DO NOT BE NAIVE

The President of the spanish
Government will travel to Rabat tomorrow, Thursday, to respond to the personal invitation of King Mohamed VI, whom he will accompany in the act of breaking the fast as it is the month of Ramadan.

That Pedro Sánchez is invited during the holy month of Muslims is a gesture of great importance, given that he is a personality not governed by Islamic laws. The gesture of the monarch is, of all evidence, very significant.

Sánchez's letter to Mohamed VI in which he supports for the first time Morocco's proposal for autonomy for Western Sahara, described as "would be, credible and realistic" has opened a new phase in the oscillating history between the two countries.

Sánchez's unilateral decision would have had greater democratic overtones if he had been subject to debate in Congress. Sánchez did not do it and was left alone with his party to defend the historic change.

It is convenient, however, to break down the text of the same and the subsequent declarations of the Spanish president. According to this, the two governments are compelled to respect the territorial integrity of both, which means that Morocco will respect the Spanish nature of Ceuta and Melilla and even open their respective borders.

But let's not be naive. In none of the statements made by Rabat is it admitted that this is going to happen. Morocco is not going to sign any document that attests to this, and in terms of verbal expressions, if they are made, they will be immediately denied.

I remember having several conversations with the Italian historian, Attilio Gaudio, (our offices were neighbors in Algiers). Attilio, great knowledge of the Sahara, recalled that King Hassan II ordered the Green March “because it was the challenge that he had to take on with all the consequences, even knowing that the Saharawis would not participate in such a movement. His preference was to negotiate the transfer of sovereignty with Spain”.

The territorial policy of the Kingdom was defined by the declarations made at the end of the forties by the nationalist party Al Istiqal, defending the idea of ​​a "Great Morocco" whose southern borders would reach Senegal, and those of the latter would include the two Spanish autonomous cities and the so-called insular prisons. They would also include the Algerian region of Tindouf, Mauritania and a part of Mali.

And this is not going to change at all, no matter how much Sánchez and his foreign minister affirm the contrary. The Great Morocco is a concept started in the fifties, which remains active.

Greater Morocco is a political objective that King Mohamed VI carried in his arms and whose charter was established by the nationalist Allal El Fassi (Istiqlal). These are facts that the current Morocco considers accomplished and without the object of litigation.

Ceuta and Melilla will continue to be claimed as unquestioned Moroccan territory (c'est un fait accompli).

Rabat understands that the historical relations with the nomadic Saharawi tribes entailed, with the agreement of the latter, remaining under the protection of the Kingdom. Protection and Pleitesy were not considered by the International Court of Justice as "proof of ownership" in the opinion established on October 16, 1976.

The Court considered that at the time of the colonization of the territory by Spain, it was not "a terra nullis", although it then underlined that "the existence of no bond of territorial sovereignty has not been established between the territory of Western Sahara, of a part, and the Kingdom of Morocco or Mauritania, on the other”.

It remains, therefore, that the best solution to resolve the conflict is the one that the United Nations has been proposing: a negotiation between the two parties that includes the right of the indigenous population to decide on their future”.