October, the month when the Kingdom of Morocco saw its illusions concerning Western Sahara shattered!

ALGIERS- Morocco has long broken our ears with the thesis of the closed file when it comes to Western Sahara, claiming or deluding itself to have achieved all its objectives and aims to convince the international community to accept the policy of fait accompli colonial.

However, and just yesterday, the King of Morocco devoted the entirety of his speech, delivered on the occasion of the opening of the autumn session of Parliament, to the question of Western Sahara, he who was not in the habit of mentioning this file precisely on this occasion generally devoted to the examination of internal files relating to the daily life of the oppressed Moroccan people. So what happened for the Moroccan sovereign to deviate from tradition by devoting the entirety of the royal speech to Parliament to the question of Western Sahara?

What has just happened is unusual, it is even a very unprecedented event. The decisions adopted by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) are not an ephemeral event which will be forgotten after a few days or a few months, but they are a historic event which will have a before and an after: Before this historic event, Morocco’s frenzy or rather its fantasy of having succeeded in closing the Western Sahara issue and mobilizing the international support necessary to achieve its designs with the occupation of the territories of Western Sahara.

After this historic event, Morocco became aware of an obvious reality that all its maneuvers and attempts were only a storm in a glass and that they only threw dust into the hands of the eyes of Moroccans who have finally realized that the Sahara is not Moroccan as the Makhzen wants us to believe.

Indeed, the decisions of the CJEU affirm that Western Sahara is a distinct territory and separated from Moroccan territories, and that the Polisario Front is the only legitimate representative of the Sahrawi people.

Note that the fact that the highest European judicial body treats with such seriousness and rigor a question which was submitted to it, initially by the Polisario Front, is in itself a clear and direct recognition of the international legal status of this last, despite Morocco’s allegations and its recurring attempts to devalue the sole legal representative of the Sahrawi people.

As the CJEU affirmed, in this context, the Sahrawi people will remain masters of their territories and the natural wealth of which they abound, especially since the exploitation of these riches will remain void and illegitimate as long as the Sahrawi people do not will not have been consulted and that the opinion of its one and only representative, namely the Polisario Front, will not have been taken into account.

These same facts had already been confirmed by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) fifty years ago, in other words, things have not changed even one iota over the last five decades, despite all Morocco’s attempts and maneuvers aimed at consolidating its occupation of Western Sahara.

Fifty years later, the CJEU joins the ICJ on the same historical facts which have not been impacted by the long years that have passed and which are based on three pillars, namely: Western Sahara is occupied, Morocco has no sovereignty on this territory, and finally, this territory is inhabited by a people totally distinct from the Moroccan people.

These facts were a real thunderbolt that struck the Makhzen, which, to this day, does not know how to go about it. Following the declarations of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nasser Bourita, who tried to minimize the importance of these judgments by calling them a non-event and affirming that Morocco was hardly concerned, the King of Morocco now address to his people in a speech which sounds the alarm, calling on Moroccans to be vigilant in the face of a danger hovering over the Western Sahara issue.

The latter only manages to find comfort in the letter from President Macron, who recognized the supposed Moroccan sovereignty over the territories of Western Sahara, reproducing a similar scenario that recently took place, that of the Tweet of the former American president , Donald Trump, who had also recognized this same so-called sovereignty, a recognition which the new American administration quickly renounced.

Under the shock of the fallout from the CJEU rulings, Morocco wasted no time in touring all European countries, begging as best it could for support for its cause, it even tried to promote the declarations issued by many of these countries, interpreting them as it wishes as a categorical rejection of the judgments of the CJEU.

In fact, when we comb through these statements, we realize that it is impossible to put them all in the same basket, we must distinguish the position of the European Commission from those of France and Spain and from other European countries.

The European Commission took note of the three decisions, relying on the principle of “pacta sunt servanda”, while the press releases from France and Spain were consistent with their bias for Morocco. Statements from other European countries welcomed the Euro-Moroccan partnership without any explanation.

In this context, a well-informed source at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs told us that the ambassadors of these European states were all received at the ministry’s headquarters, where they were asked to provide explanations on the press releases issued by their countries. Most of them stressed that these press releases in no way signified their opposition to the Court’s decisions or their desire not to take them into account in the future, as the Moroccan Makhzen would have us believe, insisting on the fact that their countries are states governed by the rule of law and that they will respect the decisions of the European Court.

Some of these ambassadors even showed their astonishment at the content of the European Commission’s press release, a press release which made the principle of “pacta sunt servanda” prevail over the judgments pronounced by the highest European judicial body.

Morocco, Makhzen, Government and people, opened its eyes to an obvious reality that the Western Sahara file was not closed, while it continues to follow the successive international meetings on this issue, particularly during this month of October.

Alongside the decisions of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), there are also meetings of the Fourth Commission of the UN, devoted to examining the situation in the 17 territories concerned by decolonization, with a particular focus on Western Sahara, being the last colony in Africa.

After the Fourth Committee, the Security Council will also have its say on the Western Sahara file on October 16, when it will receive a briefing from the Personal Envoy of the UN Secretary-General, on its efforts to revive the political process for the settlement of the Sahrawi question. After the Security Council, the General Assembly will also examine the Western Sahara file in a next step. After all this, does Morocco dare to claim that the file is closed and that it has achieved all its goals and objectives?

Indeed, October is the month of Morocco’s awakening to the reality that it has long denied and tried to evade: The question of Western Sahara is still raised, and its settlement implies a serious commitment to direct negotiations with the legitimate and sole representative of the Sahrawi people, the Polisario Front, within the framework of the process sponsored by the United Nations.

APS