The violent repression that has hit sub-Saharan migrants on the border with Melilla has further tarnished Morocco’s image.
At least 23 migrants, according to the Moroccan authorities, 37 according to NGOs, died on Friday June 24 while trying to enter the Spanish enclave, located in the north of the kingdom.
Algeria, through the voice of its special envoy in charge of Western Sahara and the Maghreb countries, Amar Belani, denounced Sunday, June 26 a “carnage” which revealed to the whole world the true face of the Moroccan regime.
“These tragic events highlight the systematic violation of human rights by a State which has chosen, on the one hand, to exploit the bogeyman of migratory submersion for the purposes of political blackmail and, on the other hand , to play the role of policeman -against hard cash- in the context of the outsourcing of the management of the external borders of the European Union”, asserted Amar Belani.
Moroccan police used disproportionate force. The high number of victims and the degrading treatment reserved for the survivors shocked the whole world.
Despite Morocco’s denials, which tried to make believe that the victims died falling from the top of the mesh barrier, international disapproval is unanimous, except for the Spanish government, which saw itself on the side of its new ally.
Calls for an independent and impartial investigation come in particular from NGOs but also from the African Union and the United Nations.
What happened on June 24 is a terrible blow to the image of the kingdom, which is already not very good in terms of respect for human rights and international legality.
Internally, and despite a facade of multipartyism, the main levers, both political and economic, remain in the hands of the royal family and those around them, and violations of the rights of dissenting voices are recurrent. But it is on the international level that its infringements of the law are more visible.
On the question of Western Sahara, which Morocco has illegally occupied for almost half a century, the Moroccan regime persists in refusing to comply with international legality and to apply the relevant resolutions of the United Nations Security Council.
The referendum of self-determination that the UN has retained as the only fair way to resolve the conflict, did not take place because of the decline of the kingdom on its commitments made during the ceasefire agreements of 1991 .
In the same territory, in addition to the daily violations of the rights of the Sahrawis, the occupying forces have for some time begun to bomb convoys of traders on their way to Mauritania.
On November 1, three Algerian truckers were killed under fire from the Moroccan air force on the border between Mauritania and Western Sahara.
With Algeria precisely, Morocco has been multiplying for a few years the “hostile acts” which reached their climax last summer, causing the rupture of relations between the two countries.
Before arriving at this extreme measure, Algeria had endured a lot. From flooding its borders with cannabis, to calling for the partition of its territory, to bringing Israel into the region and spying on its officials and citizens. The list is long.
the last illusion
The Pegasus scandal, named after Israeli spyware, broke out in the summer of 2021. According to revelations from NGOs and international media, thousands of mobile phones were tapped by Moroccan services, many of them belonging to to Algerian citizens and leaders, and some to very senior foreign officials, such as French President Emmanuel Macron.
France is supposed to be Morocco’s ally, but this episode demonstrated the kingdom’s disregard for friendship, legality and ethics.
With Spain, this country resorted to blackmailing migratory flows to force its hand on the Sahrawi dossier. In May 2021, his police let more than 10,000 migrants suddenly enter the enclave of Ceuta, in retaliation for the hospitalization in Spain of the leader of the Polisario, Brahim Ghali.
A call for air to sub-Saharan migrants which led to the drama of Melilla. Instead of acknowledging its error, Morocco wanted to shirk by pointing to Algeria as being responsible for the influx of migrants, something it did not do during the episodes of June 2021 and March 2022, when candidates illegal emigration to Spain had stormed the Spanish enclaves.
Although it was the last occupying power in Africa, Morocco prided itself on being the champion of Africanity, opening branches across the continent and airlines, and regularizing sub-Saharan migrants.
But the illusion was shattered after the carnage in Melilla. The world has known many migration crises in recent years (Greece, Turkey, Germany, Poland and other Eastern European countries), but none of these states has allowed itself such disproportionate use of force.
Illegal occupation, aggression, spying even on its allies, migratory blackmail and finally ferocious repression of migrants. With what happened in June 2022 at the gates of Melilla, Morocco will have ticked all the boxes of an outlaw state.
Translated from TSA
