The preparatory meeting for the ninth edition of the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) is not the kind of meeting that usually attracts media attention. That was without taking into account the conflict between Morocco and Algeria over Western Sahara. On Saturday, August 24, a violent incident pitted Algerian and Moroccan diplomats against each other before making social media happy. The video shows a Moroccan representative jumping on a table to grab the sign bearing the inscription « Sahrawi Republic » filed by Lamine Baali, ambassador of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic to the African Union, of which it is a member. An Algerian diplomat then rushed towards his Moroccan counterpart, belted him and pinned him to the ground. Separated by intervenors, the two men continued to insult each other.
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The Sahrawi representative, representing the Polisario Front, considered by Morocco to be a “separatist movement without legal existence”, is said to have accessed the conference thanks to a diplomatic passport provided by Algeria. Host of the meeting which ended on Sunday 25 August, Japan had to point out that it did not recognise the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic – an offshoot of the Polisario Front in conflict with Morocco but supported by Algeria – and had not invited it.
This is not the first time that a Sahrawi delegation has sought to interfere in the Ticad. In 2017, in Mozambique, local authorities tried to impose the participation of the Polisario Front, which provoked an altercation with the Moroccan delegation. Rabat had also denounced “insidious maneuvers of the Mozambican authorities” to prevent him from participating in the meeting.
“Serious efforts from Morocco”
In 2022, during the eighth edition of Ticad, organized in Tunis, Tunisia unilaterally invited Brahim Ghali, the leader of the Polisario Front. Japan, co-organizer of the event, took it badly. Tokyo had recalled that Ticad “focuses on the development of Africa and that participation is limited to entities officially recognized by Japan and not subject to sanctions by the African Union”.
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Japan does not want to alienate Algeria, which sells it oil, or Morocco, where it buys fertilizers and where its companies invest. It supports the Moroccan plan for autonomy in Western Sahara, presented in 2007. During a meeting in September 2023 between the heads of Japanese and Moroccan diplomacy, the Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yoshimasa Hayashi, had welcomed “Morocco’s serious and credible efforts to advance the process towards a resolution of the issue” of Western Sahara. A position recalled in May by Yoko Kamikawa – who succeeded Mr. Hayashi – during the signing of a “memorandum of cooperation for a strengthened partnership” with Morocco.
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