This is why Algeria Evades Mediation with Morocco.
Algerian Moroccan relations went through a series of conflicts that erupted after Algeria’s independence and flared up with the outbreak of the conflict over the Sahara in the mid-seventies. This conflict was adopted by President Houari Boumediene and fueled by parties scrambling for wealth or the revolution’s gains.
Since its inception after independence in 1962, the Algerian regime has been trying to undermine Morocco as a regional power, using unfair methods of competition and imposing its hegemony on the Maghreb region.
The Algerian military also continued to view Morocco as a fierce competitor and classified it as a “classic enemy” and worked to plunge it into internal and external crises, primarily through the Sahara issue, which began as an artificial crisis and has now turned into a security threat to the Maghreb region and Europe.
The current crisis is one-sided, sparked by the Algerian regime after receiving painful blows from a rising Algerian street. This regime needed re-tightening its grip on all institutions and dismantle the Algerian people’s uprising (The Hirak) by all means.
The sudden stop of the demonstrations during the pandemic became an ideal opportunity for the Algerian regime to brutally crash the popular movement by pursuing activists and the leaders of social networks and fabricating charges tailored to a list of people and entities that it described as a terrorist, as well as exploiting its crisis with the Moroccan and using it as an external threat to pass his plans.
This scheme culminated in unilaterally severing diplomatic relations with Morocco, closing the airspace to Moroccan airlines, ending the gas agreement and the work of the Euro-Maghreb gas pipeline, and raising the pace of reckless media and propaganda escalation against Morocco.
The army mobilized its forces at the borders, and the Polisario canceled the ceasefire agreement at the behest of Chingeriha. Then the military regime began to drag the region towards a regional war through a dangerous escalation of the crisis.
Egypt, the League of Arab States, the United Arab Emirates, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia moved for mediation, and all of them were met with Algerian refusal, as follows:
１- The Algerian Foreign Minister refused, at a meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Cairo, chaired by the State of Kuwait, to include the crisis in the agenda.
２- Abdelmadjid Tebboune announces his rejection of any mediation between Algeria and Morocco.
３- Algerian diplomatic sources denied the request for mediation from the UAE and Saudi Arabia, despite its existence.
４- The Algerian Foreign Minister officially announced an absolute rejection of mediation “yesterday, today, and tomorrow,” as he said.
５- The failure of betting on a Maghreb reconciliation in an Arab summit that Algeria called the “Arab Reunion” summit.
６- Rejection of the hand extended by the King of Morocco, who called for dialogue and did not respond in kind to Algeria’s measures against his country.
７- The Algerian regime leveled grave and unsupported accusations against Morocco, including using the Pegasus spying program, support for a separatist movement, burning forests in the Kabili region, targeting two trucks in the desert, and so on.
So what are the reasons for Algeria’s rejection of all these mediations in its crisis with Morocco?
In my opinion, there are many reasons, including:
- The regime needs an external bogeyman due to its internal crises. Security reports warn of social tension and an upcoming revolution of the hungry. Some of them said that the circumstances of the popular revolution against the regime are more dangerous than in February 2019.
- The increasing Moroccan resolve in the Sahara issue, as Morocco has achieved outstanding diplomatic achievements, and the international community is gradually moving to support the autonomy proposal. Several countries hastened to recognize the Moroccanness of the Sahara, as about 27 consulates were opened in Dakhla and Laayoune.
Militarily, after securing the Guerguarat Cross point, the Polisario militia faced a nightmare of drones and other advanced weapons, turning what they claimed to be “liberated areas” into “forbidden areas,” as the residents of the Tindouf camps like to call them.
Economically, Morocco has embarked on huge investments by launching large projects, including the port of Dakhla, which will be a destination for competition between global economic powers.
For all these reasons, the Algerian military regime is determined to escalate its crisis with Morocco as an attempt to salvage what can be saved in the issue of Sahara, especially as the Security Council is moving towards supporting the autonomy proposal presented by Morocco in 2007 and supported by actors in the international community. And she came
As for the countries that proposed mediation, they demanded that Algeria provide evidence that incriminates Morocco; Algeria evaded it because all the evidence it had was only news sorties, which put it in great embarrassment in front of the Arab and international partners.
Even the correspondence that Ramtane Lamamra submitted to international bodies, such as the United Nations, the African Union Commission, the League of Arab States, and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, did not receive any attention because it lacked evidence proving the validity of the Algerian allegations.
The Algerian regime is unstable and suffers from internal conflicts, and the crisis with Morocco is being used to manage it, especially with the military establishment. All this corresponds to the near end of Tebboune’s presidential term.
Since the beginning of 2020, the Algerian Military regime has been fabricating external crises for internal reasons, such as its crisis with France and Spain and other crises that are still silent with several other countries, and this regime is not ready to end its crisis with Morocco before arranging its internal issues.
Finally, it is worth mentioning that the Algerian regime used Moroccan Israeli relations and traded in the Palestinian cause and hostility to Israel to win the sympathy of the Algerian street.
The Algerian regime does not have popular legitimacy. Its institutions, which are controlled by the military, are rejected by the masses, and demands for change have been escalating since 2019. For all this, the military will not accept any mediation with Morocco, considering the wrong conditions it is going through, which put it into isolation and no regional or international influence.
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Algeria – The Algerian Military – Morocco –
