Guterres-Lamamra Talks: When APS Falls into Shameless Lies

The news story published by Algerian propaganda agency “APS” after the meeting of the UN Secretary General, António Guterres with the Algerian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ramtane Lamamra, Monday in New York, is a textbook case in the institutes and think tanks that dissect the Fake News and disinformation in the media arena. Shamelessly, nor with regard to ethics and the basics of journalism, the Algerian news agency has arrogated to itself the right to distort reality by imputing to the head of the United Nations remarks that he did not record in the official statement released on the same occasion by the office of his own spokesman and that neither the Secretary General nor the UN have ever held. While the “readout” of the UN Secretary General only mentions the issue of the Moroccan Sahara among the “regional issues” discussed during the interview alongside those of Libya and Mali, the APS, true to its sickly anti-Moroccan obsession, gives free rein to an imagination that borders on the ridiculous, by repeating the words of the Algerian foreign minister during his speech at the UN General Assembly. The agency in charge has pushed ridiculousness to the limit by putting these fictitious and fabricated statements in quotation marks to give them a simulacrum of seriousness and authenticity. A trampling of ethics that has no equal except in an agency subservient to a regime in distress. APS has certainly forgotten, or pretended to forget, that the fact that the issue of the Moroccan Sahara is mentioned during the meeting between Guterres and the Algerian minister is a normal thing, because Algeria is the main party to this regional dispute and that the political process is conducted under the exclusive auspices of the United Nations. The lies of the APS are not limited to the issue of the Moroccan Sahara, since they also concern the Palestinian question. While the UN spokesperson’s statement makes no mention or allusion to this issue, the Algerian disinformation agency refers to “Algeria’s efforts to consolidate Palestinian national unity and to resume the peace process in the Middle East through the revival of the Arab peace initiative. Another eloquent example of this “behavior” that disregards the rules of ethics is when the APS will usurp the function of spokesman for the UN Secretary General and “confirm” the participation of the latter in the next Summit of Arab States in Algiers. This is unprecedented in the world of the press and media. The propagandist imagination of the Algerian agency is not satisfied with this level of ridicule when it will evoke a “working session” with the head of the United Nations, while the office of the spokesman of the latter speaks only of a “meeting”. Fortunately, being ridiculous won’t kill anyone!