Algeria, SADR and the African Union
Mustapha Sidi El Bachir, "minister" of the "occupied territories and the Saharawi diaspora" in the government of the self-proclaimed "Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR)", in a meeting with a dozen Saharawi Polisario activists and sympathizers in the French town of Mante-la-Jolie (France) on December 19, acknowledged that SADR does not constitute a state and that the very leadership of the Polisario, including Ghali, are not what they appear to be, but simple refugees. He stated emphatically:
"I am not a minister of the Occupied Territories, I am just a registered refugee in the Mahbes constituency. You have to be realistic and I am not going to lie, I am not a minister. Our Foreign Minister Ould Salek is in Algiers. Our Prime Minister Bouchrya Beyoun is not a head of government".
Quite frankly, in front of an incredulous audience, accustomed to hearing repetitive speeches and propaganda slogans far from the harsh reality, he added: "Brahim Ghali is also a refugee registered as Ghali Sid El Mustapha and not Brahim. The refugee agency does not consider him as president of a state or a high official. All Saharawis are refugees who live thanks to Algerian aid". Among the many pearls thrown to an astonished and astonished audience, he said: "We have been asking Algeria for 46 years for aid for water, gas, diesel and arms. We do not have the conditions of a state to live alone", highlighting, with melancholy, a sad and desperate conclusion: "We have to be realistic". "We don't know where to go".
The Polisario leadership, after two days of a resounding silence, denied in a communiqué the statements of the "minister", attributing them to manipulations and "a staged operation aimed at taking them out of their context and their original objectives". But the communiqué did not convince those who saw the images and heard the declarations of the "minister", especially when the communiqué does not publish the supposed original recording. But, at the same time, the Polisario immediately cancelled the tour of the "minister" in Europe, ordering his immediate return, and with his arrival in Algiers, nothing more was heard of his whereabouts. This is a bad omen and a serious storm at a delicate moment when the Polisario, like its progenitor and guardian, the military regime of Algeria, is going through a serious crisis which will mark the future of both. The declarations of Mustapha Sidi El Bachir have done nothing but rain on the rain.
The military regime of the generals in Algeria, which has been in power since independence, stands out for the high number of its generals who are "rabble-rousers" and for the internal struggle within the same caste. Currently, no less than forty generals are imprisoned in an operation of settling of scores between clans. At the same time, the protests of the Algerian people do not cease, questioning the legitimacy of a president imposed by the military, and because of the shortage of staple foods such as bread, potatoes and milk in an agricultural country with the largest surface area in Africa, where, in addition, there is a lack of gas exported in gas pipelines and a high number of unemployed who do not see as a solution to their helpless situation other than the adventure of emigrating in small boats. A situation to which the World Bank drew attention in its last report, and which was rejected with harsh criticism and paranoid accusations (1). Meanwhile, the octogenarian generals who refuse retirement spare no effort to repress the protests and any opposing voice.
The Polisario, a political-military organization engendered by the Algerian regime and in its image, is experiencing, for its part, and for years, continuous hemorrhages, with important militant figures leaving its ranks without ceasing. In April 2020, it registered the last and most serious departure, giving birth to the Saharawi Movement for Peace (MSP).
Mustapha Sidi El Bachir's statements are the last straw As a member of the "SADR Government" recognizing the farce of his republic and confirming that in reality it is not a state and that the members of his government are false ministers because they are mere refugees and that they all depend on Algeria for everything, from water to arms, he embarrasses the few countries (38 countries) which still recognize it and puts in a peculiar predicament the military who govern in Algeria.
The confessions of the "Minister of SADR" come to disprove the position of the Algerian military regime, which for decades has claimed that its actions in the Saharawi conflict, harbouring, feeding, financing and arming the political-military organisation and its self-proclaimed "SADR", is only the fruit of a pious solidarity of a philanthropic regime.
These confessions reinforce and justify Morocco's position, which has always considered that the real party to the conflict is Algeria, which hides behind the Polisario. For Morocco, the Algerian regime is the party with which it is necessary to negotiate in order to find a real, lasting and realistic solution.
In the same vein, the international community represented by the United Nations Security Council, in its last resolution R/2602 (2021), invited Morocco, Algeria, Mauritania and the Polisario to meet around a round table to find a realistic lasting solution. But the resolution was rejected by Algiers on the pretext that it is extraneous to the conflict and that it concerns only Morocco and the Polisario. It is thus predicted that the generals' regime will confront the Security Council.
The White House, for its part, also published on 27 December (2021) a briefing by a senior official of the Baidan administration to the press on the situation at the end of 2021, in which, in referring to the Saharawi conflict, he limited himself to mentioning Morocco and Algeria as parties to the conflict without mentioning the Polisario at any point.
SADR, which is not recognized by the UN, nor by the Arab League, nor by the Arab Maghreb Union, nor by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, nor by any European country, nor by any permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, is nevertheless an unusual member of the African Union. It is the only one where it appears as a member, when in February 1982 it managed to join the Organization of African Unity (OAU) thanks to the Algerian generals who mobilized Algerian diplomacy and misspent the petrodollars of the Algerian people on the trickery of that diplomacy. It was achieved when the OAU Secretary General Edem Kodjo announced the admission after the recognition of a simple majority of 26 countries, despite not having the characteristics of a State (a delimited territory, a stable population and a sovereign government), even, moreover, with the contradiction of still demanding a referendum of self-determination to proclaim independence. In July 2000, when the African Union (AU) was proclaimed to replace the OAU, the self-proclaimed SADR automatically became part of the new African institution.
Morocco, a founding member of the OAU in 1963, left the organisation in 1984 following SADR's accession. After 33 years of absence, it returned to the African Union on 30 January 2017 with an overwhelming majority of 39 of its 54 member countries voting in favour. Only 15 were opposed, led by Algeria and its "SADR", along with Zimbabwe and South Africa, which have been unsuccessfully obstructing the AU's progress, as they have become a minority group.
On the eve of Morocco's return to the African Union, several countries raised the anomalous and continued presence of SADR in the AU. For these countries, persisting in the violation of public international law, moreover on a continuous basis, seriously disturbs the return of an important African country such as Morocco, considered the fifth economic power in Africa and the second largest investor on the continent. It is a situation that constitutes an obstacle that would hinder Morocco's important and beneficial contribution to the development and progress of Africa in the future. To this end, 28 member countries of the AU requested the expulsion of SADR, but although this number represented a sufficient majority and higher than the 26 with which the self-proclaimed "republic" joined, the expulsion was not possible because the Constitutive Act of the African Union does not provide for the expulsion of a member. However, Article 32 of the Act, which refers to amendments and revision, provides that any member country may submit proposals for amendments or revision, to be adopted by consensus or by two-thirds of the members.
According to some sources, Morocco already has at present more than two-thirds of the votes to introduce an amendment by which this loophole can be remedied and closed so that only independent and sovereign states can be members of the AU, according to the UN criteria, and any member that does not meet these relevant characteristics will cease to belong to the African Union.
This anomalous presence of SADR within the AU, together with the recent declarations of Mustapha Sidi El Bachir that SADR is not a sovereign state and that they all depend on Algeria, if we add the scandalous case of Brahim Ghali in Spain, the expulsion of SADR from the AU becomes a case that requires extreme seriousness and celerity.
Indeed, Brahim Gali, who has several identities2 and different names, landed in Spain in April 2021 with an Algerian diplomatic passport under the false identity of Mohamed Benbetouch, while at the same time holding Spanish nationality and a DNI. His intention was to evade the Spanish justice system, which wanted him on charges of rape, genocide and terrorism. Once his true identity was discovered, he was forced to agree to submit to Spanish justice and accept the judicial interrogation, being supposedly "president of a state" member of the African Union, which should enjoy total immunity. But the sum of Gali's shameful actions and behaviour, typical of common criminals, mafiosi and international terrorists, far removed from the attitudes of a true head of state, seriously undermined the image and respect due to the heads of AU states and the sovereignty of the member states they represent.
The accession of the self-proclaimed "SADR" to the AU was a grave mistake and constitutes contempt for Africa on the part of those who favoured its accession. Recent events prove Morocco right, strengthen its position and make it all the more urgent for African countries to mobilise to act swiftly to put an end to this continuing violation of international law and to impose respect and credibility on the fifty-four African states and their respective peoples, who make up the continent of the future, numbering more than 1.3 billion.
REFERENCES
- Informe del Banco Mundial. https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/667961640162288726/pdf/Algeria-Economic-Monitor-Restoring-the-Algerian-Economy-after-the-Pandemic.pdf. Respuesta de la agencia oficial argelina acusando el informe de erróneo mediante el cual el Banco Mundial intenta desestabilizar Argelia. https://www.aps.dz/economie/133424-rapport-errone-de-la-banque-mondiale-une-tentative-de-destabilisation-de-l-algerie
- Dispone del NIE español bajo nombre de Brahim GHALI MOUSTAFA nacido / 16/08/1949 en Buera (Argelia), expedido el 07/12/1999 en Madrid, también es titular del DNI español bajo nombre de Gali SIDI-MOHAMED ABDELYELIL, nacido el 18/08/1948 en Smara (SAHARA), expedido en fecha 31/01/2006 en Madrid y renovación con fecha del 30/06/2016 en Talavera de la Reina (Toledo) y con un documento de identidad argelino bajo nombre de Mohamed Ben Battouch nacido en 1936 en Oran y con la falsa nacionalidad argelina