Listening closely to Algerian Foreign Minister Ahmed Attaf during his latest interview elaborating on the recent Resolution 2797 on the Moroccan Sahara, one wonders whether we were looking at the same text issued by the Security Council.
Contrary to his country’s press, which was unanimous in denouncing what it called American pressure, Attaf seemed satisfied, and even happy, when he announced that his country was on the verge of voting for the resolution, were it not for this small provision on Moroccan sovereignty. The minister thus attempted to cover up the mistakes of his department and to downplay the significance of the Security Council’s decisions.
Attaf was satisfied, or appeared to be so, that this reference to Moroccan sovereignty was included only in the preamble and not in the operative part of the resolution. He considered this to be a significant distinction, adding that, for Algiers, the fundamentals had thus been preserved. In his account, he specifically accused Moroccans of wanting to dismantle MINURSO and transform its mandate in order to impose the Autonomy Plan as the sole and exclusive solution – thus killing off the idea of a referendum once and for all. In his view, Morocco attempted this power play with the help and support of the Americans, but ultimately achieved nothing. If this is the case, one might ask, why did Algeria not vote for the resolution?
According to Attaf, the final text makes no reference to Moroccan sovereignty or the Moroccan state, as these principles were removed from the initial text. Attaf bypassed the notion that Algeria has suffered a defeat at the passage of the resolution. He rambled on that one only needs to compare the two versions of the resolution to see the difference. He alleges that Morocco was counting on the following three elements: dismantling MINURSO, imposing the autonomy plan, and rendering the referendum null and void. In his view, these elements have been removed from the text of the resolution and that, as a result, his country has won.
Resolution text that doesn’t match up to Attaf’s claims
Minister Attaf is clearly sure that Morocco has not been successful. But what does the resolution truly state? The text is the only tangible element in our possession to verify whether the Algerian minister is telling the truth, or whether he is extrapolating for pleasure and to mislead Algerians. The preamble to the latest draft states: “Taking note of the support expressed by many Member States for the autonomy plan proposed by Morocco as the basis for a just, lasting and mutually acceptable settlement of the dispute.”
The Council further states that genuine autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty, could be one of the most realistic solutions. What more can be said to make it clear to Attaf that the international community sees no solution to this regional conflict other than through the Moroccan initiative, which is now supported by a growing number of states, including three UN permanent members?
A closer look at the resolution reveals the same dimension that Attaf is trying to gloss over; the Council fully supports the efforts of the Secretary-General and his Personal Envoy to facilitate and conduct negotiations based on the autonomy plan in order to achieve a just and mutually acceptable settlement in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.
What then, is the Algerian minister’s take when the resolution openly states that the Council calls on all parties to participate in discussions without preconditions, and on the basis of the autonomy plan proposed by Morocco, in order to reach a definitive and mutually acceptable political solution? Or when the objective is even clearer: the Council openly considers that genuine autonomy could represent one of the most realistic solutions. How, then, can our Attaf ignore these obvious facts and recommendations, focusing only on the trivial and disregarding the essential?
Algerian media’s countering narrative of defeat
In contrast to Minister Attaf, who attempted to mitigate the impact of the new resolution, the Algerian press criticized the UN bodies, the Security Council and some of its members, starting with the United States and President Donald Trump, for their closeness to Morocco. For outlet Le Quotidien d’Oran, the UN has ceased to be an arena of principles and has become a trading platform. Russia and China abstention were not out of conviction, but out of calculation. Morocco, according to the narrative this daily newspaper, invests, normalizes, seduces – and then the Sahara issue is settled.
This Algerian outlet goes onto say that in Trump’s world alliances are signed like insurance contracts. In their view, the United States buys peace in a region, France sells its memory, China negotiates ports, and Russia bargains for its silence. The Security Council resembles a stock exchange where influence is traded. By refusing to vote, Algeria refused to participate in the burial of the law. This is not ideology, they argue, it is historical consistency, and a country born of a war of liberation, which means Algeria, cannot banish an occupation disguised as autonomy.
The state-affiliated outlet further takes aim at the American president himself. Trump’s world is one of deals, tweets and bartering, it says. A world without morals, where renunciation is worth more than justice. The powerful think that history ends with their victory, but it always starts again elsewhere, they conflate. Framing Morocco’s role in a conflated exaggeration from true reality, the outlet says that “apartheid seemed eternal” as did the Berlin Wall and the colonies, but everything born of lies eventually collapses. The newspaper gives advice to the country’s leaders in the face of adversary: Algeria must continue to stand firm, upholding the law against deals, justice against transactions and dignity against calculation. This is not the optimism that Attaf wanted to sell us.
Another daily newspaper, Al-Watan, also contradicts the minister’s statement, openly acknowledging that the resolution’s focus on autonomy restricts freedom of negotiation and skews the prospects for a truly equitable settlement. It regrets the absence of human rights monitoring in MINURSO’s mandate. This is an old refrain dreamed up by Algerian diplomats, who wish to include it, not out of love for these rights, which are little respected in their own country, but to further hinder Morocco. The newspaper explains that Algeria’s abstention from voting is a symbolic gesture and an act of protest against a resolution deemed to fall short of Algeria’s expectations.
The digital platform Tout sur l’Algérie (TSA), which also examined the resolution, sought to remain hopeful by emphasizing that the hardest part remains to be done. No, it said, the Security Council has not resolved the conflict with this resolution, and much remains to be done. Like several other Algerian media outlets, it finds real comfort in the statements made by US adviser Massad Boulos on the Al-Hadath channel. For Boulos, the resolution is the first step in a thousand-mile journey, and there are still details about its implementation that need to be discussed. This caveat from the American official reassured both Algerian officials and the media.
These are just a few examples of a series of others who saw the resolution as a setback for Algerian diplomacy. In the Algerian press, America was severely criticized, as were France, the United Kingdom and other Western countries. Russia and China, which abstained, were also heavily criticized by the Algerian press for failing to use their veto or at least vote against the resolution.
On this issue, Attaf remained silent, refraining from analyzing the neutrality of what he believes to be his country’s allies. Algeria is already isolated regionally and internationally, so there is no need to add further adversaries.
