Rabat, Nov 13 (EFE) .- One year after its military intervention on the Guerguerat border that joins Western Sahara and Mauritania, Morocco has increased its control over the “buffer zone” between both territories and has tried to ensure its functioning. of its commercial land connection with sub-Saharan Africa.
On November 13, 2020, the Moroccan Army entered, for the second time since the 1991 ceasefire with the Polisario Front, in the demilitarized strip of about 15 kilometers that runs between the Mauritania border crossing and the Sahara crossing, considered illegal by the Polisario as it is in a territory under dispute but de facto controlled by Morocco.
He did it to evict the Sahrawi militants who had been cutting off his road for several weeks, a strategic avenue in trade with the Sahel area. His action, which caused no casualties, caused the Polisario to break the ceasefire, as well as the beginning of an escalation of tension with Algeria that has reached levels never seen in decades.
The strip, established along the entire border of the Sahara with Mauritania and Algeria, and within which a wall built by Morocco runs in parallel, is considered by the Sahrawi independentists as part of their “liberated territories”, while the UN called “buffer zone” and Morocco assimilates it to its territory.
In Rabat, the action of the Sahrawis to block the route was interpreted as a maneuver by Algeria, which houses the Polisario in its territory adjacent to the Sahara – where the refugee camps are located -, according to Moroccan diplomatic sources who request anonymity.
“The obstruction of movement in Guerguerat was perceived as an Algerian action to besiege Morocco” and “sabotage” its control over the passage, they say, and they highlight the importance of this link between Europe and Africa.
And it is that a hundred truck drivers pass through Guerguerat daily to transport Moroccan goods such as fish, agricultural products and construction materials, to Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, among other countries.
They emphasize that Morocco’s reaction is part of the “increasingly daring” attitude of the Maghreb country in foreign policy, which has been growing in the last ten years.
The turn in Moroccan foreign policy occurs, according to sources, in the face of an Algeria with internal socio-economic and political problems that, he adds, increasingly has fewer allies at the continental and international level in its regional competitiveness with Morocco.
This country, they indicate, would have achieved several achievements thanks to the military intervention. The first, “not to lose a single meter” of the strategic border crossing.
Before the Guerguerat operation, the Polisario Front held political events, such as congresses and protest actions, in places located in that no-man’s-land, especially in the “cushion” strip between Algeria and the Sahara that runs from north to south.
Now the Polisario considers it a war zone and claims to launch attacks on Morocco from there, which it reflects in its daily “war reports”, of which only one has referred this year to the Guerguerat strip. Morocco has never recognized this attack and describes the others as “Sahrawi provocations” and not as military actions.
One day after the Moroccan operation, the Secretary General of the Polisario and Saharawi president, Bahim Ghali, considered the ceasefire signed with Morocco in 1991 broken, which caused skirmishes between the armed forces of the two parties.
And almost a month later, the then US president, Donald Trump, recognized Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara, which was considered in Rabat as one of the greatest achievements achieved by the country in its fight for the Moroccanness of this territory.
Since then, Moroccan diplomacy has hardened its international relations and entered into crisis with Germany and Spain, tensions that have this issue as a background.
In fact, in his last speech, King Mohamed VI made it clear that the Moroccan territory is “non-negotiable” and announced that he will not sign international agreements that do not cover it, in a clear message to the EU, whose court annulled the fishing and trade agreements with Morocco for encompassing the Sahara.
“We expect bolder and clearer positions from our partners,” he warned after praising the military operation in Guerguerat, after which the tension with the neighbor to the west has been “in crescendo.”
Algeria has closed its airspace to Morocco since this August and closed on October 31 the gas pipeline that connects it with Spain through Moroccan territory.
Just ten days ago, Algeria considered an “act of terrorism” the bombing, supposedly by Moroccan hands, of two Algerian trucks that occurred on November 1 precisely in the “buffer zone” between Mauritania and the Sahara, although far from Guerguerat, in the extreme northeast of the border between both territories. He also announced reprisals that have not yet materialized.
Mohamed Siali
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