Leaders of Algiers & Polisario Panicking as Oil Prices are Crashing

After the oil prices plunged dramatically on Monday in Asian markets, the leaders of Algeria, whose economy is heavily depending on hydrocarbon revenues and exports, are panicking.

According to local media reports, the panic, which started to engulf Algerian rulers, is also felt inside Polisario HQ, whose leaders fear the fallout of an oil crisis and its negative impacts on Algeria, their host country and main funding provider.

The Polisario Front has been able to survive during the last four decades thanks to the generous petrodollars of the Algerian regime and army, which supply weapons to the separatist militiamen, fund the polisario overseas representations and its propaganda campaigns, trumpeting the little humanitarian assistance donated, from time to time, to the thousands of Sahrawis sequestered in the Tindouf camps on Algerian soil.

The collapse of talks between OPEC countries and Russia on production cut as the coronavirus outbreak hit global demand and the decision of Saudi Arabia, the world top exporter, to slash selling prices, led to the biggest fall in crude prices since the 1991 Gulf war.

On Monday, oil prices plummeted by more than 30 pc in Asian stocks, while in European markets, the barrel trading price fell below 40 dollars, tumbling 20 pc.