By Hassan Alaoui
The time of historical revelations and legal documents resurfaces and as if by magic seems to regain the upper hand in this Moroccan Sahara affair, which undoubtedly constitutes the biggest heist of the century. Now that the French government is preparing to return the Archives of the arbitrary decolonization of the territories of eastern Morocco, plundered and entrusted to Algeria, is it not time to mobilize ourselves – archives and documents at the support – to claim the Eastern Moroccan Sahara, victim of occupation for sixty-four years?
Fabricated from scratch by the power of the former President of the Algerian Republic, Boumediene, the Sahara affair benefited in particular from conditions that the Marxists described as ” d’objectives “, in other words from the context of the Cold War, which opposed the two blocs of the time, Western on one side and Soviet on the other. It was also subverted by the literature and political catechism of the sixties in the light of the relative triumph of the socialist language on which Algeria and certain Third World states had happily surfed. So much so that, supported by the Soviet Union at the time, they believed they were investing and “ colonize » for good the framework of the United Nations, the General Assembly, the Security Council and the 4th Commission which became the scene of Algerian subterfuges, as well as other bodies.
We always keep in our memory this grotesque image of an Abdelaziz Bouteflika, decked out, intoxicated by his joke of “ youngest foreign minister » who paraded on the aisles of the UN, a Cohiba cigar in his mouth, fantasizing and quibbling endlessly on the themes of anti-colonialism, the liberation of peoples, the glorious and revolutionary Algeria… Except that on the subject of the Moroccan Sahara which Boumediene had just made the hobby horse of his rampant expansionism, he pitifully came up against someone stronger than him, a more eloquent and determined one, a certain Ahmed Taibi Benhima, brilliant and eloquent Minister of Foreign Affairs of Morocco. The 4th UN Commission was, reluctantly, transformed into an Algerian closed field, a sort of recording chamber for the maneuvers of Bouteflika and others, drowned in the propaganda of Algiers in the name of the Third World, nourished by the slogans of “liberation of peoples”, self-determination, etc.
Morocco raised the question of its Sahara in 1956
Neither the great powers nor from a stronger the United Nations had not paid attention to a decisive factor in this affair, that of the fact that Algeria did not exist as a constituted and recognized state before 1962. Nor was it initially a Turkish province. before becoming a French department in 1830…No more than Morocco, by gaining its independence in November 1955 and March 1956, had resolutely posed the question, both to France and Spain that to the United Nations, the recovery of its plundered territories of the Sahara which go from Lagouira – we will now say Guerguérate too – to the borders of the south-east, incorporating Tidikelt, Touat, Saoura, Gourara, Bechar and Tindouf…
The historical archives confiscated by France say so! All these territories of the central Sahara belong to Morocco jure and of factoconceded arbitrarily and unilaterally by colonial France to Algeria in 1962. Treaties and official documents bear witness to this. They had been torn from the Sherifian Kingdom of Morocco, without scruples, without signed agreements, without negotiations, but in violation of international law, with this fallacious invocation of “ accomplished fact “. They were incorporated into the major project that France had launched and implemented in 1957 of the OCRS (Common Organization of the Saharan Regions). The launch of this ambitious geoeconomic project had the first immediate consequence of wresting part of their territories from Morocco, Mali, Mauritania and Niger. In the footsteps of Xavier Coppolani, and the spirit of the brilliant French strategists, accustomed at the time to working on maps with a pencil and a scissor in hand, this project was to end up constituting in fine an immense autonomous territory or even a tiny state dedicated to providing France with oil, gas, iron and steel, all strategic resources at the time.
Nibbled territories, “ puffs » to the right and left of this immense desert space, France intended to create there, according to a suggestion from Alain Peyrefitte – then Minister of the Interior – an independent State, Morocco being first reduced in its geographical depth and the Algeria inheriting a territory that has become disproportionately “ swollen “. France’s responsibility is obviously heavy. And sixty years later, the consequences of its leonine sharing policy – to the detriment of the Kingdom of Morocco – do not attenuate it in any way. The colonial archives buried in the Historic Center of the French Ministry of Defense in Vincennes, as in Paris and Nantes dedicated to its presence of more than 43 years in Morocco, would quickly testify to the absolute injustice that was done to our country. In other words, the arbitrary partition was ratified with as much impunity as could be a violation by a strong State – France – against a weakened country, the Kingdom of Morocco, fragmented at the Algeciras Conference in 1906 by the imperialisms of all countries. kinds, then object of aggressions committed by the powers, Spain to the north and south, France in the middle and on the coast…
Never until then, in fact, had the territorial integrity of the Shereefian Kingdom been called into question. And Algeria, a stronghold remote to the west of the Ottoman Empire, colonized by France in 1830, did not exist as a State, except in the form of a French department with a people that Morocco, founding its unitary hopes in its future emancipation, will support and support in its struggle from 1956.
Las !
The seeds of Algerian betrayal
Did the seeds of Algerian betrayal towards Morocco already exist in the minds of future Algerian leaders? Many of them made the trip to Rabat, to obtain help, in money and arms, from the Kings of Morocco, in this case Mohammed V and Hassan II. They all took an oath of fraternity towards our country and its institutions. It has been said, here and there, that those who formed what is called ” the Oujda clan », among others Boumediene and Bouteflika who had a storefront there, ultimately revealed themselves to be the most obsessively anti-Moroccan in the aftermath of independence… Both of them quite simply buried the gratitude and brotherhood of the people of Morocco, as also this solemn declaration of July 1961 signed by Farhat Abbas, president of the GRPA in Rabat with King Hassan II, and clearly recognizing the international borders of Morocco…
A founding member of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in 1961, Morocco immediately rejected the sinister theory of “ l’utili possess » or « of intangibility of borders inherited from colonialism » that the residues of colonial literature intended to perpetuate. Because, Morocco, upon gaining independence in 1956, had also forcefully demanded the completion of its territorial integrity, then submitted a request to the United Nations to claim automatically its southern territory occupied since 1934 by Spain, as it will do again in 1962-63 and will defend tooth and nail the principle of decolonization before the famous 4th United Nations Commission, harassed and later transformed into ” preserve » by Algeria. However, since the creation of the Organization of African Unity in 1963, Morocco has continued to reject the clause on the intangibility of borders inherited from colonialism. The global legal community echoed this. This is evidenced by the text that Maurice Flory, professor of law and political science at the University of Aix-en-Provence, at the time a relevant observer of the Sahara issue, wrote: “ The territory, he wroteis a source of dispute. The appearance of new States resulting from decolonization could only multiply the difficulties due to the most often artificial nature of colonial borders. Also one of the first initiatives of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) was the vote on a recommendation intended to freeze the situation as it results from the colonial division in order to avoid a surrender in widespread concern which would have been the source of a gigantic and inexhaustible dispute
“It would have been too good to believe that a recommendation could resolve such a complex problem. The Western Sahara affair is an illustration of this ». .(Cf. Maurice Flory: “The Opinion of the International Court of Justice on Western Sahara, October 16, 1975)
This testimony, which could not be more eloquent, is sufficient in itself. It joins and summarizes the position of the Kingdom of Morocco which, with supporting documents and evidence, strongly affirms that the Sahara has never been “ no man’s land » and, the opinion of the ICJ demonstrated, strong legal and historical links have always existed since the dawn of time with the Kingdom of Morocco. So much so that the currency of the territory was struck with the effigy of the King, the Friday prayers said in his name and the acts of allegiance regularly sworn to him. The governors and authorities of the Sahara came under the power of the King who appointed them, in Smara, Dakhla, Tindouf, and Bechar…
Boumediene or the mimicry of Bismarck
Nothing will change this course of tangible facts which are to the history of Morocco what breath is to life. They are consubstantial with its eternal memory, and the variable geometry colonization of Morocco by various imperialisms will only strengthen the nationalist feeling of its people. However, once France left Morocco after having dismembered and divided it to the point of caricature, after Franco’s Spain had also returned the Sahara under the pressure of the Green March by signing the Agreement on November 14, 1975. tripartite of Madrid, the ambitious Boukharrouba, alias Boumediene took himself for the Bismarck of the region, setting his sights on the borders of his neighbors, Morocco, Tunisia, Mauritania and even Libya shamelessly nibbling significant portions of their territories and, the height of arrogance, ogling the Moroccan Sahara…
The promises made to King Hassan II during the bilateral Summit in Ifrane in January 1969 on the borders, not only were never respected, but they were transmuted into declarations of war against a backdrop of Algerian cynicism that the aggression of the The ANP of January-February 1976 against Amgala was confirmed. The Ifrane Summit was therefore the first and undoubtedly the last of its kind to have addressed the subject of the borders of south-eastern Morocco between the two countries. These borders, which are only in name, constitute, in truth, the most revolting scandal in the history of the region in the 1960s. The demonstration is more than explicitly made that Algeria, from a colonized country, has become the “ colonial power » of the region, an ambitious power in the wake of the French and Spanish powers, it is their natural heir, because it never stops implementing the most abject and perverse expansionism.
We must now ask ourselves whether, as a categorical imperative, there is no need for Morocco to set out the terms of a serious and enforceable claim against Algeria for the plundered territories which are, among others, Touat, Tidikelt, Gourara, Saoura, Bechar and Tindouf whose proof of their historical belonging to Morocco is more than tangible and obvious? Now that in the name of “memorial law”, Macron’s France is preparing to hand over its colonial archives to Morocco, we should launch the ultimate battle of decolonization of the Eastern Saharan provinces, tear away these provinces illegally occupied by ‘Algeria.
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