Western Sahara: Morocco Creates Crises to Blackmail Countries

The devious methods used by Morocco in the last four years to pressurize to garner support from some of its partners for its fictitious proposal for so-called autonomy in Western Sahara, using a strategy of creating bilateral crises that will ultimately be resolved with the support of the alleged Moroccan sovereignty on Western Sahara, the Spanish newspaper Diario de Sevilla said.

An article published by the Spanish daily highlighted that there is no issue more important to the Kingdom of Morocco, whether internally or externally, than the issue of Western Sahara, explaining that all diplomatic moves undertaken by the Kingdom are subject to the issue, which is represented by attempts to “impose its alleged sovereignty on the territory that was a Spanish colony until 1976, and the United Nations still considers it a non-self-governing territory, awaiting decolonization.”

Today, the newspaper indicates that a large part of the public communications carried out by the Moroccan Ministry of Foreign Affairs seeks to find pressure methods to mobilize support, in one way or another, from various countries on the five continents to support its imaginary thesis in Western Sahara.

The newspaper reported that since 2007, the so-called “autonomy” proposal to end the long-term conflict has remained stagnant, especially since “the Polisario Front, recognized by the United Nations as the sole legitimate representative of the people of Western Sahara, rejects this proposal.”

The newspaper ruled out that there would be fundamental changes in the settlement of the Western Sahara issue, whether in the status of the region or on the ground, where tension prevails, not without intermittent exchanges of fire, after the Polisario Front announced on November 14, 2020, that the ceasefire in effect with Rabat since 1991 had come to an end. It was violated, and this happened 33 years after the two parties to the conflict (Morocco and the Polisario Front) agreed to a ceasefire, which resulted in the United Nations establishing a mission tasked with holding a referendum on self-determination in Western Sahara. Still, the Moroccan regime continues to abstract its implementation to this day.

According to the newspaper, after nearly half a century of conflict, Morocco has sought during the last four years to obtain support for its alleged sovereignty over the region, from some regimes, especially the United States and the Zionist entity, along with France and Spain.

Diario da Sevilla highlighted how Morocco was able to obtain this support to varying degrees, after waiting 15 years after it proposed this settlement, by using a single strategy with each country, which, according to the Spanish newspaper, consists of “creating bilateral crises to be resolved in the end with the support of the alleged Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara”.

On this basis, the newspaper explained, former US President Donald Trump announced uniquely, as the end of his term approached, that he recognized Morocco’s proposal, and in a barter deal, Trump demanded in return that Morocco normalize its relations with the Zionist entity.

Furthermore, the newspaper confirmed that Morocco was not satisfied with this recognition, raising the degree of its demands in November 2021 and calling on its partners to take “bolder and clearer” positions regarding the conflict in Western Sahara.

This is what happened with Spain, the Spanish newspaper confirmed that “less than five months after a fabricated diplomatic crisis, Madrid surrendered to Moroccan pressure, as Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez defended in a letter his fictitious autonomy proposal,” highlighting that the Sanchez government has never explained this decision for violating its traditional and historical position, which sparked opposition from the Spanish Parliament and condemnation from many political actors and civil society in this country, as they strongly demanded a correction.

The newspaper added that just a few weeks ago, French President Emmanuel Macron went further than Sanchez by affirming that the autonomy proposal presented by Rabat is “the only basis for a political, just, sustainable and negotiated solution,” explaining that “France is the former colonial power and Morocco’s economic partner that broke its balance and shifted in favour of Rabat.”

The newspaper observed that this diplomatic mobilization comes at a time when this conflict is still far from being resolved, in light of the absence of negotiations between its two parties and the major powers increasingly forgetting about it, explaining what Macron’s position hides in terms of economic motives and interests at the expense of international legitimacy.