Sahara: Tamek Criticizes US Silence on Separatists’ Actions that Undermine Peace in the Region

Rabat – Mohamed Salah Tamek, former Sheikh (tribal figure) in charge of identification, criticized the silence of the United States on the actions taken by the polisario and Algeria to jeopardize peace in the Sahara region. “How could it (United States) then remain silent regarding the actions taken by the polisario and Algeria to jeopardize peace in the region? How could it hold such an attitude after the Trump administration’s recognition of Morocco’s sovereignty over the Sahara?” Tamek wondered in a story published on the news website “Quid.ma” under the title “The last Security Council meeting and the disappointing position of the United States.” “It is high time that the United States admits its share of responsibility for the problems faced by Morocco regarding the Sahara conflict,” wrote the native of the Moroccan Sahara, in reaction to the semi-annual meeting of the United Nations Security Council on the Sahara that took place on Wednesday behind closed doors. The role played by the United States of America in the negotiations on the Sahara conflict during this meeting “has not been up to the mark as we would have logically and legitimately wished, especially that this great country has recently recognized with great courage and foresight the Moroccan Sahara,” he stressed. “We expected the United States would take a much more committed position that is better adapted to the new situation,” Tamek said. The United States “did not react in the required manner to the bellicose attitude of Algeria and the polisario. Nor did it react to the events they provoked in Guergarate, to the extremist attitude of Russia towards the American recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over the Sahara or to the blocking by the other parties of the appointment of a new Personal Envoy of the UN Secretary-General.” “It is therefore disappointing that instead of encouraging the resolution of the conflict, the United States seeks in fact to perpetuate it”, he deplored, recalling “the barely hidden bias,” in favor of the other parties, of former Personal Envoys of the UN Secretary-General – both U.S. citizens- “James Baker with his various sterile plans and Christopher Ross with his incessant delaying tactics,” Tamek observed. The author also mentioned the hospitalization in Spain, under a false identity, of the alleged president of the so-called Sahrawi Republic Brahim Ghali at the initiative of “two sovereign countries, Spain and Algeria, in an attempt to avoid him being prosecuted by his victims for crimes of rape and others, while recognizing at the same time that this so-called republic is only a fictitious entity sustained by the Algerian military junta. “It is nonetheless outrageous that a country as militarily powerful as the United States, which can detect the slightest suspicious activity by separatists in the region, would treat a rogue state like Algeria and its mercenary polisario protege — who are harassing their neighboring countries, namely Libya, Tunisia, Mali and Mauritania — on the same footing as a long-standing ally like Morocco,” Tamek concluded.