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This year, Algeria has acquired sophisticated armaments, namely 38 antiaircraft systems Pantsir, purchased from Russia. The announcement has been made by the Russian press agency Interfax, which specifies that the amount of the contract is $ 500 million. Ultra-sophisticated systems acquired only by Syria and the United Arab Emirates up to now. But if it is conceivable that these two countries get equipped with such armaments because of the extreme tensions prevailing in the Middle-East, this is less understandable for Algeria case. What is this alarming threat pushing the Algerian military intelligence regime to undertake these crazy expenses?
Armaments added to a set of advanced gadgets that the Algerian military officials do not hesitate to order from the Russian plants at billions of dollars. Algeria has thus become one of the most armed countries in the world, even according to the SIPRI, Peace Research Institute, based in Stockholm.

SIPRI, the Research Institute for Peace, based in Stockholm, has just published a report on the world arms trade, in which it points at armaments race in which are indulged, with billions of dollars, countries that have yet major development needs. The report mentions Algeria, which is placed henceforth in the Top 10 of the biggest arms purchasers in the world. (See Russian arms purchased by Algeria).
Algeria has thus been classified as the 9th biggest arms importer in the world during the 2005-2009-period and the 2nd on the Arab level after the United Arab Emirates. In Africa, Algeria has monopolized by itself 43% of the Continent imports, followed by South Africa (18%).
This armaments race is less comprehensible, explains the SIPRI, as it concerns countries where funds devoted to arms acquisitions would have been better served to development programs to improve people’s precarious life conditions.

The recent summit, held in Grenada, between the European Union and Morocco has indeed shaken the Polisario officials and their Algerian advisors. The excitement of Algiers accomplices to try to torpedo this unprecedented summit reflects the utter disarray getting hold of the Polisario and the Algerian military intelligence system. Offended by their unsuccessful schemes, Algiers and its Polisario auxiliaries are trying now to use the human rights card. They try to make believe via propaganda that the Southern provinces of Morocco are put to fire and sword. The media compete, upon order, using propaganda to validate an imaginary repression of the Moroccan security forces.
But in fact, behind all this excitement, it is not only the EU-Morocco summit, the first of its kind between Europe and a South neighbour, which annoys Algiers and the Polisario.

In its audition before the Foreign Affairs, National Defence and Islamic Affairs Committee pertaining to the First Chamber of the Moroccan Parliament, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation presented a comprehensive oral exposé on the evolution of the last informal negotiations of Armonk City, near New York, in the USA and denounced the permanent stand of the opposing party, with nothing new and bringing no alternative project, despite the allegations of the Polisario and Algerian propaganda.
The Minister reminded of the fundamentals of the Moroccan approach, characterized with rigorous conception and opened implementation, based on the international law, in the management of territory conflicts, and also on the legitimate aspiration of the concerned people- those living in the Southern provinces or those sequestered in Tindouf camps – to be able to get self-autonomy as part of the Unifier Nation and to enjoy the exclusive management of its own affairs. This is what the Moroccan internal autonomy project of the Moroccan Sahara region guarantees, beyond all expectations and according to all the applicable international standards.

The Moroccan autonomy initiative for the Moroccan Sahara is undoubtedly the « most precious and plausible » solution to solve the Sahara issue, consider the Spanish NGO officials, namely Yusuf Fernandez, the Secretary General of the Spanish Muslim Federation (FME) and Yonaida Selam, President of the cultural and social association Intercultura.
In fact, after the failure of the self-determination referendum option, given up by the United Nations, for its inapplicability on field, the Moroccan internal autonomy proposal for the Sahara has inevitably become the most credible and the most realistic option, as it meets the two disputing parties’ expectations: Moroccan Sovereignty over the territory and the autonomy of people living there or those who are excluded, as they are sequestered in Tindouf camps, in Algeria. It also creates a real dynamics in the negotiation process, initiated by the United Nations and the Security Council, under the patronage of the UN Secretary General and his personal Envoy to the Region.
Yet, one should notice the lack of progress of the formal and informal negotiation rounds, confirmed, once more, by Armonk talks, as the other party practices obstruction and politician bidding. “The Polisario, underlines Yusuf Fernandez of the FME, has made no attempt to move the stands closer and it still persists in its fiction of a Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) in Tindouf camps, in the Algerian territory, while benefiting from Algeria’s support” and from the international aid granted by the international community to the sequestered people of Tindouf. By doing so, it is about to loose, slowly but certainly, the diplomatic support of an increasing number of countries who withdraw their recognition of the SADR and the Polisario as well.