Since Friday, Morocco and Tunisia have been scrambled. The kingdom criticizes the presence of the president of the SADR in Tunis, for the Japan-Africa summit. An invitation yet planned for a long time and legitimate...
August 2017, in Yokohama, Japan. As the Seventh Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) draws to a close, heads of state and foreign ministers invited to the Japan-Africa summit pose together, united. In the souvenir photo, Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita, smiling, poses alongside his counterparts. Only a few rows from him on the left, we see Brahim Ghali, president of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR). Japan has always taken care to invite the latter, on the recommendation of the African Union (AU), since the launch of the Tokyo Conference.
But this year, Morocco has elbowed Brahim Ghali not to be present in Tunis. But this Friday, the president of SADR was indeed on the tarmac at Tunis-Carthage airport. The head of the Polisario was welcomed there as soon as he got off his plane by Tunisian President Kaïs Saïed, as the latter did with all the presidents invited to the Japan-Africa summit. Saïed and Ghali then discussed in the presidential lounge of the airport. What provoke the ire of Morocco, which immediately announced its non-participation after the event after this "serious and unprecedented act".
The SADR invited to previous editions
Unpublished? Not that much. In 2017, in Mozambique, in the midst of Ticad, a fight broke out between Moroccan and Sahrawi representatives. The opening ceremony had also had to be delayed for three hours after these clashes. The Saharawi Minister for Foreign Affairs Mohamed Salem Ould Salek was finally able to sit down, despite Moroccan pressure…within the Mozambican delegation.
If Morocco today feigns surprise to discover the presence of Brahim Ghali in Tunis, we are far from an unprecedented event. According to several sources close to the African Union, last July, Morocco had tried to convince the AU to exclude the SADR from the list of guests of Ticad 2022. But the Executive Council of the AU had called for the Western Sahara's participation in the Tunis summit. After the Moroccan declarations of this weekend, the Tunisian Ministry of Foreign Affairs recalled that "Tunisia respects the resolutions of the United Nations and that of the African Union" and indicates that the invitation of the SADR came from Japanese diplomacy , where Morocco assured that Tunisia had "unilaterally" invited Brahim Ghali, "against the advice of Japan and in violation of the preparation process".
Behind the scenes of the Carthage Palace, annoyance is in order. A source close to the Tunisian president believes that “Morocco has disrespected the hosts of the summit, Tunisia and Japan”. A "diplomatic indelicacy" on the part of the kingdom, which called on its partners, a few days ago still, via King Mohammed VI, to come out in favor of the Moroccan plan in Western Sahara. It was above all the Moroccan remarks that shocked Tunis: the act denounced by Rabat, in the words of Moroccan diplomacy, “deeply offends the feelings of the Moroccan people”. “The Moroccan authorities try to say that they are supported by their people, but this is false. The majority of Moroccans are against the normalization of Moroccan relations with Israel”, specifies a former Tunisian Minister of Foreign Affairs who sees in this an “Israelization of Moroccan diplomacy”. In other words, an increasingly aggressive diplomacy.
A simple pretext on the part of Morocco?
Especially since the quarrel between the two countries about the SADR is all the same astonishing when we know to what extent Tunisia has always affirmed its desire for neutrality vis-à-vis this issue. Could this clash with Tunisia be a pretext for the kingdom to create a balance of power with Tunisia? Quit rewriting events. Because as the Tunisian Ministry of Foreign Affairs specifies, Tunisia is surprised by “the disinformation practiced by Morocco”. According to the Tunisian political scientist Khelil Rekik, “Morocco has never forgiven Tunisia for the fact that it managed to obtain the organization of Ticad and the Francophonie summit, scheduled for November, to which Moroccans aspired”.
There are indeed few reasons for Morocco to be surprised by the Sahrawi presence in Tunis. “Why did Mohammed VI and Nasser Bourita then agree to be in the same photo as President Ghali during the last three editions of Ticad”, asks a Tunisian journalist.
It now remains to be seen what will be the result, after the reminders of the respective ambassadors of two countries. On the side of the African Union, Macky Sall will certainly try to initiate discussions between the two parties. For his part, the president of ECOWAS and president of Guinea-Bissau, Umaro Sissoco Embaló, is also said to have left Tunisia and refused to participate in Ticad to protest against the presence of the SADR. Here too, the reaction of the head of ECOWAS is surprising in Tunis.
Mongi Khadraoui is a journalist, former secretary general of the National Union of Tunisian Journalists (SNJT).