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This past Friday, King Mohammed VI took many Moroccan and foreign observers by surprise with the tone and focus of the speech he delivered to open Morocco’s legislative year. Not only did the monarch quite remarkably devote the entirety of his speech to the Western Sahara, he adopted an upbeat and jubilant rhetoric while celebrating the diplomatic breakthroughs that Morocco has achieved over the past several years. From France’s recent, game-changing recognition of Morocco’s sovereignty over the Sahara, Spain’s embrace of the Moroccan Autonomy Plan, to the US support for Morocco’s territorial integrity, the monarch suggested, Morocco has no desire to squander the historic opportunity that comes with the increasing prevalence of its Autonomy Plan as the best route to lasting political solution to the Sahara dispute.
King Mohammed VI thus cautioned the Moroccan people against dropping their guards. Instead, he urged, this is the time for Moroccans to redouble their efforts to secure the support of the countries that “still go against the logic of law and history. He spoke of the need for Moroccans to sharpen their sense of national purpose, outlining the urgency for all government bodies, the parliament, civil society organizations, and all other sections of the Moroccan national to work collectively towards sustaining what he appeared to describe as Morocco’s irrepressible march towards the full recovery of its southern provinces.
Yet whether the parliament will live up to this historic moment and play its role in helping the country achieve more breakthroughs is an open question. The parliament’s dismal track record and past failures at having any impact on the diplomatic debate surrounding the Sahara dispute, the rentier-driven mentality of the political class, and the nepotism prevailing within its ranks do not augur for any meaningful contribution to the country’s efforts to win on the narrative battlefield and salvage its public reputation from Algeria’s and Polisario’s traditional underdog-industrial complex.
To be sure, both the timing of this speech and its assertive overtone were no coincidence. Such a Western Sahara-heavy speech is usually delivered during the annual commemoration of the Green March on November 6 of every year, with the speech inaugurating the legislative year being devoted to questions that have more to do with the country’s domestic policy. The exception that the King made to the rule was arguably dictated by the recent ruling of the European Court of Justice, which invalidated the Agriculture and Fisheries agreement that Morocco signed with the EU in 2019.
From this perspective, the speech’s radical shift of focus might have stemmed from a desire to more solemnly renew a message that Morocco’s Foreign Ministry had sent to the ECJ in the immediate wake of its controversial ruling: Rabat will not be subdued by a verdict it considers as politically problematic, diplomatic irrelevant, and legally outrageous. As the King argued, the growing international support for Morocco’s position on Western Sahara, coupled with the newfound unequivocal support of major powers such as France, Spain and the US, has significantly reduced the prospects of other, less influential actors successfully forcing the North African kingdom’s hand on the Western Sahara issue.
Moreover, the monarch sought to challenge two core fallacies at the heart of the ECJ’s decision to invalidate the EU-Morocco agreements. First, the notion that Saharawis living in the Sahara are “not genuine” Saharawis, but simply “inhabitant of the territory.” And second, the allegation that Morocco is an “occupying power” that is “illegally exploiting” the natural resources of the disputed region without obtaining the consent of its genuine inhabitants. To such preposterous claims, the monarch responded by simply yet effectively recalling the centuries-long history of mutual attachment linking Morocco to the local inhabitants of its southern provinces. Whatever diplomatic breakthroughs Morocco has achieved in recent years were due to the sacrifices that “our sons and daughters of the Sahara” have made to defend their country’s territorial integrity and show their loyalty to their homeland, he argued.
As it happens, the King also rubbished the idea of the Sahara as occupied and illegitimately exploited by Morocco. Not only has Morocco made sure that locals welcome and benefit handsomely from the region’s natural resources, but its genuinely transformative development plan for the region has been widely embraced by locals. In the King’s words, the formidable economic and urban development that the southern provinces have witnessed over the past few years were achieved thanks to the “solidarity and the efforts of all Moroccans in order to consolidate our national unity and preserve the nation’s territorial integrity.” This statement echoes the message contained in the speech that King Mohammed VI delivered on November 6, 2014, where he said: “For every single dirham of revenue from the Sahara, the state invests 7 dirhams there, as part of the solidarity between the regions and between the sons and daughters of the nation.” But there is a world of difference between the overtone of the 2014 speech and the King’s last week address before the parliament. If anything, the Moroccan monarch seemed more assertive than ever and secure about the final outcome of the dispute.
A changing approach to Algeria?
Perhaps even more striking in the King’s speech is the absence of any mention of Algeria. Mirroring the ground-breaking shifts that have taken place during the past few years and the country’s assertive position, the Moroccan monarch conveyed a clear-cut message to Algeria: gone are the times when Morocco sought to urge it to come to the negotiating table in order to reach a face-saving and mutually acceptable solution. Gone also are the times when the King made overture after overture to Algeria, urging its leaders to usher in a new era in the bilateral relations.
The recent diplomatic achievement that Morocco has made have further strengthened its position, enabling it to dictate the new rules of the political solution being refereed by the UN Security Council. Behind this statement is arguably a growing conviction that Morocco can no longer expect Algeria to play any constructive role in this direction and that Rabat is determined to go it alone and follow the path it has taken in recent years focusing on a bilateral approach to get more countries to recognize its sovereignty over the territory.
In his latest book, Carnet Covid (Centre Culturel du Livre, 2042) prominent Moroccan thinker Abdellah Laroui took issue with Moroccan diplomacy has tended to stress that a solution to the conflict cannot be attained without Algeria’s involvement. Arguing that Algeria is the problem and cannot be part of the solution, Laroui wrote, it would perhaps be more judicious for Morocco to bypass it. King Mohammed VI’s latest speech provides a glimpse into the approach that Morocco has embraced in recent years to accelerate the settlement of the dispute.
The King’s assertive overtone mirrors the devastating impact that Morocco’s recent diplomatic achievement have left on the Algerian diplomacy, causing it to live in a permanent state of disarray. Every week and month that go by bring more upsetting developments for Algeria, bring into sharp focus the changing fortunes for the two countries. Not only has Algeria and Polisario’s whining become inaudible and irrelevant, but it appears that Algeria is running out of ammunitions to counter the tidal wave of Morocco’s inexorable march towards a final settlement to the dispute.
This was in stark display during the United Nations Fourth Committee’s debate in New York this month where petitioners coming from around the world make the case either for Morocco’s or Polisario’s position. In the past, as Morocco was still navigating a hostile environment and the option of autonomy had not gained traction in the diplomatic debate around the conflict.
Algeria, by contrast, could count on a slew of seasoned foreign lawyers, academics, former diplomats, and celebrities who defended Polisario’s separatist aspirations while depicting Morocco as a villain. Having been the assistant of the President of the same Committee in 2011 and taken part in its meetings between 2009 and 2014, I remember being annoyed and even angry when people like Javier Bardem or Kerry Kennedy would address the Committee in defense of the separatist project.
Such interventions did a lot of harm to Morocco in terms of public perceptions and narrative-setting, further strengthening the Algerian narrative and putting Morocco on the back foot. However, as the number of countries supporting Morocco’s Autonomy Plan continues to increase, with some having cemented their support by opening consulates in Dakhla or Laayoune, Algeria’s erstwhile ascendant over Morocco has faded into oblivion.
Algeria’s diplomatic disarray and absence of options to counter Morocco’s diplomatic breakthroughs have become so stark that it now has to rely on the “expertise” of a veterinary turned expert on the conflict to make the case for it before the Fourth Committee. I was amused, and the same time happy, to watch the pathetic speech that Mohammed Doumir, an Algerian veterinary, delivered last week before the Committee where he made preposterous claims that must have shocked the diplomats attending the meeting.
There is “no document proving that Morocco had made any reservations about Spain’s occupation of the territory,” following its independence in 1956, the Algerian petitioner outrageously claimed. Another Algerian petitioner had no other argument to use than expressing the hope the Committee will like the traditional Algerian garment he wore while making his address and that its members will support the right of the Sahrawis to establish their independent state in southern Morocco.
A historic diplomatic ‘remontada’
Moroccans should celebrate their country’s diplomatic gains with fervor but also with a renewed sense of urgency about the need to remain vigilant and proactive in order to thwart Algeria and its backers’ attempts further delay the final settlement of the dispute. While Morocco has turned the diplomatic, legal and geostrategic debate in its favor, it still has a long way to go to win the pending and acrimonious war of narratives.
Most people see the recent diplomatic breakthroughs that Morocco has achieved without appreciating their real strategic and symbolic value. They tend to forget that the country has endured difficult times for much of the past five decades. They often gloss over the strenuous efforts and sacrifices the country has made to navigate an international environment that was, for the most part, hostile. Over the past five decades, Morocco has demonstrated extraordinary resilience. To fully appreciate Morocco’s recent diplomatic successes, it is essential to remember that not only did Algeria have the upper hand over Morocco at the political, financial, and military levels in the 1970s and 1980s, it also won the war of narratives.
Add to that the fact that Algeria, thanks to its oil and gas revenues, had deep pockets that enabled it to literally buy the support of several countries around the world, especially in Africa and Latin America. Without its financial might at the time, it would have been impossible for Algeria to secure the support of faraway and somehow irrelevant countries that helped it sustain its separatist project for southern Morocco. This financial might was instrumental in helping Algeria win a seat for its Tindouf-based satellite state in the Organization of African Unity, convince a number of member states to recognize the separatist group, and ultimately cause Morocco to withdraw from the continental organization.
At the time, Algeria enjoyed an international aura that allowed it to position itself as the champion of oppressed people. These two factors combined, namely its influence in the third world and its financial might, enabled Algeria to obtain from recognition from 84 countries for the pseudo-state of the Polisario. Despite this, Morocco was able to safeguard its position, navigate a hostile international environment, preserve its gains, and wait for the right moment to deliver painful, debilitating blows to Algeria.
Indeed, with the gradual changes that have taken place in the UN Security Council since the early 2000s in relation to the Sahara dispute, the diplomatic balance has gradually tipped in Morocco’s favor. Getting the Security Council to bury the referendum option was Morocco’s major diplomatic breakthrough at the turn of the century. This option has been totally taken off the Security Council agenda since 2003, with the term “referendum” disappearing from all the resolutions adopted by the Council. As can be seen in the growing acceptance of Morocco’s autonomy, this development has allowed the country to strengthen its position and make a negotiated political solution the only conceivable horizon for a settlement of the Sahara question.
While different analysts or observers may invoke different factors in making sense of this shift, what ultimately made it possible was Moroccan diplomacy’s ability to read the changes in the international political landscape and take advantage of them. Today, with the likes of United States, Spain, France having thrown their diplomatic weight behind Morocco’s sovereignty on Western Sahara, the fruits of this discreet but effective Moroccan diplomacy are evident. Still more importantly, countries that were once impervious to, or dismissive of, Morocco’s charm offensive and diplomatic efforts, such as the Netherlands, Finland, and Denmark, have expressed their support for the Moroccan autonomy plan. And to top it all off, 29 countries have so far opened their consulates in the southern provinces.
Morocco is now considered an emerging regional power, that will play an important role in regional and global politics in the years to come. This is why countries with significant or relative weight on the international stage have had no choice but to support the Moroccan autonomy plan in order to protect their interests in the Sahel and Africa. Over the past two decades, it has become clear that there can be to realistic or feasible solution to the Sahara question outside of the framework proposed by Morocco. The majority of influential countries have thus understood that it is essential to go through this step to maintain good relations with Morocco. And Morocco, once again accurately reading the major powers’ perception of what it represents for their strategic interests, has been constructively assertive and at times intransigent in articulating its priorities and conditions to any ally or friend interested in strengthening bilateral cooperation.
As King Mohammed VI pointed out in his Friday’s speech, Morocco considers France’s recognition of its sovereignty over its southern provinces as a historic and decisive step towards ending this dispute. The hope, suggestion, and plan emerging from such a royal reassurance is that, as far as Morocco is concerned, a shift as consequential as France’s fundamentally means that Rabat should keep with its strategy of turning to bilateral diplomacy to resolve the Western Sahara conundrum. As such, even as it continues to play the diplomatic game of touting the UN-led political process, Morocco will push more resolutely forward with its domino effect diplomacy.
From its return to Africa in 2017 to stifle Algeria’s decades-long stranglehold on the continent’s Sahara agenda, to its embrace of strategic assertiveness with its Western “friends” and allies, Morocco seems to be moving forward with the certainty that comes with each major victory laying the groundwork for the next. It is only a matter of time before more influential countries in Europe, Africa and elsewhere finally come to terms with reality when it comes to the future of the Sahara in the years to come.
Perhaps more critically, at least as far as the African geopolitical chessboard is concerned, the ultimate culmination of this strategy would be the definitive expulsion of the Polisario Front from the African Union. If throughout the 1970s and 80s Morocco played and lost on Algeria’s turf – the diplomacy of public pronouncements and spectacular sloganeering – it is now working quietly behind the curtains to deny the Polisario any breathing space within the AU.
Rabat seems to have calculated that as more and more countries open their consulates in Dakhla or Laayoune, the Polisario and Algeria will have nowhere left to hide or conceal the fundamental futility or – the planned demise – of their separatist project. Although this strategic calculation is rather bold and hopeful, can anyone seriously doubt its chances of success, given the momentous pro-Moroccan paradigm shift that the Sahara issue has undergone in such a short time?
Source: Morocco word news
