Morocco says mutual trust with Spain is broken

7 June 2021 / 0 Comments

After leaving Spanish territory early Wednesday morning as clandestinely as when he arrived from Algeria - in complicity with the Spanish government - the leader of a separatist militia, Brahim Ghali, is being investigated for having entered this country in mid-April with a false identity and false documents.
The incident occurred two days after another magistrate refused to impose precautionary measures against Ghali on charges of murder, torture and rape of Spanish and Sahrawi citizens. This decision by the Spanish judiciary allowed the leader of the Polisario Front, an ally of Iran and Hezbollah, to return to Algeria.
The official Moroccan press described the proceedings as a "parody of justice. “It was an expeditious hearing for charges worthy of the Nuremberg trial, without any attention to the victims either on the part of the public prosecutor or the national court judge,” wrote the Map news agency.
Ghali, 76, was transported on April 18 in an Algerian regime plane to the military air base in Zaragoza, northern Spain. He was taken by ambulance to a nearby public hospital, where he arrived in serious condition, suffering from Covid and complications from cancer of the digestive system.
His assistants registered him under the name Mohamed Benbatouche, although in two medical files he is registered as Mohamed Abdellah so as not to be identified. Faced with these facts, the magistrate José Carlos Orga, from La Rioja, sees evidence of "the possible existence of a crime of falsification of a public or commercial document". His objective is to clarify the facts and determine the competent body for a possible prosecution.
Images of a enfeebled Ghali, after more than two months of hospitalization, lying on a bed and connected to an oxygen supplier at the military hospital of Ain El Naadja in Algiers, where he is to continue his long recovery, were broadcast by Algerian television as he was receiving a visit from the head of the military regime in that country, Abdelmadjid Tebboune.
Morocco had anticipated that the return of the separatist leader to Algeria would not solve the core problem, namely the Sahara issue.
The "intentional, fraudulent and hidden" reception Ghali received from the government in Madrid has led Morocco to declare that mutual trust between the two nations is broken because of all that the conflict implies for the Sahara, which for nearly five decades the Polisario separatists, puppets of Algerian hegemonic interests, have been trying to take away.
"The background of the crisis - Rabat stressed - is a matter of hostile ulterior motives of Spain towards the Sahara, a sacred cause of all Moroccan people".
The Ghali affair has clouded relations to the point that Rabat has threatened to sever diplomatic relations with Madrid. Both the Moroccan Foreign Minister, Nasser Bourita, and the ambassador to Madrid, Karima Benyaich, who has been in Rabat for consultations since last week, have stressed that Ghali's departure from Spanish territory would only worsen the situation, with serious consequences that could lead to a rupture.
The Spanish government has been very clear from the beginning: the crisis with Morocco will last for a long time, since the basic problem is the Spanish position toward the Moroccan Sahara.
The Ministry of Defense and the National Intelligence Center warned Spanish President Pedro Sanchez and the ministries of foreign affairs, interior and transport, about Morocco's reactions and suggested they warn Rabat before granting Ghali asylum. The Spanish opposition is calling for the immediate resignation of Foreign Minister Arancha Gonzalez for her "infamous" diplomatic handling and the "obscurantism" of Ghali's entry and exit from Spain.
Everything changed when the United States recognized Morocco's sovereignty over the Sahara last December. Moroccan diplomacy hoped that the major European Union countries would move closer to Washington's position, not that these steps would be hindered like Germany - in the case of Italy and Portugal - or that Spain would show open hostility to Rabat's sovereign aims.
In March, Morocco suspended its relations with Germany, and a month later, it entered into conflict with Spain over the clandestine hospitalization of Ghali. In recent days, Madrid has tried to ease the crisis with Morocco, seeking a solution to the conflict. Germany has signaled to Rabat its desire to restore relations, inviting it to participate in an international conference on Libya at the end of the month.
Morocco has not entered the path of appeasement and maintains the latent threat of expelling the Spanish ambassador to Rabat and minimizing cooperation with Madrid on issues of drug trafficking, terrorism and immigration.
African Lion 2021
However, Moroccan outrage was assuaged by the African Lion 2021 military exercises, which became a statement of strength by King Mohammed VI with the unequivocal support of the new Biden administration.
According to specialized media, this is one of the largest combined exercises in the world and consolidates the presence of the United States in North Africa to ensure security against the risks of jihadist groups operating in Algeria and southern Mauritania.
The military exercises, which will take place June 7-18 between Morocco, Senegal and Tunisia at a cost of $28 million funded primarily by the United States, will be supported by 67 military aircrafts, more than 100 armored vehicles and two ships. The aircraft will include four B-52H strategic bombers from Louisiana Air Force Base.
The bulk of the 8,000 troops come from Morocco and the United States, but there will also be contingents from Brazil, Canada, the Netherlands, Italy, the United Kingdom, Senegal and Tunisia. Twenty-one other nations, including Côte d'Ivoire, Denmark, Egypt, Kenya, Libya, Malta, Norway and Portugal, will participate as observers.
Half the world will be in the African Lion 21, except Spain. "The Spanish-Moroccan crisis is the latest proof of Rabat's strength in the world and Spain's downfall. If Morocco is more important than Spain in the world, it is because it has been able to negotiate better in the last decades the compensations for its support to the United States", said the newspaper La Razón.
Last October, Rabat and Washington signed the "Roadmap for U.S.-Morocco Defense Cooperation for the Decade 2020-2030”. In March, the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower visited the region as part of U.S.-Moroccan naval and air maneuvers, demonstrating Rabat's key role as Washington's main ally in North Africa.
A spokesman for U.S. Africa Central Command confirmed that the exercises in Morocco will extend "from the Kenitra air base in the north to the Tan Tan and Greïer el Bouhi training areas in the south”.