The way Bashar al-Assad’s regime was overthrown continues to astonish political analysts and strategists. Last weekend, a report that went unnoticed revealed that Abkhazia had decided to close down its embassy in Damascus.
The story is no less important than some might think. Over the past five decades, there has been a waltz of appearances and disappearances of states that have been recognized for a short time to serve a specific geopolitical agenda.
These states may be classified in the category of failed states or patchwork unfinished quasi-states. They have been troublemakers in geopolitical spaces whereby the balance of power between the major players has been fragile and dangerous for regional stability.
These entities are recognized by a handful of states and they bring about a political, diplomatic and legal problem that should be deeply addressed. The proliferation of such entities adds to regional instability a higher scale of uncertainty with respect to the very viability of the states that support or protect them against all odds.
I will briefly address this issue in the light of the cases of Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Kosovo, and the so-called SADR. Given the evolution of geopolitics in some issue areas, these entities present a serious threat to their very strong sponsors.
Obviously, the weight of each entity taken into consideration depends on that of their protector in the geopolitical stock exchange. But the issue also raises the dilemma of double standards in the legal dimension of inter-State disputes, particularly with respect to the definition of the attributes of the state as a subject of international law.
A reading of contemporary history teaches us that the transition from supporting armed movements or groups to facilitating their constitution as state entities has been in the limelight over the past four decades. Most of this set of moves have fizzled out eventually. The entities have always been vassal states.
Political analysts always take a look at the number of states that recognize newly incepted ones. This may be a wrong assessment in that sense that as long as these entities are not members of the United Nations, their existence remains ephemeral. They end up being legally obsolete. They are kept alive only by the effort of their overlord-protectors. The latter often end up throwing in the towel. This process will go crescendo in the years to come as the financial and diplomatic burden will be difficult to bear for them.
How can this happen? The simplest answer would be to say that these entities are kept alive to serve as a bargaining tool between state actors in everlasting disputes over issues related in most cases to borders or geopolitical propensity to impose hegemonic ascendancy.
Yet, the issue of recognition is a double-edged sword. It goes beyond the issue of the right of people to self-determination. Similarly, it puts those who make these principles their weapon par excellence in an uncomfortable situation with respect to their ideological and political commitments and beliefs.
The weight of geopolitical stocks in the stock market
Abkhazia is a republic that proclaimed itself independent after a sustained war waged against the Georgian central government (1992-1994 and 1999). In 2008, Russia recognized it as a sovereign state. At the same time, South Ossetia took the same path. Indeed, at the end of a civil war between 1991 and 1992 and 2000-2004, South Ossetia proclaimed itself an independent state in 2008.
Georgia does not recognize these two entities, nor does 99% of the international community. Both self-proclaimed republics have been militarily supported by Russia, which therefore remains one of the few countries to continue recognizing them.
In addition to Russia, Nicaragua, Syria, Venezuela, Vanuatu, Nauru, and Tuvalu recognize the independence of Abkhazia. Moreover, Russia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Nauru, and Syria recognize the independence of South Ossetia.
The story of Russian recognition is long to tell in this article; however, it’s worth noting that on the eve of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the republics of the South Caucasus and Central Asia undertook different approaches to claim and obtain their independence, respectively.
Most of them have opted for dialogue and negotiation, with the exception of Georgia and Azerbaijan. Russia made it harder for them to enjoy a smooth independence by creating two hotbeds of tension: Abkhazia and South Ossetia for Georgia and Nagorno-Karabakh for Azerbaijan. Maybe it would be a tempting idea to write a paper on this subject later.
For the time being, suffice it to say that the Russian initiative to recognize the unilateral independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia was part of the retaliation package against the Europeans and the Americans who had, in one way or another, supported the dissident movements of the Russian republics of the North Caucasus, in particular in Chechnya and Dagestan.
The move was also a strategy to put a spanner in the works of the Eastern Partnership (EP) proposed by the European Union to the countries of the South Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia) as well as to Ukraine, Moldova, and Belarus. The EP was announced in 2009 in the wake of the Partnership for the Mediterranean (PpM) launched in 2008.
By the same token, the move was a fierce tug-of-war that was part of the dichotomous interpretation of Kosovo’s independence, also announced in 2008. However, it was the Americans and the Europeans who were quick to recognize the unilateral independence of this province, which used to be part of Serbia. The latter, of course, does not recognize Kosovo’s independence so far.
Kosovo is not a member of the United Nations, although it is recognized by about a hundred countries. It cannot claim full membership because of the Russian veto. Indeed, despite the support that a state can enjoy within the United Nations General Assembly, its membership is subject to the unanimous vote of the five permanent members of the Security Council.
Similarly, in terms of unilateral independence, we cannot fail to mention the case of the pseudo-SADR, which was established thanks to the unwavering support of Algeria. The case may not come as a surprise now that the Moroccan Western Sahara issue has been going on for half a century. What is surprising is that this self-proclaimed entity takes up residence in the Tindouf camps, on Algerian territory, and that Algeria has opened a diplomatic representation there in the form of a slum shelter that borders on the senseless.
People may be speechless to learn that we are talking about a diplomatic representation of a state to a pseudo-state that exercises its shady sovereignty over the territory of the former as a matter of routine business.
It organizes its festivities there and receives the rare foreign delegations representing the twenty or so countries that still recognize it. It benefits from all the privileges granted to a sovereign state on a piece of Algerian territory. It will one day end up claiming it as a sovereign independent state regardless of what her protective state’s reaction is.
It’s worth recalling also that the leaders of the Polisario live in Algiers and that the populations held as hostages in the Tindouf camps suffer martyrdom to survive. This might be a case study that would give a hard time to the most experienced lawyers and political planners.
Experts on decolonization and human rights issues recall Mohamed Bedjaoui’s plea before the International Court of Justice concerning the status of the so-called Spanish Sahara in May and July 1974 and 1975. The eminent Algerian jurist had heated debates with the Moroccan representatives on the definition of three expressions that he had put at the center of his reasoning: ‘Terra nullius,’ ‘historical rights,’ and ‘self-determination.’
Terra nullius and Civitas nullius
One might be tempted to ask Bedjaoui and the other fervent defenders of legal logomachy to edify us on the difference or complementarity between the notions of Terra nullius and Civitas nullius. How could he (or they) sustain their argument that the so-called Western Sahara territory would have been without a ruler before the arrival of Spanish colonization and therefore continue to dismiss Morocco’s thesis?
Furthermore, how could Bedjaoui (or they) still argue that the principle of allegiance (the Baia’) as the basis of sovereignty still cannot be taken into account in the case of the Moroccan Western Sahara on the pretext that it would be diluted in its dual functional and patrimonial definition—and therefore should be rejected ad infinitum?
Two more final questions to season this series of interpellations: Firstly, how can we justify the fact that in the case of Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Kosovo, the principle of Terra nullius has not been retained? This happened because the separatists and their supporters played on the balance of power at the time and managed to create entities from what I would call Civitas nullius.
Secondly, in what context can one classify the Kabylia’ issue: Terra nullius? No, because Kabylia is an entity that had existed before the inception of Algeria in 1962. Kabylia was, so to speak, Civitas nullius before the Ottomans and the French took over Algiers in 1515 and 1830 respectively.
It would be easy to have fun forging expressions that would make the hair of most of the purist lawmakers sail away. However, one thing is certain: one cannot make the international community accept a Civitas nullius (the pseudo-SADR) that keeps surfing between an ephemeral existence on the territory of the host country and an unavoidable end in the foreseeable future.
Indeed, this entity benefited for four decades from a legal hold-up perpetrated by Edem Kodjo, then secretary general of the Organization of African Unity (now the African Union), in an attempt to change the reality on the ground in the Moroccan Sahara and make the notions of Terra nullius and Civitas nullius fit.
The chimera of being fully recognized makes the leaders of this entity fall into delirium. The legal existence of states cannot take over the reality on the ground or cool down the strength of the determination of sovereign states whose DNA holds strong no matter how harsh rivals are on them.
The fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime is likely to snowball. Some analysts predict that countries allied with this regime would be the next targets on the list. This would be the case for Algeria, which would have become entangled in the crimes committed against a significant fringe of the Syrian people. Algeria would have done so by placing a Civitas nullius at the forefront: the pseudo-SADR.
Documents made public four years ago and republished last weekend revealed the complicity between the Algerian and Syrian armies and Polisario militias in the escalation of violence in Syria.
It’s worth noting that Hafez al-Assad recognized the Polisario movement in the early 1980s and consolidated Syria’s ties with it since the Arab Summit in Fez (1981), at the end of which the Fahd Plan (under the name of the Saudi crown prince at the time, Fahd bin Abdulaziz Al Saud) for peace between Arab countries and Israel was proposed. The seven-point plan was refined and validated in 2002 at the Summit of the League of Arab States in Beirut in 2002.
Hafez al-Assad’s support for the Polisario dates back to the 1970s. Indeed, Moroccan opposition activists were trained in the Zabadani camp in Syria with the aim of changing the regime in Morocco. Elements of the Moroccan commando who were arrested on the eve of Khenifra projected attacks in 1973 made their debut there. With the creation of the Polisario, activists of this movement were welcomed in the Zabadani camp as a result of a deal between Algeria and Syria.
Analysts who support conspiracy theories and fast-food projections exaggerate the implementation of the domino theory relating to the geopolitical shift taking place nowadays. In any case, no one is willing to see the Maghreb subregion be shaken by waves of destabilization. It would be up to the regional gravediggers on duty to wake up and put their house in order; otherwise, the two Civitas nullius would enter into open conflict over the issue of the appropriation of a potential Terra nullius.
Waking up late can be a nightmare; that’s the most important thing a dreamer should bear in mind. The way Abkhazia decided to close its embassy in Damascus is very edifying in terms of teaching how a good script on paper could turn out to be a piece of nonsense. This might apply to left-wing movements that have made their business assets profitable (perhaps for good reason on certain issues) by playing “catch me if you can game” at a high speed.
These organizations are brooding over the latest developments on the Middle Eastern scene. They are throwing stones at every single move from other organizations or people who dare to dismiss their views, especially since the outbreak of the tragedy in Gaza on October 7, 2023.
The dilemma of principles and the sounding box
On the same register of surprises Syria caused, there was a statement that the president of the Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AMDH) made on the issue of the Moroccan Sahara. He stated in an interview last week to an online controversial outlet that he supported a solution that would take into account the rights of all parties to the conflict.
He added that the MAHR recognizes the right of peoples to self-determination and that this also applies to the issue of the Moroccan Western Sahara. This was an unacceptable statement even within the family of human rights defenders in Morocco. The president of the AMDH went even further, saying that the Autonomy Plan Morocco proposed would not allow for the exercise of this right.
He proved to be ignorant of the content of United Nations General Assembly resolutions 1514 (XV) of 14 Dec. 1960, 1541 (XV) of 15 Dec. 1960, and 2625 (XXV) of 24 Oct. 1970, which give (in particular the latter) a broader and therefore more democratic interpretation to the principle of the right to self-determination. Furthermore, he showed he didn’t appreciate the evolution of the Moroccan Sahara issue since 2007, when Morocco proposed the Autonomy Plan.
However, one has to admit that some members of the AMDH are known for their strong ideological beliefs that date back to the 1970s, a decade of a struggle against the country’s political institutions, sometimes going as far as to call for the overthrow of the regime. Yet, the president of the AMDH’s behavior seems to be the direct consequence of the erosion of a political and ideological thought that is heading towards the abyss of disillusionment.
This behavior expresses a denial feeling with respect to the failure of the project of which he made his footprint along with one of the most active countries within the Axis of Resistance and the Front of Refusal. The president of the AMDH said that his view was in line with the legitimate right to freedom of speech.
Fair, and no one would contradict him except, perhaps, commentators from the same ideological family who ask him to make a clear distinction between the right to freedom of speech and the propensity to harm his country’s territorial integrity. Because it is precisely this right to freedom of speech that has been flouted in Algeria, a country known for being a hardliner within the Axis of Resistance and the Front of Refusal.
Boualem Sansal, a renowned Algerian writer, faces long years in prison for having expressed a different view on the issue of the Moroccan Sahara (and also on the Eastern Sahara, where a Civitas nullius is settled down). This free opinion in the name of freedom of speech outraged the Algerian decision-makers.
The Algerian decision-makers have always claimed that their country was not a party to the Sahara conflict. Now everyone knows that Algeria is the main party in this regional artificial conflict. Imagine the president of the AMDH was visiting Algeria and would have declared that the Sahara was Moroccan. He would be arrested, and a trial would be set up in a matter of hours, no matter how Moroccan a human rights activist he might claim to be.
One would be tempted to conclude that only a Civitas nullius could seduce ideologues who hover over a Terra nullius where allegedly sacrosanct principles could dance to the rhythm of the wind that blows in their heads that take denial as a leitmotiv. These heads nurture illusion and dizziness because they can no longer focus on a goal. The project that they can’t wait to see implemented seems to be doomed indefinitely.
