Everyone Knows that Spain is not an Administering Power of Moroccan Sahara Except Algeria – Op-ed –
Moroccan writer and journalist Abdelhamid Jmahri underlined Wednesday that all parties know that Spain is not an administering power in the Moroccan Sahara except Algeria. ”Spain is not an administering power of the Moroccan Sahara, the United Nations knows it well, Spain too, the Sahrawis also except President Tebboune who refuses to admit it”, Jmahri pointed out in an op-ed published by Arab-speaking newspaper ”Al Atihad Al Ichtiraki”. It is clear that the Algerian President Abdelmajid Tebboune is fully convinced that he knows better than Spain its political situation and its international decisions and does not hesitate to give lessons in this regard and to organize press conferences to present its historical and moral arguments from a distance, the writer stressed. He also noted that ”the Algerian President persists and signs by claiming that he knows Spain better than the Spanish Prime Minister and King Felipe VI and his father Juan Carlos 1st as well as all the other Spanish officials, arrogating to himself the status of a scriptwriter who sets out the roles”. ”This President never ceases to rehash, while addressing his people and the whole world, obsolete data, even going so far as to distort the truth about the Spanish role in the issue of the Moroccan Sahara, adopting positions that no one today is defending and which are in their entirety premeditated lies,” he said, adding that the statement by the Algerian President saying that ”Algeria is an observer country in the Sahara issue” no longer convinces anyone, since the world is aware of the financial, diplomatic, political, military and even psychological efforts undertaken during fifty years by his country and its idle elite in its hostilities towards Morocco and in financing separatist projects in southern Morocco. The editorialist also noted that the statement by the Algerian President that ”the United Nations considers Spain to be the administering power in the region pending a settlement of the conflict” shows the historical short-sightedness of this President and his ignorance of geography, in addition to his deliberate distortion of the truth as it is recognized by the United Nations, Spain and also by the followers of this president in the camps of shame and mirage”. In this regard, Jmahri pointed out that the Algerian president confuses concepts in international law, not distinguishing between ”the former occupying power of the Sahara” and ”the administering power of the region” according to his definition, adding that the Algerian President refuses to admit that the “administering power” is a concept governed by international law and the principles of the United Nations and is in no way, as he thinks, subject to pathological impulses that he wants to set up into international truths”. Consequently, he said, the member countries responsible for the administration of certain so-called non-autonomous regions according to the United Nations Charter, are the countries which have the duty to ensure the promotion of prosperity and the development of the populations of the said regions, by providing them with the assistance necessary for their self-management and by taking into consideration the political expectations of the populations while informing the United Nations of developments in the situation in the region. This does not apply to the case of Spain in its relationship with the Moroccan Sahara, Jmahri noted. The writer recalled that Spain’s relations with the provinces of southern Morocco are governed by the Madrid Tripartite Agreement signed on November 14, 1975 establishing the end of Spain’s occupation as administering power of the said provinces. “That said, it is heartbreaking to note that the Algerian president seems unaware that Spain is no longer the administering power in the region and has been since 1976, after having officially declared its final withdrawal on February 28, 1976,” he noted, before wondering how a head of state who spends billions of dollars a year contesting the national cause of a neighboring country, ignores all this historical data. ”Is a president who misses no political or media opportunity to present his version of history that much ignorant or is there not a person capable of informing him and help him in deciphering the documents relating to this territory that he is trying to wrest from Morocco in the name of a ghostly Sahrawi republic?,” Jmahri said. On this subject, the journalist noted that “the last wall against which the Algerian president seeks to lean against is that of history. A story that ended in 1976 at the time of the not regretted Boumédiène that President Abdelmajid Tebboune venerates morning and evening and sets him up as an icon in the history of North Africa. “This weakened wall threatens ruin at every moment and with every proclamation of a truth,” Jmahri stressed. The writer underlined that ”if President Abdelmajid Tebboune does not know, the Spanish government, on the other hand, recognizes this truth, going so far as to recall twice the historical facts that the Algerian president and the separatists exploited via radical hares to submit them to the Spanish parliament”. He recalled that the Spanish Foreign Minister gave a masterful lesson in diplomacy and truths about the neighborhood on October 20, 2021 during his response at the parliament to a question from the deputy of the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), Aitor Esteban, clearly stating that ”Spain is no longer an administering power in the Sahara”. He added that the Spanish government gave the same version in February of that year in a written response to questions from the Ciudadanos party, indicating that Spain had that same month sent a letter to the United Nations ending its responsibilities in the Sahara. That being said, the editorialist said that the Algerian President, by insisting within the United Nations on Spain’s role as the administering power, eludes, because of his resentment, truths such as the fact that the name of Spain does not appear in any UN list relating to non-autonomous provinces in the eyes of the United Nations and also that this country does not provide data, reports or any other information to the United Nations authorities concerning this issue, in particular the Security Council , the General Assembly or the General Secretariat of the United Nations, in accordance with the concept of civil power defined by international law and contained in United Nations documents. The Algerian president also seems unaware that Spain has no existence on Moroccan territory and does not provide any assistance to local populations in the management of their day-to-day affairs or in favor of their political expectations, Jmahri pointed out, adding he notes before to conclude that ”this insight is not a lesson in literacy in international law but rather a simple reminder for those who love the truth.”