Would the erosion of the geostrategic axis Algiers-Tripoli settle the Sahara conflict ?
The explosion of the geostrategic axis Tripoli-Algiers with the fall of the Libyan regime of colonel Mouammar Kadhafi, predicts a change in the inter-Maghrebian reports. Many politicians and observers think that the ousting of colonel Kadhafi, the historical ally of the Algerian regime, would certainly have a positive impact on the ineluctable stabilization of the relations between the five Maghrebian countries, once the situation would be stabilized and Algeria gets out of its present isolation. Would the Western Sahara issue, which has for a long time aggravated these relations and paralyzed till today, the ambitious project of the Maghreb Arab union, find its peaceful solution within the frame of the bilateral relations’ normalization between Algiers and Rabat, believe the same observers. An opinion shared by Ali Belhaj, ex-number two of the Algerian Islamic Salvation Front (dissolved ISF).
For the latter, the Maghreb peoples’ advance towards unity finds itself reinforced after the fall of Mouammar Kadhafi’s regime, an event announcing a new data where “there would be no place for the separatist inclinations”.
“We declare to be in favour of the unification of the Arab Maghreb and the fair settlement of the Sahara issue”, has declared Belhaj to the daily Moroccan newspaper “Al Massae”, stating that his movement, which has still all his place in the Algerian political scene, is “against the creation of micro-states”.
What further corroborate this vision full of optimism, supports the former diplomate who was working in Algiers before retiring, is that the Algerian leaders are forced, under the pressure of their public opinion and their medias, to adapt themselves to the new geopolitical state of affairs taking place in the region. They should have reorganized their relationships with their neighbours and particularly with Morocco, by activating the reopening of the closed frontiers since 1994 and by getting seriously involved in the settlement of the Sahara conflict which constitutes the bone of contention between the two countries.
The number two of the dissolved ISF reminds in this context that the founders of the national movement in the Maghreb, were “first level unionists” and Algeria has declared its attachment just after the independence in November 1954, to the idea of a unified Maghreb Arab. Ali Belhaj has concluded that “if it is revealed today that a region in Morocco, Algeria or Tunisia undergoes some kind of prejudice, we should remedy to it by adopting a logic of justice and development, without reaching separation”.