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Al-Ahram Weekly 27 May - 2 June 1999 Issue No. 431 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 27 May - 2 June 1999 Issue No. 431
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Living Features Travel Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Maghreb neighbours show reconciliatory spirit
By Dalal Abu GhazalehMorocco and Algeria, estranged for years by regional rivalry and the long-running dispute over the Western Sahara are taking cautious steps towards reconciliation. They are encouraged by Arab and Western friends, but many diplomats and analysts in both countries say the two North African neighbours are brought together by a common enemy -- severe economic hardship marked by rising unemployment and the challenges posed by the creation of a free trade zone for 2010.
Plans to convene the first summit meeting of leaders of the five-nation Arab Maghreb Union (AMU) in five years were threatened by a remark made last week by newly-elected Algerian President Abdel-Aziz Bouteflika in which he supported "total independence" for the Polisario Front in the Western Sahara. But officials from both Algeria and Morocco quickly sought to play down the remark saying it appeared to have been misreported and that the Algerian presidency had merely reaffirmed a long-standing position in support of self-determination for the Sahara people.
Some Rabat-based diplomats have said the remark, made in a letter by Bouteflika to the Polisario Secretary-General Mohamed Abdel-Aziz, was likely to anger Morocco, which controls most of the Western Sahara, a phosphate-rich former Spanish colony. They speculated that the comment might torpedo plans for the proposed Maghreb summit due to be held in November in Algiers, following a meeting of AMU foreign ministers.
The official Algerian Press Service (APS) quoted Bouteflika as telling Abdel-Aziz in the letter: "I want to reaffirm the Algerian position and unfailing support of this country for the just cause of the brotherly Sahrawi people in their struggle for self-determination and total independence in conformity with United Nations resolutions and the Houston Accords."
The 1991 Houston Agreement, brokered by UN special envoy and former US Secretary of State James Baker, ended a 15-year-old guerrilla war between the Polisario Front and Moroccan troops. It called for a referendum on the future of the territory the following year. The poll has been delayed several times since then and is now set for July 2000 at the earliest.
Moroccan officials, who still insist that the referendum will prove that the "Sahara is Moroccan", said the words "total independence" had never been used in Polisario's official statements, which according to them quoted Bouteflika as saying he wanted the referendum to be conducted in "full independence and transparency". They also noted that Algerian state media had not presented the statement as if it were a departure from the government's usual position.
"We tend to believe the Polisario version of the matter," a senior Moroccan official told Al-Ahram Weekly. "This explains why we opted not to respond. We will continue in our effort to encourage the positive atmosphere now growing in the region," he added. Many Moroccan papers still refer to what they described as a very cordial message from Bouteflika to King Hassan II in which he pledged cooperation to improve relations without mentioning the thorny issue of Western Sahara that has been a cause of friction in the past.
The Moroccan monarch, who had asked for a freeze of the Maghreb Union's activities in 1995, has responded by appointing a junior minister to be in charge of AMU affairs. The minister took part in a meeting of AMU representatives that ended in Algiers last week, with an agreement to hold a summit to revive the long-dormant AMU. The Union, set up in 1989 by Algeria, Morocco, Tunis, Libya and Mauritania, is an economic and political grouping of the region's 75 million people.
Some Moroccan officials and analysts still believe that the 1,200km land border between the two countries will be reopened soon. Algeria angrily closed the crossing point when Rabat imposed visa requirements on Algerians wishing to visit Morocco. The move followed the 1994 attack on a hotel in Marrakech in which two Spanish tourists were killed at the hands of alleged Islamist militants of Algerian origin. Algiers vehemently denied Rabat's charges that they had been sent by Algerian intelligence.
"How could we export terrorism while our own house is on fire?" said an Algerian diplomat in reference to the seven-year-old civil war between Islamist militants and the army-led authorities in which more than 70,000 people have been killed.
The closing of the border has badly damaged the Moroccan economy, depriving it of up to two billion US dollars in cross-border trade and tourism by an estimated 1.5 million Algerians who flocked through the border towns annually. Many of these border towns such as Oujda, where Bouteflika himself was born 62 years ago, have been devastated by the closure with many businessmen going bankrupt after abysmal returns on investment in hotels, shops and small trading enterprises.
Algerian officials insist that the impact was less severe in their country. However, many economists believe that reviving traffic along the long border would create tens of thousands of jobs in both countries where the rate of unemployment is nearing 20 per cent in Morocco and as high as 30 per cent in Algeria.
During his one-man election campaign, which was boycotted by his six rival opposition leaders, Bouteflika said he had mixed feelings about the border. "We know that the border has been used by some for drug trafficking and smuggling but many are suffering and we feel for them."
Many feel that the climate for reopening the border will become more favourable in the months before the November AMU summit. "It is not a question of whether Algeria will reopen the borders, but when," one Moroccan official said with mixed feelings of optimism and confidence.
Algerian diplomats who last week hosted a rare dinner reception for Moroccan journalists at the residence of their ambassador in Rabat appeared keen to give a positive message, stressing reconciliation and declining to discuss the issue that has for years poisoned relations between the two neighbours. "We have so many things in common: we feel we should stress these positive aspects. The border issue will be resolved with time," one senior diplomat said.
"Secondly, our differences on the Sahara do not prevent us from building for the future. Remember, we forged the AMU union at the height of the dispute and before the [1991] cease-fire," he added.
