Maintaining close relations with Morocco has always been a constant in Spanish foreign policy. Even Franco understood it that way and maintained that position until his death. He ceded the Sidi-Ifni enclave to Rabat because it was not worth keeping.
But at the same time he established two red lines that Morocco religiously respected while the dictator was alive. One was the inviolability of the two autonomous Spanish cities, and the other that of the “Spanish” province of Western Sahara, whose inhabitants he provided with a regulatory DNI.
There is an anecdote confirmed by people who attended an interview between Franco and King Hasan II in El Pardo. The monarch asked him to cede Western Sahara to him, and in return Morocco would give him all its support "to defeat communism and Freemasonry". Franco looked at him with a stony gaze without moving a single muscle on his face, replying that he could not give him "what is mine." Hasan II did not raise the subject again.
But Hasan II had a foolproof "baraka" (in Arabic blessing and good luck). Thanks to her, as he would say later, he survived two coup attempts. The most serious one happened in August 1972 when the Minister of Defense of the time, General Mohamed Oufkir hatched a plot with the air force to shoot down the plane in which Hasan II was returning to Rabat from a stay in the French capital.
A squadron of F-5 "Northrop" intercepted the plane and two of the six fighters strafed the real plane, which continued to fly. The king (the baraka? ordered the pilot to inform the squadron that "the tyrant is dead and it is not necessary to continue strafing. Hasan II landed safe and sound, and Oufkir "committed suicide" according to the official version, on August 16 1972 at Skhirat Palace.
The "baraka" smiled at him again in 1975 when Franco was dying, organizing the so-called "green march" to reclaim Western Sahara. Hasan II knew that this time the Spanish government of Carlos Arias Navarro would yield, not in vain Rabat had a "fifth column" in Spain organized by Camilo Alonso Vega, before he died in 1971. His ties with Morocco were then well known .
Since the Madrid tripartite agreements, established between Spain, Morocco and Mauritania, the successive governments in Madrid have maintained that only the administration of the territory was ceded and not sovereignty. The socialists, however, have been coming and going, from a Felipe González who supported the armed struggle of the Polisario Front to a Pedro Sánchez who, by admitting the validity of the Rabat autonomous solution, de facto admits that the former colony belongs to Morocco. Sánchez thus aligns with the decision of the former president, Donald Trump, maintained by his successor, Joe Biden.
However, the facts are there. The United Nations considers Western Sahara a non-autonomous territory, attached to the decolonization commission, through a self-determination referendum controlled by a special mission (Minurso). The new UN emissary, Stafan de Mistura, also acts in this framework. At no time has the UN recognized the Moroccan nature of the colony.
This opens a new chapter in Madrid's relations with Rabat, but it remains to be seen what relations will be established with Algiers, the great supporter of the Polisario Front. And meanwhile, one of the parties of the current government coalition is forced to swallow another snake. Out of fidelity to their postulates, the UP ministers would teach a great lesson by resigning from their positions.
But at the same time he established two red lines that Morocco religiously respected while the dictator was alive. One was the inviolability of the two autonomous Spanish cities, and the other that of the “Spanish” province of Western Sahara, whose inhabitants he provided with a regulatory DNI.
There is an anecdote confirmed by people who attended an interview between Franco and King Hasan II in El Pardo. The monarch asked him to cede Western Sahara to him, and in return Morocco would give him all its support "to defeat communism and Freemasonry". Franco looked at him with a stony gaze without moving a single muscle on his face, replying that he could not give him "what is mine." Hasan II did not raise the subject again.
But Hasan II had a foolproof "baraka" (in Arabic blessing and good luck). Thanks to her, as he would say later, he survived two coup attempts. The most serious one happened in August 1972 when the Minister of Defense of the time, General Mohamed Oufkir hatched a plot with the air force to shoot down the plane in which Hasan II was returning to Rabat from a stay in the French capital.
A squadron of F-5 "Northrop" intercepted the plane and two of the six fighters strafed the real plane, which continued to fly. The king (the baraka? ordered the pilot to inform the squadron that "the tyrant is dead and it is not necessary to continue strafing. Hasan II landed safe and sound, and Oufkir "committed suicide" according to the official version, on August 16 1972 at Skhirat Palace.
The "baraka" smiled at him again in 1975 when Franco was dying, organizing the so-called "green march" to reclaim Western Sahara. Hasan II knew that this time the Spanish government of Carlos Arias Navarro would yield, not in vain Rabat had a "fifth column" in Spain organized by Camilo Alonso Vega, before he died in 1971. His ties with Morocco were then well known .
Since the Madrid tripartite agreements, established between Spain, Morocco and Mauritania, the successive governments in Madrid have maintained that only the administration of the territory was ceded and not sovereignty. The socialists, however, have been coming and going, from a Felipe González who supported the armed struggle of the Polisario Front to a Pedro Sánchez who, by admitting the validity of the Rabat autonomous solution, de facto admits that the former colony belongs to Morocco. Sánchez thus aligns with the decision of the former president, Donald Trump, maintained by his successor, Joe Biden.
However, the facts are there. The United Nations considers Western Sahara a non-autonomous territory, attached to the decolonization commission, through a self-determination referendum controlled by a special mission (Minurso). The new UN emissary, Stafan de Mistura, also acts in this framework. At no time has the UN recognized the Moroccan nature of the colony.
This opens a new chapter in Madrid's relations with Rabat, but it remains to be seen what relations will be established with Algiers, the great supporter of the Polisario Front. And meanwhile, one of the parties of the current government coalition is forced to swallow another snake. Out of fidelity to their postulates, the UP ministers would teach a great lesson by resigning from their positions.
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