Both Algeria and Morocco were French colonies in the last century, so the French government established the borders between the two countries.
But after decolonization both countries contested this border. This resulted in an armed border conflict, also called the Sand War. This war, which took place in 1963, lasted more than 4 months, with a total of about 500 deaths. Since then, the relationship between the two countries has been very tense.
In addition, Algeria, Polisario, supports an independence movement in Western Sahara. It claims the former Spanish territory (Spanish Sahara) divided by Morocco and Mauritania. Morocco was engaged in an armed struggle with Polisario between 1975 and 1991. As of last weekend, this struggle flared up again. How big is the chance that Morocco and Algeria will fight a direct war with each other again?
In a series of video conversations the Algerian former military and politician Khaled Nezzar discusses the tense relationship between Morocco and Algeria.
The retired and high-ranking Khaled Nezzar (1939) served in the Algerian army between 1962 and 1993. He held various positions as commander of the Algerian troops stationed in Béchar-Tinduf, an area bordering Morocco. In this capacity he collaborated with Polisario. He had information about the Moroccan Army and other secret information at his disposal.
In 1990, Nezzar was appointed Minister of Defence and as such was a member of the Supreme Council of State that ruled Algeria between 1992 and 1994. In this capacity, he met King Hassan II and negotiated, among other things, the extradition of persons accused of terrorism by Algeria who had fled to Morocco.
A remarkable fact that General Nezzar reported in an interview with Algerian TV channel Echorouk News is; that he personally assured the King of Morocco that as long as the army is in power in Algeria, the Moroccan monarchy has nothing to fear from neighbouring Algeria.
This means that two dictatorial regimes in Morocco and Algeria, which have no popular support, will not fight each other, because their common opponent is the people.
The general goes on to say that the Algerian rulers have never given the green light to destabilize the Moroccan regime, although Algeria has a ready-made plan to do so. According to General Nezzar, Morocco has only a small army, which severely limits the troops’ room for manoeuvre.
In other words: Morocco, with its more than 200,000 soldiers, excluding reservists, cannot fight three potential wars at the same time (Spain in the North, Algeria in the East and Polisario in the South). And if Algeria’s aim was to destabilize the monarchy in Morocco, there was ample opportunity to do so during the coup attempts against Hassan II in 1971, 1972 and the great uprisings in Morocco in 1963 and 1984. However, Algeria never decided to do so and there are no concrete signs that the military junta in Algeria wanted to overthrow the Moroccan regime or play an important role in it.
Traslation: Najat M.
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Royal real estate fraud
Paradise Golf Beach Resort & Atlantic Golf View Resort, Asilah, Tangier We all know someone who has been a victim of real estate fraud. Nice apartment in Al Hoceima, Nador, Tangier or somewhere else for a nice price. Investing in a luxury real estate project with guaranteed profit. Everything looked beautiful on paper.
But then reality turns out to be hell! That nice apartment turns out to be a badly constructed building where the cracks are already in the walls before it’s finished or even worse, there’s not even a pole in the ground. The same goes for the real estate project you have invested in.
Who is responsible? Where to be? Where can you complain? How are you going to get your money back? Who is going to pay for all the travel and lawyer expenses? A lot of misery awaits you and it turns out that beautiful Morocco is a monster.
A group of British citizens, including some of Moroccan descent, have been through the same thing and have been trying for 12 years now to achieve justice in the land of injustice.
Key figure in this nightmare is Larbi Tadlaoui who, as an accomplice of the Moroccan regime, has made a lot of victims with his company for years. Mr. Tadlaoui works for projects launched by the king. In January 2016 he was ‘arrested’ in Morocco and released on 31 May 2017. During his detention, his business partner Mr. Guang Huang continued with the real estate fraud.
Mr. Tadlaoui has been staying in Spain for some time now, presumably near Marbella, and in the meantime his victims are still facing against a wall of injustice.
Their advice is to everyone:
DON’T INVEST A PENNY IN MOROCCO!
Below is a short summary of their story with below the link to their website for more information about their situation.
“In 2006, the Moroccan government gave land to the development company Atlantic Beach Paradise Resort SARL for the construction of an 18-hole Steve Ritson design golf course, swimming pools and about 400 attractive apartments and villas (a project of 45 million pounds). The property is located between Asilah (a beautiful Moorish town) and Tangier overlooking the beach.
The development has been promoted in numerous marketing brochures/websites as part of ‘Vision 2010’ – the project of King Mohammed VI – which would bring thousands of new tourists to Morocco. Off-plan properties were bought by up to 800 investors from different countries.”
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What is the King doing about the social unrest in Morocco?
Women’s demonstration Imzouren 2017, photo Mohamed El Asrihi In recent years there have been protests in Morocco in various sectors and regions. People claim their share of the country’s wealth, such as fishing, phosphate and other raw materials that the country is rich in.
Africa’s largest silver mine
In Imider the province of Tinghir there is the largest silver mine in Africa (seventh largest silver producer in the world). The local population doesn’t benefit from it, even worse, the mining company makes the lives of these people more difficult, it pollutes their drinking water and because the company consumes a lot of water, the people from the region have a water shortage. SMI (Société Métallurgique d’Imiter) is part of the Royal Holding Company and has been operating the Imider mine since 1978. This company did not hire people from the region as promised. In the last century, the people of the region have carried out various actions against the negative consequences of this mining operation. Since 2011 the people of Imider have founded a movement: On The Road ’96 -Imider, the purpose of this movement is to stand up for civil rights in Imider. The situation in the region has not changed for the time being.
Water shortage
Poor management and water scarcity are a very serious problem in Morocco, one of the causes of migration. In the southern Zagora region (Tazagurt) of 30,000 inhabitants, 700 kilometres from Rabat, people protested against water shortages in 2017, their protests were met with brutal violence and they were persecuted for participating in unauthorised demonstrations. The King’s response to the problems in Morocco is to build dams, but this has not yielded any results for the average Moroccan, nor does it provide a structural solution to these problems in the long term.Impunity
In the east of the country, in the Jerada area near the Algerian border, people also took to the streets after coal mines were closed in this area and people could no longer find work. These protests were also violently suppressed. There is a video in circulation of a boy, Abdelmoula Zaiker, who was deliberately chased by a police car, then hit and seriously injured, and who is now being treated in a hospital in Turkey. The driver of the police car was not even prosecuted.Death of the fish merchant
In the Rif there were big protests after the death of the fish merchant Muhsin Fikri. These demonstrations were led mainly by young people; they demanded an honest investigation of the death of Muhsin Fikri under the motto: freedom, equality and social justice, they wanted to demonstrate peacefully in the whole Rif area. After six months, the government reacted to these protests by accusing them of being led, financed as separatist from abroad. Hereafter a great wave of arrests in the Rif, which has been a military area since 1958, began. So far, people have been arrested for waving the Rif flag, taking a photo of Abdelkrim Al Khattabi and criticizing the government.
During the large-scale demonstration in Al Hoceima on July 20, 2017, there was even one death, Imad El Attabi was probably killed by a bullet of the security forces during the peaceful demonstration: According to the Moroccan prosecution, an investigation was conducted into the death of this young Riffian, and neither his family nor the Riffians saw the results of the investigation.
The funeral of the activist Imad El Attabi and the death of others.
Many people attended the funeral of Imad El Attabi on August 9 in Al Hoceima, where they held a demonstration using tear gas from the Moroccan police. The Riffian Abdelhafid El Haddad had breathing difficulties and died on 18 August 2017. He left behind a wife and three children. According to several Riffian civilians, the Moroccan police used French tear gas, showing an expired use date.Najim Abdouni was the chairman of a national “anti-corruption committee” and was familiar with major projects in Al Hoceima for which large sums of money were provided on paper but not or not fully implemented. He was also active in the Rif popular movement. On August 10, 2017, he was found outside his front door, seriously injured, and died the same day in hospital. The Moroccan judiciary had promised an investigation, but had not yet announced any results.
The King takes action
In a speech in 2017, King Mohamed VI praised the violent actions of his police and portrayed them as victims of the Riffian demonstrators. His Interior Minister Abdelouafi Laftit confirmed in Parliament that the Moroccan police had smashed the doors of civilians in the Rif. There are several videos on social media that clearly show that the Moroccan police terrorized the Riffians in the middle of the night and raided their homes without a search warrant: Private property was destroyed and the doors of defenseless Riffian houses were broken open.Leaving for Europe
Thousands of demonstrators were filmed by the Moroccan police and then arrested and intimidated; even women and minors have not escaped these human rights violations. There are also stories of Morocco deliberately leaving its international borders unguarded so that young people can flee. The asylum seekers and reception centres in Europe are full of Riffian young people, especially in the Spanish enclave of Melilla. According to the latest news from the Rif, entire families fled the country. A number of Riffians were granted asylum, for example the activist Achraf El Idrissi in Belgium, the lawyer Abdessadek El Bouchtaoui in France, the activist Basset Lamrini in Spain. This year, Nawal Benaissa and her child have applied for asylum in the Netherlands. It is not known whether their application was granted.Mitigations of the King
As a measure against the social protests, Mohamed VI reintroduced compulsory military service in Morocco this year after it was abolished in 2007. As a second clear measure, King Mohammed says in his speech of 20 August that Morocco will work on the development of rural areas and the agricultural sector and that some 50 billion dirhams are reserved for the period 2016 — 2022. The king also explains that it is not important to have a university degree, but to have a job, and refers his subjects to practical training (vocational training) and manual work.The number of unemployed graduates in Morocco is increasing, and this is a danger for the regime, as they claim their rights and draw the attention of the uneducated Moroccans to their rights. This is why Morocco is slowly phasing out “free” education. Both measures are in favour of the monarchy: The entry into military service ensures the influx of personnel for the police forces.
The development of the agricultural sector also benefited the Moroccan monarchy, as Morocco’s best farmland was in the hands of the royal family and other Moroccan families who worked with the Spanish and French occupiers between 1912 and 1956. For this reason, the agricultural sector in Morocco is completely exempt from taxation. The royal company is the country’s largest producer and exporter.Many thanks to Khalid Chamrouki and Pieter v/d Loo.
Translated by: Najat M.Source: Amazigh Informatie Centrum
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Son of Riffian president died under suspicious circumstances
Mohamed Mmis n Abdelkrim with his family on the island of La Réunion By: Editorial Amazigh Information Center
The Riffian resistance leader and politician Mohamed Mmis n Abdelkrim Al Khattabi (1880-1963), better known to the Riffians as Muhand U Abdelkrim, led the resistance of the people of the Rif against the Spanish government after the First World War. In May 1926 he surrendered to the French. He and his family were exiled to Réunion, a French island east of Madagascar. In 1947, on condition that he would settle in France, he was released. During the transport to France, however, he ‘escaped’ in Port Said and King Farouk offered him asylum in Egypt. There he was put in charge of the Liberation Committee of the Maghreb (northwestern part of Africa).
The occupiers seized part of their possessions, such as agricultural land in the Rif. After the tactical withdrawal of France and Spain in1956, Muhand stated that he would not return to Morocco as long as parts of North Africa and in particular the Rif were still colonised. And this situation still exists today, given the fact that two Rif cities and dozens of islands are still under Spanish administration.
Safiya Al Hassani Al Jazairi, granddaughter of the Algerian freedom fighter Abd Al-Kader Jazairi (1808-1883) who was both married to a cousin of Muhand, Rachid Al Khattabi, and after his death with his son Idris Al Khattabi (1925) told during a series of interviews with the Moroccan daily Al Massae in 2015, how the family perished after being banished from the Rif. When she married Rachid, she first mastered the Rif language, because this language was spoken consistently at home.
King Mohammed V (1909 – 1961) still provided the Muhand family with an allowance, his son King Hassan II, however, set conditions for further payment of this allowance. The family had to return to Morocco, but were not allowed to settle in the Rif. Part of the family returned and some of them died under suspicious circumstances, according to Safiya.
Screenshot of an interview of Al Massae with Safiya Al Hassani Her first husband was the Riffian diplomat Rachid Al Khattabi, he was ambassador for Morocco in Syria. Despite the fact that Rachid Al Khattabi worked for the Moroccan regime, he remained loyal to the Rif and resisted power. He missed a promotion because he refused to kiss King Mohamed V’s hand. And during the revolt of the Rif in1958 and1959 against the Moroccan dictatorship and abuse of power in the Rif, he maintained the contacts between Muhand who stayed in Egypt and the protesting Riffians. He asked his wife to write down the demands for the Rif demonstrators because, according to him, she had such a beautiful handwriting. According to the newspaper Al Massae, Safiya could not tell how these demands ended up with the demonstrators.
Muhand with his son Idris After the death of Rachid Al Khattabi in 1969, Safiya married Idris Al Khattabi (1925), son of Abdelkrim Al Khattabi. He attended higher education in Germany where he studied German literature. Idris Al Khattabi lived in Rabat and worked for the bus company Al Sadraoui in Casablanca.
King Hassan II tried to get him and other family members of Muhand at his side by promising them ‘privileges’. In the 1970s, for example, he offered Idris Al Khattabi a ministerial post and made a house available to him. This offer was rejected by Idris.
This uncompromising attitude of the Al Khattabi family caused them to collide with the royal family and its lackeys. Thus, Idris demanded the family’s property, which had been confiscated during the Spanish occupation, back. For this purpose he made several visits to the Rif. However, there he was confronted with an encirclement by the army of the then headquarters of the Rif government in the capital Ajdir, this was also the case with the house of Muhand. Everything that reminds us of the resistance of Muhand and the Riffian people is closely watched by the Moroccan police and army.
Moroccan politician Mehdi Barka (R) talking with son of Riff leader Cap. Abdel Salem Abdel Krim (L). (Photo by Pierre Boulat/The LIFE Images Collection via Getty Images/Getty Images) But what, according to Safiya Al Hassani Al Jazairi, made Muhand the most angry is that his cousin Al Hatimi and six others were buried alive in Tangier. Muhand held Medi Ben Barka responsible for his nephew’s death.
This ‘nationalist’ and ‘socialist’ and co-founder of the dominant ‘independence movement’ Istiqlaal initially worked with King Mohammed V. He supported crown prince Hassan II in bringing the still existing resistance fires under control, because in his opinion these also included a posed a threat to the Istiqlaal party that pursued power only in Morocco. For that reason, Ben Barka would have given the order for this murder, Muhand confidants reported to him. Medi Ben Barka himself disappeared without a trace in Paris in 1965. Already before then, Al Hatimi was kidnapped by a group of men who would fall under Medi Ben Barka.
According to Safiya Al Hassani Al Jazairi, Hassan II was afraid of Muhand’s family because he once asked Rachid Al Khattabi if this family intended to make a coup against the Alaouite ruler.
In 1979, Idris Al Khatatabi made a three-day trip through the Rif. He was received by a large crowd in Ayt Bouayach in the Al Hoceima region. For the Riffians, he was a representative of the ideas of his father Muhand U Abdelkrim. Idris was received hospitably by the Riffians and came home happy, according to his wife: “It is one of the few times that I have seen Idris happy and cheerful like that, like a little boy who found something he loved”. But he was not only happy, he was also angry, angry at the occupation of the family property by soldiers, none of whom came from the Rif. His only dream was to find a free Rif without being able to visit an occupying force and his family property undisturbed. The Rif, in particular the Al Hoceima region, has been a military area by decree from 1958 to the present day.
At the end of this visit to the Rif, Moroccan officials informed Idris’ wife by a short message that her husband had died in a traffic accident on the road between Casablanca and Rabat, in the city of Bouznika. She says: “We were told that Idris had a twisted head in the car seat and that another passenger had survived” the accident “. His car is said to have hit another car, the owner of which was currently replacing a wheel. The coffin with his remains was already closed, so Idris Al Khattabi’s family and loved ones could not say goodbye to him.
Safiya Al Hassani Al Jazairi “My husband’s death was not normal. I find the “official” story about his death incredible. Our phone was being tapped before my husband died. But as far as I know Idris never came into contact with the police and was questioned by them ”.
Moroccan politician Mehdi Barka (L) talking with son of Riff leader Cap. Abdel Salem Abdel Krim (R). (Photo by Pierre Boulat/The LIFE Images Collection via Getty Images/Getty Images) Idris is not the only son of Muhand who died under suspicious circumstances. Another of Muhand’s son, Abdesalam Al Khattabi, was an officer in the Moroccan Army (FAR). During an armed conflict between Morocco and Algeria, the so-called Sand War, Abdesalam Al Khattabi refused to participate in this armed conflict in 1963. He proposed that Morocco and Algeria should resolve the border problems of the colonial era peacefully and made himself available as a mediator. Hassan II immediately fired him from the army and informed the Muhand family that he could not understand the decision of Abdesalam.
Abdesalam, who was perfectly healthy according to Safiya Al Hassani Al Jazairi, suddenly experienced severe abdominal pain in the 1980s and died within a week.
Translated: Najat M.
