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Morocco is taking its autonomy plan as a model for Europe, much to the dismay of the Sahrawi people.
Hello everyone,
The APROFED association is contacting you again to forward an article relating to international news citing New Caledonia as a source of inspiration .
This is once again the case concerning the Polisario Front and the autonomy plan presented by Morocco for the control of Western Sahara.
Having already been the subject of several articles by us, we return to this subject again following the presentation by Morocco of a new 40-page text aimed at resolving this conflict which has lasted for decades.
While the initial drafts seemed encouraging, in this latest version, it appears that Morocco is not ready to truly share power . Point 12 stipulates that Morocco would retain authority over the regional executive by appointing its head of government, who would lead the autonomous administration, appoint senior officials, and have regional legislative initiative. This mirrors the practice in New Caledonia before 1946, during the colonial period, and then again in the 1980s during the events of the 1980s. We unfortunately know where that led.
This point is one of the main points of disagreement in the negotiations; the Polisario opposes this method and demands a method of direct election of the head of the regional executive by universal suffrage, believing that autonomous popular legitimacy is essential, while Rabat defends a model of appointment or investiture framed in order to avoid the formation of an executive pole with a political legitimacy competing with that of national institutions).
While in points 16 and 36 Morocco provides for the management of judicial and security (police) competence in part regional within the limits of the region’s competences, in point 33 it excludes all regional identity signs ; a point on which the United States, having taken over the matter, asked Morocco to soften its position by taking its example from them, a federal state, rather than from the European countries, which are mostly unitary.
The article (see Full Details of the Moroccan Autonomy Plan for the Sahara ) also highlights that Morocco drew inspiration from Spain and France —with its autonomous communities in the case of Spain and New Caledonia in the case of France—in drafting its autonomy plan. The case of Greenland, a Danish territory, is also cited. According to the article, Morocco intends to follow in the footsteps of the world’s most successful autonomy regimes.
It is unfortunately necessary to recall that this is not the truth at all, since each one asks to review their respective statuses with the States to which they are attached and faced with the deaf ear that the latter reserve for them, these territories have no other choice than to increase the pressure by demanding independence or by entering into open conflict with their administering authorities through insurrections repressed by force and causing countless damages and sometimes human lives.
The article clearly states that the autonomy plan for Western Sahara must correspond for Morocco strictly to the Moroccan constitutional framework and the unitary character of the State.
Although the 40-page document is still being discussed, it would unfortunately seem that the die is cast and it is surprising that the Polisario Front would validate such a document, just as the FLNKS does not currently validate the Bougival-Elysée-Oudinot project proposed by France for New Caledonia.
For the Sahrawi people, France’s support for Morocco’s autonomy plan completely excludes them from anything related to international decolonization efforts (cf. The Sahrawi government affirms that France’s hostile and escalationary attitude completely excludes them from anything relevant to international decolonization efforts | Sahrawi Press Agency (SPA) ).
It remains to be seen whether the Americans will succeed in getting a unitary state like Morocco to make concessions in order to reach a genuine win-win agreement for both parties.
Wishing you a pleasant read and reminding you that federalism is proving to be the solution.
The APROFED association