Since the accession to the throne of King Mohammed VI in 1999, Morocco has been slowly becoming an economic giant in Africa, especially in West Africa. Morocco’s role in Africa, however, is usually overshadowed by the Western Sahara issue, a 46-year-old conflict, which is still waiting for a peaceful solution to be worked out between Morocco and the Polisario Front seeking independence.
The Polisario Front uses Tindouf camps in southern Algeria as its headquarters, while the vast majority of the Sahrawi population live in Western Sahara. Morocco and the Polisario went into a ceasefire under the supervision of the UN since 1991. The Moroccan government viewed US President Donald Trump’s recent proclamation recognising Morocco’s sovereignty over the Western Sahara — which came as Morocco normalised ties with Israel — as a huge diplomatic success. However, other countries including Algeria believe it will break the ceasefire and revive the war.
Moroccan Ambassador Dr Mokhtar Ghambou speaks about the dispute and how Morocco rose from being European colonialists’ entry point to deeper Africa in the early 20th century to a strategic gateway or economic hub connecting sub-Saharan Africa, the Maghreb, Europe and the US.
The Sahara conflict has been the subject of controversy for decades. In your own words, tell us what it is about.
As far as we are concerned, there is no conflict in the Sahara. The problem exists more on paper than on the ground. What Algeria and its allies call the ‘Sahara conflict’ is a false narrative and a pure product of Cold War politics of the 1970s. Morocco’s liberation of the Spanish-occupied Sahara in 1975 is a result of three major events, which Algeria and the communist bloc of the time deliberately ignored.
One: The International Court of Justice ruled that Saharan tribes have continuously and officially expressed their allegiance to the Moroccan Alaouite dynasty. Two: The court’s decision led Spain and Morocco to sign Madrid Accords in 1975, which officially recognises our sovereignty over the Sahara. Three: These two events mobilised 350,000 Moroccans into a peaceful march across the Sahara, known as Green March, to reunite the Sahara region with its motherland, Morocco, from which it was illegally cut off by the occupying Spain in the 1880s.
But Algeria claims it has nothing to do with the Western Sahara conflict, which is a case of decolonisation under consideration at the African Union and the United Nations.
What Algeria says is one thing and what it does is another. The Polisario would have never existed without lavishly receiving funds and arms from the oil-producing Algeria. The Algerian regime’s anti-Moroccan obsession is too strong to even think of opening borders with Morocco. True, the world respects the Algerian people’s legacy of anti-colonial resistance against French occupation. But the Soviet-like regime invests in the revolutionary legacy as a symbolic capital to be kept alive and exported to the neighboring countries at the expense of impoverishing its own people and depriving the whole Maghreb of rebuilding a strong economic bloc.
As Charles Saint-Prot, the general director of the Observatory for Geopolitical Studies, asserted in a recent interview, the international community “should urgently put strong pressure on Algiers to end an artificial conflict born out of the Cold War.” Such a pressure will hopefully force the Algerian-backed Polisario to free the thousands of Moroccans held in the Algerian Tindouf camps as “refugees”, though they have no access to freedom of speech and mobility.
What is the real situation on the ground?
For objectivity’s sake, I wish you could ask the question to the many Kenyan government officials, members of Parliament, as well as journalists who had the chance to visit the Moroccan Sahara over the past five years. Most of them were surprised, not to say shocked, by the Sahara’s remarkable economic and social development. Upon liberation, the Sahara was a backward desert region with no institutions or infrastructure. Since 1975, Morocco invested seven times more for every dirham (Sh10) earned in the region, in addition to subsidising basic goods like oil, cooking gas, tea and sugar. The Sahara is slowly turning into a major economic hub on the Atlantic Ocean, with the potential to attract more investors and traders from sub-Saharan Africa, Europe and the Americas.
Nobody has the right to impose a referendum on a region which identifies itself historically, geographically, religiously and culturally as part of Morocco
Why is Morocco refusing to have a referendum in the Western Sahara, in defiance of UN resolutions?
Since the 1991 ceasefire, not only Morocco but the UN realised that a referendum for self-determination was far more complex than it was initially thought. It was not easy to determine who was eligible for voting amongst a native population, mainly nomadic, which constantly wandered across northern Morocco, Algeria and Mauritania. The referendum began to seem ‘unpractical’ among members of the UN Security Council after Morocco submitted a Sahara autonomy initiative in 2007. Ever since, the initiative has been described by successive UN resolutions as a “realistic” and “credible” solution to the Sahara dispute.
Moreover, the native Sahrawis’ strong and engaged participation in Morocco’s local, regional and legislative elections, often reaching the highest score nationwide, is in itself an expression of self-determination, which makes the Polisario’s call for referendum both unnecessary and absurd. Nobody has the right to impose a referendum on a region which identifies itself historically, geographically, religiously and culturally as part of Morocco. Politically speaking, the natives of the Sahara, like any other Moroccans, play a major role in the nation’s decision-making whether as high government officials, ministers, party leaders, governors or ambassadors.
Still, the Sahrawi Republic is accusing Morocco of human rights violations and they are defending their people.
The self-proclaimed and pseudo Saharawi Republic, which has neither territory nor the basic means to form an independent state, has always accused Morocco of human rights violations but has never been able to provide any evidence. Even the cases it presents to international institutions are borrowed from the Moroccan National Council of Human Rights, which explains that even if there are human rights abuses in the Sahara, they never occur on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion or language.
The real question is why the Polisario, unlike Morocco, has systematically refused to allow international human rights organisations to visit the Tindouf camps, where thousands of Sahrawis are held hostages against their will. Anybody having doubts about Morocco’s human rights record can check the board of international organisations, including the UN, and will not fail to find Moroccan experts, both independent and government officials, occupying top positions. It’s quite obvious that the international community would not trust Moroccan human rights institutions if they were not credible, both nationally and internationally.
Many African and Arab countries recently opened consulates in the Western Sahara. Is this a simple political message endorsing Morocco’s sovereignty over the Western Sahara?
To my knowledge, international law does not forbid sovereign countries from opening their diplomatic missions, where they wish so long as there is an agreement with the hosting country. The Moroccan Sahara should be no exception. Also, as I mentioned above, the Sahara is turning into an economic hub attractive to traders, investors, tourists and migrants from West Africa and beyond.
Moreover, the fact that more than 18 countries opened consulates in the Sahara, and more will do so in future, is one of the best examples of a creative and vigorous Moroccan diplomacy, operating under the visionary leadership of His Majesty King Mohammed VI. Our diplomacy was very successful in exposing the falsifications spread by the Algerian regime and its separatist puppet, especially after Morocco returned to the African Union in January 2017. Morocco forcefully came back to the AU with a solid package of economic and social projects serving our commitment to promote pan-African cooperation.
As a former professor at Yale who lived in the United States, were you surprised by Donald Trump’s decision to recognise Morocco’s sovereignty over the Western Sahara?
Yes and no. The proclamation of the US administration to recognise Morocco’s sovereignty over the Sahara is the result of an accumulation of historical and political events, all of which bear witness to a longstanding friendship treaty as well as a modern strategic and economic partnership between our two countries. Like all Moroccans, I was, nonetheless, positively surprised by the swiftness of the President’s bold decision to support Morocco’s Sahara autonomy initiative at the UN and to open a general consulate in the Saharan city of Dakhla. The diplomatic influence of the US as a major Security Council member will most likely put an end to this regional conflict fabricated by Algeria to serve its own narrow political interests. The US plan to invest in the Moroccan Sahara will not only benefit Morocco’s southern regions but the profit will extend to the Sahel region and to sub-Saharan Africa.
Many believe that the US recognition of the Moroccan Sahara is no less than a deal to force Morocco to open diplomatic relations with Israel.
The kingdom of Morocco is a 14-century-old nation, not a country carved out of a modern colonial map. No one can force us to make a decision of which we are not fully convinced. Morocco’s sovereign decision to restore, not open anew, diplomatic relations with Israel is in part an implementation of our current constitution, which recognises Jewish heritage as an integral component of our national plural identity. Close to one million Jewish-Moroccans live in Israel today and their spiritual rights are protected by His Majesty’s historical status as Commander of the Faithful.
In addition, restoring diplomatic ties with Israel was done in consultation with the Palestinian authority and will certainly give Morocco more leverage to push for a two-state solution and put an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I’m happy to add that my Kenyan colleagues expressed their full support of Morocco’s diplomatic move because of Kenya’s strong bilateral relations with Israel.
What can Kenya do in the Sahara dispute matter?
Kenya and Morocco play a major role in Africa as leading countries in their respective regions. As a newly elected non-permanent member of the UN Security Council (2021-22), Kenya has all the means to defend the unity of African countries by promoting peace and economic prosperity across our continent. Territorial integrity is as sacred to Kenya as to Morocco.
After all, our two nations subscribe to the African Union charter of “non-interference by any Member State in the internal affairs of another”. Therefore, I call upon the republic of Kenya to join the US and the African countries which endorsed our Proposal for Sahara Autonomy under Moroccan Sovereignty as the only basis for a just and lasting solution to the artificial regional conflict.
Edited by T Jalio
