Morocco: Western Sahara Kidnappings - Unpacking Country's Propaganda
The Moroccan plot related to the kidnapping of three European aid workers from Saharawi refugee camps on 22 October is now becoming more decipherable. Three news stories, surprisingly published by the French news agency, AFP, and some Arabic media outlets famous for supporting the Moroccan thesis in Western Sahara, were enough to give additional support to the analysis we developed in previous articles, in which we claimed the potential involvement of the Moroccan secret services, and possibly the French, in the ordeal of Aenoa, Enrico and Rosella.
The first news story we refer to was exclusively published by AFP on the eveningof 30 October under the title: 'Three Qaeda hostages seized last week alive: mediator'. The news agency reported the so-called statements of a mysterious 'mediator speaking on condition of anonymity', through whom the agency advocates the Moroccan propaganda that aims to associate the Polisario Front with terrorism.
This 'mediator' asserted that Al-Qaida was actually behind the kidnapping, yet, he alleged that 'ten unarmed AQIM militants had entered the Sahrawi refugee camp in Tindouf, western Algeria, where sympathisers of the Polisario Front gave them weapons and helped them seek out the hostages'. The aim of alleging that Al-Qaida has got accomplices in the camps is easy to understand if the reader has been following the development of Moroccan propaganda over the last few years.
The second important news story, again surprisingly published exclusively by AFP, says that 'Spain submits to Al-Qaida and extradites a Mauritanian family to Nouakchott'. AFP stressed that 'experts related the extradition of the Mauritanian family to Madrid's attempts to free its nationals kidnapped by Al-Qaida from the Tindouf camps'. It is well-known that the 'release' of this family has been one of Al-Qaida's conditions in previous negotiations with Spain to release other Spanish aid-workers kidnapped in Mauritania in 2009 before Spain paid the necessary ransom to free them, of course thanks to Moroccan and Malian mediations, and possibly French ones too. We all remember how the official Moroccan press agency, MAP, made use of that tragedy, pretending that the Mauritanian terrorist, 'Omar Sahraoui', was a member of Polisario, using the confusion that his second name, 'Sahraoui', causes. Of course, that Moroccan fiction didn't last long, because his real identity was revealed when Mauritania had to release him. But still the aim of the Moroccan propaganda is to create confusion, and mislead public opinion, and it usually succeeds thanks to its expertise in news distortion. What imports us in this news story is the fact that the Spanish government has already started negotiations with the abductors. We have already heard that the Spaniards started the negotiations on the second or third day after the kidnapping. The negotiations with the terrorists thus started as a 'coincidence', with Spanish Foreign Affairs Minister Trinedad Jimenez's visit to Morocco.
The last important news story that completes the picture was actually 'written' by a Moroccan journalist close to the Islamic movement in Morocco, Hassan El Achraf, who published a story on 31 October under the attractive title of: 'The dynamic of the Arabic spring: a Saharawi opposition coordination proposes itself as an alternative to Polisario'. This story was published by the Arabic pages of 'Alarabia' and 'Acharq Al Awsat', two media outlets famous for their alignment to the Moroccan thesis in Western Sahara. It was also published in some youth forums and blogs on the net, aiming to create confusion in the minds of young Saharawis and Arabs who are following the developments of the different Arab revolutions.
These three stories affirm the analysis we developed, like many other Saharawi and Spanish writers in different articles, in claiming that the terrorist attack against the Saharawi refugee camps aim to distort the image of the Polisario Front and prepare the needed ground for other future attacks against the Saharawis to disrupt the coming congress the liberation movement is preparing to organise in the liberated zone of Tifariti.
The aim is still to feed the two main ideas of Moroccan propaganda: to associate the Polisario Front with terrorism by creating confusion, as we explained above, using the international fashion of the so-called war against terrorism to violate the political rights of the Saharawi people and get Western support for Rabat's attempts to impose autonomy on the last colony in Africa.
The second target Rabat is aiming at is the question of the representivity of the Saharawi liberation movement of all Saharawi people. Morocco is trying to convince the UN and its allies that the Polisario Front is not the only representative of the Saharawi people. Rabat has helped some Saharawi renegades to create fake 'political movements', such as Khat Chahid, a certain Democratic Party (who counts only one adherent so far), and the recently declared 'coordination of opposition' that has been developed as an idea in the Moroccan media for the last two years. And again, we still believe that the coming days will reveal more details about the Moroccan plans and schemes against the coming congress of the Polisario Front. Morocco is able to commit more operations in the camps, such as inciting some of its agents or renegades to organise fake demonstrations in the refugee camps in support of Morocco's plan of autonomy. Rabat has already used the former Polisario policeman, Mustapha Salma. It is buying the services of more persons like him who are ready to sell their spirits to the devil in exchange for a few dollars more to act against their own people and the future of their homeland. But, it is a very small group of opportunists and like in all other experiences of liberation they are usually under the spotlight of the enemy, and are always presented as leaders and political actors as long as the coloniser needs them but once the peoples win the struggle, history leaves them behind in oblivion.
PAMBAZUKA, 10/11/2011
The first news story we refer to was exclusively published by AFP on the eveningof 30 October under the title: 'Three Qaeda hostages seized last week alive: mediator'. The news agency reported the so-called statements of a mysterious 'mediator speaking on condition of anonymity', through whom the agency advocates the Moroccan propaganda that aims to associate the Polisario Front with terrorism.
This 'mediator' asserted that Al-Qaida was actually behind the kidnapping, yet, he alleged that 'ten unarmed AQIM militants had entered the Sahrawi refugee camp in Tindouf, western Algeria, where sympathisers of the Polisario Front gave them weapons and helped them seek out the hostages'. The aim of alleging that Al-Qaida has got accomplices in the camps is easy to understand if the reader has been following the development of Moroccan propaganda over the last few years.
The second important news story, again surprisingly published exclusively by AFP, says that 'Spain submits to Al-Qaida and extradites a Mauritanian family to Nouakchott'. AFP stressed that 'experts related the extradition of the Mauritanian family to Madrid's attempts to free its nationals kidnapped by Al-Qaida from the Tindouf camps'. It is well-known that the 'release' of this family has been one of Al-Qaida's conditions in previous negotiations with Spain to release other Spanish aid-workers kidnapped in Mauritania in 2009 before Spain paid the necessary ransom to free them, of course thanks to Moroccan and Malian mediations, and possibly French ones too. We all remember how the official Moroccan press agency, MAP, made use of that tragedy, pretending that the Mauritanian terrorist, 'Omar Sahraoui', was a member of Polisario, using the confusion that his second name, 'Sahraoui', causes. Of course, that Moroccan fiction didn't last long, because his real identity was revealed when Mauritania had to release him. But still the aim of the Moroccan propaganda is to create confusion, and mislead public opinion, and it usually succeeds thanks to its expertise in news distortion. What imports us in this news story is the fact that the Spanish government has already started negotiations with the abductors. We have already heard that the Spaniards started the negotiations on the second or third day after the kidnapping. The negotiations with the terrorists thus started as a 'coincidence', with Spanish Foreign Affairs Minister Trinedad Jimenez's visit to Morocco.
The last important news story that completes the picture was actually 'written' by a Moroccan journalist close to the Islamic movement in Morocco, Hassan El Achraf, who published a story on 31 October under the attractive title of: 'The dynamic of the Arabic spring: a Saharawi opposition coordination proposes itself as an alternative to Polisario'. This story was published by the Arabic pages of 'Alarabia' and 'Acharq Al Awsat', two media outlets famous for their alignment to the Moroccan thesis in Western Sahara. It was also published in some youth forums and blogs on the net, aiming to create confusion in the minds of young Saharawis and Arabs who are following the developments of the different Arab revolutions.
These three stories affirm the analysis we developed, like many other Saharawi and Spanish writers in different articles, in claiming that the terrorist attack against the Saharawi refugee camps aim to distort the image of the Polisario Front and prepare the needed ground for other future attacks against the Saharawis to disrupt the coming congress the liberation movement is preparing to organise in the liberated zone of Tifariti.
The aim is still to feed the two main ideas of Moroccan propaganda: to associate the Polisario Front with terrorism by creating confusion, as we explained above, using the international fashion of the so-called war against terrorism to violate the political rights of the Saharawi people and get Western support for Rabat's attempts to impose autonomy on the last colony in Africa.
The second target Rabat is aiming at is the question of the representivity of the Saharawi liberation movement of all Saharawi people. Morocco is trying to convince the UN and its allies that the Polisario Front is not the only representative of the Saharawi people. Rabat has helped some Saharawi renegades to create fake 'political movements', such as Khat Chahid, a certain Democratic Party (who counts only one adherent so far), and the recently declared 'coordination of opposition' that has been developed as an idea in the Moroccan media for the last two years. And again, we still believe that the coming days will reveal more details about the Moroccan plans and schemes against the coming congress of the Polisario Front. Morocco is able to commit more operations in the camps, such as inciting some of its agents or renegades to organise fake demonstrations in the refugee camps in support of Morocco's plan of autonomy. Rabat has already used the former Polisario policeman, Mustapha Salma. It is buying the services of more persons like him who are ready to sell their spirits to the devil in exchange for a few dollars more to act against their own people and the future of their homeland. But, it is a very small group of opportunists and like in all other experiences of liberation they are usually under the spotlight of the enemy, and are always presented as leaders and political actors as long as the coloniser needs them but once the peoples win the struggle, history leaves them behind in oblivion.
PAMBAZUKA, 10/11/2011
