Special
Reports: Morocco
Back to Morocco Country File
July 7, 2009: US Obama
Administration Seeks Moroccan Support on Arab-Israel Dispute, But Then Reverses
US Support for MWS Position
June 15, 2009: Moroccan Election
Highlights Watershed Change in Saharan Dispute; Provides New Model for Elections
Worldwide
November 7, 2007: Morocco
Upgrades Defenses, But F-16 Deal Cannot Be Taken For Granted
October 24, 2007: Governance
Emphasis in Morocco Moves to the Parliament
October 6, 2007: Essential Reading:
Morocco and the Sahara: Social Bonds and Geopolitical Issues
October 2, 2007: Moroccan Foreign
Minister Tells UN That Saharan Dispute at Turning Point
September 10, 2007: Moroccan
Elections Delivery Major Message on Stability, Direction, and Give Strength on
Saharan Process
September 10, 2007: Principal
Union Backer of Australia's Likely Next Government Seen as Funding POLISARIO
Slave Labor
August 28, 2007: Morocco Taking
Elections in Stride While Addressing an Internationally-Contrived Campaign to
Challenge its Sovereignty
May 29, 2007: Strategic Biographies:
King Mohammed VI, King of Morocco;
Mohamed Benaїssa, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, Morocco;
Abderrahman Sbaї, Delegate to the Prime Minister in Charge
of the Administration of National Defense, Morocco
April 18, 2007: The Jihad in the
“Land of the Berbers” Revives; Algiers and Rabat Play Catch-Up
October 24, 2006: Annan Tries
Last Push for UN-Oriented Settlement of Western Sahara Issue Despite Realities
on the Ground
September 5, 2006: Morocco
Sustains Crackdowns on Jihadist Groups, But Broader Links Remain
November 12, 2003: POLISARIO
Repatriation of Moroccan Prisoners Does Not Address Underlying Concerns in Rabat
August 4, 2003: King of Morocco
Bans Islamic Parties
August 2, 2002: UN Renews
Referendum Mandate for Western Sahara
January 17, 2001: Morocco's King
Mohammed Visits Libya
September 20, 1999:
King Mohammed VI Takes
Firm Grasp of Moroccan Leadership
July 7, 2009
US Obama Administration Seeks Moroccan Support on
Arab-Israel Dispute, But Then Reverses US Support for MWS Position
Analysis. Staff Report. The Administration US
Pres. Barack Obama in late June 2009 quietly and profoundly changed the
long-standing US policy regarding the resolution of the Moroccan Western Sahara
(MWS) crisis. Under the new policy, the US no longer supports and endorses the
Moroccan autonomy plan as the key to resolving the MWS dispute, and instead
insists on the broader interpretation of the mandate of the UN-led negotiations
which considers the establishment of an independence POLISARIO state in MWS a
viable option.
In essence, the policy disregards the progress made
in recent years, and the legal and physical realities which had already
determined that the Algerian-sponsored promotion of a POLISARIO state in MWS was
neither viable, nor legal. Indeed, the Algerian-initiated proposal — designed to
create a proxy Algerian state on the Atlantic, carved out of part of what has,
for centuries, been Moroccan territory — has been rejected totally by the Arab
world, and, after initially being embraced by some sub-Saharan African states,
has increasingly been rejected by African states, who have pointedly withdrawn
their support for the POLISARIO concept of a state in WMS.
The new US policy was authoritatively articulated in
Pres. Obama’s June 2009 letter to King Mohammed VI. The letter was mainly
devoted to requesting Morocco’s help with furthering of the Arab-Israeli Peace
Process. However, despite courting Moroccan support for a US Arab-Israeli peace
initiative, toward the end of the letter, Obama stated the new US policy
regarding MWS.
Obama insisted that the UN-led negotiations were the
sole venue for negotiating and resolving the MWS conflict. “I share your
commitment to the UN-led negotiations as the appropriate forum to achieve a
mutually agreed solution,” Obama wrote to the King. Obama stressed the suffering
endured by the Sahrawi people as a result of the lingering conflict. He assured
the King of the White House willingness to engage with Morocco in an effort to
resolve the conflict and alleviate the suffering. “My government will work with
yours and others in the region to achieve an outcome that meets the people’s
need for transparent governance, confidence in the rule of law, and equal
administration of justice,” Obama wrote.
What was significant, as a recent report by a team
of International Strategic Studies Association (ISSA) observers noted in WMS,
was that there was no “suffering” by Sahrawi people in MWS, and no conflict
underway there. Moreover, during the recent Moroccan elections held throughout
the Kingdom, including WMS, there was not even a hint of POLISARIO involvement
or influence.
See Defense & Foreign Affairs Special
Analysis,
June 15, 2009: Moroccan Election Highlights Watershed Change in
Saharan Dispute; Provides New Model for Elections Worldwide.
Obama’s stressing of the US unqualified endorsement
of the UN approach to conflict resolution in MWS constituted the abandonment of
the US support for Morocco’s autonomy plan. Instead, the US now supports the
position which the United Nations envoy for Western Sahara, Christopher Ross,
rammed through during his late-June 2009 week-long tour to the Maghreb and
Europe. The real objective of the visit was to break the deadlock over Western
Sahara by eliciting more Moroccan unilateral concessions. Cognizant that the UN
talks process in Manhasset, New York, are deadlocked because of the POLISARIO’s
intransigence, Ross proposed to mediate “an informal meeting” between Morocco
and the POLISARIO so that the POLISARIO’s preconditions could now be
conveniently overlooked.
Rabat assured Ross that Morocco had already agreed
to participate “positively” in such an informal meeting for as long as the
meeting complied with the latest UN Security Council (UNSC) resolutions. In
April 2009, the UNSC urged Morocco and the POLISARIO to achieve a “lasting and
mutually acceptable political solution” through direct negotiations without
preconditions. Nevertheless, Ross accepted the POLISARIO’s long-standing demands
and interpretation of no-preconditions. Upon his return to New York, he reported
to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon that he — Ross — concurred with the Sahrawis’
insistence on the need to create, in advance, an atmosphere conducive to
negotiations. The first requirement of the POLISARIO was the UN’s imposition of
“respect for human rights” in MWS because “it [the POLISARIO] can not continue
negotiations” in the face of “the violation of human rights in the cities of
Western Sahara occupied by Morocco”.
What is not stated in that claim — and neither is it
checked or understood by externally-prepared analysis in the international media
— is that there is no evidence on the ground in WMS of any human rights
violations, although there has been documented evidence presented of the
continued use of slave labor by POLISARIO at its base in Tindouf, in Algerian
Sahara. By definition, then, the new US position endorsed a movement which had
continued to rely on slave labor.
See Defense & Foreign Affairs Special
Analysis,
September 10, 2007: Principal Union Backer of Australia's Likely Next
Government Seen as Funding POLISARIO Slave Labor.
It was ironic, then, in seeking the approval of the
Muslim world for US policy that Pres. Obama, in his Cairo speech of June 4,
2009, noted: “The first nation to recognize my country was Morocco.” He then
elicited the support of Morocco, which is one of the few Muslim states to be in
a position to truly mediate between Israel and the Arab world, in the “new”
Obama Middle East peace process.
Significantly, the statement of US policy in Obama’s
letter constituted a sharp deviation from the US long-standing staunch support
for the Moroccan autonomy initiative. The US endorsement of ultimate Moroccan
sovereignty over, and autonomy in, MWS was repeatedly stated by numerous senior
officials including Bush and Rice.
This policy was articulated most authoritatively by
US Pres. George W. Bush in his June 2008 letter to King Mohammed VI. Pres. Bush
wrote that it was the policy of the US that “substantial autonomy under Moroccan
sovereignty is the only possible solution to the dispute over the Sahara and an
independent state on that territory is not a realistic option”. Pres. Bush
further termed the Moroccan autonomy plan as “serious” and “credible”, and
expressed the US hope that POLISARIO would adopt it.
Obama’s unilateral change of US policy is all the
more inexplicable given the overwhelming evidence of the complete integration of
MWS into Morocco. The latest manifestation was in the municipal elections held
throughout Morocco on June 12, 2009. Gregory Copley, who spearheaded the
election observer mission from the International Strategic Studies Association (ISSA),
noted:
“The elections were remarkable for their
transparency, thoroughness of preparation, civic involvement, and fairness,"
Copley told reporters in Rabat on June 13, 2009, after statistics and
results were gathered, and after it was clear that no legal or other
challenges were likely to be mounted against the conduct of the elections or
counting of votes.
“More than that, however, was the reality that
the election marked the real end of any meaningful debate over the
sovereignty of Sahara. Algeria had created and supported the POLISARIO
movement to expressly challenge the legitimacy of the return of the former
Spanish Western Sahara to the Kingdom of Morocco and had claimed for several
decades to have a right to speak for the people of the territory. Legal
challenges to the return of this historical part of Morocco to the Kingdom
after the withdrawal of Spanish colonial occupation had long been satisfied
in Morocco’s favor. Now, the citizens of this increasingly prosperous,
stable, and peaceful region have resoundingly and independently reasserted
their Moroccan identity," Copley said.
The election, however, was more than merely a
referendum on the issue of the sovereignty of the Saharan region. It was so
professionally conducted as to provide a model for future elections at all
levels around the world. “This election certainly met, and exceeded, the
levels of transparency, fairness, and all valid rigors which are considered
significant by major democratic societies around the world,“ Copley said.
“Morocco, which has become essentially a southern extension of Europe, has
demonstrated that it is, in political terms, sophisticated, secular, and
stable. This is a major progression for a society which has now conducted 72
elections since independence from French colonial occupation in 1956, and
reflects the stable political continuity of a state which has been in
existence for many centuries.”
June 15, 2009
Moroccan Election Highlights Watershed Change in
Saharan Dispute; Provides New Model for Elections Worldwide
Gregory Copley, President of the International
Strategic Studies Association (ISSA), publisher of Defense & Foreign Affairs/GIS,
led a delegation to study the Moroccan local elections which took place on June
12, 2009, because of the unique rôle which the elections were to have in the
transformation of both Moroccan society and the long-standing international
issue of the sovereignty of the Sahara region of Morocco. ISSA engaged the
American Center for Democracy (ACD) to assist in providing experienced coverage
of polling stations across Morocco, and particularly in the Sahara region.
“The elections were remarkable for their
transparency, thoroughness of preparation, civic involvement, and fairness,"
Copley told reporters in Rabat on June 13, 2009, after statistics and results
were gathered, and after it was clear that no legal or other challenges were
likely to be mounted against the conduct of the elections or counting of votes.
“More than that, however, was the reality that the
election marked the real end of any meaningful debate over the sovereignty of
Sahara. Algeria had created and supported the POLISARIO movement to expressly
challenge the legitimacy of the return of the former Spanish Western Sahara to
the Kingdom of Morocco and had claimed for several decades to have a right to
speak for the people of the territory. Legal challenges to the return of this
historical part of Morocco to the Kingdom after the withdrawal of Spanish
colonial occupation had long been satisfied in Morocco’s favor. Now, the
citizens of this increasingly prosperous, stable, and peaceful region have
resoundingly and independently reasserted their Moroccan identity," Copley said.
The election, however, was more than merely a
referendum on the issue of the sovereignty of the Saharan region. It was so
professionally conducted as to provide a model for future elections at all
levels around the world. “This election certainly met, and exceeded, the levels
of transparency, fairness, and all valid rigors which are considered significant
by major democratic societies around the world,“ Copley said. “Morocco, which
has become essentially a southern extension of Europe, has demonstrated that it
is, in political terms, sophisticated, secular, and stable. This is a major
progression for a society which has now conducted 72 elections since
independence from French colonial occupation in 1956, and reflects the stable
political continuity of a state which has been in existence for many centuries.”
See also:
Defense & Foreign Affairs Special Analysis,
August 28, 2007: Morocco Taking Elections in Stride While Addressing
an Internationally-Contrived Campaign to Challenge its Sovereignty.
Defense & Foreign Affairs Special Analysis,
October 6, 2007: Changing the Dynamic in Conflict Resolution: a Look
at Morocco and the Sahara.
Defense & Foreign Affairs Special Analysis,
December 19, 2007: POLISARIO Congress Reflects the Major Threat to
Maghreb Stability as Algeria Enters a Power Struggle, With Itself and the
West.
Defense & Foreign Affairs Special Analysis,
June 10, 2009: Local Government Elections in Morocco Hold
Implications for Maghreb, Africa.
International Strategic Studies Association Report on the June 12, 2009
Local
Elections in the Kingdom of Morocco
Issued in
Rabat, Morocco: June 14, 2009
The International Strategic
Studies Association (ISSA)
has been conducting research on modern governance and regionalization in
countries with diverse population, and, as a result, was pleased to be able to
comprehensively study the Moroccan local elections of June 12, 2009. ISSA
engaged the services of the American Center for Democracy (ACD) to assist in
ensuring that there was sufficient manpower to cover the geographically and
socially diverse extent of the 27,795 electoral seats in 1,503 communes
(local councils).
The June 12, 2009, local
government polls in Morocco were the 72nd elections conducted in the
country since independence in 1956. As a result, Morocco has had long experience
in conducting elections, but has, particularly under the reign of King Mohammed
VI, taken the improvement of election processes to be a vital component of
national transformation. This made the study of the local elections of
significant strategic importance, given that the local elections would validate
or discredit Morocco’s process of regionalization and devolution of power to
local levels.
Before discussing the results,
it is important to note that all ISSA and ACD researchers, who had unfettered
access to polling stations chosen at random throughout the country, found the
elections to be among the best-organized and most transparent possible. There
was considerable evidence of an open and community-driven process in which the
following highlights should be noted:
1.
Voter lists had
been reviewed and scrutinized to ensure that all eligible voters were recognized
and verified. This was exemplified, additionally, by the fact that ISSA/ACD
researchers did not see a single challenge to the electoral lists based on
exclusion; nor did we witness any instance of persons attempting to double-vote.
This demonstrated a painstaking attention to ensuring that the underlying
fairness of the election was beyond dispute.
2.
The organization
of actual polling day activities was meticulous in detail, ensuring that polling
facilities were readily accessible to voters. Security was consistent but light;
there was no sense of a coercive official presence, but there was sufficient
evidence to voters that polling stations would be secure. Within the polling
areas, local volunteers ensured that there was a significant sense that this was
a process governed at grass roots. Moreover, the fact that, without exception,
these volunteer polling station officials followed exactly the same procedures
for dealing with voters, highlighted the reality that training and documentation
for election procedures would be consistent nationally.
3.
The arrangement of
polling station procedures was undertaken to ensure maximum confidentiality and
transparency of process. Voter identification was able to be undertaken with
efficiency because of the fact that, for the first time, voters had national
identification (ID) certificates — which verified that they were, indeed, bona
fide citizens — as well as valid and current voter registration cards. This
combination of voter documents ensured that election officials could readily
verify and check off voter participation. Significantly, all voters’
qualifications were checked by two separate officials working from identical
local voter registration lists. Names were called to a panel of monitors from
the political parties present in every polling room, and these — and the entire
process — was also under the scrutiny of at least two local elder citizens.
4.
The fact that
meticulous attention to counting and voting procedures was applied was indicated
by the fact that some 11 percent of the votes were disqualified because of
inappropriate ballot preparation by those voters. Out of a total of 7,005,050
votes cast, 6,171,930 were valid. Each ballot paper was prepared in the secrecy
of a closed booth, and deposited without scrutiny in locked and physically
transparent ballot boxes.
5.
ISSA/ACD
researchers were able, on a random basis, to monitor the counting of votes at a
local level after polling stations closed. Again, under the monitoring of a
range of officials from different parties and volunteer management, there was
little opportunity for, and no evidence of, attempts to interfere with or
distort the counting process.
6.
Logistical
arrangements for the conduct of the elections by the Ministry of Interior
reflected a painstaking demonstration of the Government’s clear desire to be
seen to avoid interference with, or influence over, the processes. At the same
time, however, the Ministry of Interior ensured that there was at no time any
lack of appropriate numbers of ballot papers, ballot boxes, secure voting
booths, and processing officials and voter lists. Catering arrangements were
such that there was no need for officials to interrupt the voting process, which
lasted from 08.00 hours until 19.00 hours on June 12, 2009, in order to take
meals. Within this framework, quite apart from the extensive preparations by a
large number of public officials, the devotion to preparation and conduct of the
polling day activities by volunteers was remarkable for the seriousness with
which the process was addressed.
7.
To reiterate, the
attention to the preparation of new voter lists for this election, the broad
delivery into the populace of secure national ID cards, and the delivery to
voters of voter registration cards, coupled with the on-site polling station
scrutiny and the physical marking of each voter’s hand with indelible dye after
voting, ensured that voting fraud was difficult, if not, in practice,
impossible. This reflected a new level of preparation and security from even the
impressively-organized parliamentary election in Morocco in September 2007.
Moreover, the lack of any protests based on allegations of voter, or official,
fraud post-election was indicative of the transparency with which the process
was viewed by citizens and political parties alike, confirming the legitimacy of
the elections. The entire process reflected a new high-point for the conduct of
elections worldwide, and should be seen as a template for other nations.
Within the framework of the ISSA
project, the ACD Director, Dr Rachel Ehrenfeld, noted: “On June 12, 2009,
members of the American Center for Democracy observed municipal elections
throughout Morocco, visiting polling sites in urban and rural areas. We
observed, without any obstacles, all the sites [where] we chose and interviewed
officials, party delegates, and voters. We witnessed a consistently high level
of professionalism, a great sense of responsibility, and a good knowledge of
voting procedures on the part of the officials in the voting stations. Without
exception, the elections met all the recognized requirements of a democratic
election, and members of the ACD did not observe nor learn of any irregularities
or violations. The ACD was particularly impressed by the participation and
engagement of women, both as voters and as electoral officials.”
As a result of a review of the
pre-election preparations and the conduct of the elections, ISSA considers the
domestic reform process in Morocco — particularly the latest phase which started
with His Majesty the King’s address in Agadir in December 2006 outlining
proposals to substantially improve practices and regulations of local government
— to be of strategic significance. The December 2006 Agadir speech was followed
by the King’s initiative of November 6, 2008, which began the process of
deepening regionalization in Morocco. ISSA believes that this multi-dimensional
process has significant lessons for other countries with diverse populations and
cultural minorities.
ISSA has for some years
carefully studied the evolution of Moroccan political processes. For example, an
ISSA report analyzed King Mohammed VI’s speech of November 6, 2008, and
highlighted his decision that Morocco unilaterally implement the “sophisticated
process of regionalization” by introducing a new system of local governance. In
this speech, His Majesty announced the launch of a process of profound domestic
reforms in Morocco, both structurally (redistricting) and governance-wise
(regionalization).
It was with the June 12, 2009,
local elections, then, that the people were elected who would be implementing
the King’s vision of reform. This made the local elections of significance
nationally, and were, then, equally important in positioning Morocco’s viability
strategically.
Within this framework of reform
and restructuring, it was important to note that 61 percent of the elected
officials entered public service for the first time; 18 percent of these elected
officials were under 35 years of age, and 59 percent of them had higher than
secondary education levels. As well, 3,406 (12.3 percent) of the elected
councilors were women (compared with 0.4 percent in the local election of 2003).
In the 2003 communal elections, there were only 127 women elected. A total of
20,458 women candidates sought office. Of those elected, 50 percent of these
were under 35 years of age; and 75 percent of these women had higher than
secondary education levels. These figures introduced a new generation of life
into the Moroccan political process.
As was the case with the
Parliamentary elections of September 7, 2007 — which ISSA also analyzed in
several reports — Moroccan elections constitute excellent and accurate
reflection of the dynamics in Moroccan society because they are inherently free,
fair, and transparent. However, this process was taken to new levels of
accountability with the June 12, 2009, elections, and this was reflected by the
markedly higher voter turnout than the 2007 parliamentary elections, and this
higher turnout reflected growing voter confidence. Voter turnout in the June 12,
2009, elections was 52.4 percent as opposed to 37 percent voter turnout for the
September 2007 Parliamentary elections. There was a 54 percent voter turnout in
the 2003 local elections. Significantly, the two major trends noted in the June
12, 2009, elections were, firstly, the moves to ensure that at all levels the
process would be beyond dispute as free and fair, and, secondly, the growth of
grass-roots voter and political participation. This was also measured by the
development of new political parties, the involvement of younger voters, and the
surge of engagement by women in the political process, both as voters and as
candidates. While the voter turnout was 52.4 percent nationally, the voter
turnout for women was, in fact, higher than the male turnout.
Of particular importance was the
election process and voter turnout in the four provinces of the Moroccan Western
Sahara (MWS) region of Morocco, given that this region — in which the United
Nations has taken a particular interest — has been under international scrutiny,
with a wide range of claims by external groups. Without addressing that debate
in this report, it was important to note that ISSA’s careful monitoring of
polling through urban and rural areas of Sahara showed:
(i)
A higher level of
voter turnout than the national average;
(ii)
A high proportion
of women voters;
(iii)
A complete absence
of any presence by foreign-sponsored groups, or any indication of any influence
over voters by foreign sponsored groups;
(iv)
The
Algerian-supported and externally-based POLISARIO movement2 did not
contest the elections, and, in discussions which ISSA had with voters at various
polling stations, it was expressed that POLISARIO was, in fact, not seen as
relevant or a consideration in the political process;
From the standpoint of ISSA’s
interest in the conduct of the election, the results were strategically
important for the transformative nature of what the elections themselves
represented, rather than for who, or which parties, were elected. It was the
election itself which showed the remarkable devolution of power and
responsibility from the leadership of a unitary state down to regional and local
levels. In so doing, there was a clear empowerment of the population at local
and regional levels, and this was absolutely grasped by the population. In the
specific case of the extensive Sahara territory, the considerably higher level
of voter turnout than the national average showed that the Saharan population
had committed itself completely to the Moroccan polity and had overwhelmingly
rejected the option offered by POLISARIO of secession or identification in any
way with the Algerian-sponsored POLISARIO movement. It was equally significant
that the September 2007 Parliamentary elections also showed a dramatically
higher level of voter turnout in Moroccan Sahara than the national average.
As a result, ISSA endorses the
words of Moroccan Interior Minister Chakib Benmoussa who said, when summarizing
the election results on June 13, 2009, that the high turnout in the southern
province, the Sahara, in the local elections showed the inhabitants’ commitment
to the democratic process in their country.
If a referendum on the wishes of
the Saharan population was needed as to where its affiliations lay, then the
June 12, 2009, local elections demonstrated that Saharans were enthusiastically
committed to their participation in the Kingdom of Morocco.
ISSA noted the complete absence
of any security concerns in the urban and rural areas visited, and noted, in
contrast, the high levels of infrastructural investment throughout the
territory, and the rising productivity of local economic activities, from
phosphate and high-value sands mining and exports, to fisheries output and
export.
The claim on June 12, 2009, by
the representative of POLISARIO in Algeria, Brahim Ghali, that the elections in
Sahara represented a “serious provocation”, constituting a “threat” to “regional
stability” cannot be accepted as
anything other than self-serving, and as evidence that POLISARIO — and therefore
Algerian attempts to deny the 1975 re-accession of Sahara to Morocco following
the end of Spanish colonial occupation — was now no longer a realistic factor in
the future of Sahara. In essence, the June 12, 2009, election was, as far as
ISSA is concerned, a pivotal point in the international debate over Sahara.
Significantly, although clearly
the election was transformative in the whole context of the Sahara issue, the
extensive United Nations presence in Sahara was not noted by ISSA to be
monitoring or in any way taking an interest in the security or conduct of the
election process. This positive reality, too, reflected the security of the
situation on the ground in Sahara; there was no need for international
protection of voters. Our team moved freely within the Sahara region without
interference, and spoke freely with people there. This lies in stark contrast to
the repeated claims of POLISARIO that a security concern existed in the towns
and cities of Sahara. The open and vibrant celebrations which began in such
Saharan towns as Laâyoune and Dhakla following the closing of the polling
stations — before any results of the voting were known — reflected genuine local
pride in the fact that the very fact of the election as a major event in the
lives of the population. They also reflected the fact that there was no curfew
or constraint on population movement or safety at night, as claimed by POLISARIO.
POLISARIO leader Mohamed
Abdelaziz called, a week before the election, on UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon
to “intervene urgently” to prevent the spread of local elections in Moroccan
Western Sahara. This, and the silence of the UN on the election, was seen as
validation of the fact that local elections could not be seen as provocative of
challenges to the regional or Saharan security situation, and neither could they
be seen as anything other than a rejection by Saharan voters of external
influences. It was clear that Saharan voters viewed the elections as more than
merely the act of choosing representatives; they were viewed as an achievement
of fundamental human rights and a mastery of their own destiny.
Part of ISSA’s interest in
closely watching the election process in Sahara was to be able to verify or
refute political claims made by external groups which had expressed an interest
in the region. Quite significantly, the demonstrable integration of Sahara’s
population and structures with those of the rest of the Kingdom has also ensured
a positive and growing increase in public safety and the rule of law, which has
been measured by the reality that the proliferation of narco-trafficking and
illegal migration on much Africa’s West and Sahel coastline has been stemmed in
the region of Moroccan Sahara. This not only enabled the successful and peaceful
conduct of free and fair elections in Sahara on June 12, 2009, but was also
reflected in the high voter turnout.
In summary, the Moroccan local
elections of June 12, 2009, were among the most free and fair elections globally
in recent years. They were also of strategic importance because they reflected a
standard and a methodology which should serve as a model for elections
elsewhere. Moreover, they were of strategic importance in that they represented
a process by which a nation could re-invigorate its economic and social dynamic
through the devolution of democratic processes to every level and geographic
aspect of society. As well, the Moroccan local elections of June 12, 2009,
represent a watershed in the dispute over the legitimacy of Sahara’s
reintegration into Morocco. In substantive terms, that dispute is now over, even
though the political pressures, sponsored from abroad, may continue. It is
important for the international community, however, to recognize that the
substance of the issue has been firmly decided.
Signed:
Gregory R. Copley, President, the International Strategic Studies Association.
Rabat, June 14, 2009
November 7, 2007
Morocco Upgrades Defenses, But F-16 Deal Cannot
Be Taken For Granted
Analysis. From GIS Station Rabat. The
Moroccan Government, particularly since the elections of September 7, 2007, and
the creation of the Government of Prime Minister Abbas el-Fassi, has begun
working to transform the Kingdom’s capability to capitalize on the momentum to
resolve the Saharan dispute, which is essentially a surrogate conflict with
Algeria. Algeria, meanwhile, has been engaged in a massive build-up of offensive
weapons systems.
Now, Morocco has committed not only to streamlining
and accelerating its diplomatic capabilities to help resolve the Saharan
dispute, it has also begun modernizing its Armed Forces, attempting to gain a
qualitative advantage over the numerically superior Algerian forces. Morocco
confirmed an order, during the visit by French Pres. Nicolas Sarkozy, on October
22-24, 2007, for an advanced FREMM multi-mission frigate valued at some
550-million euros, among other major trade deals in the transportation
sector.
The Moroccan Navy is reportedly also interested in
acquiring Dutch Sigma-class corvettes, to replace some of their ageing
fast-attack craft, and upgrading the Navy’s capabilities, particularly in the
anti-submarine warfare (ASW) mission, to counter Algeria’s two advanced
conventional
Kilo-class submarines. However, it was known before the visit by
Pres. Sarkozy that the French plan to sell 18 to 24 AMD Rafale fighters
to the Royal Moroccan Air Force for around $2.3-billion had been derailed by a
US offer to sell more F-16 fighters for less money. The question of whether,
however, the US will actually deliver a package which the Moroccans can afford
and use is still not clear, but Washington did provide a major financial aid
package — worth $698-million — to Morocco in September 2007.
Moroccan sources were optimistic that the F-16 deal
could be done with the US, but, despite US-inspired media reporting, the deal
was far from done, and there were major concerns in Rabat, reportedly, about
what the F-16 will ultimately look like (as to its capabilities), and whether
any restrictions would be placed on its use where Morocco might need them.
Sources pointed to a blog site,
www.med-atlantic.blogspot.com, which carried the following report:
Morocco’s F-16 Deal: It’s Not Done Until It’s
Done
US officials have conveniently leaked the “fact” that the Royal Moroccan Air
Force has agreed to buy 36 Lockheed Martin F-16C/D fighter aircraft for
something less than US$2-billion, thus driving out the competition from
France, which had hoped to sell some 24 AMD Rafale fighters — a much
more advanced combat aircraft than the F-16 — for around US2.3-billion. But
the deal is far from wrapped up. Sure, the F-16 deal is attractive: more
numbers of a still-pretty-good second/third generation fighter for a much
cheaper price. But real questions persist for Morocco.
Firstly, will the F-16s, even if the RMAF gets truly advanced versions, be
able to match neighboring Algeria’s 28 new Su-30 air superiority fighters
which were ordered in 2006? On a one-on-one air combat engagement, almost
certainly not, unless the RMAF has some really significant additional
sensors and command and control capabilities from the US, to go along with
the aircraft. Frankly, Algeria also has a lot more than just the new Su-30s,
but that would be Morocco’s primary threat, along with the 24 Mikoyan
MiG-29A and 8 MiG-29UB Fulcrum air superiority fighters already in
service and demonstrably capable of defeating F-16s in air combat
maneuvering.
Secondly, quite apart from operational
capability, will the US even allow Morocco to use the new fighters where and
when they will be needed? What we are seeing now is the standard US
negotiating tactic. First, get an agreement to buy, locking out the foreign
competition, and then start hedging the sale with conditions on deployment,
and on just what onboard systems will be sold to make the aircraft truly
effective.
As well, the negotiations are just beginning on
exactly what “Block” of F-16 the US will allow for sale to the RMAF. At
worst, given Morocco’s position as a major non-NATO US ally, it should be at
least the Block 52, similar to that being negotiated for Pakistan, but in
reality, to match the Su-30s of Algeria, it would need to be at least Block
60 (à la the United Arab Emirates).
Certainly, the price is important for Morocco,
even if Saudi Arabia helps out somewhat with the budget, as promised. But
Morocco needs to be able to present a credible deterrence against Algerian
use of force to support and sustain its surrogate force — POLISARIO — which
is trying to break Morocco’s Saharan territory away from the Kingdom. Right
now, Morocco is maneuvering brilliantly to make its case in the
international community regarding the historical validity of Morocco as the
legitimate owner of what was, for a time, the colonial territory of “Spanish
Sahara”. The African states which Algeria had wooed into recognizing
POLISARIO as the claimant to the area have now begun walking away from that
position ... in large numbers. And no Arab League states ever supported
Algeria on that.
Algeria, however, is determined to gain access
through a surrogate POLISARIO state to the Atlantic. And expansionist
Algeria has fought with Morocco before over border issues. And lost. Its
massive new arms build-up, including the Su-30s and much more, are designed
to ensure that Morocco’s adroit political maneuvering will not be a match
for brute force in the future.
Morocco is, arguably, far more strategically
important to the US than Algeria, and yet the US State Department seems
bent, always, on treating Morocco with less support than its record as an
unimpeachable ally should warrant. So there is an attempt to circumscribe
the use of the F-16s, and to limit their capabilities.
Morocco needs to keep the door open to a
possible acquisition of Rafales. They could indeed match the Su-30s, and
ensure that the close Moroccan relationship with France — enhanced since the
election to the French Presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy — is strengthened and
France’s also-important relationship with Algeria is circumscribed.
Indeed, Washington, for its part, needs to start
taking into account the reality of history on Moroccan Sahara and also the
growing democratic governance of Morocco, and start seeing Algeria’s
constant attempts to expand for what they are.
October 24, 2007
Governance Emphasis in Morocco Moves to the Parliament
Analysis. From
GIS Station Rabat.
The formation on October 15, 2007, of the new Moroccan Cabinet of Prime Minister
Abbas el-Fassi following the September 7, 2007, elections highlights the growing
importance of the Majlis al-Nuwab/Assemblée des Répresentants (Assembly
of Representatives) — and therefore the deepening entrenchment of democratic
processes — in Moroccan governance.
This has reflected
a commitment by King Mohammed VI to ensure that Morocco would be able to
completely integrate its economy and security structures in with those of the
West — the European Union and the US — as Morocco moved to broaden the
Mediterranean trading and security basin to cover the Maghreb.
See:
Defense &
Foreign Affairs Special Analysis,
August 28, 2007: Morocco Taking Elections in Stride While Addressing an
Internationally-Contrived Campaign to Challenge its Sovereignty.
Defense &
Foreign Affairs Special Analysis,
September 10, 2007: Moroccan Elections Delivery
Major Message on Stability, Direction, and Give Strength on Saharan Process.
Significantly, the new Government will need to continue to work to achieve a
consensus on policy. It is a minority government. The coalition holds just 163
of the Parliament's 325 seats. This means that to survive — let alone pass a
budget and major legislation — it requires the support a group of
parliamentarians not affiliated with the opposition. This group comes from the
numerous mini-parties and independent parliamentarians who are essentially
Royalist and centrist, but who are at the same time committed to furthering the
localized/indigenous interests of the groups/locals who elected them.
In
the current Assembly, this group is organized and run by Fouad Ali El-Himma (see
background details, below). As Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee (which
also handles defense and other key issues) in the new Parliament, he emerges as
one of the strongest Members of the Assembly.
More
importantly, the support by El-Himma and his bloc for the Government is
likely, but not automatic. Therefore, Prime Minister Abbas El-Fassi will have to
negotiate constantly with Parliament, thus increasing the rôle and influence of
the Assembly, and strengthening Moroccan democracy.
The
new Cabinet, confirmed on October 15, 2007, is as follows (* denotes new
appointees):
Prime Minister: el-Fassi,
Abbas
*Minister of
Agriculture & Fisheries: Akhenouch, Aziz
*Minister of
Communication & Government Spokesman: Naciri, Khalid
*Minister of
Culture: Jabrane, Touriya, Ms
Minister of Economy
& Finance: Mezouar, Salaheddine
*Minister of
Employment & Vocational Training: Aghmani, Jamal
*Minister of
Energy, Mines, Water & Environment: Benkhadra, Amina, Ms
Minister of
Equipment & Transport: Ghellab, Karim
Minister of Foreign
Affairs & Cooperation: Fassi-Fihri, Taïeb
*Minister of
Foreign Trade: Maâzouz, Abdellatif
Minister of Habous
& Islamic Affairs: Taoufiq, Ahmed
Minister of Health:
Baddou, Yasmina, Ms
Minister of
Housing, Town Planning & Development: Hejira, Ahmed Taoufiq*Minister of
Industry, Trade & New Technologies: Chami, Ahmed
Minister of
Interior: Benmoussa, Chakib
Minister of
Justice: Radi, Adbelwahed
*Minister of
National Education, Higher Education, Staff Training & Scientific Research:
Akhchichine, Ahmed
Minister for
Relations with Parliament: Alami, Mohamed Saâd
*Minister of Social
Development, Family & Solidarity: Skalli, Nouzha, Ms
Minister of State
(w/o portfolio): el-Yazghi, Mohamed
Minister of Tourism
& Craft Industry: Boussaid, Mohamed
*Minister of Youth
& Sports: el-Moutawakil, Nawal, Ms
Secretary General
of the Government: Rabiah Abdessadek
Delegate
Ministers
Delegate Minister
to the Prime Minister for National Defense: Sbaï, Abderrahmane
*Delegate Minister
to the Prime Minister for Economic & General Affairs: Baraka, Nizar
*Delegate Minister
to the Prime Minister for Public Sectors Modernization: Abbou, Mohamed
*Delegate Minister
to the Prime Minister for Moroccan Expatriates: Ameur, Mohamed
Secretaries of
State
*Secretary of State
to the Minister of Energy, Mining, Water and Environment, for Water &
Environment: Zahoud, Abdelkébir
*Secretary of State
to the Minister for Foreign Affairs & Cooperation: Lakhrif, Ahmed
*Secretary of State
to the Minister for Foreign Affairs & Cooperation: Akherbach, Latifa, Ms
Secretary of State
to the Minister of Housing, Town Planning & Development, for Territorial
Development: al-Mesbahi, Abdeslam *Secretary of State to the Minister of
Interior: Hassar, Saâd
*Secretary of State
to the Minister of National Education, Higher Education, Staff Training, &
Scientific Research, for Primary & Secondary Education: Labida. Latifa, Ms
Secretary of State
to the Minister of Tourism & Craft Industry, for Craft Industry: Birou, Anis
The 34-member
Government (including the Prime Minister) comprises 22 Ministers, four Delegate
Ministers and seven Secretaries of State from a coalition of four parties: the
Istiqlal/Independence Party (PI, nine portfolios and Prime Minister), the
National Rally of Independents (RNI, seven portfolios), the Socialist Union of
Popular Forces (USFP, five portfolios) and the Party of Progress and Socialism
(PPS, two portfolios). The 10 remaining members have no party affiliations. For
the first time, seven women will be serving; five as Ministers and two as
Secretaries of State. This is a young and fresh government.
Prime Minister el-Fassi stressed
the importance of the Government’s fresh leadership. “The time has come to open
the door of responsibility for a new generation; there are 18 new ministers,” he
said. The Government will emphasize domestic issues. The first budget the
Government will submit for the Assembly’s approval has 50 percent devoted to the
social
sector, particularly education, public health and the fight against poverty.
Public law
professor Tajeddine el-Husseini of Mohammed V University in Rabat told
Magharebia news agency: “The current Government has a peculiar nature,
represented in the fact that Morocco is shifting left, with a democratic nature
characterized by pluralism. The seats that have been won represent a real
reflection of the ballots in the absence of intervention from the Interior
Ministry in the elections process.”
Fouad Ali El
Himma: Background
Fouad Ali El Himma,
a former classmate of King Mohammed VI and one of his top advisers, held the
post of Deputy Interior Minister and has been seen as a top decisionmaker in
sensitive areas including counter-terrorism and the future of Moroccan Sahara.
After a period in Parliament, once before, Mr El Himma was appointed head of
King Mohammed’s cabinet in 1997 when the King was still Crown Prince.
On being crowned
two years later, the King dismissed hardline Interior Minister Driss Basri and
installed Mr El Himma as Secretary of State, later promoting him to Deputy
Interior Minister. The King “gave his high blessing to the request of Mr Fouad
Ali El Himma to end his functions as deputy Interior Minister and accepted his
request to stand in the coming legislative elections on the same level as all
Moroccan citizens”, the Royal Cabinet said at the time in a statement carried by
official news agency MAP.
October 6, 2007
Essential
Reading
Changing the Dynamic in
Conflict Resolution: a Look at Morocco and the Sahara
Morocco and the
Sahara: Social Bonds and Geopolitical Issues.
By Mohamed Cherkaoui. Oxford, 2007: The Bardwell Press, 6 Bardwell Road,
Oxford OX2 6SW, UK. www.bardwell-press.co.uk. ISBN-13: 978-1-905622-03-0.
202pp, hardcover; index, bibl., maps, charts. £10; 15 euros, $20.
There are books which capture
the soul, and transport the reader’s heart and mind permanently into new
territory. We may never know, for example, how deeply T. E. Lawrence’s
Seven Pillars of Wisdom1
transformed and romanticized British and US public sentiment and foreign policy
with regard to “Arabia”, or how Winston Churchill’s The River War2
affirmed Britain’s deeply-engrained commitment to Imperial duty and to the sands
along the Upper Nile. Even The Charge of the Light Brigade, by Alfred, Lord
Tennyson, was seared into generations of British hearts and into the UK’s
enduring policy biases with regard to the Caucasus, Turkey, and Russia.
It could be argued that Prof.
Mohamed Cherkaoui’s Morocco and the Sahara: Social Bonds and Geopolitical
Issues does not fall into the literary tradition of Seven Pillars or
The River War, but in many ways it is equally haunting and convincing.
Indeed, a first thumbing through of the 202 pages reveals many charts and
tables, maps, and an index and bibliography. Hardly the stuff of romance. And,
arguably, these could all have been crammed into a separate section at the end
of the book, leaving Prof. Cherkaoui free reign for his convincing narrative and
analysis in the front section.
But the book, nonetheless,
takes the reader by surprise. The authority goes unquestioned of the renowned
Prof. Cherkaoui, director of research at the Centre National de la Recherche
Scientifique, and director of the Groupe d’Etude des Méthodes de l’Analyse
Sociologique of the CNRS and the Université de Paris Sorbonne, and so on. He is,
of course, Moroccan by background, and makes no apology for his passion in
dealing with the history of Morocco and what has traditionally been Moroccan
Sahara. But his candor – and the indisputable nature of the endless facts he
cites – make his case all the more appealing.
And the case, essentially, is
that the bonds between Morocco and that area of the Sahara known briefly –
during the 20th Century – as Spanish Sahara are deep, historically
indisputable, and currently legally profound. And that attempts bankrolled since
the 1960s by Algeria to create a new reality, and an irredentist POLISARIO3
movement among the essentially nomadic Sahrawi population are artificial, and
disingenuous extensions of the Algerian imperial expansionism which was begun
literally as part of France’s colonial occupation of Algiers and its
protectorate involvement in the Kingdom of Morocco.
Prof.
Cherkaoui makes his case with scientific logic and firm evidence from a wide
range of international sources, including the Algerian-disposed French sources
as well as others. He makes the case that the tribes of the entire Sahara have
been historically nomadic, and therefore are not territorially limited (although
the 20th Century saw a gradual move toward more sedentary
lifestyles), but that, nonetheless, the allegiance of the tribes to the King of
Morocco has been constant, even during Spanish colonial occupation of the
“Spanish Sahara”.
The author
notes: “Nothing distinguishes these tribes from the other Saharan populations of
Mauritania, Algeria, Niger, Chad, Libya, or Sudan. They all have the same
culture, the same social structures, and the same way of life. This is not
simply an ecological region called the Sahara, but rather, a genuine area of
civilization. To define the natural, social and cultural frontiers of these
populations, it would be necessary to take into consideration the entire space
stretching from the Atlantic to the Red Sea and proceed to a new distribution of
the countries involved. The irony of history is that the only country with
legally and historically founded borders is Morocco, is called into question,
while the other nations were delimited according to the desires of the colonizer
and its relevant interests.”
As he
notes, the “delimiting” of Algeria has been profound.
As Prof.
Cherkaoui notes: “On the eve of French colonization [of Algeria] in 1830, the
coastal strip under the former Turkish administration extended no further than
the 32nd parallel and was a part of the Ottoman Empire, later unified by the
French army and called ‘Algeria’4 with a
territory of no more than 300,000 km2. Officially, in 1920, the total
surface area of French Algeria was 575,000 km2. At the time of
independence in 1962, it was nearly 2,400,000 km2.” He makes the
convincing argument that Algeria’s military leadership assumed essentially
imperial expansionist views from France, and today continues to fund its last
effort at expansion across Moroccan Sahara to the Atlantic – clearly a great
geopolitical prize for Algiers – through POLISARIO.
Prof.
Cherkaoui subtitles his Introductory chapter “To Erase History is to Mortgage
the Future”, a leitmotif happily embedded in all strategists. He gives
the reader, in this profound book, a history of the Maghreb and Sahara which,
had it been widely read and understood in 1975, would have caused the great
United Nations debate over “Western Sahara” to have been ended in one session.
But it is
not all ancient history. Cherkaoui clearly outlines Algeria’s 20th and 21st
century deep commitments to monolithic socialist and statist philosophies which
today profoundly dominate its strategic actions, to the point of its joint
military nuclear activities with Iran, for example, and the transformation of
its military-political ties to the Soviet Union into strategic ties with a
newly-invigorated Russian strategic policy. The implication, to some extent,
from his detailed analysis of Algerian military and strategic actions, is that
if the Algiers Government cannot be trusted on the matter of its nuclear
relations with Iran and the People’s Republic of China, and its command of
POLISARIO, then why should it be seen as trustworthy in the broader security
arena of counter-terrorism and, indeed, the matter of “Western Sahara”?
As well,
the author highlights the reality that Algiers’ flirtation – indeed, its
enduring marriage – with a massively unproductive socialist economic model,
along with the accompanying massive expenditure on state-of-the-art Russian
defense equipment, has been facilitated by the easy money from its substantial
oil and gas reserves. Morocco, on the other hand, has begun to prosper
enormously – particularly since the reforms of King Mohammed VI – despite the
fact that it is no longer dependent on revenues from phosphate exports.
He notes:
“[I]t must not be forgotten that Morocco has neither oil nor gas. Phosphates and
their derivatives no longer constitute an important source of revenue. In
reality, the sole reserve on which the Kingdom can count is the human being.”
And he goes on to discuss the broad transformation of Morocco into a market
economy and accompanying vibrant democratic society [reaffirmed by the September
7, 2007, parliamentary elections]. He notes that “Morocco is in the process of
preparing other daring reforms”, delegating powers to the major regions which
never had them in the past.
Prof.
Cherkaoui details comprehensively, with clear sourcing, the advances in
education; the links by marriage of Sahrawis and others from the heartland, or
settled, areas of Morocco; employment levels and the like. He leaves nothing to
chance.
Significantly, his book appears at a time when Morocco, for the first time in
perhaps three decades, really has seized the initiative in its commitment to
economic vibrancy and freedom, representative governance at all levels, and
integration with Euro-Atlantic economic and political structures. As such,
despite its lack of oil and gas resources – although it promises to become a hub
for the eventual transmission of sub-Saharan African pipelined oil and gas to
Europe – Morocco has a strategic edge in the Maghreb and the Mediterranean.
Clearly,
Algeria will not accept this, and will mount a serious resistance to Morocco’s
political initiatives to resolve the Saharan dispute in favor of the territory’s
occupants and for the Kingdom as a whole. Just how much latitude Algeria has to
challenge Morocco in a military sense may well be dependent on whether foreign
policy officials in the US, UK, UN, France, and elsewhere in the EU, read Prof.
Cherkaoui’s book.
His
unvarnished description of Saharan and Maghrebian realities will play in the
reader’s mind long after the book has been placed in a special section of the
bookcase. Thank you, Professor Cherkaou. – Gregory Copley.
October 2, 2007
Moroccan Foreign Minister Tells UN That Saharan
Dispute at Turning Point
Moroccan Foreign Minister Mohamed Benaïssa said on October 1, 2007, that the
issue of Moroccan Sahara was witnessing an “historical turning point”, and
advocating a settlement based on an autonomy proposal put forward by Rabat.
Addressing the General Assembly’s annual high-level debate, Mohamed Benaïssa
said the turning point “results from the dynamic created by the Moroccan
Initiative on a Statute of Autonomy”, which he said “has opened promising
perspectives for overcoming the stalemate this issue faces at the UN level”.
The
speech at the General Assembly reflects the new confidence of the Moroccan
Government since the decisive affirmation of the policies of King Mohammed VI at
the Moroccan parliamentary elections of September 7, 2007.
See Defense & Foreign Affairs Special
Analysis, September 10, 2007: Moroccan
Elections Delivery Major Message on Stability, Direction, and Give Strength
on Saharan Process.
Significantly, the new Moroccan dynamic, which takes account of a growing
economic and political vibrancy in the Kingdom, provides the first major
challenge in decades to the slogging battle over the former Spanish-controlled
Saharan territory — which has been for many centuries, even during the time of
Spanish colonial occupation, linked to the Moroccan Crown — which Morocco has
been forced to wage with Algeria and Algeria’s proxy, the POLISARIO (Frente
Popular para la Liberacion de Saguia el-Hamra y de Rio de Oro)
guerilla organization.
See also Defense & Foreign Affairs Special
Analysis, September 10, 2007: Principal
Union Backer of Australia's Likely Next Government Seen as Funding POLISARIO
Slave Labor.
Minister Benaïssa said in New York that the initiative “offers the fundamental
elements necessary for a realistic, applicable and final political solution to a
regional dispute that hinders the construction of a strong and homogenous
Maghreb, interacting with its geopolitical environment”. It also “answers the
call of the Security Council since 2004 about the need for finding a political
solution to this dispute“ and “is in conformity with international law”.
Morocco, he said, was committed “to advance this process in order to reach a
final solution to this dispute within the framework of its national sovereignty
and territorial integrity as well as on the basis of the Autonomy Initiative as
the ultimate objective of the negotiation process and as an open, flexible and
indivisible offer.”
Earlier on October 1, 2007, Algerian Foreign Minister Mourad Medelci told the
General Assembly that his country hoped for an agreement between Morocco and the
POLISARIO Front which would pave the way for the people of Moroccan Sahara to
decide on their future. Persisting in Algeria’s refusal to recognize the
historical Moroccan links to the territory, Medelci said that “Western Sahara” —
as the region is still known in the UN — was the “last case of decolonization in
Africa where the people are still deprived of their right to self-determination
enshrined in relevant resolutions of the General Assembly and the Security
Council”. He said that the international community had nourished hopes for a
just and lasting solution, notably through the Security Council's support in
2003 for the peace plan put forward by James Baker, the former Personal Envoy of
the Secretary-General.
He
said that Algeria welcomed recent developments on the issue, including the
adoption of Security Council resolution 1754, which underlined the need to
achieve a just and comprehensive solution, and said that he and his Government
hoped that negotiations could lead to an agreement that would allow the people
of the region to pronounce themselves, “freely and without constraints”, through
a self-determination referendum. Significantly, Algeria and its surrogate,
POLISARIO, have hoped to create a situation whereby international processes
could dictate an internal vote in Moroccan territory, something which, for
obvious sovereignty reasons, Morocco has resisted, particularly since the
international legal affirmation of Morocco’s ownership of the Saharan territory.
September 10, 2007
Moroccan Elections Delivery Major Message on Stability,
Direction, and Give Strength on Saharan Process
Analysis. From GIS Station
Rabat.
The Moroccan parliamentary elections of September 7, 2007, had, by the time the
results were in on September 9, 2007, delivered a stunning result, confirming King
Mohammed VI’s process of electoral and governmental reform, rejecting Islamist
politics, and giving the Government a strong mandate to pursue its objectives in
international discussions on the future of the Saharan region of the country.
The nationalist and traditionalist parties – all of them Royalist – won a clear
majority in the lower house of Parliament, the Majlis al-Nuwab/Assemblée des
Répresentants (Assembly of Representatives), at the expense of the Islamist
Parti de la Justice et du Développement (Justice and Development Party:
PJD). This, particularly in the context of the voters’ turnout (see below),
demonstrated that the Moroccan population had abandoned the lure of the “Islamic
solution” panacea and was returning to the traditional approach to solutions.
Moreover, since the primary voter pool of the Islamist party was always targeted
as the “embittered, disenfranchised urban poor”, and this demographic clearly
rejected the Islamists, it seems clear that the lower economic urban population
now sees itself as the beneficiary of the King’s profound socio-economic and
political reforms over recent years. Indeed, it now appears that the class which
the Islamists believed to be embittered, disenfranchised and poor among the
urban population no longer sees itself in that light.
The national average voter turnout was 37 percent (some 5.7-million voters), the
lowest in Morocco’s history and a manifestation of the population rejection of
the parties offering a “panacea solution”. This is clear from the difference
between the turnout in the Royalist, conservative rural areas — 43 percent — and
the urban areas — 30 percent — where the absenteeism in the urban slums was
overwhelming. Since the slums were seen as the bastion of the Islamists’ and
socialists’ power, the voters demonstrated their disappointment and rejection by
not voting. These urban areas do not have the traditional power structures seen
in rural Morocco, because of the weakening of the tribal/clan hold on urban
society, and as a result there were no viable alternatives to the Islamists and
socialists for whom people could vote.
The voting patterns in the Moroccan Western Sahara (MWS) merit special
attention. In a sharp contrast with the low turnout in the urban centers of
northern Morocco (eg: Casablanca at 27 percent, Oudja area at 31 percent,
Tangier-Tetuan at 34 percent), the voter turnout in the MWS was extremely heavy
(eg: Dakhla at 62 percent; Smara at 58 percent, La Ayoune at 50 percent). This
was a clear demonstration that the population in MWS considers itself Moroccan,
is convinced that it has vital stakes in the political process in Rabat, and is
determined to have its say there.
Indeed, foreign observers reported vibrant voting and political discourse
throughout MWS. As well, no violations and improprieties were reported. The
heavy turnout is all the more significant given the pre-elections campaign by
POLISARIO, which urged the people to refrain from voting and also threatened
terrorism. The MWS voters thus demonstrated their rejection of POLISARIO and
their commitment to being part of Morocco. Thus, the Moroccan parliamentary
elections in MWS prove that the local population considers itself an integral
part of a single, unified Morocco. This development is effectively a genuine and
accurate “referendum” about what the MWS population really wants.
See Defense & Foreign Affairs Special Analysis,
August 28, 2007: Morocco Taking Elections in
Stride While Addressing an Internationally-Contrived Campaign to Challenge its
Sovereignty.
Six parties won a total of 243 seats, representing 74 percent of the Parliament.
* The conservative Istiqlal (Independence) - 46 male MPs + 6 female MPs for a
total of 52 seats;
* The Islamic Justice and Development Party (PJD) - 40 + 7 = 47;
* People's Party - 38 + 5 = 43;
* National Rally of Independents (RNI) - 33 + 5 = 38;
* The Socialist Union of Popular Forces (USFP) - 32 + 7 = 36;
* The Constitutional Union party (UC) - 27 + 0 = 27;
* PPS (former
communists) 14 + 3 = 17.
In all, 33 parties participated in the election, in 1,862 lists (compared to
1,772 in 2002) with party affiliation and 13 lists with no party affiliation.
In the new parliament:
* 55.25% MPs have a university degree;
* there are 34 women members; and
* 74 MPs are under
the age of 44.
The results of the elections constituted a popular endorsement of the policies,
the “march to reform”, etc. of the King and the outgoing Government:
* Parties comprising the current coalition won 186 seats;
* Parties comprising the current opposition won 90 seats;
* The Koutlah alliance (secular/nationalist power bloc comprised of the Istiqlal,
the socialists and the PPS ex-commies) won 102 seats.
The elections were a success as well for the Moroccan security services. At the
same time that there were security incidents in Algeria, Denmark, Germany, the
UK, and elsewhere, Morocco remained quiet. The King decided not to change the
date and patterns of the elections irrespective of the mounting jihadist
threat. Furthermore, in order to ensure that there was not even a semblance of
voter intimidation, the security forces maintained a very low profile in the
vicinity of the polling stations. Foreign election observers also noted the low
and friendly presence of the police, as well as their cooperation with the staff
of the polling stations.
Local and international observers reported free, fair, transparent, and
legitimate elections. No major incident was reported. No irregularities were
reported. The elections went very smoothly. All the party and list leaders
expressed great satisfaction with the conduct of the elections and stated that
they did not intend to challenge the outcome/results.
The results indicate that any doubts which may have been harbored inside or
outside Morocco as to the course on which the King was embarked have now been
put to rest, and this means that the Government has received an endorsement to
complete the reforms initiated by the King.
The elections were a major step in the modernization and democratization
campaign initiated and led by King Mohammad VI. This campaign aims to take
Morocco into the 21st Century, to benefit fully from the new information age,
global economic development, and the like. The King and Government are convinced
that these objectives cannot be realized without concurrent domestic reforms,
particularly democratic reforms and individual rights.
The elections were an impressive undertaking: 15,510,505 voters were registered
to vote at 380,853 polling stations, supervised by 3,000 centralizing polling
stations and by 69 regional committees of census (to arbitrate and clarify in
case disputes).The election was for the 325 seats in the House of
Representatives, including 30 reserved for women. Selection of winners was by
proportional representation at the district level.
It was an extremely lively and diverse political scene. The public had to chose
from among 6,691 candidates (three percent of them women) running in 95
districts. The candidates were organized in 1,870 lists (25 of them defined as
National Lists, and 58 of them headed by women). Most candidates were affiliated
with 33 parties and two unions of parties. (Candidates could run as independents
if they so chose.)
Because the mere conduct of the elections is considered such a major milestone
in the reform process initiated by the King, it was in the vested interest of
official Rabat to ensure that the elections were fair, free, transparent and
legal, and that their results were legitimized and accepted by all, from
political leaders of all sides to the public at large. And so it was. An example
of the transparency of the authorities’ handling of the elections was the public
downsizing of the participation estimate from an early reporting of 41 percent
to the accurate counted number of 37 percent.
In a major first, Rabat encouraged all political parties to closely monitor and
supervise the conduct of the elections by having their own National Observers: a
combination of party-affiliated individuals and representatives of several
civil-society NGOs. In Morocco’s 16 regions there were a total of 32
coordinators and 2,685 observers. As well, Rabat was so confident in the quality
of the elections to invite a large number of foreign monitors and give them
unrestricted access.
The results were not surprising. Morocco’s is a traditional and diverse society
where family, clan and tribe dominate people’s life. The majority of Moroccans
voted for locally-affiliated centrist Royalist candidates who, the public knows,
will further the local interests within the context of the national policy as
outlined by the King. Hence, the real majority lies in a coalition which
includes 30-odd mini-parties and related independent candidates all of whom
agree on the course of the nation, but are also committed to the interests of
their own home regions. At the same time, the urban population – mainly the
underprivileged urban poor who are the product and victim of Morocco’s rapid
economic development and ensuing urbanization – give their votes to nationalist
parties: The older generation to the socialists (USFP, PPS), and the younger
generation to the Islamists (PJD). However, even these parties are committed to
pursuing their policies within the parameters of the King’s laws and national
direction. This commitment is as much an act of political pragmatism – given the
immense popular support for the King and the reform and modernization process he
has initiated – as an ideological position.
For the rest of the world, these elections were a reiteration of Morocco’s
stability, of the commitment of both official Rabat and the people of Morocco to
being an integral part of the West; of official Rabat’s determination continue
on the path to democratization, modernization, and development as articulated in
the King’s vision for the future of Morocco.
September 10, 2007
Principal Union Backer of
Australia's Likely Next Government Seen as Funding POLISARIO Slave Labor
Analysis. From GIS Station, Canberra. The Australian Council of Trade Unions
(ACTU), which is seen as the biggest single policy influence and voting bloc in
the Australian Labor Party (ALP) — which polls indicate could form the next
Government of Australia — has been using tax-exempt fundraising to support the
Algerian-backed POLISARIO guerilla movement which has been shown to be using
African slave labor in its camps in Algeria. Details of POLISARIO’s slavery
practices were highlighted in May 2007, but a blog-site revealed on September 8,
2007, that the ACTU had been helping to fund POLISARIO.
Significantly, as POLISARIO has increasingly been seen as a front for Algerian
aspirations to break the Saharan territory along the Atlantic coast — territory
traditionally Moroccan but held for some time as a Spanish colony — away from
Moroccan sovereignty, international support for POLISARIO’s “state” of the
“Saharan Arab Democratic Republic” (SADR) has dropped away. No member states of
the Arab League recognize the SADR, which, in any event, holds no territory, and
earlier recognition of the SADR by African states, organized by Algeria, has
been progressively dropped. Only pressures from left-wing groups, including
union movements, in Australia had, when the ALP was in power before, built some
support for the SADR and POLISARIO within the Australian Department of Foreign
Affairs and Trade (DFAT).
Some
major Australian resource companies, active in Africa, have been seeking a
resolution of the Saharan issue so that they could invest in the rich potential
of Moroccan Sahara’s reserves. One Australian energy company supported POLISARIO
in the hope that it would win concessions in the territory should the guerilla
group succeed in breaking the region away from Morocco, which now seems
increasingly unlikely. Now, however, with revelations of ACTU support for
POLISARIO coming to light and continuing, months after the evidence was brought
out of POLISARIO’s slavery practices, the matter may become an election issue as
Australia prepares for crucial Federal polls.
The
internet blogsite which raised the matter,
www.med-atlantic.blogspot.com,
issued the following report:
Why
is the main labor movement in Australia – the main force behind the probable
next Government of Australia – supporting an organization which still
maintains slaves as its workforce? The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU),
which provides the principal policy, financial, and voting support for the
Australian Labor Party (ALP) of Prime Ministerial aspirant Kevin Rudd
provides financial aid to POLISARIO, the Algerian-backed insurgency movement
which is trying to break the Moroccan Saharan territory away from Moroccan
control.
The
quiet support which much of the Australian labor movement, and, indeed, the
Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), has given to
POLISARIO over the years was shaken when, on May 2, 2007, POLISARIO —
Frente Popular de Liberación de Saguía el Hamra y Río de Oro (Popular
Front for the Liberation of Saguia el-Hamra and Río de Oro) — detained two
Australian film journalists who had traditionally been supportive of the
POLISARIO movement.
The
reason? They had discovered that the Algerian-backed insurgency movement
kept African slaves in their squalid refugee camps.
Media reporting says that POLISARIO held the two Australian documentary
filmmakers, Violeta Ayala and Daniel Fallshaw, for only about five hours
before releasing them for filming the slaves. They also confiscated the
Australians’ cellphone, but not before a call had gone out to Australian
authorities that they had been arrested. Australian sources say that it took
strong threats from the Australian Government before the two were released,
including the threat to reverse the traditionally supportive approach which
the Australian Foreign Affairs Department had traditionally taken with
POLISARIO.
POLISARIO, significantly, denied detaining the reporters, but they have told
their story widely since leaving Algeria.
But
it is significant that the Australian media has not questioned why POLISARIO
is able to get donations through the Australian trade union movement, which
offers a method for Australian private citizens to make tax-exempt donations
to POLISARIO. The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) division called
“Australian People for Health, Education and Development Abroad Inc.” (APHEDA),
based in Sydney, has a “Union Aid Abroad” movement which works, as it says,
“in alliance with the Australia Western Sahara Association”, which is an arm
of POLISARIO.
What is equally significant is that the Australian Government has made it
difficult for charities in Australia to gain tax-exempt status even when
raising funds for Rwandan orphaned children, for example. And yet the ACTU
has found a means to offer tax relief on donations to a terrorist
organization which actually maintains a workforce of slaves in abject
conditions.
Moreover, the same network of support in Australia for POLISARIO has links
into the support movement for the (then) marxist FRETILIN movement which
fought for the independence of East Timor, and which even after winning
Australian support for its independence struggle, has essentially turned its
back on Australia since East Timor gained statehood.
August 28, 2007
Morocco Taking Elections in Stride While Addressing an
Internationally-Contrived Campaign to Challenge its Sovereignty
Analysis. From GIS Station
Rabat.1
It is significant that while Morocco is embroiled in a major strategic struggle
to finally end debate over its historical incorporation of the Saharan territory
with its long Atlantic coastline, the country itself is preoccupied with the
forthcoming national election which is dominated by everyday issues of the
economy and living standards.
The September 7, 2007, elections for the Moroccan lower house of Parliament, the
Majlis al-Nuwab/Assemblée des Répresentants (Assembly of
Representatives), are emerging as a debate over strictly local issues. And this
may well result in an election win for Islamist Parti de la Justice et du
Développement (Justice and Development Party: PJD), not because of any
support that this might imply for jihadist or pro-terrorist causes which
the PJD, in any event, disavows, but over issues to do with employment and daily
life.
The political process is already mature; the September 7, 2007, legislative
elections are Morocco’s eighth, and the second since the ascension of King
Mohammed VI in 1999. Indeed, the King has been the main proponent for broadening
the electoral process, largely in the knowledge that politics is confined to
issues of governance, which the Crown remains firmly above.
Interior Ministry statistics by August 24, 2007, indicated that 15.51-million
people, 48 percent of whom are women, had registered to vote. Interior Minister
Chakib Benmoussa said that 75 percent of registered voters already had voter
cards and that applications for voter cards would be accepted up until election
day. Some 69 percent of people surveyed between July 28 and August 8, 2007, that
they were “absolutely sure of voting” and 13 percent said “there is a good
chance they will vote” in the September 7 elections.
Reducing unemployment was at the top of voters’ concerns, with 70 percent saying
they would like to see political parties address that issue. Other concerns
included improvements in the health system at 65 percent, fighting poverty at 54
percent and battling corruption at 40 percent. Resolving the long-standing
dispute over Western Sahara was named by only 20 percent, while the same
percentage also mentioned concerns over terrorism.
Some 33 parties were competing in the 2007 elections, with 1,870 local candidate
lists vying for 295 seats. As well, there are 26 national candidate lists, which
will compete for 30 seats allocated to women.
Nonetheless, the issue of the Saharan territory is now of major concern for the
long-term security and wellbeing of Morocco.
The Sahara Issue
The United Nations, pushing to retain some control over the issue
of the former Spanish Sahara, has thus far organized two meetings in 2007
between Moroccan officials and representatives of the guerilla group, Frente
Popular para la Liberacion de Saguia el-Hamra y de Rio de Oro (POLISARIO).
to negotiate the future of the Moroccan Saharan territory.
The latest meeting, held in Manhasset, about 25 miles east of New
York City, on August 10-11, 2007, between the Kingdom of Morocco and POLISARIO
focused international attention, once again, on a territorial dispute which,
although legally resolved, the United Nations has allowed — even encouraged
through intervention — to fester for 32 years without political resolution.
Moroccan Interior Minister Chakib Benmoussa and Mahfud Ali Veiba
of POLISARIO headed the second New York meetings. Moroccan and POLISARIO
officials had also met in June 2007; their first meeting in some seven years.
The best that could be said of the June and August 2007 meetings was that they
could lead to a third round of talks, although UN mediator Peter van Walsum said
after the August 10-11, 2007, meetings that both sides, while not changing their
positions, had agreed to some confidence-building measures. No date has yet been
set for a third round of meetings.
There have been — since the United Nations (UN) Security Council
Resolution 690 brokered a ceasefire between Algerian-backed POLISARIO rebels and
the Moroccan Government on April 29, 1991 — multiple resolutions, several
extensions, and stillborn plans, but always a continued refusal by POLISARIO to
move toward any agreement, other than one which overturns the historical and
legal realities of the sovereignty of the Moroccan Sahara region. Why, indeed,
would POLISARIO change its position? Its principal backer, the Government of
Algeria, is adamant in seeking to stop Moroccan control over the territory,
which gives Morocco – rather than Algeria – strategically important access to a
long Atlantic coastline and the increasingly apparent mineral and energy
resources of the region.
For POLISARIO, it has all been gain. The legal issue, in which
the occupying Spanish colonial power handed back sovereignty of “Western Sahara”
to its original owner, Morocco, was clearly resolved, and undisputed. The
territory was Moroccan. However, by mounting an irredentist war, POLISARIO –
acting essentially as a front for Algeria – has been able to build a situation
where it could stake a claim to sovereignty which was accepted, at least to some
degree, by some members of the international community. This position, however,
has been disintegrating in recent years: the majority of African states which
recognized the independence of Western Sahara have now reversed their position,
and now support Morocco’s position. No significant members of the Arab League
recognize POLISARIO’s claim.
POLISARIO, and by definition, Algeria, have nowhere else to go
but to press their claims to the territory through “international mechanisms”
other than, for example, the International Court of Justice (ICJ). This is a
case which POLISARIO and Algeria hope to make solely by political pressure,
international media ignorance of the history of the situation, and by the threat
of being able to continue with sustained military insurrection from safe-havens
inside Algeria, supported by the Algerian Government.
POLISARIO’s most significant gain has been to push for a
referendum to decide the situation, based on skewed parameters. And because of
political pressure, particularly from the US State Department and some UN
officials, Morocco has, to some degree, been forced to succumb to this.
There has not been a referendum, despite the formal establishment
of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) on
April 29, 1991, which administered the ceasefire between the two contending
parties, and pushed for a referendum concerning the question of the territory’s
sovereignty. The failure of MINURSO to hold a successful vote within the region
has caused the UN to attempt to rectify its failure, thus resulting in a
cyclical pattern of resolutions and attempts at negotiations.
Following the nearly 15 years of deadlocked UN negotiations and a
failed consensus concerning a valid voting population within Western Sahara,
there has been a recent push to re-evaluate the situation and desires of
POLISARIO and Morocco. Yet, bringing discussions back to the UN table has only
seen a reiteration of POLISARIO’s clamoring for independence, despite Morocco’s
generous, albeit legally unnecessary, concession to provide autonomy for the
region under Moroccan Government jurisdiction, following a referendum vote.
There have been, since the passing of UN Resolution 690, almost yearly
extensions to the January 1992 deadline to hold a Western Sahara referendum,
most recently being the April 20, 2007, UN Security Council Resolution 1754,
which extended MINURSO to October 31, 2007.
POLISARIO’s UN Security Council letter (S/2007/206), presented on
April 11, 2007, not only repeated its claim of sovereignty for the territory,
but also pointedly ignored the settled legal status of the territory. The letter
restated, among POLISARIO’s demands for self-determination, that “Western Sahara
is a territory of which the decolonization process has been interrupted by the
Moroccan invasion and occupation of 1975”. POLISARIO has no interest in
acknowledging the legal basis of the territory, and basing its efforts on the
1975 rulings from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the UN actions of
the 1990s which brought legitimacy to an issue which had previously been
resolved. The ICJ ruling was logically less than consistent. It said that there
were no territorial ties between the Western Sahara region and Morocco, but
acknowledged the historical connection between the people of Western Sahara and
the King of Morocco. Given the nomadic nature of the population, European – or
Westphalian – concepts of sovereignty could not be applied, despite the linkage
of people, territory (in its broadest sense as an area of nomadic travel), and
the King which were the only acceptable definition of sovereignty available.
POLISARIO, and later the UN, interpreted the inherent ambiguity
of the ICJ ruling to their advantage, ignoring the earlier Madrid Accords
between Spain, Morocco, and Mauritania, and illustrating it as what they claimed
to be an illegitimate transfer of power., The Madrid Accords in 1975 resulted in
Spain legally ceding its Western Sahara colony to Morocco – which was the
original sovereign authority over the territory – and to Mauritania. [Mauritania
later transferred its limited control of the region to Morocco following its
inability to counter POLISARIO’s guerilla attacks in 1979.]
The POLISARIO uprising immediately following the Madrid Accords
resulted in guerilla-style violence which caused Mauritania to cede its portion
of Western Sahara to Morocco, again assuring the validity of the Madrid Accords
by transferring territory to the only other nation that had rights over the
region, rather than directly to the POLISARIO. When Morocco became the next
focus of POLISARIO’s insurgent violence, the fight was not as simple as it had
hoped. In 1981, Morocco began constructing The Berm, a 2,700km defensive wall
which separates Moroccan-controlled areas of the Western Sahara region from
POLISARIO-controlled territory on the eastern and southern borders. The Berm
effectively provided not only security from POLISARIO guerilla violence, but
also ensured Moroccan governance over the strategically significant phosphate
mines along the coast of the Western Sahara.
Neighboring Algeria had been eyeing the mineral deposits since
their discovery in the 1970s. Defense & Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy
editor Gregory R. Copley reported in March 1976 that Moscow, an
historical ally to Algeria, backed POLISARIO and even diverted guerilla fighters
from the Dhofar Province of the Sultanate of Oman to aid in the violence against
the Kingdom of Morocco, a well-known United States ally during the Cold War.
This suggested that Western Sahara had the beginnings of a new Cold War theater
at the time of Spanish decolonization and much was at stake if Morocco did
concede to POLISARIO independence at that time. The idea of a North African
country directly under Soviet Union influence did not appeal to pro-Western
Morocco, however, and it refused to negotiate with the POLISARIO.
Those negotiations did eventually come to pass with the fall of
the Soviet Union, and it was within the chambers of the UN Security Council that
the international community saw fit to discuss the apparent plight of the
disenfranchised and displaced Sahrawi people, resulting in Resolution 690 in
1991. The yearly extensions of this referendum were always the result of poorly
administered voting registration within Western Sahara, even after the MINURSO
Identification Committee was established in 1993 to aid Morocco in compiling a
valid count. In 1997, former US Secretary of State James Baker, the newly
appointed Personal Envoy of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan for Western Sahara,
organized the Houston Agreement with the goal of conducting negotiations between
Morocco and POLISARIO with a proposed end-game of a referendum in 1998. This was
only the beginning of several failures, including Baker Plans I and II.
Baker Plan I, proposed in 2000, was an autonomy proposal which
Morocco accepted while the POLISARIO and Algeria not only denied, but countered
with the unacceptable suggestion of dividing the Western Sahara between the two
parties. Baker returned with Baker Plan II, at the request of the UN Security
Council, which sought to placate the demands of POLISARIO by offering Western
Sahara self-rule for a period of five years, at which time a referendum was to
be held. POLISARIO and Algeria accepted this plan, immediately after Morocco had
rejected it. Nonetheless, Baker Plan II was accepted by the UN Security Council
in May 2003. Despite this, Baker resigned from his post in June 2004, citing the
irreconcilable attitudes of Morocco and POLISARIO. Baker Plan II was
subsequently swept under the rug, and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan had
stopped referring to it in his reports by the beginning of 2005.
Negotiations between Morocco and POLISARIO were held face-to-face
on June 19, 2007, outside UN chambers at Greentree Estate in Manhasset, New
York, facilitated by current UN Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon’s Personal Envoy
for Western Sahara, Peter van Walsum.
To complicate the situation further, Algeria has been under the
international microscope due to suspicious jihadist activity, again
lending a blow to the credibility of the Sahrawi independence movement. On April
18, 2007, Defense & Foreign Affairs UN Correspondent Jason Fuchs examined
the new jihadist treat in North Africa:
POLISARIO, significantly, represents a classical Cold War front operation, with
third party states – in this case Algeria, possibly backed by Russia – using
such groups as proxies to destabilize situations. Indeed, even during the Cold
War, when Algeria was heavily supported by the USSR and Morocco was committed to
a Western political model, the US State Department persisted in allowing Algeria
and POLISARIO to undertake a disruptive campaign in Morocco’s Saharan territory.
Even though the move has been disavowed by the entire Middle Eastern polity –
including all of the Arab League states as well as Israel – and is increasingly
disavowed by African Union member states, the US position has been to support,
essentially, the Algerian solution on the territory.
In the process, Washington appears to be losing both Morocco, its traditional
ally, and Algeria, which has increasingly moved back toward major defense
procurement from Russia.
1.
Amanda Utterback, in the GIS office in Washington, DC, assisted in the
preparation of this report.
May 29, 2007
King Mohammed VI
King of Morocco
His Majesty King Mohammed VI was
enthroned as King of Morocco on July 23, 1999, hours after the death of his
father, King Hassan II. King Mohammed VI (Mohammed Ben Al-Hassan) was born on
August 21, 1963, in Rabat, Morocco. He is the 23rd king in the Alaouite Dynasty,
and, as a sharif — a direct descendant of the Prophet Mohammed — is also
Commander of the Faithful (Amir al-Mu’minin). He is Morocco’s
head-of-state as well as the Defense Minister.
His Majesty attended the
Qur’anic school at the Royal Palace until enrolling in the Royal College. He
received his baccalaureate in 1981 from the University of Judicial, Economic and
Social Studies in Rabat. He continued his education with a BA in law at the
College of Law of the Mohammed V University in Rabat in 1985, with his research
topic “The Arab-African Union and the Strategy of the Kingdom of Morocco in
matters of International Relations”.
He obtained his first Certificat D'Etudes Supérieures
(CES) in political sciences in 1987, and a Diplôme des Etudes Supérieures du
Doctorat in public law in July 1988. He went to
Brussels to train in Law, working for some months with Jacques Delors, President
of the Commission of the European Economic Communities in November 1988.
He received his doctorate from the French University of Nice
Sophia Antipolis in 1993 with his thesis topic
“EEC-Maghreb Relations”. He was
promoted to the rank of major-general in 1994.
The late King Hassan II sent
then-Crown Prince Mohammed abroad on several occasions as a representative of
Morocco, including attendance at the memorial service to
French President Georges Pompidou in 1974, and
the consulting group in Geneva on the occasion of the commemoration of the 50th
anniversary of the United Nations constitution in 1994.
While Crown Prince, he was
appointed by the Late King Hassan II as chair of many delegations to represent
Morocco including Presidency of
the Social-Cultural Association of the Mediterranean Basin in 1979; 7th summit
of the Non-Aligned Movement in 1983 in New Delhi, India; Organization of African
Unity (OAU) in 1983 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; Franco-African conference in 1983
in Vittel, France; and Coordinator of the Bureaux and Services of the General
staff of the Royal Armed Forces in 1985.
His Majesty
has supported political pluralism and social change improving rights of women
and quality of life for the poor. He started the constitutional monarchy shortly
after becoming king. He has initiated the Instance Equité et Réconciliation
(IER) to research Morocco’s human rights violations under Hassan II.
King Mohammed VI is married to
Princess Lalla Salma (Salma Bennani) and has two children.
Mohamed Benaїssa
Minister of Foreign Affairs
and Cooperation, Morocco
Mohamed Benaїssa, who was named
the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation of the Kingdom of Morocco in
1999, was born on January 3, 1937, in Asilah, Morocco. He completed his degree
in Communications from the University of Minnesota in 1963. He continued his
education in the United States, receiving a Fellowship from the Rockefeller
Foundation for Research in Communication at the University of Columbia in 1964.
His began working for the
Moroccan Government as the press attaché at the Embassy of Morocco to the United
States in Washington DC from 1964 to 1965. He then became press attaché for the
Department of Information of the United Nations (UN) from 1965 to 1967. He held
positions within the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the UN in Rome,
Italy, from 1967 to 1971; and was in charge of communications at the FAO from
1971 to 1975; and served as the Assistant of the Director of Information and the
Publications from 1973 to 1974. He was Director of Division with FAO 1974 to
1976. He also was the Assistant of the Secretary-General of the World Conference
on the Food of the United Nations in New York and Rome in 1975. He was a Member
of the Town council of Asilah (Province of Tangier) from 1976 to 1983. He was an
elected official appointed at the Parliament (Rapporteur of the
Commission of the Culture and Information) from 1977 to 1983. He was elected
Mayor of Asilah, Morocco in 1983 and re-elected in 1992.
M Benaїssa was Minister of
Culture from 1985 to 1992. He was then Ambassador from Morocco in Washington DC
from 1993 until 1999. He then was appointed by the late King Hassan II as
Foreign Minister a few months before King Hassan’s death in 1999.
He was the editor-in-chief
for the Rassemblement National
des Indépendents’ (National Rally of Independents)
newspapers Al Mithak Al Watani
(Arabic) and the Al Maghrib (French). He holds the office of
Secretary-General of the Cultural Forum Afro-Arab and the office of
Secretary-General of the Summer school Al-Moutamid Ibn Abbad in Asilah.
He has published several works,
including Grain of Skin, published in 1974 by the Shoof House in
Casablanca, as well as various research papers and publications in the field of
the communication and the development.
He is married and has five
children.
Abderrahman Sbaї
Delegate to the Prime
Minister in Charge of the Administration of National Defense, Morocco
Abderrahman Sbaї, who was
appointed the Minister Delegate to the Prime Minister in Charge of the
Administration of Defense of the Kingdom of Morocco in 1997, was born in 1940 in
Fès, Morocco. He attended primary
and secondary school at the College Moulay Youssef in El Jadida and Rabat, and
then attended the School of Geographical Sciences in Paris. He obtained his
diploma for geographical engineering in 1961 and his master’s for geographical
engineering in 1967.
He started working as the
Chief of Topographic Service and the Land Register of El Jadida from 1963 until
1965. He worked as Manager of Topography and as the Chief of Studies of
Management of Land Conservation and the topographic surveys in the Rabat region
from 1967 to 1970. He was the Chief of Central Service of the Land Register in
1971, and the head of the division of Land Register from 1972 until 1979. He
then became the Administrative
Director to the Ministry for the Agriculture and the Land Reform from 1980 to
1983. He was named Director-Advisor to the Prime Minister in the same department
from 1983 until 1986. He became Minister Delegate to the Prime Minister in
Charge of the General Affairs in 1993.
Abderrahman Sbaї has
received several awards, including
Ouissam Arrida de classe
exceptionnelle in 1980, the
Ouissam Al Arch, grade de Chevalier in 1985, and the Ouissam Al Arch,
grade d'Officier in 1990.
He is married and has two
children.
April 18, 2007
October 24, 2006
Annan Tries
Last Push for UN-Oriented Settlement of Western Sahara Issue Despite Realities
on the Ground
Analysis. By
Gregory R. Copley, Editor, GIS.
One of the last major gestures of outgoing United Nations Secretary-General Kofi
Annan has been to ensure that the UN continues to perpetuate the dispute over
the Moroccan Western Sahara region under the guise that it is mediating a valid
issue.
The Western
Sahara dispute has already been resolved legally, and is today only sustained by
Algerian covert funding of irredentist claims to the region by an
externally-based group.
Because of the Algerian funding,
pressure from Scandinavian governments and pro-national liberation NGOs, and
activities by some US pressure groups — largely oriented toward winning offshore
petroleum rights off Western Sahara’s Atlantic coast — the matter has been
sustained as a “legitimate” dispute, despite the legal rulings (including the
World Court’s) which confirm the historical Moroccan sovereignty over the
territory.
The pressure on Morocco in the
UN intensified recently because the shift in the US position. This has nothing
to do with any change in the situation in north-west Africa. Rather, the driving
force behind the US position is the Bush Administration’s strategy to get out as
quickly as possible from its military involvement in Iraq. Two elements of this
political dynamic have a direct bearing on Morocco:
(1) The Baker Commission on
Iraq — set up by the US Congress and under former US Secretary of State
James Baker — is expected in November 2006 to deliver the “panacea solution”
and a “political miracle” for the White House. There is, therefore, a strong
effort within the Bush Administration to consolidate Baker’s image as a
“miracle worker” who delivers magic solutions for seemingly insoluble world
problems. As a result, doubting the Baker Plan on the Western Sahara — which
came out in 2000 under the auspices of the UN — is the last thing the White
House wants to see happening.
(2) Placating the “Arabist”
establishment in Washington (mainly State Department and CIA, but also the
energy sector) in order to influence “our friends in the Arab world” to
support the Bush Administration’s Iraqi exit strategy. The “Arabists” of
Washington support POLISARIO — although, significantly, most of the Arab
states of the Middle East don not — and therefore the Washington “Arabists”
are determined to get what they want.
There is also the following
gossip coming from New York: outgoing UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan is still
very ambitious. He wants to continue to be a central figure in international
relations. He needs strong governments to protect him (and his reputation)
against the oil-for-food and other corruption stories. While he might be willing
to consider becoming President of Ghana, his leftist Scandinavian wife is
adamantly against it. She doesn't want to live in Accra and, besides, she knows
that it would be difficult to be a white First Lady. Instead, she has reportedly
urged Kofi Annan to take a position in an international “NGO of sorts” — like
Carter and Clinton — and use it to sustain his “presence” in world affairs and
high society. The Scandinavian governments are willing and eager to sponsor bold
initiatives to resolve — in a progressive manner — lingering and enduring crises
in the Developing World. Kofi Annan is being proposed as the head of this
initiative. Mrs Annan would love to shuttle between Scandinavia and New York.
Hence, Kofi Annan’s sudden enthusiasm re Western Sahara and other “causes”.
Thus, Annan, in
the final days of his UN leadership, in October 2006 attempted to resurrect the
framework for a UN-controlled “settlement” which is at odds with reality of the
dispute over Morocco’s Western Sahara territory.
Annan, in
calling on October 18, 2006, for a further six-month extension for the UN
peacekeeping mission for Western Sahara — MINURSO: United Nations Mission for
the Referendum in Western Sahara — tried to force a resolution process which, in
fact, reinforces the conflict which the United Nations itself has artificially
sustained for several decades. The essence of the UN process is that it
recognizes the “dispute” over the sovereignty of the territory — which was, in
fact, effectively and legally not in dispute after the formal cession of
the area by Spain back to Morocco after the colonial protectorate period — only
because of Algeria’s support for POLISARIO’s claim to Western Sahara.
In other words,
Algerian strategic objectives and maneuvering against Morocco represents the
only substance for the Western Sahara “dispute”.
The UN has been
particularly involved in the Western Sahara since the 1991 deployment of MINURSO,
but in fact from 1985 when the office of the UN Secretary-General became
involved in attempting to mediate the claims by the POLISARIO group to Western
Sahara.
Essentially, the
“dispute” has been sustained by Algerian funding and support since Spanish
withdrawal from the territory — which it controlled as a colony — in 1975.
Algeria, in opposing Morocco for its own strategic reasons, has financially and
logistically sustained POLISARIO (Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguiet
al-Hamra and Rio de Oro) and its self-styled Saharan Arab Democratic Republic (SADR)
since that time.
Significantly,
neither POLISARIO nor its self-proclaimed government structure, the SADR,
actually control the Western Saharan territory, which form the southern
provinces of the Kingdom of Morocco. Even the online Wikipedia
encyclopedia notes:
Since a United
Nations-sponsored ceasefire agreement in 1991, most of the territory is at
present administered by Morocco. The remainder, which is almost unpopulated, is
administered by the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) as the Free Zone.
The ceasefire line corresponds to the route of the Moroccan Wall. Both sides
claim the territory in its entirety. The SADR is recognized by 44 nations (not
including 23 nations that have cancelled their earlier recognitions and 13
nations that have frozen their relations), and a full member of the African
Union. Moroccan sovereignty over the territory is explicitly recognized by the
Arab League, and supported by 26 states.
Morocco divided
the territory under its control into administrative units (wilayas) after
annexing it in 1976. Flags and coats of arms were created for the three
wilayas of Boujdour, Smara and Laayoune. There were further changes in the
territories in 1983, with the area becoming four wilayas through the
addition of Dakhla. In 1990 Wadi al-Dhahab (Rio de Oro) was added.
In reality, even
the “Free Zone” does not exist, and the SADR is only a figment of Algerian
financing of POLISARIO, which maintains its camps in Algerian territory. Even
the acceptance of the SADR as a member of the Organization for African Unity
(OAU), which later translated into membership in the African Union (AU), was
prompted by lobbying by Algeria. The initial flood of recognition of the SADR
abated and, even as the Wikipedia entry noted, 23 states withdrew
recognition and 13 states froze recognition of the SADR as a state without legal
foundation or territory. That number grew in October 2006: Kenya announced that
it would withdraw recognition of the SADR.
The Arab League,
in contradistinction to the AU, recognizes Western Sahara as part of Morocco,
and on the ground the Western Sahara is a seamless part of Morocco in terms of
infrastructure and governance. And now even the AU is fracturing on the subject
of recognition of the SADR.
The UN claim
that there had been few “ceasefire violations” in Western Sahara since the
creation of MINURSO disguises the reality that the Moroccan Government and the
Moroccan Armed Forces and internal security are in complete control of the
region. That has largely been because POLISARIO enjoys little support within the
Western Sahara region.
Significantly,
the “Saharawi” movement billed itself as “Arab”, despite the strong ethnically
Berber element of the local population, and yet the Arab League supported
Morocco’s position on the territory while the OAU supported the “Arabized”
POLISARIO movement over the African population of the region. The “Arabization”
of the region has largely been based on linguistic and religious trends; the
Hassānīya Arabic dialect has substantially overtaken the use of Berber dialects
in Western Sahara and many parts of the greater region.
Western Sahara
was Moroccan in the pre-colonial era, and a 1975 Advisory Opinion of the
International Court of Justice (ICJ) found that there had been ties of
allegiance between some tribal leaders and the Moroccan throne, although noting
that these ties alone did not constitute sovereignty. Spain first claimed the
area at the Congress of Berlin in 1885 but only began real occupation in the
early part of the 20th Century; as late as the 1930s, there was still local
resistance — as well as Moroccan resistance — to Spanish rule in the interior of
the Western Sahara.
The discovery of
major phosphate deposits at Bou Craa suddenly gave the region strategic
importance. As Spain moved toward decolonization in 1974, Morocco began to press
its claim and Mauritania too claimed the area. In November 1975, after the ICJ
decision, King Hassan II of Morocco organized a “Green March” of unarmed
Moroccan civilians to occupy the territory. Spain yielded in early November
1975, signing the Madrid Accord, which announced the end of Spanish rule in
February 1976.
The accord
established an interim Government “with the participation of Morocco and
Mauritania” in consultation with the Jomaa, the local tribal council. In
fact, Morocco and Mauritania drew a partition line across the territory with
Mauritania occupying Tiris al-Gharbiya (Rio de Oro) in the south. The Jomaa
voted to recognize Moroccan sovereignty, although some members claimed coercion
and later supported the SADR. Mauritania later dropped its claim to the Tiris
al-Gharbiya, which allowed Morocco to resume its claim to, and control over,
that area.
It is also
significant that POLISARIO’s activities have risen or declined in direct
proportion to Algerian funding, again begging the question of whether there
exists any meaningful influence by POLISARIO within the Western Saharan
wilayas. And yet the dispute’s continuation has meant that foreign
investment in the territory — and particularly the exploitation of offshore and
onshore energy resources — has been deterred.
The effect has
been that normal economic development has been denied to the inhabitants of the
region for the almost-three decades since the withdrawal of Spanish colonial
occupation.
Despite this, UN
Secretary-General Annan said on October 18, 2006, that Morocco and POLISARIO
should drop any preconditions and begin negotiations to end the dispute over
Western Sahara. Annan, in his latest report advocating the six-month extension
of the MINURSO mission after its routine six-month cycle ends on October 31,
2006, said that Morocco’s demand that its sovereignty over Western Sahara be
recognized and that POLISARIO’s demand that there must be a referendum with
independence as an option should be discussed within the negotiations.
Annan noted that
the two military sides in the dispute did not have direct contact with each
other, 15 years after a UN-sponsored ceasefire went into effect, and that “this
continues to have a negative effect on mutual confidence and prevents the
adoption of procedures that could help to stabilize the situation during
critical periods.” Annan said, citing the findings of his Personal Envoy, Peter
van Walsum, that the impasse did not benefit either Morocco or POLISARIO.
The UN process has ensured that, despite the
realities on the ground and the legal sovereignty of Morocco over the territory,
both parties have been given parity in the negotiating process. Algeria and
POLISARIO have nothing to lose by protracting the process, and Morocco can
neither accede to demands to relinquish territory it holds legally and
physically, while at the same time the population of the region have been denied
the benefits of international investment. It has been, for Algeria, an effective
strategy to weaken and isolate Morocco, but there are signs that Morocco’s new
initiatives to build ties with sub-Saharan African states may end-run both the
Algerian and UN processes.
Nonetheless, the Western Sahara issue continues
to resonates in the coffee houses around the UN in New York and around the State
Department in Washington, DC, giving Algeria continued hope.
September 5, 2006
Morocco Sustains Crackdowns on Jihadist
Groups, But Broader Links Remain
Analysis. By GIS Station Rabat. The Moroccan
Ministry of Interior in early September 2006 was continuing its aggressive
pursuit of Islamist jihadist groups, but it was evident from the latest
arrests of members of the Jamaat Ansar Al Mehdi group [see
profile, below] that the networks established by
former al-Qaida leader, Abu-Mussab al-Zarqawi, had survived the death of
Zarqawi in Iraq in 2006.
See Defense & Foreign Affairs Special
Analysis, June 9, 2006:
Zarqawi Killing Directly Linked to Iranian-Provided Intelligence, Raising
Significant Questions.
There was strong circumstantial evidence that
Jamaat Ansar Al Mehdi was a direct creation of the al-Qaida “command”
known as “The al-Qaida
Organization in the Land of the Berbers”, which Zarqawi supervised and
sponsored. Zarqawi's web of jihadist entities was reportedly taken over
by a troika of overseers, including the Syrian, Abu Hamza al-Muhajir (not to be
confused with Abu Ayub al-Masri, currently in prison in Cairo, who has also used
the nom de guerre of Abu Hamza al-Muhajir), Abdallah Rashid al-Baghdadi,
and Abdul-Hadi al-Iraqi,
in June 2006. This does not discount the rôle of Karim al-Mejjati, the al-Qaida
senior official dispatched from Afghanistan, ostensibly by Osama bin Laden and
Ayman al-Zawahiri, to assist in establishing and subsequently supervising on
behalf of Zawahiri cells in Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and Spain. Mejjati was killed
in al-Ras, Saudi Arabia, by Saudi security forces in April 2005. Two of the
women involved in Jamaat Ansar Al Mehdi had been in contact with
Mejjati’s wife.
Moroccan counter-terrorism officials
said in May 2005 that Mejjati had provided explosives training to a cell of
Islamic radicals recruited from the slums surrounding Casablanca. At first,
investigators thought the May 2003 terrorist attack in Casablanca was conceived
and planned locally. But a suspect who later divulged Mejjati's name to
interrogators led them to conclude that those responsible for the attacks were
taking their strategic commands from al-Qaida's senior leadership. It is
possible that “the al-Qaida Organization in the Land of the Berbers” was
created directly as a result of the death of Mejjati, consolidating his
Moroccan, Spanish, and possibly Bosnian links under the new leadership.
More specifically, the deployment
into the field of operatives such as Mejjati and Zarqawi reflected the move of
al-Qaida number two leader Ayman al-Zawahiri to bring his
second-generation jihadists into the field to ensure that regional groups came
under the supervision and ideological motivation of “the center”.
The fact that Jamaat Ansar Al
Mehdi was gearing up for operations in 2006, after the deaths of Mejjati and
Zarqawi, indicated that the new level of command and control of “The al-Qaida
Organization in the Land of the Berbers” continued to function. One question
remains unanswered as of this point, however, is whether the command is being
controlled by the troika of Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, Abdallah Rashid al-Baghdadi,
and Abdul-Hadi al-Iraqi. Baghdadi, an Iraqi,
was a major political/theological guide of Zarqawi and the entire Majlis Shura
of Jihad (in Iraq and the Middle East). According to Yossef Bodansky’s
authoritative 2004 book, The Secret History of the Iraq War, al-Iraqi was
a senior mujahedin commander and former chief of the training complexes
in the Khowst area of Iraq. Until his defection in the early/mid 1980s, Abdul-Hadi
al-Iraqi was a veteran member of the Iraqi Ba’athist security and intelligence
apparatus. He was then drawn to radical Islam and ultimately escaped from Iraq
to join the Afghan Jihad, leaving behind a lot of closet supporters among
his Ba’athist colleagues. In August 2003, Osama bin Laden personally sent Abdul-Hadi
to not only escalate the Islamist Jihad in Iraq, but also to reach out
to, and build cooperation with, his former Ba’athist colleagues fighting the US
forces in Iraq. To expedite the anticipated escalation of the jihad,
emphasis was also put on the activation of experienced cadre: veterans of
Afghanistan, Chechnya, Bosnia and other jihad theaters.
But what is clear is that recruitment, planning, and
conduct of jihadist operations continues in “the Land of the Berbers”,
and other related areas — Bosnia, Kosovo, Western Europe — with ongoing links to
the al-Qaida “center”, which, at this stage, operates within a framework
largely determined by Iran’s clerical leadership, overriding the underlying
conflict between Shia and Sunni objectives.
Group Profile:
Jamaat Ansar Al Mehdi, Morocco
aka: Ansar al-Mahdi
Background: Level of links to Iraqi-based
Ansar al-Mahdi group of jihadists or to the Ansar al-Mahdi
unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC: Pasdaran) not yet
ascertained, but likely links with so-called al-Qaida group established
by the late (Iraq-based) Abu-Mussab al-Zarqawi,
“The al-Qaida Organization in
the Land of the Berbers”, established in early 2005.1
Significantly, the Moroccan-based Jamaat Ansar Al Mehdi2
was reportedly created after the May 2003 terrorist attack in Casablanca (and
its origins appear to be directly linked to that attack), although broken up by
Moroccan authorities in the months following May 2006, with the Moroccan
Interior Ministry reporting that the group was no longer effective as of August
2006.
By September 1, 2006, the Moroccan Government had
detained four women on charges of terrorism links, bringing to 56 the total
number of arrests of Jamaat Ansar Al Mehdi followers, whose cells were
accused of planning large-scale attacks. Interior Minister Chakib Ben Moussa
said on September 1, 2006, that four women were detained including two wives of
pilots of the national airline, Royal Air Maroc (RAM). The women were believed
to have financed the group, and were reportedly also prepared to stage suicide
attacks in Iraq and the Palestinian territories. Suspects from the group
arrested earlier included several army and police officers. The group was
believed to be plotting attacks against tourist installations, government
buildings and people representing the state.
Moroccan Interior Ministry reports said that
Jamaat Ansar Al Mehdi intended to stage an even bigger strike than the
Casablanca suicide bombings, which killed 45 people in May 2003. The women had
reportedly been in contact with the wife of Karim Mejjati, an al-Qaida
activist who was killed in an anti-terrorist operation in Saudi Arabia in 2005.
They had given money to Jamaat Ansar Al Mehdi leader Hassan Khattab to
acquire weapons from narco-traffickers and to two other group members for travel
to Iraq. Some of the women had told Khattab that they were willing to
participate in martyr attacks in Iraq and Palestinian territories and had
watched a video showing a training camp in northern Morocco.
One of the three women, known as Oum Saad, was
accused of paying 150,000 dirhams ($17,400) to the suspected head of the
network, Hassan Khattab, including for treatment for a heart condition. Moroccan
Interior Minister Chakib Ben Moussa said on August 31, 2006, that the network
had 52 members (some reports claimed 56), including five soldiers, five members
of the Royal Gendarmerie, and a police officer. It was planning to “announce a
jihad (holy war) in the mountains of north Morocco, attack sensitive
targets, foreign interests and well-known Moroccans because they represent the
state or for moral reasons”, the Minister said. Arrests of the group’s members
took place in six Moroccan cities, and quantities of leaflets, explosives,
communications devices, “laboratory materials”, and other materials were seized.
Those arrested also included at least five former
soldiers with training in the use of explosives. Interior Minister Ben Moussa
told a Moroccan Parliamentary commission in August 2006 that while the
recruitment of members of the military and security services by Jamaat Ansar
Al Mehdi was a new element in the jihadist operations in Morocco, the
number was very limited and involved isolated cases. He said one of the men
recruited belonged to a military music unit and another to a vehicle-servicing
department.
The network was formed by Hassan Khattab who, after
serving a two-year prison term, had gathered together a group of individuals,
divided into a number of cells in Salé, Sidi Yahya Gharb, Sidi Sliman,
Youssoufia, and Casablanca. It is likely that — in line with established
jihadist and Iranian practice — Khattab was recruited while in prison.
Targets and Operations: No known successful
operations conducted by Jamaat Ansar Al Mehdi by the time of its
penetration and break-up. Known targets of the group were reported to include
Union Socialiste des Forces Populaires (Socialist Union of Popular Forces,
USFP) leader and Moroccan Minister of Territorial Development, Water, &
Environment, Mohamed el-Yazghi, as well as Minister of Finance & Privatization
Fathallah Oualalou, and Mohamed El Gahs, the Secretary of State for Youth, both
also affiliated to the USFP. A mayor and a parliamentarian were also to be
abducted, as part of a jihad which was to have included bombings of key
Moroccan targets. Also intended to fund activities through bank and armored car
robberies.
Leader: Hassan Khattab. Note: Not to
be confused with the jihadist who used the nom de guerre Abu-Khattab
as the key al-Qaida fighter in Chechnya, killed by Russian forces, nor
another jihadist called Hassan Khattab in Algeria. Jamaat Ansar Al
Mehdi leader Hassan Khattab also uses the nom de guerre of “Abu
Osama”, indicating fealty to al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.
Footnotes:
1. See Defense & Foreign Affairs Special
Analysis, June 20, 2005:
Zarqawi Begins to Take His Jihad Into North Africa.
2. Ansar, according to Encyclopaedia
Britannica, derives from the Arabic word “helper”, and the term
originally applied to some of the Companions of the Prophet. When Mohammed
left Mecca for Medina, the Ansar were the Medinese who aided him and who
became his devoted followers, serving in his army. The term was revived in
the 19th Century to refer to the followers of the Sudanese al-Mahdi, al-Mahdi's
successor, or his descendants.
November 12, 2003
POLISARIO Repatriation of Moroccan Prisoners Does
Not Address Underlying Concerns in Rabat
A gesture by the Western Saharan secessionist group
POLISARIO (Popular Front for
the Liberation of Saguiet al-Hamra and Rio de Oro)
on November 8, 2003, to release 300 of the 914 Moroccan prisoners it had been
holding for more than 20 years seemed unlikely to change the underlying
strategic basics of Morocco’s position on the territory. POLISARIO had, with the
UN, been seeking acceptance by Morocco of a plan by former US Secretary of State
James Baker for a resolution of the Western Sahara issue.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)
said that it had supervised the repatriation of 300 Moroccan prisoners of war
released by POLISARIO. The ICRC said that the prisoners were released in the
Algerian town of Tindouf and were flown back to Morocco on November 8, 2003,
significantly in an aircraft provided by the Libyan Government, which had
interceded, it said, to secure their release. Since February 2003, 643 Moroccan
prisoners had been, but 614 remain in detention.
The latest UN plan, devised by former US Secretary
of State James Baker earlier in 2003, proposed that the inhabitants of the
Western Sahara be given a large degree of autonomy for five years, after which
they would vote in a referendum for independence, continued autonomy or full
integration with Morocco. This plan was accepted by POLISARIO and endorsed by
the UN Security Council, but was rejected by Morocco’s King Mohamed VI. The
plan, although a compromise, acknowledged, in effect, that POLISARIO was a
legitimate negotiating partner in the process. The Front has been financed,
historically, by Algeria, and has had Libyan links; factors acknowledged by the
continued use by POLISARIO of Tindouf, in Algeria, and the use of a Libyan
aircraft to repatriate the former prisoners.
August 2, 2002
UN Renews Referendum Mandate for Western Sahara
The UN Security Council on July 30, 2002, renewed
for six months the mandate of the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western
Sahara (MINURSO) and invited former US Secretary of State James Baker to
continue overseeing the mission. Resolution 1427, adopted unanimously on July
30, 2002, in the presence of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, invited Baker to
continue as the Secretary-General’s special envoy in the effort, which seeks a
political solution to the quarter-century-long dispute between Morocco and the
Algerian-backed POLISARIO Front over Western Sahara.
The mandate of the current mission was to have
expired on July 31, 2002.
Tensions have been high between Morocco and
POLISARIO regarding Western Sahara's fate, and the new resolution papers over
disagreement between Security Council members as to whose claim to the disputed
territory is more valid. While the United States, Britain and France back
Morocco’s claim, Russia and the non-aligned states side with Algeria’s POLISARIO
Front.
Most UN diplomats agreed that finding common ground
for Morocco and Algeria to even begin talking was now difficult. There were four
proposals as possible ways out of the impasse: a referendum in the territory,
autonomy for the region under Moroccan sovereignty and two ways of dividing up
the former Spanish colony. A referendum had been ruled out because the parties
were unable to agree on who would take part, and Moroccan sovereignty was
unacceptable to Algeria, while splitting the territory was rejected by Morocco.
Established in April 1991, the UN mission has a
mandate to essentially monitor the ceasefire. With a budget exceeding
$50-million as of June 1, 2002, the staff of 540 includes 231 military
observers.
August 4, 2003
King of Morocco Bans Islamic Parties
King Mohammed IV of Morocco said on July 30, 2003,
that religiously-, ethnically- or regionally-based political parties in the
country would be banned. In essence, however, the ban applied to Islamist
parties, those political groupings using Islam as a vehicle for politics.
The King, a sharif — a descendant of the
Prophet Mohammed — has a strong spiritual as well as temporal leadership rôle in
Morocco, which has a population which is 99 percent Muslim. He was speaking on
the fourth anniversary of his accession to the throne, but significantly he was
speaking just more than two months after bomb blasts in Casablanca killed 44
people, including 12 suicide bombers. The targets were almost all Moroccan
Jewish facilities. Trials resumed in Morocco on July 31, 2003, of hundreds of
suspected Islamist terrorists, including many not linked with the attacks.
The King said that parties with a “religious, ethnic
or regional base” would be outlawed, adding: “No one can use Islam as a
trampoline to power in the name of religion, or to perpetrate terrorist acts.”
The King said that he would immediately push a law through parliament to ban
“parties or groups claiming to monopolize Islam”.
The King’s measure would close down the Justice and
Development Party, a moderate Islamic party opposed to violence, which has
become the country’s third strongest party. The King said that he would not
permit the spread of “religious doctrines alien to Moroccan traditions”. This
was seen as a reference to the influence of Saudi Arabia, whose radical
Wahabbist interpretations of Sunni Islam were said to have stirred up
fundamentalism in Morocco’s poor areas and unofficial mosques. The King blamed
local authorities for allowing slums to proliferate.
Meanwhile, on July 29, 2003, Algeria offered to
re-establish links with Morocco. Algerian Pres. Abdelaziz Bouteflika told
Morocco that he wanted “to close ranks and strengthen relations ... between our
two countries”. Algeria also suffers from a major terrorist problem caused by
Islamists, but the two countries remain opposed over the question of the future
of Western Sahara, which Morocco claims as an integral part of the Kingdom. A UN
deadline to resolve the Western Sahara conflict expired on July 31, 2003, with
no resolution. There were signs of movement towards resolution when the
POLISARIO Front (Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguiet al-Hamra and Rio de
Oro) signaled recently that it could accept autonomy within Morocco.
January 17, 2001
Morocco's King Mohammed Visits Libya
Morocco's King Mohammed left Libya on January 16,
2001, after a 24-hour visit ostensibly designed to boost economic cooperation
and political dialogue between the two states. It was the King's first trip to
Libya since he succeeded his father, King Hassan, in July 1999. King Mohammed
then left for Cameroon, where he was to attend the Franco-African summit on
January 17, 2001. The King was accompanied by a delegation including the
ministers of foreign affairs, finance, agriculture, trade and transport. Libya
and Morocco are members of the five-nation Arab Maghreb Union (AMU) but their
bilateral trade remains below potential at around 1.46-billion Moroccan
dirhams ($138-million) per year.
September 20, 1999
King Mohammed VI Takes Firm Grasp
of Moroccan Leadership
Morocco's King Mohammed VI, who assumed the throne
on the death of his father, King Hassan, 70, on July 23, 1999, has moved quickly
in the past two months to end a debate on the future of the 400-year-old
dynasty. The new King's success, thus far, in maintaining stability in Morocco
is seen as evidence of the extensive preparation made during the past year or
more for his succession. However, King Mohammed continues to maintain a number
of his father's key ministers and advisors in place.
King Mohammed said that he would speed up social and
economic reforms to bridge a widening gap between rural and urban areas, create
jobs for more than two-million unemployed and modernize the education system. He
has created an independent arbitration body to look into demands for
compensation by families of some 112 activists whom the Government acknowledges
disappeared during the 1960s and 1970s during social and political unrest. The
King also appointed a former college colleague and diplomat, Hassan Aourid, 37,
as official spokesman for the Royal Palace.
The move, the first of its kind in Morocco, was
established direct channels with the media. Prime Minister Youssoufi, 75, has
close ties to the new King, who regards him very much as part of the family, but
there was concern expressed among some diplomats in Rabat about Interior
Minister Driss Basri, whose influence is strong in many key ministries. As the
Interior Minister in successive governments for 25 years, Basri enjoyed a close
relationship with King Hassan, who had rejected opposition calls to remove him
from Youssoufi's Government. Clearly, King Mohammed is likely to bring in his
own group of young reformist technocrats to gradually replace some conservative
royal advisors in the Makhzen, the powerful and secretive court
hierarchy, but at present he needs ministers of the strength of Driss Basri to
sustain domestic calm.
Basri is widely seen as the Makhzen
strongman.
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