giving his blessing to the Moroccan autonomy plan for Western Sahara in his upcoming report; according to the same source, only M’hamed Khaddad, Polisario’s MINURSO coordinator, is said to have judged – accurately, it would seem – that Ross would mainly focus on attempting to convince the Moroccans to give open-minded consideration to Algeria’s pre-conditions for opening the border between the two countries.
A diplomat from a North African country who has long been based in Algiers, where he has over years become friends with the present Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal, confirms that the question of reopening the Moroccan-Algerian border was raised with the governments of both countries in the first months of 2013 by various “friends and intermediaries”, including the US government as well as Christopher Ross. In response to these solicitations, the source says:
Two meetings were held discreetly in Europe between representatives of Algeria and of Morocco, in order to examine the question of reopening the border. Both countries sent a diplomat and a member of the intelligence services to these meetings, which came to nothing in the end. It was obvious from the outset that they would end in failure. The Algerians demanded that the Moroccans stop flooding Algeria with tons of cannabis before the borders could be opened; the Moroccans for their part stated up front that opening the borders also meant, as far as they were concerned, freedom of movement for Saharawi refugees in Tindouf – which came down to demanding that Algiers should allow the Saharawis of Tindouf to return to Morocco [or Moroccan-held territory] as soon as the borders are reopened. In fact, for both Algeria and Morocco these meetings were simply a chore that had to be done to keep the intermediaries and friends (USA, UN, etc.) satisfied, and each had decided in advance to blame the other for their failure. The Moroccans accuse the Algerians of showing bad faith and digging up pretexts to maintain the tension in the region; the Algerians accuse the Moroccans of setting prior conditions before reopening the border can even be discussed. Initially, both voiced these accusations only in private discussions with their friends and intermediaries, by way of justifying the failure of the bilateral contacts. But unforeseen events have prompted both Algeria and Morocco to make these disputes public[2].
The Algiers-based Saharawi activist quoted above has suggested that any tentative moves that there may have been towards reopening the border between Morocco and Algeria fell victim – as “collateral damage” – to manoeuvring at the UN over Security Council Resolution 2099 in late April: the hopes of Polisario and its supporters in Algiers had been raised by a US-penned draft tasking MINURSO with human rights monitoring, only to be dashed at the last minute when it became apparent that Moroccan lobbying had been powerful enough to force a turn-around; the Algerians, the source argues, felt this to be a humiliating measure of the deficiencies of their own lobbying, for which a number of Algerian politicians sought to compensate by restating as loudly as possible their undying support for the Saharawi cause. Henceforth, the source suggests, the Algerians will “never agree” to reopen the border without reasonable grounds to believe that a solution to the Western Sahara question is near.
There is reason to believe, however, that the real origins of the deterioration of Algerian-Moroccan relations lie elsewhere: in the internal politics of both Morocco and Algeria.
On the Moroccan side, the coalition government formed in December 2011 around the moderate islamist PJD (the largest single party in parliament) and the conservative nationalist Istiqlal (the second largest) has been in crisis since shortly after the election of Hamid Chabat as General Secretary of the Istiqlal in September 2012. Surfing on mounting popular discontent with the PJD-led government’s performance in power, Chabat was openly critical of the government’s record and began to call for a reshuffle that would give the Istiqlal a larger number of portfolios and therefore greater clout within the coalition. At an extraordinary meeting on May 12 of this year the party’s National Council voted to quit the government, but Chabat was persuaded by King Mohammed to postpone action on this decision until he came back from his travel to France. Against this background, the Istiqlal and the PJD have been trying to score points by striving to outdo one another in patriotism – a theme which comes
with virtually no political cost domestically, however much damage its misu
se may cause to the country’s foreign relations. Istiqlal politicians have proved particularly virulent, with Hamid Chabat in particular going as far as to revive – in the midst of the national panic over the possible inclusion of human rights monitoring in the MINURSO’s mandate – his party’s old irredentist line that calls for the “restitution” of the “eastern Sahara” (i.e. western Algeria[3]). Chabat, who has taken to dressing in Saharawi traditional costume when appearing at public meetings, repeated this demand at a party rally on May 1, suggesting that the territorial claim ought to be taken to the United Nations and announcing that he would be demanding that the issue be placed on the agenda for discussion in the cabinet; less than a fortnight later, at another public meeting, he raised his irridentist demand again, adding that certain PJD ministers ought to be “tried for treason” for having dared to suggest that the question of the “eastern Sahara” was a thing of the past.
On the Algerian side, Chabat’s provocations fell on fertile ground, for more than one reason. In earlier reports[4] we suggested that the Bouteflika camp, looking ahead to the 2014 presidential election, tended to see all discussion of the need for a new departure in relations with Morocco as a challenge to Bouteflika and to his ambitions for a fourth successive term, and therefore had every interest in amplifying traditional points of discord between Algeria and Morocco in order to prevent this issue from gaining any traction. This might have been expected to fizzle out after President Bouteflika was flown to France on April 23 for treatment after suffering a stroke and his chances of standing for re-election began to fade. But instead the festering political and institutional crisis that has broken out since Bouteflika was medevacked to Paris has actually added new incentives for Morocco-bashing. To begin with, according to the North African diplomat quoted above, there is a deep-rooted fear among Algeria’s political class of Morocco seeking to take advantage of any unplanned political transitions and other moments of instability in Algeria[5]. On top of this, Bouteflika’s incapacitation has led to speculation that he may be declared unfit for office and deposed in application of Article 88 of the Algerian constitution; in that case, the presidency would, according to the constitution, be entrusted on an interim basis, pending fresh elections in no more than 45 days, to the Speaker of the upper house of parliament, Abdelkader Bensalah – who happens to be of Moroccan extraction and only acquired Algerian nationality in 1965, and furthermore did not take part in the war of independence. Even though the interim President is barred by the constitution from standing in the ensuing election and could therefore only hold office for at most 45 days, according to the North African diplomat even this would be too much for many high-ranking officers in the Algerian army and the DRS intelligence and security service, unable to countenance someone with Bensalah’s profile acceding to the highest office[6]. Indeed, it has been plausibly suggested that it was in this knowledge that Bouteflika had Bensalah installed as Speaker of the upper house in 2002, as an added protection against a “medical coup d’état”. Thus, in today’s particular circumstances, playing up tensions with Morocco can be seen as a defensive measure on the Bouteflika clan against the impeachment of the President, insofar as it serves to remind those who would invoke Article 88 in order to remove him of all the reasons for their mistrust of their western neighbour and its sons.
This is not to say, however, that the non-adoption by the UN Security Council of the initial American draft of Resolution 2099 has been without effect. Speaking to us very shortly after the final, expurgated draft was adopted towards the end of April, a member of Polisario’s National Secretariat went so far as to describe it as a “turning point in the Western Sahara conflict”. Although the resolution did not in the end extend MINURSO’s mandate to cover human rights monitoring, it did leave the door open for other UN institutions to take up the matter, argued the National Secretariat member, adding that it was “therefore important for the Saharawis to prove to the entire world that respect for human rights is an essential element in their struggle for independence. They must now show the world that the right to self-determination is the most primary of human rights.” Accordingly, Polisario, its leaders and sympathisers have indeed been actively lobbying both the UN and Washington on the issue of human rights. Pro-Polisario Saharawis who took to the streets of Laayoune on May in what the Moroccan press described as “the largest pro-independence demonstrations ever seen in Laayoune” pointedly waved American flags along with the flag of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic. And, according to a leading member of a Saharawi association who accompanied Mohammed Abdelaziz on his trips to Washington and Geneva in early June, the Polisario General Secretary and SADR President focussed on just one request in his meetings with US Senators and State Department officials: that the US administration should renew its support for the idea of expanding MINURSO’s mandate to include the protection of the civilian population of the Moroccan-administered territories of Western Sahara[7]. On June 12, Mohamed Abdelaziz met UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the British ambassador to the United Nations Mark Lyall Grant, then holder of the rotating presidency of the Security Council, inviting them both to visit Western Sahara. This was followe up with a meeting in Geneva with United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, to whom he suggested that the High Commission should intervene to defend the rights of Saharawis living under Moroccan rule.
Meanwhile, the competition for influence in Africa and beyond has redoubled between Morocco and Algeria. In a specifically African context, both are clearly very much concerned with building and sustaining diplomatic leverage for use in relation to the Western Sahara question. Thus, coinciding with the African Union’s 50th anniversary celebrations in May, Algeria has been playing up its African debt write-off initiative, which has seen it cancel debts it held for some 14 African countries[8], worth a total of almost $1bn since 2010, while Morocco has been pursuing an economic and trade pact with the members of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (i.e. the countries that use the CFA franc[9], which is guaranteed by the French treasury, binding them very much into France’s orbit). At the same time, Rabat seems to have made the best of its own African connections and of the fact that it is this year’s chair of the UN Counter-Terrorism Committee, at the United Nations in mid-May, when at the initiative of Togo the UN Security Council debated security in Africa and issued a Presidential Statement calling on Sahel and Maghreb states to intensify inter-regional cooperation and coordination and adopt a “comprehensive strategy” to fight terrorism. For its part, Algeria hosted a meeting on Sahel security of the Global Counter Terrorism Forum (a grouping first launched by then Secretary of State Hilary Rodham Clinton in September 2011) in Oran in late June, at which it was able to grandstand as both a victim of and a rampart against islamist terrorism in the wake of January’s attack on the BP/Statoil/Sonatrach gas facility at In Amenas.
END
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[1] ‘Le DRS déconseille à des d
éputés algériens de se rendre au Maroc’, TSA, 10/06/13. TSA’s article claims that
, “due to the context of diplomatic crisis” with Morocco, Algeria’s intelligence and security service had advised a group of Algerian parliamentarians who had recently visited the “liberated zones” of Western Sahara on the eastern side of the berm against following this up with a fact-finding visit to Morocco so as to avoid any “provocations from the Moroccan authorities.”
[2] Algerian Foreign Ministry spokesman Amar Belani appears to have been alluding to these meetings when he told official Algerian news agency APS on June 30 that “We were surprised, during discussions that we had wanted to keep confidential, to hear [Moroccan government representatives], as if they were laying down the law, that if they were to cooperate more effectively [in cracking down on drug smuggling to Algeria] the border would have to be opened first.”
[3] Including, in Chabat’s own words, Tindouf, Bechar, Kenadsa and Hassi Beida.
[4] AMSR #123, April 19, 2013. WSSR 11/04/13.
[5] The diplomat points in particular to two memories which, he suggests, remain very much alive: on the one hand, the border dispute which blew up in the chaotic atmosphere of the first months of Algerian independence and culminated in the “Guerre des Sables” of 1963, during which the Istiqlal Party’s daily newspaper Al-Alam famously published the party’s irredentist map of “Greater Morocco” taking in around a third of Algerian territory as well as the whole of the Western Sahara, Mauritania and a large slice of Mali; and on the other, the audience granted to FIS leader Abassi Madani by King Hassan II on his yacht when he docked in Algiers in 1990, during which they are reported to had a remarkably friendly exchange on the question of the Sahara.
[6] Article 73 of the constitution, furthermore, specifically stipulates that any candidate for election as President must, amongst other things, be an Algerian national by birth and, if born before July 1942, be able to attest to his participation in the independence struggle.
[7] Mohamed Abdelaziz’ American interlocutors at both the Senate and the State Department are said to have listened politely without taking any particular position, or even implying such, other than to insist on the need to find a solution via negotiations with Morocco under the auspices of the UN Secretary General and his Special Representative. The same source implied that the extension of MINURSO’s remit requested by the Polisario General Secretary’s also freezing Morocco’s exploitation of the natural resources of Western Sahara, although it is hard to see quite what role the UN mission might play in this regard.
[8] Benin, Burkina Faso, Congo, Ethiopia, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Mauritania, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Sao Tomé and Principe, Senegal, the Seychelles and Tanzania.
[9] Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire and Togo.
