Morocco Board News
Written by Hassan Masiky
Washington- Morocco News Board–Would the results of last week’s local elections in Catalonia and the Scottish drive for independence hurt or benefit Morocco’s stand on the Western Sahara conflict? Morocco’s Foreign Minister Saad-Eddine Al-Othmani should be addressing this question to his staff. Further, is Rabat aware of the repercussions of such fluid events and the potential ramification of their outcomes on Morocco? Moreover, how would Rabat “exploit” these international events to move the Moroccan agenda?
If a major shortcoming of successive Moroccan Foreign Affairs Ministers continues to be their inability to capitalize on the failures of European independence movements to gain worldwide recognition, political upheavals in Scotland and Catalonia could offer the chief diplomat in Rabat a redeeming opportunity. As the United States and the EU stay cool to the idea of separatism in Europe, Mr. Al-Othmani should seize the moment and ask for a European Union (EU) official endorsement of Morocco’s stand on the Sahara conflict.
In such political environment, a genuine “democratization” of the Morocco Autonomy plan will shore up European support and rally more support form nations that have been neutral in the conflict.
Mr. Othmani should scrutinize the manners by which British Prime Minister David Cameron, who strongly opposes the United Kingdom’s split, and Spain’s Rajoy, who vowed to fight Catalan independence inspiration, would manage these domestic predicaments with international implications.
EU’s “rejection” of the idea of a referendum on Scottish independence and the world cool reception to the Catalans vote to back separatist parties come at an opportune time for the Moroccan diplomacy to sway the Europeans and the United Nations of the viability of Morocco’s Local Autonomy plan for the Western Sahara. For its part, the Moroccan powers that control the domestic decision-making process in the Southren Provinces, must revamp the Kingdom’s approach to local Saharan politics.
It is noteworthy to remind some European countries, including Sweden that opposes Morocco’s Local Autonomy Plan, that the president of the European Council believes that “the move for separatism is a thing of the past.”
If Mr. Van Rompuy claims “that nothing will be gained from breaking up the UK”, the question becomes what would the world achieve by creating a factious entity in the Western Sahara ruled by a former communist militia and sponsored by a foreign military junta.
Given the EU reservation about Scotland’s viability as an independent state, the United Nations should reassess the practicability of an independent Sahrawi entity in the Western Sahara. If Scotland with its democratic, political, security and infrastructure institutions cannot function, then the Algeria backed Polisario with no experience in governance is doomed to turning the Sahara into a failed state.
In Spain, the Catalan’s are having second thoughts about their plans for independence. Worried about the financial uncertainty their region will face in case of separation from Madrid, Catalonians refuse to back the ruling center-right nationalist party CiU push for a quick way to independence.
Recent developments in Scotland and Catalonia position Morocco’s Local Autonomy Plan as the only viable solution to the Sahara conflict, granted the Moroccan government undertakes a serious remaking of the official organism running the Saharan Provinces. From Interior Ministry officials to the King appointed council of Sahrawi notable, the Moroccan Monarch should order a “clean house” campaign that would open serious channels of communication with “the separatists of the interior” and promote capable Sahrawi Unionists to positions of responsibility.
More importantly, the Moroccan government must consider a larger autonomy powers for local Sahrawis and a favorable tax agreement to keep more of the Sahara revenues in the Southern Provinces. Revenues generated from local natural resources must go to a future local autonomy government in Laayoune.
As the EU stays weary of independence minded Basques in Spain, Flanders in Belgium and Northerners in Italy, Morocco must push for its Plan. Rabat should not let double standards derail its campaign for the Moroccan Sahara.
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