Bloggin' the Maghreb

Autonomy in the Sahara - a View from the Canary Isles

2006-06-22T17:30:00.000-05:00

During a visit to Rabat, Lorenzo Olarte Cullen, former president of the self government of the Canary Islands (see photo to right), declared that the Canary Islands were available to host a sit-down between the parties having most to do with autonomy of Western Sahara, following the example of Spain with ETA. He also said that Algeria, the "political arm" of the Polisario must be included in such talks, for, he stated that Algeria, "via Polisario, seeks to create a "satellite State" to have an outlet on the Atlantic." (Translation mine)*

When asked why Polisario would want to engage in such talks, he said that Polisario does not have the choice and that, in such a case, Polisario would be especially isolated if an agreement were reached between Morocco and a majority of Sahraouis. "And if they were to take up their weapons again, it would be considered by the international community a terrorist organization", informs Mr. Cullen who affirmed that this would be an intolerable threat for stability in the whole area including the Canary Islands because of their geographical proximity with the Sahara.

I wonder how much he consulted with Spain before his visit to Rabat.
----------------
* I have heard in the past that Algeria wanted a port on the Atlantic, and have wondered just how true it is. There are only poor docking facilities on the Atlantic, with the possible exception of the Port of Layounne. There is no rail transit between Algeria and the Atlantic. The only other facility I am aware of is at Dakhla (formerly Villa Cisneros) and that is about 550 km south of Layounne. There are not many potential docking areas on the Western Sahara coast which are even slightly protected from storms.

Algeria: The Return of the Attacks

2006-06-22T10:56:00.000-05:00

"Algeria knew, in these last few days, a true renewal of violence.", according to the first sentence of an article in Aujourd'hui du Maroc of 22 June 2006. It reported that at least 15 people have been killed since the beginning of June.

The killings have been ascribed mainly to the Salafist Group for Prayer and Combat (GSPC), the fundamentalist Islamic group responsible for most recent attacks. Violence in Algeria has caused between 150,000 and 200,000 deaths since 1992, according to an official assessment.

The attacks have occurred mostly is an area about 60 km to the east of Algiers, where the GSPC has a foothold and where Algerian Army units have tried to find and destroy the insurgents. The GSPC has refused to give up its arms according to terms suggested in "the charter for peace and the national reconciliation", adopted by referendum in September 2005 and implemented by ordinances, since last February.

Another Algerian newspaper, Liberte, reported that on Tuesday, June 20, the GSPC ssassinated five peasants riding home from a day's work on their cultivated fields. This especially touched me, as one of the farmers assassinated was exactly my age, 81; another dead was his younger brother. Of course, the assassins had fled by the time security forces arrives several hours later.

Then, on Friday the 23rd, GSCP launched an attack on an Army convoy in an ambush about 135 km east of the Algiers, killing six soldiers and wounding three others.

I fervently hope that the terror will ease in Algeria soon; they have had enough death and destruction to last for decades!

What's Going On in the Tindouf Camps?

2006-06-19T22:06:00.000-05:00

The African News Dimension reported, on June 1, that all communication with the camps at Tindouf had been cut by the Algerian government, as also reported by Google News. Unfortunately, the African News Dimension only leaves their news items up for 24 hours and I missed that time frame. But Google News reported the first few lines of that story as:

"Algeria cut off, on Thursday evening, all the phone lines and means of communication with Tindouf camps, southwestern Algeria, following the popular uprisings ...".

That little snippet is very intriguing, and I tried to find more on it. The only other source I was able to find was the story reported in The Morocco Times on June 5. As several readers have complained that The Morocco Times is a government-controlled and unreliable news source, given to blatant propaganda*, I try to find independent confirmation of their stories, and believe that the African News Dimension story confirms the truth of what was reported by The Morocco Times.

The Morocco Times story says that a pro-Moroccan NGO decried "the Algerian authorities' decision to cut off phone services and electricity in the camps, as well as their unilateral cancellation of the scheduled June 2nd UN's High Commissioner for Refugees sponsored confidence-building measure of family visitations.

Concerning the African News Dimension's declaration of "popular uprisings" (see above), the Morocco Times said:

"'Last Wednesday, violent demonstrations broke out in Tindouf camps (southern Algeria) against the torture and repression of a young man, Habbadi Ould Hmimed, who opposed the separatist claims. These demonstrations, which first broke out in “27 février" and “Smara”
camps, united people of all ages; then the other camps followed suit to denounce the 'barbarous acts of the Polisario,' underlined MAP news agency, quoting a source from the camps."

"Polisario's attempt to quell the demonstrations by all possible means further fuelled the anger of the population. This led to a violent confrontation, causing a death and several serious injuries."

This is the second report of riots in the camps against the Polisario in the past two years. The last time the news was also strictly curtailed by Polisaro. Let's hope that the Sahrawi do not suffer too badly from the strong arm Algerian Security Forces!

I invite anyone with reliable news about these events to post that news here as a comment.

Land Mines in the Desert

2006-06-17T10:37:00.000-05:00

Morocco occupied Western Sahara in 1975 and since then the country has been divided onto two parts. Morocco occupies the economically more prosperous eastern part of the country, while the resistance movement Polisario occupies the almost barren western desert part of the country. The division line is a high wall of sand, called the 'berm' (shown in red on the map to the right), cutting through the middle of Western Sahara, with Moroccan military stationed in positions spaced along the wall.

After Morocco constructed the berm, they reinforced it by burying land mines on the west side of the berm. In addition to the killing and maiming of untold numbers of innocent pastoralists, the mines have done the same for all animals which wandered over them during the past several decades. I think that such indiscriminate placement of landmines in a foreign country is a reprehensible act and deverves the damnation of the rest of the world.

I was reminded of those landmines in the Sahara by a news story from the Norwegian Support Committee for Western Sahara, describing a new effort by the UN and the Polisario to remove and destroy those mines. A convoy of volunteer-driven armored trucks, carrying mine detection and removal equipment, is on its way through Algeria to Western Sahara, where the volunteers and other experts will teach Western Saharans (Sahrawas) to find and safely remove land mines. An admirable thing to do, indeed!

Back on December 4, 1997, 121 nations signed and agreed to a UN sponsored treaty to ban the production, distribution and use of landmines. These countries also pledged $500 million to implement the treaty. They then began a global effort to remove mines from one-time battlefields around the world

My country (USA) did not sign the treaty and still has not signed it!

Mines left over from past conflicts are insidious killers. It has been estimated
that there are up to 70 million landmines scattered throughout 68 countries.
About 26,000 people are killed or maimed each year, with one injury or death every 20 minutes. Children under the age of 15 form about 30 to 40% of the casualties.

Countries with significant numbers of uncleared mines include: Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Germany, Guatemala, Honduras, Jordan, Lebanon, Nicaragua, Somalia, Sudan, and Zimbabwe.

If you want to read more about these hidden dangers, you can go here ; additional links may be found here.

I'm BAAaaaccckkk (AGAIN!!!)

2006-06-17T10:09:00.000-05:00

Well, the broken nose and wrist have healed, and my body has corrected the blood-loss anemia by the generation of new red blood cells, and I am returning, healed and refreshed!! I'd like to thank all of you for the 'get-well' and 'best-wishes' messages you sent after my fall.

Let's take up where we were before the accident. There had just been a terrible rainstorm in the desert which almost destroyed one of the camps near Tindouf. As you know, many of the structures were made of adobe - dried mud - which disintegrated under those blinding rainstorms. Winds made shory stories of the tent structures. Those poor people were again left without shelter and short on food. Seems to me that theyhave had ther share of poor luck since the Polisario convinced them to leave their homes in Western Sahara 30 years ago.

I tried to get photographs of the camps to post so you could see their devastation, but my accident intervened, and they never got posted.

So I start up again... Bloggin' the Maghreb...

Bouteflika Health Watch - #3

2006-04-20T17:46:00.000-05:00

According to a news item on BBC, Algerian President Bouteflika has been readmitted to the Val de Grace hospital outside of Paris, the same hospital where a stomach ulcer was supposedly removed from him last winter. I had previously reported on his illness here, here, here and here. I believed, at the time of his initial hospitalization in France, that his condition was much more serious than reported by the Algerian government or press; in fact, a senior surgeon at another Paris hospital hypothesized that, from the length of his hospital stay and other factors, that he must have been treated for cancer.

Bouteflika was discharged at the end of December, and flew back to Algeria. Now, only 110 days later, he is back, not in some hospital an Algeria, but in the same French military hospital where he was previously treated.

Bouteflika's health status will be monitored and reported on this blog.

Sahara Endgame -- It Is becoming Clearer and Clearer

2006-04-16T09:22:00.000-05:00

According to the Morocco Times, on 4/16, the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, said he was hopeful that a mutually acceptable solution could be reached by the concerned parties of the Sahara conflict. In his interview with the Spanish daily "ABC", Annan declared that "... the UN cannot impose any solution", adding "the fact that the UN is unable to impose any solution explains why it is intensely trying to find a mutually acceptable solution."

If the UN can not impose a solution, as Annan declared, then Morocco will ultimately achieve control of the Sahara, just by dogged determination, if nothing else. Given Annan's statement, Morocco, now in possession of the most economically viable part of Western Sahara, has only to outlast the Polisario! The only tough card the Polisario had left to play was the threat of armed conflict. And even this threat has been rendered almost fangless with the rising concerns that the Sahara could become a breeding ground for Islamic extremists and/or criminal gangs (predicted last year in a report by the European research think tank ESCSI) and with the consequent formation of the anti-terrorist multinational force TSCTI. While the US has seemed reluctant to advance a forced solution to the soverignship of Western Sahara, they certainly can not allow the desert to become a breeding ground for terrorism.

With the ongoing War on Terror, it seems that Polisario's time has passed, and they will just fade into meaninglessness. But not without some hick-ups between now and then! My great concern is the fate of those poor Sahrawi in the camps near Tindouf. It is hard to see what will become of them!

Way To Go, Laila Lalami!!

2006-04-13T13:06:00.000-05:00

Laila Lalami, feted author of Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits, announced today on her blog that she has been awarded a Fulbright Fellowship Award for 2006-2007. She plans to spend nine months living in Casablanca "conducting research on Islamic extremism and secular movements for my next book, and also volunteering for a non-profit organization that provides services to disadvantaged neighborhoods."

They could not have picked a more deserving or a more talented person for this award. I am extremely happy for her and wish her all success in her endeavors.

Polisario TV

2006-04-12T13:59:00.000-05:00

The Polisario have launched a new TV channel for broadcasts to the Sahrawi in the camps near Tindouf. According to the report, "Polisario Television will follow events in Sahrawi areas and will point to what it describes as violations of human rights in lands that are under Moroccan control. " Initially broadcasting in Arabic, plans are to add Spanish language broadcasts soon.

From this first report, it seems that the new channel will be more of a propaganda tool than a news or entertainment station. (Reportedly, they will report on human rights violations in Morocco-held areas, but not in Polisario-held areas, nor in Algeria)

The news story did not state whether or not the Sahrawi in Western Sahara will be able to receive the new station's signals.

This is the third move by Polisario to improve its media capability. A news agency and a radio station were established in the past decade.

Starlings over Algiers

2006-04-12T10:35:00.000-05:00

I came across this picture of starlings swarming above Algiers and loved the swirls of the swarms. Unfortunately, there were no details given, so it is being presented as-is.

Growing up, we had a birdhouse mounted on a utility pole in the backyard, and every year starlings came and nested there - rudely and violently kicking out any smaller birds who had already started nesting there. Among the other birds were bluebirds, which are quite small. Dad had put up the birdhouse hoping to lure the bluebirds in as regular visitors, but he made a mistake and cut the hole a little too large - enough so that starlings could use the birdhouse. And they did, much to Dad's continual disgust!

A Blog Poll?

2006-04-11T18:34:00.000-05:00

The website Magharebia.com is currently running a poll about Abdul Rahman, the Christian convert in Afghanistan; they asked what should be done with him and gave four choices for an answer. The results of the poll, as of 12:18 am Wednesday (Rabat time), are shown below:

Let him leave the country* - 11.1%
Execute him - 55.6%
Give him non-capital punishment - 0%
None, he did nothing wrong - 33.3%

* - This is what the Afghani actually did.

The vital piece of information they did not give us is the total number who voted. Looking at the percentages, we see that those results would have been obtained if just 9 people had voted! This is such a small number that the results can not be said to reflect - in any way - the readership of the website.
Also, there is nothing in the software to keep anyone from voting multiple times - I know because I voted twice (from the same computer). and the results came out 10%, 50%, 0%, 40%, as they should if the total number voting initially had been nine.

So much for blog and other internet polls!! If you are going to run a poll, please do not ask serious questions!!

French Youth - 0 ; La belle France - 0

2006-04-10T15:22:00.000-05:00

"France scraps controversial youth job contract" was the headline on the story published by EuroNews; this story marks the end of this phase of the government's attempt at raising France from the mire of youth employment. At this point in time, youth and labor might think they have won a big victory -- after all, the government had to back down and certainly lost face and creditability with the populace. I personally don't think the youth won all that much, while the big loser was France herself and her economy and her future. Too bad for France, and really too bad for the immigrant youth (the ones who rioted last winter over unemployment). I predict that we will see them reacting again in the near future, and again poor France will be the big loser.

I'm BAAaaaccckkk!!!

2006-04-08T16:50:00.000-05:00

The broken wrist on my dominant arm is still broken, in a cast colored a little darker than sky-blue (in honor of snawsi*), but the pain has abated a bit and I can hunt and peck - albeit slowly! Just couldn't leave bloggerville, it seems!! So in spite of what I said in my last post, I will continue to post Maghrebian thoughts - but the posts will almost certainly be shorter than they would have been if I were fully functional with two workable hands.

And thanks to several fellow bloggers for their warm encouragement and their kind words: Samir (I don't know him, but his Fez is familiar), liosliath (What's the time? It's Morocco Time!), KhadijaTeri (the ever-lovin Lybian-American momma, and Bill_Day (the a la menthe or a web undone 2)

*sawsi - the Gemini female blogger at snawsi in da block.

hale

FAREWELL

2006-03-25T15:53:00.000-05:00

I have recently experienced a number of health-related problems which necessitate that I close my several blogs. One of these accidents resulted in a broken left wrist -and, being left-handed, it is difficult to type with just my right hand! I have enjoyed bloggin' and hope to have the opportunity to get back to it when all the various parts heal.

Thanks for your support and comments.

hale
blogginthemaghreb@hotmail.com

Disaster in Sahrawi Refugee Camps near Tindouf

2006-02-26T17:27:00.000-05:00

(I started this post just before my accident. The accident caused me to suspend blogging and thus the item was never finished nor posted. News and photos which are needed for properly ending this post have long gone from the 'Net, so I am posting it just as I left it, except for the added postscript.)

Devastating torrential rainstorms swept across the Algerian Sahara earlier this month, and inundated three of the camps in which Sahrawi refugees live. The housing in the camps are mainly of adobe (dried mud brick) construction or consist of large tents - neither of which could stand up to such rainfalls. Adobe bricks just 'melt' or dissolve and return to mud, and tents can't withstand the strong winds which accompany such desert Maelstrom. According to Reuters, there are some 90,000 Sahrawi living in 5 camps near Tindouf, and of these, 50,000 - in the three camps hit by the storms - lost their shelter!

UNSCREW said they found a huge amount of structural damage, with 50 percent of houses completely destroyed and the remainder in an unstable condition.

A relief effort was started immediately. To describe the size of the disaster, relief workers estimated that they need to airlift immediately: 12,000 tents and plastic sheeting for 12,000 families, 510 plastic rolls, 7000 kitchen sets, 60,000 blankets, 40,000 mattresses and 20,000 jerry cans.

(Postscript: They needed money then and they still need it to restore conditions to what they were before the deluge. Please find a way to contribute and please be generous.)

The Islamic Calendar - A Good Explanation

2006-02-26T16:31:00.000-05:00

Edward Ott, in his blog 2000 AH, is mainly interested in science-faction, and several of his sci-fi stories are published in his blog. Edward is Islamic, and lives in Louisiana. I found this blog while researching the Islamic Calendar; he has posted a great description of the inner workings of the Islamic Calendar.

Way to go, Edward! It is a good post!

OK, I'm back!!!

2006-02-25T12:29:00.000-05:00

I didn't know I was going to be away. Had a routine appointment with my doctor, who weighed me, pushed and poked me, took my blood pressure and a few other measurements, and, with a worried look on his face, told me to go immediately to the emergency room of the hospital and he would join me there. I went.

In the emergency room, they weighed me, pushed and poked me, took blood pressure and a whole bunch of other measurements and tests and x-ray pictures and scheduled some look-see surgery. I can now report that none of the arteries feeding my heart are clogged! But they found a few other things, such as: after smoking for many years, and even tho I quit twenty five years ago, my lungs now cannot supply sufficient oxygen to my blood! BUMMER! Gotta go on auxiliary oxygen!

So after a stay in hospital, and a few days recovering at home, I am starting to blog again! A lot has happened in the Maghreb since I last posted. Without doubt, the most tragic is the disaster in the Sahrawi camps near Tindouf. That is enough for a separate post, and I beg each of you who is able, please help them out with a contribution. Your money will help them return to the minimal life they enjoyed before the tragedy. In the Maghreb, you may send it to Red Crescent; please indicate that it is for the Sahrawi, as the Red Crescent did not specifically organize a fund drive for them. Or you may send it to the UN ...

if you are in the States, look at the new posts for a recommended place to send your money. This is where I'm sending mine!

I hope to get back in the bloggin' swing ASAP!

hale

G'dafi's gaffe

2006-02-11T22:15:00.000-05:00

From my dictionary -

gaffe also gaff n.

A clumsy social error; a faux pas: “The excursion had in his eyes been a monstrous gaffe, a breach of sensibility and good taste” (Mary McCarthy).

A blatant mistake or misjudgment.
-+-+-+-+-

Two news items today, taken together, evoked a laugh which I'd like to share with you. It is all about Sudan, Darfur and Chad, and about Moamar G'dafi - who is always good for either a laugh or a cry!

The first item reported the conclusion of a mini-summit between Chad and Sudan, hosted by Libya, at which they agreed to reduce tensions by normalizing relations and barring rebel activities from each other's territories.

"The meeting, hosted by Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and attended by Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and Chad's Idriss Deby in addition to the presidents of Burkina Faso, Central Africa and Congo Brazzaville Denis Sassou Nguesso, the new chairman of the African Union, ended late night Wednesday with the declaration of the so-called "Libya Accord."

The second news item concerned a U.N. report that "arms from Eritrea, Chad and Libya were finding their way into Sudan's troubled western Darfur region, despite a UN embargo."

The report says that the 2004 arms embargo on Sudan had been repeatedly violated by neighbouring countries, who have continued to arm the rebel Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM). The report continued: 'There have been numerous reports that the rebel groups receive financial, political and other material support from Chad, Eritrea and the Libyan Jamahiria..."

Oh, I should have told you, after the conference, Libya's Gadhafi was reported as saying that "resorting to arms for settling African conflicts has become unacceptable."

Right!

Does the Military Really Rule in Algeria?

2006-02-05T17:13:00.002-05:00

A recent post in this blog described the Algerian army's purchase of $4 billion worth of modern fighter jets, tanks, and STA missiles from Russia, at a time when Algeria is in desperate need of renovation of its infrastructure and an economic boost for its civilians. The fact that the army can spend billions (notice - that it is Billions, not Millions) that way indicates that the Algerian army wields more power than wielded by armies in most democracies.

This very point was convincingly addressed in an essay by Abdul Qadeer Shareef, an Algerian and a Humanities Lecturer at Ajman University of Science and Technology, in which he argues that the military behaves as if it is " above the jurisdiction of civilian institutions and is ... responsible to nobody." He points out that a head of state, even a military head of state, can not rein in "this gargantuan military establishment", as happened with Presidents Benjedid and Zeroual (both of whom were kicked out by the military.)

Others have suggested that Bouteflika's clemency law and his amnesty and forgiveness policy, which excused many of the excesses on the civil war, were pushed for by the military, as a number of present military top brass were the very ones who would have been charged, had the law not been passed. All of this seems to be corroborating evidence that, indeed, the military does control Algeria.

The senior man in the military establishment, as far as power is concerned, is probably General Larbi Belkheir, who was, until December of last year, the personal advisor to Bouteflika, and is now the newly appointed ambassador of Algeria. Two other members of the ultimate decision-making group in the military appear to be former defense minister, General. Khaled Nezzar and the ex-chief of staff General Mohamed Lamari. Possibly those interested in Algeria should create Google Alerts for these three military movers and shakers, and watch their public activities as the presidency of Abdelaziz Bouteflika comes to an end.

---+---

Bouteflika Health Watch - #2

2006-02-05T01:29:00.000-05:00

According to a news item from Africast, a high-ranking Algerian official said " that his country is on its way 'to organize early Presidential elections' because of what he called the deteriorated health conditions of President Abdul Aziz Butaflika." He added that Buteflika, according to "Algerian and French specialized medical report, is in a very critical health condition."

I am sorry to hear this. The danger of political instability tends to increase when the head of government becomes ill, as the vultures start circling. We don't need that!

I will continue with this Bouteflika Health Watch to update the reports on his condition.

--+--

Bouteflika Health Watch - #1

2006-02-04T09:36:00.001-05:00

President Bouteflika of Algeria remained in the Val De Grace military hospital near Paris for such a long time that a senior surgeon in another Paris hospital speculated, in a news report, that he must have cancer. I also became convinced that his illness was more serious than admitted by the Algerian government. And that feeling remains.

He was admitted to the hospital on 26 November 2005, was discharged on 17 December (three weeks) and convalesced in Paris at a private residence until the end of December (about two weeks), coming home as required before the end of the year to sign some documents.

If he had made a number of public appearances or taken trips, after coming home - both of which would have been reported, that could be a tip-off that his health was not as bad as I feared. I decided to keep track of these, and started a "Google alert" (an email notification of every mention of his name in the news). These 'Alerts' come each day, and I look for any news of public appearances or trips, or any robust activity. To date, none have been found. He has hardly been mentioned in current news reports. I did learn that President Lula of Brazil was scheduled to visit Algeria in February as part of his African tour, but did not find a date of the visit. And that G'dafi had called to express his best wishes. But that is all!

So I will continue to keep a 'Bouteflika Health Watch' and report the results from time to time.

Beating Plowshares into Swords --- The Algerian Arms Deal

2006-01-30T17:00:00.000-05:00

About the Deal ---

Algeria has been troubled lately by protests of the poor economic conditions in the country, the lack of adequate housing and similar deficiencies. The government has approached these problems in a straightforward manner, and has agreed, in a very large arms deal with Russia, to buy six billion dollars worth of planes, missiles and tanks. Russian President Putin is scheduled to travel to Algeria in late February or March to sign the deal, which indicates how important this deal is to Russia: it is their largest defense export deal since the end of the Soviet era.

The Algerian army received last year at least 18 Russian-made fighter-bombers of the type Sukhoi 30MK, and 22 SU-24 tactical bombers under a separate deal costing $120 million.

The new sale includes:
...36 multifunctional MiG-29SMT fighter jets,
...28 Su-30 Sukhoi fighter jets,
...8 divisions of S-300MPU2 Favorit surface-to-air missile systems, and
... a large number of T-90 battle tanks (shown above at right).

Algerian President Abdel Aziz Bouteflika announced, when first elected in 1999, a new military policy aimed at modernizing the army and shifting it from a traditional and conventional institution to a professional one.

Algeria was Russia's traditional arms client in Soviet times, but after the breakup, Algeria switched to Ukraine and Belarus for their arms, buying Su-27s and MiG-29s.

The Algerian air force will receive the planes gradually until 2008. Under this agreement, they will have, in addition to their present Air Force, 104 new planes by 2008.

In addition, Algeria has plans to buy up to 50 Yak-130 combat trainer planes and about 30 Tunguska-M1 surface-to-air gun/missile systems (shown above at left), and has signed a number of deals for the upgrading and repair of military equipment of Russian make that are currently being operated by the Algerian army.

Why, Oh Why? ---

There are several things I can't fathom about all of this. Oh, I understand that Algeria is controlled by the military with a civilian facade to keep up appearances, but other than as boy's toys for the Generals, why buy arms and why buy this particular mix of weapons?

First about this mix of weapons: Think about it for a moment - what military challenges are facing Algeria today? I don't see any war-like nations threatening to invade them. To my way of thinking, the greatest problem they face is continued insurgency by such groups as GSPC, and you don't fight insurgency with bombers, jet fighters, and surface to air missiles! These are useless in counterinsurgency operations. But this is the exact mix you would buy if you were planning to engage a conventional army in land battles. And the only nearby country they seem to be angry with is Morocco, and certainly Morocco is not threatening Algeria.

If the weapons were bought just to placate the Generals, they are still creating a dangerous condition. Having mighty arms, Generals have been known to become restless and start wanting to try out their toys, and that foreshadows bloodshed! Just what we don't need in the Maghreb.

Algeria does not need more weapons, but they do need housing and jobs - what I refer to as 'butter' - and that six billion could have been better spent alleviating the poor economic conditions in the country, and upgrading their infrastructure.

Just Thinking #5

2006-01-29T14:19:00.000-05:00

Weather (from Algerian newspaper)

The bad weather is back. With your umbrellas and your coats! The services of the National office of meteorology (ONM) announce a new atmospheric disturbance, coming from the Atlantic, which will affect the northern whole of the areas of the country until next Wednesday. It will be marked by falls of rain and snow, accompanied by a significant fall of temperature.

*******
Terrorism in the Western Maghreb

Morocco has arrested 3 more men suspected of being members of an Islamic terrorist cell. Police already had 18 men in custody and these three are said to be a part of that same cell, which is believed to be part of an al Qaeda network planned across North Africa. Reportedly, the group's plans were devised in Belgium by Algerian national Khalid Abou Bassir.

The capture of these 21 so quickly suggests that the Police had inside information on them. If so, Morocco is to be congratulated on having developed effective intelligence sources.

One of the captives told police that they were planning to "bomb American and Jewish interests especially in Tangier (northern Morocco) and south-west city of Essaouira."
-------
As reported by Global Terrorism Analysis, al-Qaeda has set up affiliates in North Africa. In particular, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) is rejoining bin Laden's organization; they have already set up training camps in the south of Algeria, according to the World Tribune, have recruited Moroccans and sent them for training to those Salafist camps in Algeria.

That is the bad news; the good news is that three high-ranking militants in GSPC surrendered to the Algerian security on December 26, in a southern province south of Algiers. This provides further evidence of the increasing pressure the government is placing on the GSPC. The three militants are Abu Bilal al-Albani, responsible for the group's external relations, Abu Omar Abd al-Bir, who headed the media wing, and a third unidentified man. The paper went on to report that the men vowed to encourage other militants to give up armed struggle.
*******

Moudawana, Violence and Women's Rights

Recent news reports have reported on the problem of abuse of women and children in Morocco, and on the government efforts to improveve the situation. The new moudawana (family law) was a big step in this direction. The most recent move is the development of a program by which female victims of violence may call a toll-free number, from anywhere in Morocco, to receive legal advice and protection.

All this is part of a national program to combat violence against women and children, developed by the State Secretariat in charge of Family, Children and Disabled, Yasmina Baddou (shown at right). Plans include establishment of counseling centers to provide judicial and psychological care for women and girls victims of violence, in coordination with other governmental departments, such as Justice and Health Ministries, the Police and the Royal Gendarmerie.

It is not too soon!

A recent study shows that domestic violence is increasing in Morocco. Over 60% of violence cases involve married women aged 20 to 49 and a majority of them result from disputes over child custody, divorce and alimony.

Enactment of clearly written laws with deterrent punishments, and encouragement of an independent and committed judiciary would be a giant step in the right direction.
*******
One problem with the new moudawana is getting the message out to women in all of Morocco. This is not easy, considering the high illiteracy rate. A clever solution has been the introduction of booklets, designed like comic books, to describe the different parts of the law. (The first of 10 pages in the booklet on violence is shown to the left.) Developed by the Feminine Leadership group in Moro cco and in France, these comic strip booklets cover the following subjects:

- Management of the assets, -Supervision, -Age of marriage, -Polygamy, -Divorce, -Shared responsibilities and -Violence,

and are widely available in Morocco. The Arabic version is downloadable from the Tanmia website, in pdf formats.

*******

Water

Morocco has a water problem. The Minister in charge of Territory Development, Water and Environment, Mohamed El Yazghi recently announced new programs for fighting pollution of ground water and developing domestic and industrial wastewater treatments throughout the country, as part of the program for meeting current and long term water needs.

Earlier this month, at the opening of the UN Climate Conference, El Yazghi warned that Morocco is located in "a region that will witness, in upcoming years, increasingly bad situations in terms of water resources." He said "North Africa and the Mediterranean are among the regions that will receive the least rainfalls in the upcoming years."

Again, not too soon! A Conference was held at Marrakech in September 2005.

Some of the strategies to be followed include:
...Repair leaks in distribution pipelines, as water losses of greater than 50 percent are not unusual in developing countries.
...Promote Water Conservation - Public awareness and managed water rate increases.
...Prudent use desalination to tap sustainable brackish water aquifers.
... Increase use of membrane separation technology for the reuse of industrial and municipal wastewater.
...Increase use of desalination technology to convert seawater, the unlimited feed water source, to high quality potable water.

*******

Jacques

What a wonderful advertisement for the vacation possibilities in Morocco! Jacques Chirac, of France, spent his December vacation in Taroudant, a walled city in the southern part of Morocco. What a nice way to spend the end of what undoubtedly was his worst year in office.

If you remember,

... in May, the French rejected the EU Constitution,
... In September, Chirac had a cerebral vascular accident, spent eight days at Valley-of-Grace hospital without apparent after effect, but was ordered to reduce his workload and not to fly for a while.
... Riots in the Paris suburbs and elsewhere, after which the French judged his post-riot actions as faltering and inadequate.
... in December, polling data published showing that the French had lost a lot of confidence in his ability to govern, probably stemming from concern over his handling of the riots, his medical condition and the realization that Chirac had gotten old (73 years).

I hope he had a good rest and enjoys a full recovery from his medical accident.
*******
Assault on freedom or the press again!

The director and a journalist of the weekly Arabic-speaking magazine "Al Ayam" were charged by the prosecutor of Casablanca with publishing false information and publication of photographs of members of the Royal family without authorization. From what I can gather from the news source eMarrakech , the charges arose from an article published on the history of the royal "harem" (however that word properly translates!), in accordance with the provisions of the code of the press and penal code.

Mohamed VI has made some great changes, but I believe that press freedom (and press responsibility) are vital necessities for the future of Morocco, and much more effort should be directed toward achieving these.
*******
A Fatwa

I've heard of fatwas issued as death sentences, as in the Rushdie case, but this fatwa takes the cake! A former dean of Al-Azhar University's faculty of Sharia, in Egypt, issued a fatwa claiming that nudity during sexual intercourse invalidates a marriage. You probably won't be surprised to learn that the fatwa led to a rift among Islamic scholars, and a televised dabate. During the debate, Islamic scholar Abdel Muti dismissed the fatwa: "Nothing is prohibited during marital sex, except of course sodomy." Another scholar argued that married couples could see each other naked but should not look at each other's genitalia.

Is this Islam? Sounds like some fundamentalist evangelicals I have met in South Carolina! (Just thought this item would bring a little spice to the news!)
*******
Nouri & Urban Decay in Algeria

The blog: The Moor Next Door, written by by Nouri Lumendifi, has two interesting posts on urban decay in Algeria, here and here, . Nouri is Algerian and is currently a student in Connecticut. His deep concern for his homeland is expressed in his last line:

"For God's sake, we cannot let the capital just fall apart."

There may be cause for such concern. The facade of the three-story Hadika Hotel in downtown Algiers collapsed early Tuesday in Algeria's capital, killing eight people and injuring 21 others.

The 34-room hotel, built around 1860, crumbled with about 30 people inside, officials said.

(Bloggers get to know and support one another. For example, while researching the amazigh in Kyberlie, Algeria, I asked Nouri some questions about them. His reply contained a very long and well-written detailed description of the people and their position in Algeria, for which I thank him.)

*******

Economic Conditions in Algeria

A protest was staged by several hundred Algerian youth Thursday at El-Abed, near the Moroccan border, against the deterioration of their living conditions, and in particular, against problems related to housing, roads, schools and drinkable water.

The young men then tried to cross into Morocco. The news report added that: "Several Algerian cities have recently witnessed similar protests against the deterioration of the economic and social conditions in the country."

The A;gerian military has just concluded an agreement to buy $4 billion worth of arms from Russia. As they say. guns before butter!

To be continued ...
*******

Another Military Force in the Maghreb - African Union Peacekeepers

2006-01-26T13:07:00.000-05:00

Back in November, I came across a news item about the creation of a military force among Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Libya and the Western Sahara Republic. At the time, I didn't understand it and didn't pursue it, but just filed it away for future reference. Recent readings have shed light on that force, and I thought you might find this interesting, also.

Here is the original news item -

"Friday, 18 November, 2005: Five North African countries have announced the creation of a joint military force. The announcement was made in Libya Thursday following a two-day meeting by the army chiefs of staff of Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Libya and the Western Sahara Republic. The chiefs of staff agreed on a memorandum of understanding for the creation of the joint force, which they said would be affiliated with the Council of Peace and Security of the African Union. Libyan military sources said the chiefs of staff agreed on each country's quota of troops, but there was no information on the size of the force or its weaponry. Libyan Chief of Staff Gen. Ahmed Aoun said the move was aimed at consolidating the principle of collective work in order to achieve common objectives, notably ensuring permanent regional security and stability."

That last statement by General Aoun is a model of obfuscation, which is one reason why I filed it away!

But I have been reading recently about the African Union (AU) and particularly about the Council of Peace and Security, which is like the Security Council of the UN, but just for Africa. This council was inaugerated in May 2004 based on a 2002 protocol which set out its responsibilities.

In general, the Council's mandate is to protect peace on the continent, by monitoring cease-fire agreements and deploying peacekeepers into volatile areas. Rather than having just one force, I gather that they are setting up several regional forces, such as the one described for the Maghreb. The total contingent is expected to have 15,000 troops.

How will this force impact the Morocco-Polisario conflict? (Note that the Polisario is part of the force!) According to the Protocol, the Council will not interfer in the internal problems of any country. Also, that dispute is already being looked-after by the United Nations. Thus, I can't see that it will have any impact in the Sahara conflict.

Another new military presence is looming in the Sahara, and that is the US -sponsored TSCTI program to secure the Sahara against Islamic extremists training and arms smuggling, and that is another kettle of fish. (I am preparing a post now about the TSCTI>)

Military groupings seem to be getting crowded in the Maghreb!

Congressional Hearings on the Sahara Conflict

2006-01-14T13:25:00.000-05:00

A couple of months ago, a sub-committee of the International Relations Committee of the US House of Representatives held hearings on the Sahara conflict, with the title: 'Getting to Yes: Resolving the 30-Year Conflict over the Status of Western Sahara.'

About ten people testified at those hearings; you can find an overall report of the hearings here, and a read full transcript of the entire procedings here. A video of the entire hearings was recorded, and you may watch the entire proceedings on a RealPlayer by clicking here.

Several of the witnesses were Congressmen, and their testimony followed the usual case when Congressmen are videotaped: they frequently just play to their constituencies, so I read but then generally ignore much of what they say. One witness' views seem especially relevant, and that is the testimony of Mr. Erik Jensen. Eric Jensen has been Warburg Professor at Simmons College since 1998. He retired in October of that year as Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, after serving as Special Advisor to the Secretary-General during that year. He previously served in a succession of United Nations posts around the world, beginning in 1971. Born in England, he holds degrees from Oxford and Harvard universities.

Mr. Jensen, while at the UN, worked on Sahara conflict issues for twelve years, five of them in the Sahara, where he headed the UN mission from 1994 to 1998. He is the author of Western Sahara: Anatomy of a Stalemate, published by International Peace Studies in 2005 (ISBN 1588263053).

What I find significant is that his opinions on the solution to the Sahara conflict could be a window into the opinions held by the senior staff at the UN - he was a member of the senior staff and his opinions are about as close as we can get to the senior staff's opinions. His remarks are given here; they agree with and reinforce my opinion that autonomy within the sovereignty of Morocco seems the best solution for the future of the Sahrawi and Western Sahara.

A Geological Tour of the Sahara

2006-01-07T11:04:00.000-05:00

While there are many differences among the countries of the Maghreb, they have one thing in common: the SAHARA desert. It is the world's largest non-polar desert, and has a geology as varied as any other part of the world. The geology.com website has posted a geological tour of the Sahara, which identifies a wide range of geological features throughout the Sahara. Based on a Google Earth map, they have placed red icons at various geological features, such as volcanoes, irrigation, meteor impacts, sand dunes, shrinking lakes and mountains of the Sahara Desert. Navigation buttons allow you to move about and to zoom in to see details. Enjoy!

Terror in the Sahara?

2006-01-04T18:22:00.000-05:00

A few posts ago, I wrote that I finally understood the bad blood between Algeria and Morocco after reading the appendix to a research study conducted by the European Strategic Intelligence and Security Centre (ESISC). The research study was entitled: "THE POLISARIO FRONT: Credible negotiations partner or after-effect of the cold war and obstacle to a political solution in western Sahara?". One of their conclusions was that "the evolution of the Polisario may give rise to fears that some of its members are leaning towards terrorism, radical Islamism and international criminality."

At about the time the study report was published, the Morocco Times reported that a Moroccan was caught in the desert 26 km south of Laayoune with 13 Hawn rockets in his possession. The man, 33, was not further identified except to say that he was: a former detainee in the Tindouf camps. He had returned to his home country, Morocco, before immigrating to Spain. The 81 mm and 60 mm rockets, although old, were operational, and it was suspected that they were to be used for terrorist acts in the region.

I have not seen reports of terrorist activity in this area of the Sahara during the past year, and this report was troubling. The news item did not give enough details about the incident, and I could find no further details about it.

The Polisario issued a statement, through the Sahara Presse Service (SPS), expressing "strongly doubts about the information" and said that it "can only be a scenario created by the Moroccan Government...".

Another item from a recent issue of Maghrebia disclosed that Claude Moniquet, head of the Brussels-based ESISC, has received death threats, apparently from sympathizers of the Polisario. The threats were received shortly after the ESISC published the results of their study on the Polisario. In a press release, ESISC said that the threats "only show that, while highlighting a possible criminal and terrorist drift of the Polisario Front, we were not too far from reality."

Receiving death threat just because you say things disliked by others is reminiscent of the threats received by Theo van Gogh. In his case, they did not end as threats, but as murder.

Again the Polisario issued a statement saying that the report of the death threat "is no more than a new untrue and dishonest attempt by the MAP and this Mister, who seems to have chosen the bad methods to get famous by inventing allegations and spreading false information about the Polisario Front ... ".

I hope these two incidents do not foreshadow a return by the Polisario to warfare and terrorism. The US military has already stated that the Sahara is in danger of becoming the next active area in the training and direction of al Qaeda terrorism, and they have a 500 million dollar program in place for multicountry cooperation to squash it, if it appears. "The Trans-Saharan Counter-Terrorism Initiative (TSCTI) was begun in June to provide military expertise, equipment and development aid to nine Saharan countries where lawless swaths of desert are considered fertile ground for militant Muslim groups involved in smuggling and combat training." If the Polisario starts using terrorist tactics, they could be seen as a threat in the anti-terrorist war, as they have the standing army, the munitions, the skill and experience in warfare, and are now in place in the Sahara. Let's hope they don't turn in this direction.

Happy days, Libya! You now have two days off every weekend!

2006-01-03T08:07:00.000-05:00

From now on, workers in Libya will get two weekend days off instead of one, it was announced yesterday in the news published by the Libyan Jamahiriya Broadcasting Corporation (WWW.LJBC.NET ). The complete published item is given here:

2006-01-01/ The Secretary of the General People’s Committee Dr. Shokri Ghanem, has authorized the new resolution that allows employees to have two days weekly holidays in stead of one. Friday is an official weekend in Libya, but from now on Saturday will be also a holiday. The resolution will not be applied on schools, general companies, hospitals and security apparatus. Work will start from 8:00 till 3:30 during the winters, and from 7:30 till 3:00 during the summers, the new resolution reads.

Bouteflika Returns to Algeria

2006-01-02T22:09:00.000-05:00

President Bouteflika returned to Algeria Saturday, in time to sign the Finance Law, as required before the year's end. As reported in the newspaper el Moudjahid, the Algerian people received him enthusiastically. The lead story described it as: "Scenes of joy and jubilation for tens of thousands of citizens who come from all the areas from the country to welcome the President of the Republic, who returned to Algiers, Saturday, at the end of the morning."

The main editorial was even more effusive:

Emotion and joy, security and determination, optimism and hope, were among the many feelings tested at the same time after the return of the President of the Republic by the populations of Algeria. With a so rare spontaneousness, they were expressed high and strong for in particular being located and posting an identification with a man symbolizing from now on the reference mark of this work of national revival.

Strong images, indeed!

I still do not believe that we have heard the whole truth about his illness and about the treatments he received. Time will tell!
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Note added on 1/03/06: An Algerian fellow blogger, Nouri, commented that: "El Moudjahid is a propaganda rag." Glad to know that for future reference, but when I selected a newspaper to highlight for this story, I picked it haphazardly - all the newspapers I read were effusive in their descriptions of Bouteflika!

al Qaeda capture in Algeria-- Is it true?

2006-01-01T21:43:00.000-05:00

Did you ever read some news item and think to yourself that it would be good if that news item were true? I have grown to have a healthy dose of skepticism about a lot of news these days. For example, the following news item appeared in the internet edition of the Algerian newspaper: jeune-independant of 2 January 06, with the headline: Coup dur pour Ben Laden. I have done my usual poor job of translation to English, excluding sentences which carried no or little news value, as given below..

-=-=-=-=-=-

A very significant antiterrorist operation carried out by Algerian security forces resulted in the arrest of three suspected members of al Qaeda. The police also recovered material, and money estimated at several million euros and billion dinars. Abou Billel El-Oulbani, supposed head of El-Qaeda for Africa and the Maghreb, was caught by the Algerian forces last week in Algiers. He was riding in a car with two of his close lieutenants. The police discovered a significant amount of money, evaluated as several million euros, in the trunk of the vehicle.

Subsequently. a search carried out by the police led to the discovery, in an area close to Algiers, of a UHF radio station. The radio, connected to a powerline, was found in an abandoned house on a hill top. The radio was to be used to facilitate the contact with the networks of El-Qaeda in the other close countries and in Africa.

Following that, the military forces started a vast search for members of the GSPC, close to Beni Amrane. Near Bouslaha Wadi, they a batch of kalachnikovs and ammunition, three portable computers, special equipment of transmission and release of explosives, audio and video cassettes, CD-Rom and the documents belonging to al Qaeda.

This cache was not far from the maquis of the GSPC, in the vast forest of Djerrah. All the mountainous areas were subjected to a fine tooth comb search by the elements of the ANP. As we went to press, the ANP, assisted by the combined forces, continue to search the area. According to other sources, they suspect that other armed groups had come to help the members of El-Qaeda.
According to our source, Abou Billel was to reactivate international terrorism in the part of the Maghreb, by feeding the terrorist networks of the area in armament. Probably, the found money was to be used for the purchase of weapons.

Vigilance and the experience gained by the Algerian forces of safety made it possible to put a stop to the terrorist activities of El-Qaeda in the area.

(http://www.jeune-independant.com/display.php?articleId=20422

Edition 2335 du lundi 02 janvier 2006)

-=-=-=-=-=-

I hope this story is true, but I can't verify it. Usually I look at other news sources and try to find the same story, independently reported and published. I had Google news and web search for it, but could not verify it through another story.

It would be good news if true.

Have a Peaceful and Prosperous New Year

2005-12-29T15:53:00.000-05:00

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

May you have a happy, healthy, peaceful and prosperous 2006

and

May we all learn to live together in peace and brotherhood!

(all of us, together!)

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Tazmamart

2005-12-26T19:58:00.000-05:00

A short news item in the Moroccan newspaper le journal, of 12/27/05 disclosed that the King requested the destruction of Tazmamart. An admittedly poor translation of the news item follows:

The King wants to destroy Tazmamart. This terrible place where officers of the FAR*, blamed at the time of the two failed coups d'etat of 1971 and 1972, spent more than 18 years under inhuman conditions, was visited by the IER. After the IER report was submitted, the king decided to destroy this bagne**. The order was given. but was not obeyed. According to the daily Arabic newspaper Assabah, a written order for destruction was requested. Was this a simple procedural problem or does it mean that senior officers of the Army are not happy with this order?

Probably just a CYA problem.

But what was Tazmamart and what were these two coups d'etat?

Laila Lalami gives the answers in her blog Moorish Girl, in a review of the book Cellule 10. In 1971, senior army officers attempted a coup, using student officers from the officer's school: Ecole Militaire d'Ahermoumou. The coup failed. Though the students were not aware that they were to take part in a coup, they were all arrested, tried and found guilty. A special military prison was built to house them at Tazmamart, in the mountains, a picture of which is shown below. They were kept in solitary confinement for eighteen years. Hundreds were arrested but only twenty-eight of them survived.

Then in 1973, another coup attempt, this time a plot to shoot down the plane carrying the King, failed. Again, arrests, sentences and imprisonment at Tazmamart.

Records associated with the IER's final report contain the testimony of survivors, who described the horrible and inhumane conditions endured in Tazmamart, and which explain the high death rate of prisoners.

I heartily recommend reading Moorish Girl's blog entry.

---------------------------------------

* FAR = Royal Armed Forces

** "bagne" was not in my dictionary, but it also refers to the French penal colony at Guyana, and which probably is a French generic term for a horrible prison.

Sweden sends mixed signals on their support of Polisario

2005-12-25T21:45:00.000-05:00

The following is a news release (edited for ease of reading) by the Norwegian Support Committee for Western Sahara, concerning fishing off Western Sahara. Morocco recently concluded a fishing agreement with the EU on fishing off Morocco and Sahara, which will go into effect in March 2006, if approved by the EU Council of Ministers.
----------------------
Gothenburg: Vessels from Fiskebäck (Sweden) are fishing off the coast of occupied Western Sahara. At the same time the Swedish government is encouraging other EU countries to abstain from fishing there. "This may violate public international law", says Hillevi Larsson, member of Swedish parliament and of the EU committee.

In July the EU signed a fishing agreement with Morocco which includes fishing off the coast of Western Sahara. The fishing agreement has been criticized by the resistance movement Polisario, as it supposedly exploits a natural resource of an occupied country. The Swedish government has tried, among other countries of the EU, to gain sympathy for its view that the agreement should not apply to the waters of Western Sahara, so far without success.

At the same time that Sweden is criticizing the agreement , three vessels from Fiskebäck (Sweden) have been fishing for sardines off the coast of Western Sahara, with approval from both Moroccan authorities and the Swedish National Board of Fisheries.

"There is no straight forward prohibition saying that we shouldn't allow Swedish fishermen to be in others' waters. Everybody has the same rights there, even though it may not be quite correct", says Bo Wallin, spokesman for the Department of Fisheries Control of the (Swedish) National Board of Fisheries.

The NBF confirms that the three vessels Ganthi, Monsun and Nordic have reported catches outside Western Sahara, which they are obliged to do.

The position of the Swedish government is to support the Saharawis' right to self- determination.
----------------------
Now let me get this straight - -- The Department of Fisheries Control is an arm of the Swedish government and it allows fishing off Sahara. The Swedish government is asking other EU countries not to fish there, but Sweden does not stop its own boats from fishing there. Hmmmm... Sounds like EITHER (money from fishing is more important than their foreign policy) OR (Sweden only supports Polisario as long as it doesn't cost them any money!).

In either event, you just have to wonder how serious Sweden is about supporting Polisario. Or maybe, like a lot of others, they are starting to see the handwriting on the wall and do not want to risk being excluded from these fine fishing waters when the Sahara problem is resolved! Keep tuned ...

Background on the Animosity between Algeria and Morocco

2005-12-22T00:20:00.000-05:00

It is common knowledge that there has been no love lost between Morocco and Algeria, and this has caused many problems, both between and outside these countries. For example, the fledgling Maghreb union has been almost killed off, due to the rancor between them, and the region badly needs such a union, operating to develop the whole region.

Another example is the firm - almost intransigent - support Algeria has given Polisario for the past thirty-something years. The only reward which Algeria could receive from an independent Sahara would be the satisfaction of seeing Morocco lose!

I had never understood WHY these bad feelings existed, but I recently read a report of the European Strategic Intelligence and Security Centre (ESISC) with the rather long title: THE POLISARIO FRONT: Credible negotiations partner or after-effect of the cold war and obstacle to a political solution in western Sahara? The Appendix to that report, named: To the Roots of the Antagonism Between Algiers and Rabat: the War of the Sands, contains a review of the history of the relations between these two countries and clearly explains the roots of the discord. I recommend it to anyone interested in understanding the Sahara problem.

You may get a pdf version of the entire report here - in French, in Spanish or in English.

I Don't Trust the Polisario

2005-12-21T13:51:00.000-05:00

When I first wrote about Western Sahara, I said that, whatever the political form of the solution, the Sahrawi should be free - free to enjoy the four freedoms which President Roosevelt proposed back in 1942.

That is obviously an impossible dream, so, practically, my wish is that the Sahrawi end up with as much freedom and justice as is possible.

I have not said this before, in fact I didn't fully recognize it before, but I have now concluded that Polisario can not to be trusted to lead the Sahrawi in a free and democratic country. If they were to morph into a Saharan government, I fear that Polisario would become just another tyrannical African government, under which freedom and justice would be only forlorn hopes.

Criticismsms of Polisario are coming out in unexpected places. The main story in a recent issue of the Moroccan magazine le journal was entitled: Le Polisario - Est-Il Fini? Is it finished? I don't think so, but the question is pervasive.

What evidence do I have for not trusting Polisario? Actually, there are many reasons, but I will give just three of them.

Looking at Polisario's history since 1975, they have never promoted free elections for their leadership nor free periodic elections for the leadership of their SADR, and there is no indication that they would change if they 'won'.

When the Sahrawi in the Tindouf camps arose in mass protests last summer, Polisario readily used force and violence against their 'own' to restore order.

Against the Geneva Convention, they kept prisoners of war for years after they should have been repatriated, and long after Morocco has released theirs. Polisario only then released them under strong international pressure. The prisoners were used as forced labor - against all Conventions - and tortured and killed. This is a clear indication that Polisario has no respect for either human rights or international laws and Conventions.

It has been reported that they have been enlisting Malis into their Army. This indicates that they do not have the support of enough Sahrawi to even fill enlistments, and this reinforces the strong feeling that they do not represent a large part of the Sahrawi.

The Sahrawi deserve better than Polisario.
---------------------------------------------------
Note added 12/26: A report issued by the European Strategic Intelligence and Security Centre (ESISC) on the Sahara issue , reported on here, concluded, in part, that:

.....the Polisario represents only a fraction of the Sahrawi people.
.....the Polisario, led by the same group for three decades, has remained in deficit of internal democracy.
.....the Polisario is more of an obstacle to any political solution than a genuine emerging State.
.....the Polisario Front does not seem, for lack of in-depth reform, to be able to play a part in any possible negotiated settlement.

A subsequent post has links to the complete ESISC report.
-----------------------------------------------

May You All Have a Joyous Christmas Season!

2005-12-21T12:53:00.000-05:00

Here in America, we are well into the Christmas Season.

Christmas music sounds from every radio and TV.

People are dressed in fake-fur trimmed red hats.

City centers and malls are all decorated with Santas,

candy canes, red ribbons

and

snow

In a celebration of family togetherness, with wishes of peace and joy in the world.

I send all of you my wish that you have a most

Merry Christmas

season and a

Peaceful, Prosperous and Healthy 2006

Just Thinking #4

2005-12-15T15:56:00.000-05:00

There seems to be a boom in building big resort-type complexes in Morocco. First, Bahia Bay, a large scale residential golfing community will be built along Casablanca's coastline; it will include a golf course and golf hotel, luxury villas, equestrian facilities, retail and entertainment centers and small houses and apartments, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. This large project, costing about USD 1.2 billion, is expected to be completed in five years and should become an attraction for golf devotees and retirees from throughout the world.

*******

Also, construction will start early in 2006 on 'Amwaj', a large real estate development in Rabat on 100 hectartes along the banks of the Regrag River. At a cost of $2 billion, it will include a yacht harbor, hotels, resorts, a conference center, residential units of different designs, offices, shops and shopping malls, water gardens, a cinema, and open spaces.

*******

Hamdi Lambarki, a 21 year old Sahrawi, was injured during the October 30th demonstrations in Laayoune; police said he was hit by a rock while others said that police beat him. Lambarki was then hospitalized but died following an unsuccessful surgical operation.

During the protest, about 60 demonstrators threw stones at police vehicles, rights groups said. The public prosecutor’s department of Morocco set up a commission to investigate his death on 11/12, noting that a police officer and a sergeant were suspected of involvement in this case. Subsequently, the two members of the police were detained and questioned in connection with "blows and injuries resulting in involuntary homicide" quoting a statement from the public prosecutor. Rights activists have said it was the first such violent death of a civilian in the territory in 30 years.

Last Wednesday (12/7), Minister of Interior Al Mustapha Sahel answered a question about Lambarki in the House of Representatives, and said that the authorities exercise their peacekeeping responsibilities under sometimes difficult conditions that can lead to mistakes, and that these officials have to come before the law. He added: “Morocco is a State of law that guarantees all its citizens the right to strike and express their opinions in total freedom within the legal framework governing the exercise of this right.”

Let's hope that this is not another 'white-wash', but that the report, when submitted, will reflect the true facts. This is important, as it is past time for Morocco to work for respect and acceptance by the Sahrawi, and for peace in the Sahara.

*******

MaltaToday disclosed that a Maltese Labour Member of the European Parliament could possibly be infected with a severe case of foot in mouth disease! The MEP wrote a letter to the Libyan Ambassador containing instructions on how to handle the EU delegation to Libya coming to discuss irregular migration problems - blunt, directive instructions! Quotes cited from the letter include:

"there is a strong suspicion that Libya is not only closing a blind eye but encouraging irregular immigration to Europe.”
and
“Regarding the issue of the Bulgarian and Palestinian medics the argument (made by Libya)… is not tenable. I am aware that the issue is still under judicial review but no one believes that the Libyan judiciary is independent of influence.”

Then he tells the Ambassador not to “continue with the conspiracy theory because it is ridiculous.”

These few quotes are enough to show the extent to which the disease has progressed. All that is left is to watch G'dafi's potentially explosive reaction!

(While humorous, this is NOT funny! The immigration problem is a potential powder keg and should be treated as such.)

*******

I knew that unemployment was a problem in Morocco, but for some Moroccans, it must be the major crises of their lives. As the Times reported today, 20 members of the National Independent Group of Unemployed, in front of the Ministry of Health in Rabat, attempted to "burn themselves alive" after their meeting with officials on Wednesday reached a deadlock.

They were all taken to Ibn Sina hospital for treatment. The report said that five members sustained third degree burns, and that one of them is very seriously injured.

This was such a bizarre occurrence that I searched all other Morocco newspapers available to me, and could not find one word about it in any of them. Very odd! Was this story a hoax or a scoop? We'll find out tomorrow!

Note added 12/18: It was no hoax, but a tragic effort on the part of some unemployed to send a message, possibly to M6, of how worthless people feel without jobs. I hope he got the message. If this had happened here in the States, the headlines would be in 26 pt type and it would lead all news and broadcasts! It either did not generate that much outrage in Morocco or the papers were instructed to downplay the story.

To be continued.....
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Bouteflika's Condition Reported as 'Critical'

2005-12-15T01:08:00.000-05:00

According to IslamOnLine (12/13), President Abdelaziz Bouteflika's condition is 'critical', and that was supposedly confirmed by his brother Mostafa, a physician who accompanied him to Paris. The news, as reported, did not sound favorable for a good outcome of his hospitalization, saying that if he fully recovered, he might not be able to continue his duties as President of Algeria.

He entered the hospital near Paris on November 26, and Algeria released one report on his condition on December 5th. The lack of information released to the public has caused many rumors to spread, including one report that he was shot in an ambush by the Lions of Tawheed.

The Minister of the Interior Yazid Zehrouni also has been in a French hospital since October, reportedly for a kidney transplant. Thus two of the most powerful members of the Algerian government are out of commission at the same time. This MUST have some affect on the day-to-day running of the government, but I have no idea how much.

Let's all send our best wishes to both of them for full and speedy recoveries.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Note added on 12/15. The Moroccan newspaper libération today contains a major article entitled: "Sur l’état de santé de Bouteflika et la transition du pouvoir 4/4" (on the health of Bouteflika and transition of power). The reference to transition of his power reinforces the probability that the information given above, about Boueflika's medical condition, has validity.
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Also, today the Lebanese Daily Star , which has proved in the past to be a reliable newspaper source, cited Bernard Debre, head of Urology at Paris's Cochin hospital, as saying about his condition: "It is very hard to make a diagnosis. If it is true that he first suffered gastrointestinal blood loss, then it is likely to be stomach cancer. I say likely, because I cannot see what else it could be." The fog is getting thicker day by day!
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Note added 11/18 - Well, now I don't know what to think. Bouteflika is reported to be out of hospital and recovering somewhere in France. According to Aujourd'hui, Monday 19 December 2005, the lead on the main story is:

After seeing the first pictures of President Bouteflika
Jubilation and relief through the country

The start of this exuberant story is:

"The smile, given last Saturday by president Abdelaziz Bouteflika to the cameras of ENTV, as he left the Valley-of-Grace hospital after 21 days of hospitalization was sufficient to bring joy to thousands of citizens and hope to the Algerian people. The few pictures of him and two or three reassuring sentences were sufficient to sweep all the insane rumours which had spread since last 26 November. ... In the west of the country, the center and in the South, citizens gave free expression to their joy."

(Any gross errors in translation are mine, for which I apologize in advance!)

I don't think we know the whole truth, yet!
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Reconcillation and Justice in the Sahara

2005-12-14T14:17:00.001-05:00

It seems likely that the Sahara problem will be solved in the near future - perhaps this year - and one possible outcome is that Sahara will have autonomy within the realm of Morocco. If this occurs, I assume that the present members of management of Polisario will not be allowed in Morocco, but there will still be a number of sympathizers of the independence movement - and Sahrawi returning from Tindouf camps - living within Morocco who could feel strongly enough to continue to foment discontent within Morocco.

This is similar to the condition in the US at the end of our Civil War. There were strong feelings among the people in the South - the losers - toward the Federal Government - the winners. Our President, Abe Lincoln, recognized this and planned a reconciliation without punishment but with generous conditions to welcome the reunion of the country. Unfortunately, Lincoln was assassinated and his successors moved to 'punish' the South. This caused a great bitterness which lasted over 60 years. I was raised in the South in this atmosphere of bitterness, and remember it clearly.

I feel sure that Mohamed VI does not want ill feelings to continue that long; I believe it is necessary to initiate policies NOW which will lead to healing the wounds from this dispute and which will encourage the Sahrawi to start thinking of themselves as Moroccan. A start could be made NOW in Laayoune, in the trials of the eight Sahrawi arrested during the recent disturbances there. As a start, the King could assure that they received an fair trial, with all rights of accused protected. This might be a difficult thing to do on such short notice, but this is the time to start. Human Rights Watch has written a letter to the King expressing concern that the accused be treated fairly. A smart maneuver might be to ask the HRW to monitor the trial and report any abuses to the King - this would go a long way toward showing the world - and the Sahrawis - of Morocco's intent to treat them fairly. Of course, this would only work if indeed they were treated with respect and with their rights protected.

Another part of such a campaign might be an extension of the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation commission, solely aimed at the Sahara, and with Sahrawi members on the Commission.

In any event, there needs to be the beginning NOW of a campaign to heal the hurts from this 30 years of discord.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Oh my goodness! Just read that the trial is over and the defendants were sentenced to several months in jail. That doesn't invalidate the thrust of my suggestions - Morocco, as it moves ahead, still needs to bring peace, justice and reconciliation to the Sahara territory.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Added 12/18 -- In a comment, Chasli said that he did not understand my alluding to the American Civil War. If Morocco is given soverignship over the Sahara, at that time I think the Sahrawi and Polisario will be analogous to the South after our Civil War, and Morocco will be analagous to the US Government. The Sarawi will be dissapointed (or some of them will be!) just as the Southerners were dissappointed at the end of the Civil War. It now comes to the question of how the losers will be treated; I hope that Morocco will try to work to win the trust of the Sahwari and welcome them , as Lincoln had planned to do. Lincoln was shot and his replacements acted to 'punish' the South, with aftereffects which lasted 50 to 60 years. My hope is that Morocco will be smart enough to will work hard at rapprochement.

Just Thinking #3

2005-12-09T19:28:00.000-05:00

Every once in a while, you read something which strikes you as terribly wrong. The MAP reported that the French were expelling a Salafist Imam back to his home in Morocco for "statements harming the republic". But that's not the thing I think is so wrong...

The French Interior Minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, (the one who made those stupid statements last month about the rioters outside Paris) said that a dozen radical Islamists were to be expelled to their countries of origin. That is OK - visitors who break the laws of the host country should expect to be expelled. The part which bugged me was that they will strip French citizenship from naturalized French! If their naturalization was legal and without error, then it is not right that a country would strip them of it. In fact, it is terribly wrong.

*******

I notice that the Algerian Health Minister, Amar Tou, praised Cuba's health field sector and Cuba's use of advanced technology, saying that it is recognized worldwide for its medical care capacity and the training of professionals. May be true, but I note that Bouteflika went to Paris, not Cuba, for his tummy troubles! Just an example of the old saying about Action vs Words.

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"The Tunisian Republic implements an Internet filtering regime that aggressively targets and blocks substantial on-line material on political opposition, human rights, methods of bypassing filtering, and pornography." is the first sentence of a report which was recently released by Open Net Initiative (ONI). If you hadn't heard of them, ONI is a joint research project of the University of Cambridge, the University of Toronto, and Harvard Law School - a fairly trustworthy group! If you want details of Tunisia's filtering of internet content, read it! Or at least, go to it and read it's Executive Summary!

*******

Bouteflika was operated on for an ulcer in a Paris hospital, and Algeria's people were not told about it for days. According to the Khaleej Times, "Political climate in Algeria has been shaken to the root since about a fortnight ago when announcement was made to the general public about the sickness of Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika ...". A very fascinating account of the fallout in Algeria!

*******

Several days ago, Morocco arrested 17 suspected Islamic radicals. It was reported today that they arrested the 18th member of the group. Those arrested were Moroccan (16) and Belgian (2). Good to see the Moroccan security services on the ball!

These were not the only Belgians to visit Morocco last week; as reported by The View from Fez and others, another radical, Filip Dewinter of the opposition far-right Vlaams Belang party also visited Rabat to ask Muslims not to immigrate to Belgium. He and his press conference were nicely snubbed by the local press and all government officials! Well done, guys!

*******

In an earlier post, I said that "small - almost inaudible - noises are starting to be heard which may portend the end of this (Sahara) conflict." A good example of these little signs is a report that The Belgian Green Party (Ecolo), which formerly supported Polisario, now says that with the changes in Morocco, "granting the territory (Sahara) ‘large autonomy' within the Moroccan sovereignty is logic".

*******

United Press International published an article titled "New Danger in Africa", with information from a European intelligence think tank specializing in terrorism and intelligence, stating that the Polisario could be turning to radical Islam. This was immediately refuted by the Polisario representative to the U.N., who said that Polisario was "a clean movement that does not support terrorism."

But think about this: It Polisario loses Sahara to Morocco, what is it's future and what will it's present leaders do? I would love to hear your opinion!

*******

L'affaire TelQuel - A Sorry Mess

2005-12-09T00:40:00.000-05:00

TelQuel is a Moroccan magazine which has been called the most free periodical in Morocco. Some parties, both in and out of government, dislike that TelQuel has exposed some dirty linen and they are apparently trying to kill the magazine. It's a tawdry tale, and reads like a poorly written novel - just too farfetched to be true, but it is!

Briefly, in the latest episode of this saga, police leaked a story to four papers that a head of an NGO had been summoned by police to discuss embezzlement of monies from the NGO. All four papers published the story. The story was not true and all four papers retracted the story. The head of the NGO sued for libel. Judgments against TelQuel were many, many times greater than those for the other papers, and were so high, when combined with prior fines, (for a total of Â177,000) as to possibly put TelQuel out of business.

(I am NOT a conspiracy theorist, but in this case, you just have to wonder - did the police leak a fake story on purpose, knowing it would be published? Was this a planned and sneaky way to get at TelQuel?)

Last January, TelQuel published a story about the royal family's finances and the king's salary, which severely pushed the boundary of discussable topics.

Then later, TelQuel published a story, entitled "A Brunette's Secret", about the career of an unnamed legislator, identified by the pseudonym Asmaa, who had started her career as a popular dancer ("cheïkha"). A female legislator sued, saying that they were talking about her. Two senior editors from TelQuel were fined and sentenced to 2 month suspended sentences.

There seem to be many interpretations of "cheïkha" -- from a dancer like Ginger Rogers to a 'hoochy-koochy' dancer who sings using street language. I am told that TelQuel's defense was that they used the word to mean a respected popular entertainer.

A good summary of the recent history of press freedom - or the lack of it - in Morocco was recently published in afrol News ; it fleshes out the brief outline above with regards TelQuel. Another summary is given here

Morocco has progressed quite a distance in bringing their laws and practices into the 21st century and bringing Moroccans peace and prosperity. In fact, TelQuel published a special issue on 100 reasons why one should be optimistic about Morocco. But L'affaire TelQuel shows just how much farther Morocco has to go, especially with press freedom.

With the new Moudawana, women were supposedly 'freed' in Morocco, but with no press freedom, they can't read the total truth - and thus are not free!

In November, several hundred people demonstrated in Casablanca expressing support for TelQuel, which is threatened with extinction as a result of those crippling libel judgments.

You can strike a blow for press freedom by signing a petition addressed to Ministers of the Moroccan Government for relief against these excessive judgements. Please do!

Remembering Pearl Harbor ...

2005-12-07T20:30:00.000-05:00

It was just a lazy Sunday morning; I was in the family room with my sister, reading the Sunday funnies and listening to the radio. Mom was in the kitchen preparing lunch and Dad was downstairs in his workshop, building the cases for replica Seth Thomas mantel clocks. Suddenly the voice of an excited announcer overrode the radio broadcast, saying that the Japanese had attacked the Naval Base at Pearl Harbor...

From that moment. our peaceful life changed forever. I was almost 17 and my sister was 21 - and teaching second grade at North Anderson Grammar School. Ray, my oldest brother, was 33 and an x-ray engineer in Toronto while Jim, my 24 year old brother was an electrical engineer for GE in Massachusetts. The immediate effect of the attack was obvious to us all - both Jim and Ray were commissioned officers of the Army Reserve. But past that, we had no idea of what was to come....

That day is as fresh in my memory as the day that Jack Kennedy was assassinated - in fact, for me it was the first of a number of events which have become vivid life-time memories.

Today is December 7, 2005 - and that all happened 63 years ago. The event triggers not only memories of THAT day, but also memories of Hal Major, my classmate and childhood friend, who died when his parachute failed to open- after an ME263 downed his Liberator bomber over Germany. Hal and I were close and Hal is still close to me, as I have worked to keep his memory alive over these years...

Somehow, it seems that was the last 'good' war we have been in - a war for which we all knew why we were fighting, a war in which the whole country seemed united. As a youngster, I had strong patriotic feelings sbout the need to help the nation in that crisis. Not so strangely, I now have very mixed feelings about war. We should not be in Iraq, but we are, and we need to make the best of it now!

So today, I am going to think about all the fun Hal Major and I had, growing up together, and of the last day we spent together, just before we were both sent overseas. I have tried to keeep his memory sharp and clear, somehow thinking that if I do that, maybe I can keep Hal alive a little longer...

Remembering Pearl Harbor.....

Morocco vs Terrorists

2005-12-05T18:37:00.000-05:00

Something big seems to be going on in and around Morocco with regards Moroccan security forces, and terrorists' organizations and their activities. The first hint came on 11/16 when an Islamist website published a message from Abu Musab al-Iraqi, titled 'Latest News from Morocco', which warned mujahideen to be "very careful" as Moroccan security forces were targeting Islamic militants.

Then on 11/21, an story in NY Times revealed that Maroc police had arrested 17 people, including two previously detained by the US in Guantanamo, and had dismantled a terrorist cell. Another story by MidEastNewsLine, on 11/23, said that the 17 people arrested were organizing cells in Rabat and Casablanca.

Moroccan newspaper al-Alam, quoting Moroccan secret service sources, said that Morocco is third on al-Qaeda's list of target countries, after Saudi Arabia and Jordan.Then, on 11/23, DEBKAFile reported that Spain and Morocco had broken a big terrorist network, with 20 arrests in Maroc, 10 in Spain, and numerous arrests on other European countries. It says the Moroccan arrests were made in Rabat, Casablanca and Agadir. Supposedly the network took orders from al Qaeda in Syria.

In their fight against terrorism, Moroccan officials have concluded that slums are the breeding ground for terrorists, and have planned one prong of their two-pronged program aimed at combating poverty and eradicating slums - and thus hopefully eliminating the source of terrorists. I just read a news item that the EU has given Morocco €90 million for slum replacement with new housing, as part of the National Initiative for Human Development.

It is true that the Casablanca bombers all came from slums, but those who flew the planes into the WTC came mainly from middle class families. Fighting poverty is a good thing to do, but it won't completely eliminate the sources of terrorism in Morocco or elsewhere! My feelings on this are mirrored by a fine column written by Juan Cole back in 7/28/05. The pertinent excerpt is reprinted below; we pick up his column where he had just said that Scotland Yard was surprised by the backgrounds of the London tube bombers.....

They should not be surprised. You have to think about terrorists as units of hardware, on which software has been installed. The software is a world-view, a set of premises about the world, which then make sense of the terrorist's actions. How does the software get installed? The potential terrorist meets the installer socially and falls under his spell.

The terrorists don't have a social background in common. They aren't lumpen proletariat or working class or middle class or bourgeois. Or rather, they have in their ranks persons from all these backgrounds.

The terrorists don't have an ethnicity in common. Richard Reid and Lindsey Germaine were Caribbean. Others are Arabs. Some have been Somali or Eritrean or Tanzanian. Others have been South Asian (India/Pakistan/Bangladesh). Still others have been African-American or white Americans. They don't even have to start out Muslim. Ayman al-Zawahiri was particularly proud of an al-Qaeda operative in Afghanistan who had been an American Jew in a previous life. Ziad Jarrah, one of the September 11 hijackers, appears to have been a relatively secular young man right to the end. It isn't about religion, except insofar as religion is a basis on which the recruiter can approach his victim. Islam as a religion forbids terrorism. But then so does Christianity, and that doesn't stop there being Christian terrorists. They are a fringe in both religions.

If you try to "profile" the terrorist using such social markers as class or ethnicity, maybe even religious background, you will go badly astray.

What then do they have in common? They got the software installed in their minds. Why? Because they met the installer, and were susceptible to his worldview. That's all they have in common.

So the young man goes to the Finsbury Mosque in the old days and hangs out with Imam. And he points out that the Israelis had fired a huge missile into a residential apartment building to get at a Hamas leader, and had killed 16 civilians, including a little baby. And nobody said "boo" to the Israelis. The US actually gave them more money after that. Tony Blair deplored it, but did nothing practical. Then, the Imam will tell him, the Americans destroyed Fallujah and killed hundreds of innocents. He might even have the photograph that circulated last December, of the dead baby at Fallujah. And nobody can say "boo" to the Americans, and they go on killing Muslims. In fact, the Imam intimates, pulling the young man close, almost whispering, tears in his eyes, the West is destroying Islam. Almost nothing is left of Islam, he will say. It will be completely devastated in our lifetimes. Nobody is lifting a finger to stop it.

So the young man says, what could anyone do? And the Imam says, there is something. But it isn't for ordinary people. It isn't for mere show-offs. And the young man says, sticking out his chest, I'm not showing off! I really want to help, to do something that would make a difference. The Imam says, a person who was really committed could change everything. He could save the Muslim Ummma from destruction. But, no, you are not ready. You don't have the training, the commitment. You are useless. And the young man protests, until he is put in touch with the trainer and given the mission. His new friends all agree on this view of the world. He hangs out with them, at the mosque, at the gym, even socially. They reinforce each other. They tell each other the stories of the harm done to Muslims. They get angry. They swear. They are determined not to be like the rest, who just let it happen. The young man gains in determination. The mission inflates his ego. Maybe he had low self-esteem, maybe not. But he is about to save the world, he is told.

The software is of course a hugely distorted view of the universe. It lets the young man see Israeli atrocities, but not those of Hamas or the Aqsa Brigades. It lets him see American atrocities but not those of Saddam Hussein, Izzedin al-Duri and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The software is fatally one-sided. It also exaggerates. The Muslim world is not in danger of being destroyed, least of all by the United States, a warm friend of most Muslim countries. But the software configures a dire crisis, almost apocalyptic, which can only be averted by an ethical hero who is willing to sacrifice himself. The software hides from the convert that he is to become a monster and kill innocents. It tells him he is a noble soldier, and his victims are wicked enemy soldiers, that there are no innocent civilians.

If you accept that the above might be a good model of how terrorists come to be, then how would one combat terrorism? Morocco already has the other prong working directly against terrorists, as shown by the arrests last month of 17 radical Islamists organizing a cell. An al Qaeda website stated, last month, that Morocco had their agents outside mosques and warned their friends that Morocco's intelligence services are carrying out a major crackdown against suspected Islamic militants. If true, this is exactly what is needed: covert agents posted in areas where recruitment and indoctrination would probably occur - agents to find and disrupt the scouts and software installers. Their reported use of agents observing the goings-on in and around mosques is a good start.

Juan Cole continues....

So how do you fight this form of terror? You disrupt the installation of the software in more and more minds. You adopt policies that make the story the software tells implausible. And you reach out to make sure people hear the implausibility.

Enough for now! This post will be continued in the near future, but whatever ways the security agents go, I wish them all success in this very important effort.

Just Thinking #2

2005-12-05T16:37:00.000-05:00

A recent post on the blog: Chicken Bomb listed 132 different spellings of the name of Libya's leader. I just discovered that the spelling I have been using, G'dafi, is NOT in that list of approved alternate spellings ! I began using it as I couldn't remember the correct way to spell his name. Glory be!! I've invented a new alternate spelling of the name of Mu'ammar Abu Minyar al-QADHAFI!!!Now it is 133 different spellings!!!

*******

At the recent WSIS summit, RSF unveiled a map showing the top 15 "Internet Enemies", depicted on the map as 'black holes'. The Maghreb was honored to be represented by TWO countries: Tunisia and Libya!!! WOW! How did we get to be so lucky?

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Look out!!! We may have another 'black hole' candidate in the Maghreb!! RSF has reported that Sahrawi stations are being jammed within Morocco, and has named Morocco as the guilty culprit! Maybe we can make it three out of four!!

*******

I note that the Beet necrotic yellow vein benyvirus has appeared for the first time in Morocco, apparently brought in on used Italian agricultural machinery. It bugs me (no pun intended) that the virus is important enough to be reported but the report does not describe what potential damage might ensue from this virus -- is it like the Bubonic plague or like a summer cold? This could be important as fruits and vegetables are becoming important exports from Morocco.

*******

Also reported is an EU grant to Morocco for €90 million to pay for "Rabat's fight against indecent habitation." I do know what they mean by "indecent co-habitation", but I've gotta think about "indecent habitation"! Obviously a euphemism for ... ??? (I guess 'habitation' might sound like 'migration'. and 'indecent' sounds a little like 'illegal', so it could be that they are talking about illegal migration. But NO! ) As explained by MAP, this is a slum-clearance grant to improve housing - not 'indecent' but 'inadequate' housing!

*******

A week ago today (11/25), Algerian President Bouteflika was flown to a Paris military hospital with a gastrointestinal problem. I hadn't read anything about him lately, so I Googleized his hospitalization and found that, as of 11/29, he was still "undergoing tests". Today (12/03) is the seventh day he has been in hospital. (I hope he has good medical insurance!!) He was in the same hospital (Val-de-Grace) back in September for treatment of what was described as a "vascular incident".
.
Note added Saturday 12/3 - Algerian PM Ouyahia said on national radio that Bouteflika's condition is "constantly improving", but he failed to provide substantial information on his health except to reiterate that he had a gastric condition. Then on Monday, the official APS news agency said that the President had a "haemorrhagic ulcer", which was surgically removed. As usual, they added that "his state of health requires no cause for concern"!

Note added Monday 12/5 --- And NOW we find that the Algerian interior minister Noureddine Zerhouni had a major kidney operation several weeks ago, and this report gave Algerians their first hint that the operation had taken place. Why wait to disclose this news - and news about Bouteflika's operation? Could it be that the government thought that no one in the country would care?

*******

Libya is promoting mobile services in a big way. As of last month, over one million users had subscribed to cell phone service. To keep ahead, Libya has just signed a €58 million contract with Ericsson to set up a new mobile 3G network with 2½ million subscribers, GSM technologies, voice, voicemail, SMS, MMS and GPRS - using broadband and unlicensed radio spectrum such as WiFi or Bluetooth.

*******

The program to bring together Sahrawi families separated by the "berm" resumed last week, after a years lapse. A U.N. plane carried 28 Saharans to Tindouf for 'family visits' for 5 days, and returned to Laayoune with a second load of family visitors. Some 18000 Sahrawi have signed up for future trips. At this rate, it will take 322 trips to accomodate all who have signed up - and those trips will take over 6 years to complete. Obviously just a stop-gap solution!

My Solution to the Sahara Problem

2005-12-04T10:41:00.000-05:00

The problem of Western Sahara has gone on too long, and small - almost inaudible - noises are starting to be heard which may portend the end of this conflict. I have outlined below what I feel is one feasible solution.

The Western Sahara is a poor region; as far as I know, its only sources of wealth are the phosphate mines at Baa Cray and the coastal fishing grounds. Some have mentioned oil in the Atlantic, but proven reserves have not been reported so far, and there may well be NO commercially developable oil there. These two sources, phosphates and fish, would hardly provide funds to support and develop a nation-state, with an adequate infrastructure.

Years ago, Russia might have bailed out such a country as an independent Western Sahara, as they did Cuba, but not now. I seriously doubt that Algeria will want to continually supply enough money to an independent W.Sahara to keep the government going AND to raise the level of the quality of living of the Sahrawis to something adequate.

I have thought quite a lot about this and have concluded that the only practical solution, for the long-term well-being of the Sahrawi, is for the territory to be given autonomy to manage their own local affairs, within the realm of Morocco.

Morocco and Algeria must agree to help move the Sahrawis from the Tindouf camps back to their homeland, and Morocco must agree to demine and deberm the territory.

This solution will not work if armed insurrection continues against Morocco, so Algeria MUST be convinced to cease their financial and military support of the Polisario and to give their active support to the success of this solution. Also, Polisario must be convinced to surrender it's arms and cease their insurrection. Sufficient international pressure can achieve both of these.

Hopefully, the U.N. might be persuaded to continue their financing - at the same levels as spent now - for the first five years after this solution is achieved to finance the return and settlement of the Sahrawis in their homeland.

Morocco has invested quite a sizeable amount there in the past 25 years, and it will be in their best interest to continue to do so. The King recently revealed a well-conceived long range development plan for Morocco which would also apply to W. Sahara, and which will help insure the territory's future financial security.

G'dafi Jams Satellite Transmissions

2005-12-03T08:41:00.000-05:00

Libya, one of the 'black holes' in RSF's map of internet baddies, may have gone a bit too far this time! Turns out that Libya has been jamming transmissions of two satellites since September 19, interfering with digital transmissions from Five, BBC World, CNN International, US sports channels, cable TV networks and 23 radio stations. However, in addition - and this is where it could hit the fan - the jamming also disrupted American diplomatic, military and FBI communications!

Why would G'dafi run the risk of antagonizing the whole western world? Because a new radio station in London, named Sout Libya*, started aimed their broadcasts on human rights and freedom of speech issues directly into Libya. And he couldn't allow that!!

Upset by the jamming, both Washington and London diplomats have protested to Libyan diplomats - always diplomats' first choice of action.

Stay tuned - I don't think we've heard the last of this little G'dafi gaffe!
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Note added 12/7 - *According to RSF, the London station is named: 'Sowt Alamel'. And RSF noted that Ofcom, the British telecommunications regulator, is considering filing a complaint with the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) , the international body charged with rgulating networks and broadcasts.

Help TelQuel fight for Press Freedom

2005-12-02T09:09:00.000-05:00

I am sure that most of you have heard about the problems of TelQuel, the Moroccan weekly magazine. If you want to help them, there are several things you can do. The easiest thing is to sign TelQuel's petition, which may be found here.

Next, you might write an email letter to the same two officials the petition will be given to. They have the same e-mail address, but you may address the letters to each of them. Their email address is: mail@maec.gov.ma . They are:

Foreign Ministry Director of Communications Mohamed Maoulainine and Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohamed Benaissa.

Let's all fight for Freedom of Expression and Freedom of the Press!

Thanks

G'dafi's Latest Ransom Demands

2005-11-28T07:38:00.000-05:00

In my customized Google news this morning, aside from items about sports, trade delegations, entertainment and investments, the only items from the Maghreb were about Bouteflika going to hospital and what the cost would be for Mouamar G'dafi to revoke the Nurses' death sentences.

In a prior post about the Nurses, I predicted: "... I'd bet he is looking for a face-saving way to free the nurses. But, knowing his past history, not without trying to squeeze some ransom money out of somebody!"

Now we know the size of the ransom being demanded: "... enough money for hospitals and treatment of the HIV infected children, Libyan Foreign Minister Abdel Rahman Shalgam said."

To build and staff a 400 bed children's AIDS hospital would easily cost 100 million dollars.

And that is to stop the death sentence; it did not say that Libya would FREE the nurses! How much ransom will THAT cost?

Footnote: Back in 1802 or so, Barbary Coast pirates demanded ransom for free passage of American ships. Obviously, pirates still inhabit that coast. (smile)
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Note added 11/28 -- I see where the EU has granted €1 milion to Libya to help fight the Aids epidemic in Benghazi. The paper did not say whether this is part of the demanded ransom, but let's hope it is!

Just Thinking - #1

2005-11-27T14:12:00.000-05:00

These posts, under the title of 'Just Thinking', with a serial number, will be a collection of thoughts - odds and ends - and op-ed items about happenings in the countries in the Maghreb, posted from time to time.

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In a recent post entitled: A Different view of Tunisia, I talked about measures of freedom calculated for 20 mid-East and North African countries, and then looked at the results for four Maghreb countries.

Doesn't it seem odd that the three countries, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya, which elect their PRESIDENTS (in theory), scored low on the freedom index, while Morocco, with a KING, scored highest? What's going on? (smile)

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The blog, Drako's Lair, has a post entitled "Thuburbo Majus : A city from the past", which contains a collection of 12 very nice photographs taken in the Punic-Roman city of Thuburbo Majus, located about an hour's drive from Tunis. I really like posts with photographs and descriptions of old ruins along the Mediterranean.

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Talking about pictures in blogs, the blog "The View from Fez" now uses a photograph of an old man sitting in his copperware shop, wearing a fez and reading. This photo is beautifully evocative of images in souks throughout the Maghreb; it was taken by Zany, one of the bloggers, as her husband Samir said: "... just along the lane from our riad." ..A beautiful photo, Zany!

You may see a collection of Zany's (Susanna Clark's) photos here.

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Who controls the Internet? ... That question is the title of an article in this month's issue of Foreign Affairs. I found it an interesting review of the U.S. governments position, and hope you will, also!

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According to Reuters, Algerian President Bouteflika is in a Paris military hospital for examinations, suffering from intestinal bleeding. He was first looked at in an Army hospital in Algeria, before the doctors there sent him to Paris. The traditional place that US Presidents receive medical treatment is in the Walter Reid Army Hospital in Bethesda, MD. I had not thought of this before, but do national leaders prefer military hospitals? If so, why? Are they so worried about security while ill that they would prefer a secure military hospital ahead of the finest civilian hospitals? (Of course, military hospitals might be equal or better than civilian hospitals, but my distrust of beaurocracy gives me an automatic bias against this being true!)

Anyway, let's wish him well!

Sub-Saharan Migration toward Europe (2)

2005-11-27T13:14:00.000-05:00

According to an item in the news this morning, Libya has stopped 40,000 illegal immigrants so far this year, 2005. Wonder how many more got through to Italy and Europe. By coincidence, 40,000 is the number of illegal immigrants - mostly sub-Saharans - which Morocco said were in that country back in August of this year. Libya said that they currently have over a million immigrants in country. The answer to this serious immigration problem does not appear to be bigger razor-wire fences or more border police to stop the flow, but incentives to keep the migrants at home.

Do you remember the last G8 meeting in Scotland, all those smiling faces, when they promised large grants to sub-Saharan countries to help reduce poverty? What became of that? The British First Minister Jack McConnell told a pre-G8 conference: "G8 Scotland can transform Africa from a country where thousands of children die needlessly every day, to one where young people can flourish in peace and prosperity." Prosperity - that could be the key to solving the immigration problem. G8 did agree to work toward reducing poverty in Africa with large grants, but in a quick search, I could not find what has become of this promise, since then.

Anybody know?

The Western Sahara Archeological Project

2005-11-27T06:23:00.000-05:00

A group of scientists and volunteers have begun investigating the footprints of early humans in the desert of Western Sahara, through archeological field studies. This project is built on the results found during a reconnaissance 2002 expedition and aims at building a chronology of human occupation, cultural development and environmental change for the region.

The studies focus on the northeastern part of Western Sahara, south of the berm, in territory controlled by Polisario. Six pages of photographs of the study area, taken during the earlier reconnaissance expedition, are shown here. I was intrigued by them, as they show features I had not seen in other Sahara photographs. Enjoy the photos!

Government Ownership of Blog Host -- BAD IDEA!

2005-11-25T19:32:00.000-05:00

The Maghreb Blog carries a post by Houssein which reveals that the Algerian government is starting Ousranet, a blog platform, to supply free blogs to Algerians. Houssein adds that, to his knowledge, Ousranet would the first blog platform organized by a government.

If it is controlled completely by any Government, it is a bad idea! Anytime a government takes control of any part of the media - press, radio, or Internet, they then have everything needed for easy censorship and destruction of other freedoms of the press. From news reports, I learn that Libya owns most of the ISPs in their country, and uses them as a way to control the content of the'Net! Just another example of a bad idea!

Let's work together to KEEP ALL GOVERNMENTS OUT OF THE 'NET!!!

What about my country? The US does have control of naming conventions and has default control of the 'Net. During the recent WSIS, a number of countries in the U.N. proposed giving governance of the 'Net to a committee of the U.N.
The U.S. was concerned that if the U.N. gained control of the 'Net, then countries which abhor press freedoms would try to manipulate freedoms right out of the 'Net. This is why the U.S. government took such a strong stand at the WSIS. (I am even concerned that my own government has the potential for interfering with freedom of the 'Net, but that is a risk I am willing to bear at this time, in view of the proposed alternatives.)

So I suggest that if you are Algerian and want to keep the 'Net free, look somewhere else for your blog host! Possibly a host not located in Algeria. Even if you have to pay for it!

This desire to keep governments out of cyberspace meets head on with the reality that it takes a financially secure backer to establish, for example, a nationwide high speed network for computers. I read today that Algeria has let contracts (here and here and here) to buy equipment for such a network to serve as the backbone for a nation-wide high speed ISP. This network is being built byAlgeria Telecom, the largest integrated telecommunications operator in Algeria, and the state operator.

Happy Gobble Gobble

2005-11-24T07:37:00.000-05:00

To all Bloggers and readers. especially those in the Maghreb:

Here in the States, this is Thanksgiving Day, one of our major holidays.

About 400 years ago, to escape religious persecution, Pilgrims from England came to this land and established a colony at Plymouth, Massachusetts. It was hard going at first - half of the colony failed to survive the first winter, but the remainder lived on and with the help of natives, survived and prospered. . The traditional story is that they wanted to express their appreciation to God and the Indians who had supplied them with food, so they had a great feast at which they openly gave thanks. This was the origin of our Thanksgiving Day celebration.

Thanksgiving is a day we traditionally celebrate with our family - around a Thanksgiving meal. Turkey is the traditional meat served, as, supposedly, the Pilgrims served turkey at the first Thanksgiving meal.

We all have a lot to be thankful for. Mainly, I am thankful for the freedom I enjoy. All my other blessings pale in comparison. So join me in expressing thanks for the freedom we have to live our lives in peace and security.

Happy Gobble, Gobble!!

hale

A Different View of Tunisia

2005-11-19T23:19:00.000-05:00

To me, Tunisia has seemed to be a big question mark drawn across the top of North Africa. I have read news stories of police repression in Tunisia, stories that press freedom is non-existent, and stories of heavy-handed police action before and during the recent WSIS summit. But I have also read stories of Tunisia's good economic health, her almost complete gender equality, and of her widely-accessible well-run quality educational system.

These different stories just doesn't fit together, comfortably.

Then along comes a story about Tunisia from a top-notch syndicated columnist-reporter named Georgie Anne Geyer. I couldn't believe that such a respected journalist could be so wrong when I first read her story, but then I did what my pappy taught me to do -- I put her story aside for a couple of days and then reread it. Strange ideas have a way of not appearing so strange if you do this, and on rereading a story, you can think logically about the points being made in the story without being wrapped up by emotion.

Her article on Tunisia, if you believe her, gives one hope that the future governance of that country will not follow the despotic lines so well known in neighboring countries. I hope you read it and - after putting it down for a couple of days - reread it and then add your feelings about her story to the comments.
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Note added 11/21: Today I read a post on the blog: Subzero Blue which described an index of freedom for 20 different middle-east countries, developed by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) and published by the BBC. I abstracted the data for four Maghreb countries as follows:

Rank Country Index
3. Morocco 5.20
7. Tunisia 4.60
13. Algeria 4.15
20. Libya 2.05

The 'Index of Freedom' is based on 15 dimensions, such as: power of elected representatives, presence of an opposition, transparency, and level of corruption. Each of these dimensions were scored from 1=no freedom in that dimension to 10=full freedom in that dimension. If a country does not allow opposition to the government, it would receive a score of 1 on the dimension: "presence of an opposition". These scores were added and averaged to derive the final score. If a country allowed absolutely NO freedoms, then the average score would also be 1.0.

Thus of the Maghreb countries studied, Morocco was 'most free' and Libya was least free (20th/20). Note that, over all 20 countries, they rank Tunisia as 7th/20 and 6 countries ahead of Algeria, which seems either to add some validity to Georgie Anne Geyer's conclusions, or to add to my confusion about Tunisia.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

2005-11-18T21:27:00.000-05:00

I have talked a lot in this blog about freedom and our human rights; most of my beliefs and knowledge of these come from US history - our country's Bill of Rights, for example. But in 1948, the member-countries of the U.N. approved a "Universal Declaration of Human Rights". I had not read this document before but I dug out a copy today and read all 30 Articles, and am adding it here, for you.

The version given in the link above is in English. The Declaration has been translated in over 300 language versions in HTML, PDF and graphical forms, and may be found here in other languages and forms.

If your country is a member of the U.N., then your government has agreed to abide by the terms of this Declaration and it is then a declaration of YOUR rights, no matter where you live!

Potpourri of Moroccan News, Nov 14 '05

2005-11-14T23:50:00.000-05:00

I try to read Maghrebian newspapers each day, but today I focused on papers from Morocco, and did not find GREAT news, but found interesting tid-bits of news about a variety of things. Five of them, with links to the papers, are given below:

...Algeria's new Ambassador to Morocco, Larbi Belkheir, has finally arrived in Rabat, after a delay of some months. M. Belkheir was formerly a personal assistant to President Bouteflika.

... It looked for a while that the agricultural crops would be poor this year due to drought, but the RAINS finally have started. Rainfalls are usually good in the second half of Novembers.

...The Association of the Sultan Seas has constructed a 'Cyberbus', which contains 10 complete computers, with all peripherals, and with the ability to connect to the Internet. It will be used first in Casablanca, then in all Morocco, as a computer teaching lab for students.

...A board of investigation into the death of Hamdi Lambarki, of Laâyoune, has been started by the Directorate-General of national safety (DGSN)

....According to L'Economiste, money is being put in the Moroccan 06 budget to help owners of old trucks subject to frequent breakdowns to buy new trucks - IF I translated it correctly!

Morocco's Family Law (Moudawana)

2005-11-12T23:19:00.000-05:00

I had given up my search for an English version of Morocco's recently enacted Family Code, or Moudawana, some time ago. Today, I came across a copy on the Web and thought that some of you might also like to read it. It was published on the Website of the Human Rights Education Associates (HREA); this group has been helping educate human rights and legal professionals in Morocco in the application of this new law.

More to follow ---

Algeria - More Bloodshed in Her Future?

2005-11-11T13:40:00.000-05:00

Recently, the Algerian Islamist organisation known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) announced jihad against Morocco and Algeria. GSPC's jihad against Algeria is not new, but it is against Morocco.

When I first read GSPC's statements, I wondered what was so different this time? GSPC has been attacking Algeria for years, periodically killing a few police, soldiers or civilians in outlying areas, just as they did last week and in a separate attack, two weeks ago. These past attacks have just been irritating pinpricks. Bouteflika,the President of Algeria, had hoped that GSPC would quit their attacks when his amnesty/reconciliation initiative was passed. It passed. The GSPC didn't quit; they rejected his offer of amnesty!

...And the killing goes on!

Now if the populace in any country is satisfied with their government, then attempts by civilians to overthrow that government through insurgency will usually fail. For an insurgency to succeed, there must be discontent in a large enough fraction of the populace so that the insurgents can organize disgruntled members of the populace to spy and scout for them, to supply them with food and with safe havens, and provide the many other support functions needed for successful insurgency.

The other day, while browsing the news from the Maghreb, I came across an item about Algerian police cracking down on black markets in Arzew. Arzew is a seaport town located 30 km east of Oran on the Bay of Arzew, the most sheltered bay on Algeria's coastline. Arzew has a large refinery and an LNG plant, and has an estimated population of 53,000.

It surprised me to learn that the black market in Algeria was as large as the news item reported: it does about 1/3 of all commercial activity with a workforce estimated at over one million people, according to the Economic and Social Council (CNES). Supposedly, this large size is due to high unemployment and government corruption. The population of Algeria is somewhere around 32 million, and the number of working adults is about 1/3 of the population, or about 10 million. This suggests that at least 10% of the adult workforce, or about one million people, are engaged in black marketing.

The news report also stated that the government is starting a crackdown on this "parallel economy". Reportedly, that the majority of people in these activities are Muslims, who follow the Islamic Sharia legal code, and Muslims argue that taxes are against their code, against their religion. If enough people fail to pay taxes, the tax revenue would suffer, and nothing gets government officials quite so upset as failure of the populace to pay their taxes!

The police started their crackdown in Arzew, by tearing down the buildings which were being used to conduct black market businesses. Local black marketers and gangs of young people tried forcibly to stop the destruction of their buildings, and in the ensuing clashes, one person was killed, several were injured, a police car was set afire, and 12 people were arrested.

The potential importance of this is that it identifies a previously unsuspected (by me) area of unrest largely among Muslims in Algeria, and is more widespread than I had thought. The GSPC can and probably will exploit this discontented subgroup and could possibly grow to a menacing and threatening size. Let's hope I am wrong; Algeria has seen enough bloodletting and civil wars to last a lifetime.

What warning signs might signal a reinvigorated GSPC? I think we need to stay alert to the reports of attacks, and especially increasingly daring and brazen attacks and attacks involving larger numbers of insurgents. Right now, the attacks seem to be in outlying towns. As insurgency strengthens, we should start seeing attacks in larger towns and cities, and this would be a definite warning sign.

The GSPC was created from a split in the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), the main force in Algeria's long insurgency.

Saharawi Prisoner's Fast is Off (Again)!

2005-11-09T16:29:00.000-05:00

As noted in the Western Sahara Weekly News of November 6 , the Saharawi prisoner's fast, which first started early in August, and which they stopped in late September, and which they started again on October 20th, was "suspended" again on November 3rd. The reason given for stopping the fast this time was that "the management of the Black Prison undertook to respect the right to visits without searching or intimidating the visitors.", which I don't remember seeeing among their earlier demands!

In a prior post, I said that this so-called hunger strike appeared to be a publicity stunt designed more to attract international sympathy than any protest of real injustices. This news item reinforces that conclusion - it is not a fast but a farce!

I do believe the Saharawis have legitimate complaints, but they denigrate them and marginalize them with antics such as this.

In an earlier post, I noted that this whole Algeria-Polisario-Morocco-Western Sahara situation is a confusing collection of "he said, she said" items - and by that I mean that I can't separate truth from fiction in what the two sides say. For example, I read numerous accounts of riots in the camps at Tindouf last May, and finally the accounts said that Algerian Security troops had to be called in to restore order. Other reports by Polisario authorities denied the truth of such reports. Are the Saharawis in Tindouf camps virtual prisoners? Some say yes, some say no! These are just examples of what I mean when I say that I just do not know what to believe about the whole situation.

Muslims Protest al Qaeda

2005-11-07T13:20:00.000-05:00

Two Moroccans, Abdulrahim Boualem, 55, driver and Abdulkarim Al Muhafidhi, 49, worker assigned to the Moroccan Embassy in Baghdad were captured by Al Qaeda militants, led by Abu Musaab Al Zarqawi, and sentenced to death by them. Boualem, who has been with the Embassy since 2002, is married to an Iraqi and is the father of three children. Al Mouhafidi, is also married to an Iraqi, and has been working for the embassy since 1993.

According to a posting on a website used by al Qaeda in Iraq, the group was reported to have said: "The legislative authority of al Qaeda organisation in Iraq has decided to carry God's law against the infidels and has ruled to kill them." , and: "After the court looked into the detainees' case, it was proven, without any doubt, that they are followers of the despots (U.S.) and infidel Moroccan government."

To me, the big news in all of this came today from Casablanca, where, according to al Jazeera, "Thousands have marched through Morocco's biggest city to protest against al-Qaida's decision to kill two Moroccan hostages in Iraq." and "Holding banners and chanting "Muslims are brothers. A Muslim does not kill his brother" and "Yes to freedom, No to terrorism and barbarity".

According to an eyewitness report in Maghrebia.com, the crowd totaled more than 30,000 Moroccans.

There have been many demonstrations by Muslims against the US and US policies, and many protests against Muslim's dictatorial rulers (for example, Kefaya!, in Egypt), but this is the first massed protest I know of against Islam's dictatorial and tyrannical extremists. The demonstrators crossed political lines and included "Some members of Islamist parties (in Morocco) that back Iraqi fighters battling US-led forces in Iraq ..."

Perhaps ordinary Muslims are beginning to recognize that there is little difference between tyrannical rulers and tyrannical extremists! Let's hope so!
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Post Script added 11/11/05. The main point in the above post was that large groups of Moroccans had demonstrated in protest of inhumane acts by al Qaeda against Moroccan citizens, in one of the first public massed protests by Muslims against al Qaeda. After the three hotel bombings in Amman, news accounts reported massed protests in Amman against the bombings. Jordanian citizens walked and rode past two of the hotels shouting slogans supporting the nation's unity and of King Abdullah. Another account tells of hundreds of Jordanians protesting in the heart of the capital and elsewhere in the country, waving Jordanian flags and unfurling banners declaring, "No to cooperation with the forces of evil and fear." Some chanted "Oh terrorists, listen up! We will not bow down to you!" and others chanted, "We are Christians, we are Muslim, we are one people."

This is another example of Muslims getting fed up with senseless killings. Possibly we are seeing the very early beginning of the end.

To All Maghrebian Bloggers -

2005-11-05T00:41:00.000-05:00

I send my wishes for

Peace in the World

Brotherhood EveryWhere

Health and Prosperity

and

EIDS MUBARAK

to all of you!

hale

Libyan 'Net Journalist Sentenced to Prison

2005-11-04T19:19:00.000-05:00

'Abd al-Raziq al-Mansuri, a Libyan of Tobruk who wrote Internet articles critical of the Libyan government, has been sentenced to 1½ years in prison, according to a notice on the website of Human Rights Watch (HRW). He was actually charged with and convicted of possession of an unregistered handgun, but HRW alleges that his real offense was publishing some 50 items critical of Libya's government and society on the UK website: www.akhbar-libya.com (Arabic). According to Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch: "The gun charges are a ruse. The authorities went after al-Mansuri because they did not like what he wrote.".

According to members of his family, the police did not find the pistol until their second search, which occurred after he was arrested. These. and other facts, led HRW to the conclusion that his crime was in criticizing the government and not in pistol possession, but this conclusion was rejected by Libyan authorities.

The media in Libya is reportedly tightly monitored, except for the Internet, which has provided the one area in which writers have been able to openly express their opinions. Apparently this avenue is now being watched more carefully, and it may be that al-Mansuri's conviction is meant to sent a warning message to bloggers and others who publish on the 'Net.

Note added 11/09/05 -- Mansuri's family wrote a letter to the Libyan government, news media and human rights organisations in which they said the authorities had pressured them to say that Mansuri was mentally "disturbed". Also, an item in today's issue of the Arab Reform Bulletin summarized the non-changes which have been taking place in Libya over the past several years with regards Libya's approach to fitting into today's world; it is well worth reading.

Libya May Free the Nurses!

2005-11-02T20:36:00.000-05:00

Either something weird is going on in Libya, or there are a lot of errors in recent news reports.

It all started with an item in ArabicNews.com reporting that Moamar G'dafi was about to enact some new laws, based on his feeling that no one should be imprisoned unless one's private freedom constitutes a threat to freedom of others! When I first read this, I immediately thought that he was looking for a way to free the five Bulgarian nurses, which I had talked about in an earlier post.

Of course, he could just admit that Libya had made a mistake about the nurses' guilt. But, hey, no one would really expect Moamar G'dafi to say that; he needs to find another face-saving way out of this mess.

Then I read a Voice of America (VOA) report that Libya is considering abolishing the death penalty and releasing the five Bulgarian nurses. Now I generally don't automatically believe the truthfulness of a news report unless I can find the same story told independently by two different news agencies, but here it was VOA, and I generally trust VOA. I did find another report like this in the Mail and Guardian, but on careful reading found that they were both based on the same source.

There were three other stories which added to the conclusion that Libya was thinking about releasing the nurses. The first was a Reuters report entitled: "Libya is About to Release Bulgarian Medics". Then there is a report out of the Sofia News Agency which I took with a grain of salt; its title is: Qaddafi's Son Admits Libya's Guilt for AIDS Epidemics in Benghazi. Somehow that seems improbable. Finally, the exact same story was reported by the Mathaba News Network, again from the same source.

What can we conclude from all of this? Considering how mercurial Moamar G'dafi has been since we first started reading about him, I would hesitate to bet my money on any conclusion, but if we aren't talking money, then I'd bet he is looking for a face-saving way to free the nurses. But, knowing his past history, not without trying to squeeze some ransom money out of somebody!

Photos of Libya

2005-11-01T09:21:00.000-05:00

A while ago, USA Today published a series of 18 photographs of different scenes of Libya, set up as a slide show. The photos include several of the ruins at Leptis Magna and several around the desert town of Ghadames. I enjoyed them and hope you will, also!

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Note added on 11/05: I thought that the link was broken, but it was my brain that must have been broken! I had inserted a wrong URL. Found my boo-boo this morning and fixed it. Hope you enjoy these photos of Libya!

Just What We Need - More Jihad in the Maghreb

2005-10-29T22:42:00.000-05:00

According to the Site Institute:

"Al-Salafiyah al-Jihadiyah group declares jihad on Moroccan government"

"The Al-Salafiyah al-Jihadiyah (GSPC) group in Morocco issued a statement Tuesday (25 October) declaring that the time has come to announce "jihad on the government of disbelieving and oppression", claiming the heads of government have "sold the country to the infidels after they cleared the area from the real Muslims who care about the religion". The group claims that even before the bombings in Casablanca on 16 May 2003, the Moroccan government arrested Muslims "who like jihad".

I've got to think about this:

"... after they cleared the area from the real Muslims who care about the religion" probably means after Morocco arrested the known Islamic terrorists. That is reinforced by their statement that Morocco arrested Muslims "who like jihad", and I don't know any group which likes jihad more than extremists do.

I had read sometime ago that GSPC was operating both in Morocco and Algeria. GSPC has also declared renewed jihad against Algeria in a recent audio-tape from their website.

Todays issue of Asharq Al-Awsat reports an interview the paper had two weeks ago with Hassan Hattab, aka Abu Hamza, former leader of GSPC. It is an interesting interview, in which he says he has been trying to get insurgents to accept terms of the Algerian reconciliation offer. But that was before GSPC issued their recent call for jihad.

Is there anything going on which would tempt GSPC to issue their declaration at this time? Well, yes. Handling the large number of sub-Saharan illegal immigrants who have been flooding into Morocco has required some military to be assigned to that duty, which may reduce their ability to hunt terrorists at the same time. And then the protests in the "southern territories" also require military attention.

The good news is that GSPC is small in numbers; the bad news is that they are fanatical! The well-known writer, G.K. Chesterton once defined a fanatic as a person, who when he forgets his aims, doubles his means. Let's hope that doesn't happen here!

Absolutely Useless Seismic Trivia

2005-10-24T11:41:00.000-05:00

In the last 70 years, the world has experienced 22 major earthquakes; of these, two were in or adjacent to the Maghreb:

May 21, 2003: Northern Algeria, magnitude 6.8; nearly 2,300 killed.

Feb. 29, 1960: Southwest Atlantic coast in Morocco; magnitude 5.7; some 12,000 killed, town of Agadir destroyed

Two More Fasting Strikes, These in Tunisia

2005-10-24T00:20:00.000-05:00

According to United Press International : " PARIS, Oct. 20 (UPI) -- Seven members of Tunisia's political opposition have launched a hunger strike for more freedoms in the North African country.

The seven include a mix of politicians from opposition parties and human rights activists. They are calling for greater freedom of association, greater press freedom and the liberation of political prisoners, including Islamists and young people "unjustly accused of terrorism".
...
Under the government of President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisia has developed economically but critics say its record on human rights and political freedoms remains abysmal."

This fasting strike comes at a potentially embarrasing time for Tunisia, as the ‘World Summit on the Information Society’ (WSIS) is slated to begin in Tunis starting November 18th. A recent report by Tunisian information freedom group stated specifically that "Tunisia is not the appropriate country to host the Information Society summit," especially in view of escalating measures targeting free speech. If the hunger strike continues, it may still be going on while the World Summit meets in Tunis, to the embarrasment of the Tunisian Government.

Another fasting strike which has been ongoing for weeks by prisoners opposed to conditions in Tunisia, according to UPI , is being led by a leader in the banned Islamic al-Nahda Party, Hamadi al-Jebali.

Note added on 11/09/05 -- According to an item in UPI, a group trying to demonstrate in Tunis last night in support of the fasting strikers was violently suppressed by authorities. The seven prominent political and judicial figures began their hunger strike three weeks ago under the slogan "famine but no submission" to protest deteriorating political conditions and freedoms. Observers say that the strikers are reaching a large number of the public who identify with their demands and share their frustrations and unhappiness.

Prisoner's Fasting Strike is ON Again

2005-10-20T11:15:00.000-05:00

According to Aljazeera, the 32 Saharawi prisoners, who began their first protest fast three months ago and stopped it after 2 months, have resumed their fasting, in protest at alleged 'mistreatment' by the authorities. Unlike the first time, when they described their mistreatment only in general terms, they now claimed that they are being denied health care, are isolated from other detainees, and are being put under unspecified "psychological and physical pressures". Moroccan authorities said that they continue to "enjoy rights as detainees including access to media and healthcare."

The detainees were arrested in Laayoune, the main Western Sahara town, last May during clashes between the security forces and protestors struggling for independence of the Western Sahara. Many of them have been tried on charges including destruction of public property and the use of weapons against state officials, and received sentences up to five years in prison. The rest are scheduled to be tried this month.

The prisoners had made two demands for ending their fasts: improved jail conditions, and ease the police security in Laayoune.

My Opinion - Although the news media all call this a hunger strike, the prisoners did not strike because they were hungry; any hunger is their own doing. With the Polisario's publicity campaign in full force, it seems obvious that they are hoping to elicit sympathy for their cause, world-wide. Their fast is just a publicity stunt, as shown by the silliness of their demands.

Consider their demands: They first demand better jail conditions. Next, they demand that Morocco ease security in Laayoune. This last one is a silly demand; no government would ever consider it seriously. The first one may or may not be sincere, because I know of no jail whose conditions could not be improved. I would have been more sympathetic with this demand had they stated examples of the conditions which they wanted improved, but there were none in the newspaper reports. Absent any specifics, it appears that all are merely fluff, designed to lend an air of legitimacy to their protest.

Their fast was on, then off. Now on again. This off-on strategy is designed to elicit repeated newspaper publicity, and it does work well. I predict that they will keep using this over the foreseeable future. Let's all hope that the fasters won't overdo it and permanently injure their health. Part of the advantage of this off and on again strategy is that it does allow periods in which their health can recover, if they plan it properly. Let's hope they do!

Why resume the fasting now? Well, obviously it's good publicity for their independence movement. And some news report recently suggested that it might be to take the glare of publicity AWAY from the fact that former prisoners of the Polisario, now freed and in Morocco, were taking their lawsuit against the Polisario to the World Court. I haven't heard anything about that for a month or so.

Algeria, Morocco and Western Sahara

2005-10-19T19:46:00.000-05:00

I wish I understood the whole Algerian vs. Moroccan thing. It is almost like the feud in the Blue Ridge mountains (located in the southeast part of the US) between two families: the Hatfields and the McCoys. This feud supposedly started more than a hundred years ago way back in the mountains. After a few generations of fighting and killing, that feud took on such a life of it's own that members of the current generation did not even remember what started the feud - they just know that there WAS a feud that required continued shootin' and killin'.

Not only do I want to understand the roots of the conflict, but I also would like to learn the truth about many "He said, she said." items. For example, are the Saharawis in Tindouf camps really treated as prisoners - are they really prevented from returning to their homes? What really happened during the disturbances in the Camps back in May 2005? Were the Saharawi children who were sent to Cuba from the Tindouf camps twenty years ago, really sent without the approval of their parents? Did the Moroccan police really brutalize peaceful protesters during demonstrations near Laayoune this past summer? Did Morocco really dump migrants deep in the Sahara without sufficient water and food?

If any of you can tell me WHY the Morocco-Algeria feud exists, I'd greatly appreciate it! For example, why does Algeria want to keep Morocco from owning Western Sahara? Is this a 'sour grapes' thing: "If I can't have it, then you are not going to have it!"? Or maybe: "I don't want it, but I don't want you to have it, either!" Or is it something else?

This conflict is pervasive - for example, there is a great need for the Maghreb countries to come together and work togther on common goals such as achieving regional economic growth. They started the Maghreb Arab Union, just for this purpose, but that Union is about dead. They haven't met for several years. Two years ago, just before a scheduled meeting, Mr. Bouteflika, president of Algeria, made comments about Western Sahara which inflamed Morocco and that scuttled the meeting. The same thing happened again this year - and I mean the exact same thing -- he made the same remarks which he knew would scuttle the meeting. So, if the Maghreb Arab Union dies, that demise can truthfully be said to also be a result of this conflict. Pervasive indeed!

Are there hidden agendas here? If the Polisario does win control of Western Sahara, will Algeria want to take over control of Western Sahara? If so, why?

In the beginning, there was The Cold War. I believe that the desire to spread Communism had a lot to do with Algeria's support of the Polisario back then. Certainly, Cuba wanted to do that, as did Russia. And they were also early supporters of the Polisario. Just look at Polisario's shipment of Sawahari children from the Tindouf camps to Cuba for their Marxist education. Again, was that part of a desire by Polisario to teach and spread Communism? (see PS at end)

If the Polisario had taken over Western Sahara thirty years ago, they would have needed a lot of foreign financing. Western Sahara is a poor and almost barren country. Almost the only money sources are the big phosphate mine at Bu Craa and off-shore fishing . And those are probably not enough to support the infrastructure of a nation! In the past, additional monies could have been supplied by Russia, just as they financed and subsidized Cuba. But not today! Who is going to finance Western Sahara if Polisario takes control of Sahara? Algeria? Libya? I doubt that they want a big money rathole either -- not if they are thinking straight.

Why does the Polisario want control of Western Sahara? Is it a desire of a few people at the top of the Polisario to gain more power? Money?

And why does Morocco want Western Sahara -- except for some fish and some potash, there is nothing there! It will just be a big money rathole for Morocco, too! And they can not afford that AND improve economic conditions at home, at the same time !

Possibly it is more like the Hatfields and McCoys that we want to believe!

Morocco's excursion into Western Sahara began in 1975 by King Hassan, who was a very autocratic and tyrannical ruler. So Hassan took Morocco into Western Sahara... the 'Green March' and all that ... and Hassan died. His son Mohammed VI took over and the problem was dumped in his lap. Personally, I don't care for the idea of Kings, but I think Mohammed VI has done a fantastic job in liberalizing and modernizing Morocco, about as fast as practical (e.g.: new Family Code, Reconciliation Commission, announcement of discovery of graves of the 'disappeared' and compensation of families, etc.), but he is stuck with Hassan's legacy of saying that Western Sahara is a 'southern province' of Morocco. He may not see a way out of it. He may not see how to both divest Western Sahara, and keep the populi, the military and the politicians in Morocco happy! And a king stays in office only as long as everyone is happy!

Just today, Peter Van Walsum, UN Secretary General`s Special Envoy on Western Sahara, summed up the impasse when he said: "No party seems to be willing to make concessions."

Just like the Hatfields and the McCoys!

P.S. 10/21/05 Following a comment by a Sawahari who now lives in the US, I went back and carefully reviewed this post looking for places which might be in error. Most of what I wrote was in question form and not statements. But one paragraph needs clarification, and that is the one which referred to the Cold War. I have searched the web and my books and can find no evidence that the Polisario had Communist leanings or was dominated by Communists. But that could be inferred from what I wrote and for that I apologize. The Polisario were heavily supported by Communist countries (Algeria, Tunisia, Cuba) and that is probably where I went wrong - possibly assuming that Communist support implied Communist leanings.

Sub-Saharan Migration toward Europe (1)

2005-10-17T05:56:00.000-05:00

In recent weeks, news reports have been filled with stories of masses of sub-Saharans passing through Morocco and Algeria headed toward Europe, which to them is the economic promised land. They come from countries so poor
that these migrants can't earn a living for themselves, much less their loved ones. They are migrating to get jobs and earn enough to send monies home for the support of their families.

To give some idea of the ordeal they face is getting to Spain, they must first cross the Sahara, usually on foot. The distance from the northernmost part of Niger to the Mediterranean, as the crow flies, is over 1200 miles. The distance from the northernmost part of Mali is over 700 miles. At 20 miles per day, the trip from Mali would take at least 35 days in the Sahara! Now admittedly this is autumn, approaching the cooler part of the year. Cooler, yes, but still dry and hot. The economic pressures on these migrants must be great, indeed, to even undertake such an arduous trip!

From the southern part of Morocco and Algeria, there are three preferred routes migrants take. The first is northward, thru Algeria and Morocco to the Med. From there, they may head for the Spanish seaside enclaves (read, colonies) of Ceuta and Melilla, both located in Morocco near the Algerian border, or they may take boat passage to Spain. At the closest point, Spain in only 9 miles from the Moroccan shore. A third route, which has not been in the news recently, is from Morocco to the Azores (Spanish owned) and then to Spain.

According to a report published 8/16, Morocco estimates that over 40,000 illegal sub-Saharan migrants are currently in Morocco. Morocco has it's own economic problems, with a poverty rate over 14%, and can ill afford to feed and house the migrant flow. Paying for their passage back to their home countries will strain Morocco's budget. Regardless, they have started returning migrants to their home countries and it is reported that they have airlifted over 2500 already.

There have been reports that Morocco has 'dumped' loads of immigrants back in the Western Sahara with insufficient food and water to make the trip home. From everything I have been able to find, I believe these reports are wrong, possibly maliciously so. The reports have been adamantly denied by Morocco, who explained that the migrants who had been rounded up in northern Morocco, had been moved, in convoys of busses, to a military base in Guelmim, which is 80 miles north of the Western Sahara border, from which the repatriation flights originated.

This has all the earmarks of a great tragedy. The migrants need to provide for their families. The people in Europe do not want who see their available jobs being taken by 'outsiders'. Morocco is caught in the middle, and the migrants are apparently being used by others as a driving wedge in their fight over the question of the Western Sahara, a topic I will write about next.

Hospital Workers Maybe Wrongly Accused of Murder in Libya

2005-10-16T19:42:00.000-05:00

A Palestinian doctor and four Bulgarian nurses have been tried and convicted of the murder of 420 children in a Benghazi hospital. The children died from being infected with the Aids virus. The doctor and nurses were charged with intentionally infecting the children and now all face the death penalty by firing squad, according to a news item in the International Herald Tribune.

International experts have gone to Libya, studied the hospital situation, and have testified that poor sanitary practices were the most likely cause of the epidemic. One eminent scientist, the discoverer of the AIDS virus, concluded that: "Some of the children were infected before the Bulgarian nurses even arrived, and others after they left."

Reportedly, Libya suggested to Bulgaria that a payment of $10 million blood money per child could result in their release. ( The amount is strangely reminiscent of the payment Libya was forced to make as a result of their agent's destruction of PanAm flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.)

The experts also said that the Qaddafi regime decided early on to pin the blame on the doctor and nurses rather than admit to sloppy hospital conditions. And now most people in Libya believe they are guilty and deserve the death penalty, which makes it more difficult for Qaddafi to stop the executions.

Post Script ... Sunday, 10/16/05 The second civil suit, brought by parents of children who died of AIDS, against the Bulgarian nurses sentenced to death for allegedly infecting the children with the virus, has been postponed until December 17, the Libyan government announced. Apparently, the Libyan Supreme Court is reviewing the death sentences and will render a verdict on 15th of November.

PPS ..... Monday 10/17/05 The Bulgarian president visited Bush at the White House today, after which Bush stated: "We have made our position known to the Libyan government. There should be no confusion in the Libyan government's mind, that those nurses should be, not only spared their life, but out of prison, and we'll continue to make that message perfectly clear."

I feel the same way.

PPPS ..... Friday 10/21/05 This morning it was reported that angry parents of the infected children and members of the General Syndicate of Medical Professions in Libya (that is, the Medical profession) assembled in front of the UN Office in Tripoli, with banners and signs condemning Bush for his statements, and angrily asserted the validity of the Libyan court verdicts. After handing the UN representative a statement of their anger, the crowd moved to the American Liaison Office to Libya "where a delegation of these families submitted a copy of its statement issued during this angry demonstration."

It is possible that the parents have not heard the several medical opinions that the infections were caused by sloppy medical and hospital practices, but certainly the medical profession must have heard of them, that with the wide circulation of US and British medical journals. Possibly they don't want to acknowledge them, embarrassing as it must be!

------ Have you any comments on this? If they are truly guilty of purposely infecting the children, then they should be shot. But it seems that there is sufficient reasonable doubt in this case to warrant a serious review of their guilt ; in a totalitarian country, reasonable doubt means about as much as a penny, today, in the corner candy store. To read other press items on this story, do a Google search on the Net with the words: nurses, aids, Libya, and you will find over 150,000 hits.

More on : Polisario or Morocco?

2005-10-02T11:39:00.000-05:00

In the first post with this topic, I came to the conclusion that the control of Western Sahara should go to the group which can make the best life for the people in W. Sahara, and my definition of 'best' means that the Saharawis would lead a free and econimically secure life, as defined by the four freedoms of Roosevelt (freedom of expression, of religion, freedom from fear, and from want). Who has the best history of providing this kind of life?

http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/od4freed.html

Let's start with the Polisario.

What can we infer about Polisario's interest in developing and promoting human rights and an economically stable environment if they controlled the development of W. Sahara? The only basis we have for making that judgement is their history in the past two decades, say, in caring for the Sawaharan refugees in camps near Tindouf, and in their relations with others. Such an examination must be based on the public record, and unfortunately, the public record is not unbiased;

Moving Toward a Higher-Tech Economy

2005-09-29T21:32:00.000-05:00

In the past several months, items in Morocco Times have reported on the many programs being developed to tackle Morocco's employment problem. Stories about those programs appear almost daily.

The employment problem seems pervasive. For example, textiles is the largest industry in Morocco, and it was hurt badly this past year by China dumping cheaper textiles into Europe, which only added to Morocco's employment problem.

Concern has also been expressed that there are not enough jobs for Morocco's technical school graduates. Consequently, the brightest graduates are leaving for foreign jobs in their fields. This was echoed by this notice:

The Moroccan Fulbright Alumni Association organized on Saturday in Rabat, ... an international colloquium, entitled "Turning Brain Drain into Brain Gain for Morocco”. Daoud Casewit, the ... commission's executive secretary explained how the Fulbright programme contributes to the brain gain.

Thirty five years ago, North Carolina faced these same problems. Luther Hodges, an exceptionally brilliant man, was governor. The main industries in NC then were -- tobacco farming, -- textiles and -- furniture manufacturing. (Sound familiar?) With the tobacco-health problem looming, obviously tobacco was only heading for the drain! With China and other low wage countries becoming industrialized, it was obvious that the textile industry and furniture manufacturing were also heading for the rocks!

Governor Hodges wanted not only more jobs, he wanted these to be higher paying jobs, and concluded that the State needed high tech industries to meet these objectives. But how to get high tech industries to relocate to a low tech state? Hodges concluded that if he could lure the Research Labs of high tech companies to NC, then their manufacturing plants would surely follow. He started a Research Park in which the tenants would be lured by promises of close connections with NC Universities. And this worked, almost better than anyone could have imagined.

The park is now the largest research park in the world, home to over 100 research and development organizations. (If interested, search Google for "Research Triangle Park" and you will find that the Park is mentioned in over 3,000,000 WebPages!) Just as Hodges predicted, many high tech companies have moved to NC since the Park was founded. And now most graduates from NC's universities can find technical jobs there, and stay "home", if they wish to do so.

I worked in that research park, and knowing it's history is the reason I was so happy to read this item in tonight's Al Bawaba's news:

French engineering company Teuchos, the subsidiary of the Safran
Group, specialized in aerospace, transport and communications opened an aeronautics and space research center in Casablanca. Bladi.net reports that the Center will create 400 engineering and technician jobs. Teuchos and Moroccan government had signed an agreement in July 2005 for the opening of the Center. According to this agreement, Teuchos will also establish partnerships with Moroccan universities to carry out projects. The cost of the aeronautics center established by Teuchos is estimated to be around 12 million euros. Teuchos' core business is made up of a range of capabilities that are common to many sectors of industry, including systems engineering, mechanical engineering and energetics, automation, electronics and industrial computing, management and dependability (Reliability, Availability, Maintainability, Safety).

That is wonderful news. If Morocco can lure research labs in completely different areas, such as pharmaceuticals, solid state electronics, genetic engineering and so on, they can build a complex of different industries as a way of approaching stable employment.

WAY TO GO, MOROCCO !!

How Do I Decide: Polisario or Morocco?

2005-09-22T14:38:00.000-05:00

In 1975, Morocco moved troops into Western Sahara and asumed the governance of the country. A group of Saharawis objected and formed the Polisario to fight for self-determination of Western Sahara. The Polisario are mentored and funded by Algeria in this dispute. That was 30 years ago. The dispute lingers on.

I have wondered for a long time about the relative merits of the claims of these two disputants. Of course, Moroccans have moved in sizeable numbers into Western Sahara and defacto ownership puts a strong claim to the country. But, who is right? Is there a 'right' in this case? Or should the question really be: What is best for the Saharawis?

I look at the Polisario, and see actions which indicate to me that they would not be good governors of the Saharawis, unless they drastically change. On the other hand, much the same can be said about Morocco, but for different reasons. So let's stop and ask what we want for the Saharawis, and possibly use those goals as a basis of choosing between them..

For me, as an old idealist, I want the Saharawis to enjoy the four freedoms. Do you remember the four freedoms?

Back in 1941, Japan attacked the US at Pearl Harbor. On Decenber 8th, President Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war on Japan and Germany. The US fleet lay in a shambles in Hawaii and we were having our butts kicked all over the Pacific. About a month later, Roosevelt addressed Congress again, laying out the problems before us, and near the end of his speech, he outlined what he wanted the world to be like after the war. He said:*

"In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.

The first is freedom of speech and expression -- everywhere in the world.

The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way everywhere in the world.

The third is freedom from want, which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants -- everywhere in the world.

The fourth is freedom from fear, which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor -- anywhere in the world.

That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation."

We ain't there yet, but it is a very wonderful goal for all of us, including the Saharawis. And it is a good set of goals we can use to choose between the two claimants. Which of the two claimants would be more likely to establish these four freedoms in Western Sahara?

I don't know the answer yet, but this has given me a more rational basis for choosing between them than I had before. Four freedoms -- not a bad basis!!!

-------------------------------
* And with this link, you can listen to a recording of Roosevelt giving this speech.

How To Read Items From Human Rights Groups

2005-09-21T21:04:00.000-05:00

I once heard someone say that they didn't think they were paranoid, in spite of all those people who were out to get them!

Well, I felt a bit like that today, while reading press releases by human rights (HR) organizations about West Sahara. I had an uneasy feeling as I read , and on reflection, found that I was suspicious of the truthfulness of some statements made in these releases. A good example is contained in a recent press release by Amnesty International (AI). In general, AI seems to be an honest and trustworthy organization, but in this release, they say:

"Amnesty International is concerned about the recent arrest and detention of six human rights defenders in Western Sahara in the context of politically charged protests in Laayoune and several other cities in Morocco and Western Sahara.

The organization said it was particularly disturbed by reports that two of them had been tortured. Some of those arrested are former “disappeared”, others are former prisoners of conscience. All six are long-standing human rights defenders who have been instrumental in collecting and disseminating information about human rights violations, including during the policing of a recent wave of pro-independence demonstrations in the territory of Western Sahara, which Morocco controversially annexed in 1975.

The rights activists are under investigation for allegedly participating in or promoting an armed gathering. Amnesty International fears that they have been targeted because of their human rights work during recent events or their openly held views in favour of independence of Western Sahara"

When reading this report, you must read their words with the mind of a translator. For example, consider the term: "human rights defenders", as used in their first sentence. On face value, you might think this meant members of some organization like AI, but this is not necessarily so. In fact, some of the arrestees would be considered, by others, to be insurgents interested in securing the independence of Western Sahara from Morocco by force of arms. AI includes a reference to this in the third paragraph, saying that Morocco arrested them for allegedly "participating in or promoting an armed gathering." That sounds something like an insurgency to me! So the first problem may be expressed as: One man's "human rights defenders" is another man's "insurgents".

The questions to consider are: "Were those arrested led to be there by their interests in liberating Western Sahara from Morocco. Were they armed when arrested? As human rights activists, did they report EQUALLY on human rights violations by both sides? To whom did they make such reports?"

This last two questions are especially relevant. If a human rights defender defends only the rights of people one side of a dispute, are they really a human rights defender? I would argue that to be considered a HR group, the group must dispense it's assistance, without bias, to anyone whose rights are violated. If the group only defends one side, they are - in essence - part of that side.

AI implies that torture had been used. If torture was used, then Morocco should be castigated by the whole international community. There are ways to bring individuals to trial on a charge like torture. (Consider what the UN is doing now in Lebanon concerning the assassination of Rafik Hariri!) The International Red Cross Committee could do the investigations, and I certainly would trust their conclusions! But it is somehow a bit "below the belt" for a supposedly unbiased group to insinuate that a crime of torture occurred, when they only have unsubstantiated reports of it. And particularly 'low', coming from a human rights organization. (I say - without proof - that the reports were unsubstantiated, as I am sure AI would have mentioned any substantiation they had in these releases.)
Many human rights groups are doing very valuable work and are improving the human condition. But I don't believe that you should automatically believe press releases just because they are made by a human rights group. Unlike humans, all HR groups are not created as equals; some are honest and some are biased and I imagine there are some which are downright dishonest.

News Junkie

2005-09-21T16:56:00.000-05:00

Without doubt, I am a news junkie. I have read newspapers since I was about 15 , because I like to track happenings around the world. My old favorite was the NY Times. But then, some time ago, I stopped all newspaper deliveries to my home - they gave me too much paper to deal with. I now get my morning fix of news right from the Internet.

I start with Google News, customized to include news from my interest areas. I then scan a half dozen newspapers, such as NY Times, Wash. Post, UK Guardian, Le Monde, Beirut Star, Moroccan Times. Sometimes I find that I have learned more then just the news, and that happened last week when I found two oddities about news from the Maghreb.

One customized section in Google News gathers the important items from the Maghreb: stories from Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and West. Sahara, excluding sports and entertainment items, and delivers what it considers the four most important stories to my machine. During these past two weeks, all of the items reported by Google were about the same story: Morocco, Polisario, prisoners, and their hunger strike. There were NO items from Algeria or Tunisia which Google judged to be more important than the Morocco/Polisario stories. Could this mean that there's not much news coming from the Maghreb on a daily basis? Does it mean that Maghreb is a slow news area? Possibly so.

About the news from Algeria: One of my sources is AllAfrica.com. They say that they aggregate and index content from over 125 African news organizations, and from 200+ other sources. With this coverage, you'd think they'd get all the news that's fit send out over the 'Net! If you ask AllAfrica for the news from Algeria, you get this. I went through these pages and found that under the Algeria - Top News items, there were 24 stories over the 11 day span reported. (Some may have been duplicates of the same story -I couldn't tell, but they had different headlines.) And all of the stories were about sports! Would you have thought that? EVERY ONE A SPORTS STORY! This just reinforces the conclusion arrived at above.

Living in the States, I've heard too much bad news lately: IRAQ, KATRINA, PAT ROBERTSON, and now they are telling me that hurricane OPHELIA might turn and head toward my home. I'm flooded with bad news!! So if the Maghreb is really a slow news area, bring it on! We can sit on my porch in the evening cool, in peace, digest the two or three items coming from the Maghreb and a glass of iced tea, and not break a sweat!

Welcome to this Mahgreb blog.

2005-09-11T11:27:00.000-05:00

Bloggin' the Maghreb is a Web log in which the cultures, economic conditions, interstate spats, and news of the coastal countries of northwest Africa will be discussed. Although the 'Maghreb' is usually thought of as comprising only the coastal lands and Atlas Mountains of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, I consider the whole of these three countries to be the Maghreb. And, since West Sahara is now, de facto, a part of Morocco, it is also included. Libya is included by some people, as is Mauritania. I'll include them as convenient. The Polisario, an insurgent group funded by Algeria, whose aim is the 'independence' and governance of Western Sahara, is also included.

You are welcomed to read and encouraged to add your comments to the posts. To reply, just click on the word 'comments' at the end of each post; this will open a window for your statements.. I urge you to apply the Golden Rule in writing your comments. There are only a few limits on commenting; I will remove all ads and all comments which contain inappropriate language (e.g.: foul language or language designed to incite or provoke). I hope we both will enjoy this blog and learn from it. If you have suggestions of topics you think should be discussed, please contact me by sending an email to:

BlogginTheMaghreb'at'Hotmail.Com (Replace 'at' in the address with @) .

Let the fun begin....

hale