Anouar Boukhars, More Trash Talk on the Western Sahara, and the Rise of the Moroccan Americans

Anouar Boukhars, a young Moroccan-American political scientist, Maghreb expert, and professor at McDaniel College in Maryland has recently become the darling of the Morocco lobby in its attempt to get US government support for Rabat’s illegal annexation of the Western Sahara. A prolific researcher, journalist, and commentator on subjects North African, he has over the last couple years served on several panels and has authored a number of articles on the Western Sahara issue. In particular, a long piece for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in March 2012, “Simmering Discontent in the Western Sahara,” is being referenced with some regularity for its fear-mongering on alleged collusion between the Polisario and terrorist groups in the region and for its strong support for Rabat’s autonomy proposal for the territory.

I have read Boukhars’ article several times and it seems that with each rereading I find more things wrong with this horrendously biased analysis.

Boukhars on International Law

For starters, he completely ignores the international law of the Western Sahara. The only time “international law” even appears in the article is in the introduction when he states, “The Polisario claims that under international law, as a former colony, the Western Sahara should have been granted independence.” Of course, the United Nations, the International Court of Justice, and customary international law also make this claim. Similarly, in his long discussion of the friction between the indigenous Sahrawis and the Moroccan settlers in the occupied territory, it never occurs to him to mention that under Geneva Convention IV it is illegal for the settlers to be there in the first place given that Morocco is a signatory of the Geneva Conventions. I strongly urge anyone with an interest in the legal aspects of this issue to take a look at the recent study by the New York City Bar Association, “The Legal Issues Involved in the Western Sahara Dispute,” which is a wonderfully clear and concise expression of the international law that Boukhars so flippantly ignores and Morocco so egregiously violates.

Boukhars on Sahrawi Nationalism

Boukhars’ discussion of Sahrawi nationalism in the occupied territory is, likewise, marred by misinformation and misanalysis. Take, for instance, the following assertions:

While ethnic nationalism was never a force to reckon with in the Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara, ethnic identity is becoming more pronounced. This does not translate into support for separatism, but it does enhance the forces of divisiveness, which erode the rule of law and undermine the existing social fabric. 

…

Separatist tendencies have always been negligible and the Polisario’s credibility very low, as leaked U.S. State Department cables from Morocco revealed. “Extensive interviews and independent sources in the territory,” wrote senior American official Robert P. Jackson in a confidential document in 2009, “suggest that the principal goal of most Sahrawis is more self-government than self-determination.”

…

The disappointment of those Sahrawis who are disenchanted with Moroccan rule does not stem from ideological convictions but from political, social, and economic deprivations.

I find this denigration of Sahrawi nationalism and dismissal of Sahrawi separatist sentiment totally baffling given the large body of evidence supporting the opposite view, that a sizable portion of the indigenous Sahrawi population in the occupied territory is fervently nationalistic and supports independence, as well as the Polisario. From the original UN General Assembly mission to the territory in 1975 that concluded that a majority of the inhabitants supported independence and the Polisario to the periodic large demonstrations for independence from 1999 to the present, the strength of Sahrawi nationalism and “separatist” zeal are irrefutable. Boukhars’ blindness to this is truly delusional. Jacob Mundy’s “The Dynamics of Repression and Resistance: Sahrawi Nationalist Activism in the Moroccan Occupied Western Sahara” is a good place to start to get the real reality here.

And then there is the issue of Robert P. Jackson, mentioned above by Boukhars as his big authority on the lack of “separatist tendencies” among the Sahrawi. Yes, this is the very same Robert P. Jackson whose reporting from the U.S. embassy in Morocco was categorized by Stephen Zunes in his article, “Wikileaks Cables on Western Sahara Show Role of Ideology in State Department,” as “One of the clearest examples of this phenomenon of allowing ideology to interfere with honest reporting.” Jackson is a particularly clueless analyst of Western Saharan affairs and is hardly a reliable authority on any of this.

Boukhars on Polisario Terrorism

Another part of the report that is particularly reprehensible is Boukhars’ attempt to smear the Polisario with allegations of ties to terrorism. In his article summary, Boukhars tells us:

AQIM [Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb] and its offshoots in the Sahel are already working to expand their partnership with smugglers from massive refugee camps in Tindouf, Algeria, and to enlist recruits among the disenchanted youth there. If AQIM strengthened its alliance of convenience with the Polisario, the movement that has long fought for Western Sahara’s independence, a formidable terrorist organization could emerge.

The problem here is that there just isn’t any evidence of this mythical Polisario-AQIM alliance of convenience, outside of the trash talk coming out of Rabat. The Polisario has no history at all of cooperating with or supporting any terrorist groups, and they have never been on the U.S. State Department’s list of terrorist organizations. Furthermore, U.S. officials who monitor the Polisario are extremely skeptical of any such ties. At a 2010 briefing, Daniel Benjamin, Ambassador-at-Large, U.S. State Department Coordinator for Counterterrorism, addressed a question about whether terrorists were taking advantage of the Western Sahara crisis. His response:

We are obviously always concerned that al-Qaida in the Maghreb could expand its operations, but frankly, I wouldn’t quite get it if they were expanding into that region.  I’m not quite sure I would see what the up side for them would be.  And in any case, we haven’t seen the proof that it is – that that is really what’s going on.

And emails coming out of the US embassy in Algiers are even more adamant about the Polisario’s anti-terrorism policies:

… the Polisario "government" severely punishes anyone caught trafficking persons or weapons that could aid terrorists. Polisario also restricts the refugees from accessing extremist websites in the camps. All such activities are seen as harmful and a liability to the Polisario's political goals. …They [extremists and terrorists] perceive the Sahrawi people as too close to the West and not pious enough, in part, these contacts believe, because Sahrawi religious leaders have encouraged Western NGOs to participate in seminars on inter-faith dialogue and women's issues.

What is even more bizarre about Boukhars’ attempt to pin the terrorist label on the Polisario is Morocco’s own lofty status as one of the largest incubators of terrorism in the world. In Boukhars’ own words from an earlier Brookings study, “The involvement of many Moroccans in international terrorism has raised pressing questions about the efficacy of the Moroccan regime’s strategy in preventing the spread of extremist ideology among the population.” In a similar vein, in the United States Department of State Country Reports on Terrorism 2010, we learn that despite huge Moroccan government counter-terrorism efforts “Reports of Moroccans either preparing to go or going to terrorist fronts in Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan to receive training from al-Qa-ida (AQ) linked facilitators and/or to conduct attacks suggest Morocco remained a source for foreign fighter pipelines.”  Likewise, Boukhars’ attempt to implicate the Polisario in narco-trafficking is a bit strange, given that Morocco itself is among the largest exporters of hashish in the world, coming out of its legendary hippie haven in the Rif Mountains.

Boukhars’ Incomprehensible Recommendations

The final part of Anouar Boukhars’ article I would like to comment on are his recommendations on “finding a way past the tensions,” as he puts it. The author summarizes his recommendations as follows:

Morocco’s proposal for autonomy for the Western Sahara and the country’s July 2011 constitution are the first steps toward a solution. Rabat’s friends in the West, especially the United States and France, must pressure Morocco to expedite a significant devolution of power to the Western Sahara to limit the threat of instability.

It is really no surprise that such a nonsensical plan should emerge from Anouar Boukhars’ faulty analysis of the Western Saharan crisis. First of all, Morocco’s proposal to impose autonomy under their sovereignty is clearly and unambiguously illegal under international law. And then there is the problem of getting the Polisario to buy into autonomy. They have already categorically rejected Morocco’s plan on many occasions, and after 40 years of the independence struggle I see almost zero possibility that they might accept it in the future. Furthermore, even If by some miracle the Polisario did accept it, I have no doubts that the Sahrawis would dump the Polisario and would continue the struggle with a far more radical leadership.

Instituting real autonomy and giving more power and democracy to the Western Sahara without an expression of true Sahrawi self-determination (a referendum with independence as an option) strikes me as complete lunacy. Morocco’s refusal to hold a referendum on independence, even if many of the illegal settlers are allowed to vote, tells me that Rabat completely mistrusts any Western Saharan electorate. Why Morocco should all of a sudden put their trust in the electorate of an autonomous and democratic Western Sahara is baffling. After all, the only thing that currently keeps a lid on the territory is Morocco’s totalitarian colonial rule enforced by more than 100,000 troops, or pretty close to one soldier per indigenous Sahrawi.

Any way you slice it, there are several hundred thousand Sahrawis out there who desire independence and are willing to die for it. Devolution of power to an embittered Sahrawi population with shattered dreams of independence would be a disaster for Morocco. Boukhars’ idea for the U.S. to expedite this devolution just doesn’t make sense.

So What’s Boukhars’ Story?

The emergence of Anouar Boukhars as a rabidly nationalistic pro-Moroccan voice on the Western Saharan issue is part of a much larger trend – namely the greater assertiveness in the U.S. of Moroccan-Americans and the Moroccan diaspora. Anouar Majid at the University of New England, Samir Bennis at Morocco World News, and Hassan Masiky at Morocco News Board are some of the others who have been particularly vocal on the Western Sahara. To a very large degree, the views of this group are similar: they tend to be democrats, support more democracy for Morocco, and are at times critical of the monarchy for not democratizing far and fast enough; they are critical of the corruption of the Moroccan elite and of Rabat’s heavy-handedness in restricting freedom of the press; they are deeply nationalistic; they believe that the Western Sahara has always been an integral part of Morocco; they strongly support Morocco’s autonomy proposal for the Western Sahara.

In “Simmering Discontent,” Boukhars describes the overwhelming support in Morocco for the King’s policies on the Western Sahara:

The Western Sahara is probably the only issue in Morocco that enjoys near-universal and unwavering popular support. For many Moroccans, renouncing their historical right to the Western Sahara—where thousands of soldiers have died and billions of dollars have been spent defending a territory that represents almost half the size of Morocco—would be a national tragedy. This deep-rooted belief in the righteousness of their cause has unfortunately led to the negation of the legitimacy of the other point of view.

This irrational, quasi-religious, and uber-nationalistic Moroccan worldview regarding the Western Sahara is shared by Boukhars and most of the other Moroccan American academics and intellectuals I am aware of.  Despite getting his doctorate in the U.S. and living here for over a decade, he is culturally incapable of overcoming his Moroccan identity. For Boukhars his greater Moroccan nationalism trumps all.  Thus, when we see him ignoring international law, totally misreading Sahrawi nationalism, fabricating Polisario terrorist dalliances, and supporting an illegal and unworkable autonomy proposal, he reveals his Moroccan blinders. In the end, all his arguments boil down to one thing. As he states in the conclusion of his article, “This insistence on independence for Western Sahara has always been ‘an unrealistic option,’….”

In a January 2011 Brookings Doha Center Analysis Paper by Boukhars titled "Political Violence in North Africa: the Perils of Incomplete Liberalization," the author “extends his deepest gratitude and appreciation to Ali O. Amar for facilitating multiple visits to Morocco and setting up a host of interviews with Moroccan government officials and civil society actors.” Wondering who this helpful and facilitating Ali O. Amar character was, I dug around a bit and lo and behold found myself once again smack in the middle of the murky world of Moroccan lobbyists. Ali O. Amar, it turns out, is a lobbyist for an outfit called New Dominion PAC (NDPAC), “the voice of Arab-Americans in Virginia.” Ominously, the founder of NDPAC, Saba Shami, was a paid lobbyist for Morocco in the late 90s and founded “Friends of Morocco in the US Congress.”  And furthermore, NDPAC’s largest donor since 2010 has been a group called the International Institute of Islamic Thought(IIIT), set up in the 1980s, according to a 2004 Washington Post expose, “largely by onetime [Muslim] Brotherhood sympathizers with money from wealthy Saudis.” IIIT has been the object of several FBI investigations and raids since the mid-1990s over ties to international terrorist organizations, which have resulted in a number of arrests and convictions. The more you dig into the machinations of the Morocco lobby, the weirder it gets. And with friends like Amar (Amar and Boukhars also co-authored an article in 2011 titled "Trouble in the Western Sahara"), it is no wonder Boukhars’ interviews in the occupied territory yielded such biased results.

Morocco Lobby Watch: The Disappearing Expert Sources at MACP

It is interesting to note the transformation of the Moroccan American Center for Policy’s (MACP) list of “expert sources” since I first took a look at that list back on February 27.  Here again is the original list on their website, Morocco on the Move:

Dr. J. Peter Pham, Director of the Atlantic Council’s Michael S. Ansari Africa Center

Professor Yonah Alexander, Director of the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies’ International Center for Terrorism Studies

Leila Hanafi, Staff Attorney and Programs Manager, The World Justice Project

Professor I. William Zartman, Professor Emeritus, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of the Johns Hopkins University

Professor Lahcen Haddad, Morocco Country Representative, Management Systems International

Ambassador Edward M. Gabriel (ret.), President, Moroccan American Center

Jean R. AbiNader, Executive Director of the Moroccan American Trade and Investment Center

Robert M. Holley, Executive Director, Moroccan American Center for Policy

The current list reads:

Ambassador Edward M. Gabriel (ret.), President, Moroccan American Center

Jean R. AbiNader, Executive Director of the Moroccan American Trade and Investment Center

Jordan C. Paul, Executive Director, Moroccan American Center for Policy

Robert M. Holley,Senior Policy Advisor, Moroccan American Center for Policy

Leila Hanafi and Lahcen Haddad were the first to go, disappearing from the list within a couple weeks after my post. Pham, Alexander, and Zartman hung in there a bit longer. While I can’t say that I’ve been regularly monitoring the list, I noticed their welcome departure today. I would like to think that even this group of rabidly pro-Moroccan academics and pundits realized that association with the MACP’s cabal of paid Moroccan agents, lobbyists, and stooges was not a really bright idea.

The current list also includes one notable addition. Apparently to celebrate his recent elevation from Director of Government Affairs to Executive Director of the MACP, Jordan C. Paul now makes the list. As if to flaunt his cojones as the new alpha dog of the Morocco lobby, Paul recently emerged from the shadows of Holley and Gabriel with a particularly strident and typically dishonest article on Globalpost.com (Why Are We Perpetuating a Source of Instability in North Africa?). In a nutshell, the article is a feeble attempt to pin all the ills of the Maghreb on the Polisario Front by conjuring up an imaginary alliance between the Polisario and Al Qaeda-linked terrorism.

Yonah Alexander Ain’t No Dove on the Western Sahara

Yonah, in case you were wondering about the title, means “dove” in Hebrew. Which is ironic because Yonah Alexander’s 3-year crusade to pin all the ills of the Maghreb on the Polisario Front and to legitimize Morocco’s illegal occupation of the Westen Sahara has as far as I can see only one predictable outcome, which is increased violence, continued instability, and further disunity. His advice to US policymakers – from his four reports on terrorism in the Maghreb/Sahel (1,2,3,4) – boils down to a total acceptance of the Moroccan expansionist agenda, specifically legitimizing Moroccan sovereignty over the territory and closing the Tindouf refugee camps.

A good place to start in understanding how this long-time terrorism expert arrives at such legalistically challenged, ethically bankrupt, and  strategically counterproductive conclusions is to take a look at the extent to which he has been, for several years now, in bed with the American Morocco lobby. A few examples jumped out at me in my recent research into the Morocco lobby:

In my last post, I wrote about how repugnant I find it that Alexander appears as an expert source on the website of the thoroughly biased and compromised Moroccan American Center for Policy (MACP), Rabat’s lobbying outfit in Washington. Alongside the greatest stars of the Morocco lobby -- Holley, Gabriel, and Abinader – it’s hard not to see a lot of guilt by association there.

In earlier readings of Why the Maghreb Matters, Alexander’s original pro-Morocco anti-Polisario diatribe, I hadn’t noticed, among the numerous luminaries listed as project participants, the mention of Marney Cheek, a partner at the prestigious Washington law firm Covington & Burling, under “staff.” Of all the fine law firms in DC, it is interesting that Alexander should choose a lawyer from Covington & Burling, which “has for a number of years been representing the Moroccan state phosphate company that carries out phosphate exploitation in occupied Western Sahara.” Western Sahara Resource Watch has written extensively about C & B’s secretive and unsavory lobbying efforts to run interference for Morocco’s illegal theft of the natural resources of an occupied territory without the consent of the inhabitants.

Then for the first yearly update of Why the Maghreb Matters in 2010, who does Alexander take on to prepare his Chronology of Maghreb and Sahel Terrorism since 9/11 but Caitlin Dearing, Manager of Research and Special Projects at the MACP. This is the same Caitlin Dearing that was Principal Author of a September 2009 study titled Group Rights and International Law: A Case Study on the Sahrawi Refugees in Algeria, a project co-sponsored by the MACP (Robert M. Holley, Executive Director, and Jean Abinader, Editor) and the Inter-University Center of Legal Studies (Yonah Alexander, Co-Director). Let me just say here that Ms Dearing chooses to ignore decades and volumes of international law that condemns Morocco for the Western Saharan refugee crisis and tries to pin it all on Algeria. To say she is a tainted researcher is an understatement.

Then in Alexander’s next update in 2011 he mentions that “according to open intelligence sources and a recent fact-finding trip to the region in January 2011, there exists growing evidence that AQIM, local traffickers, and possibly members of the Polisario are forming links with Latin American organized criminal groups for trafficking drugs and humans via transit network into Europe.” Moroccan news reports about this “fact-finding trip” place Alexander during January 2011 in Dakhla, Western Sahara, with “a US delegation including members of centers of research and studies on security issues and international relations, based in Washington.” Jean Abinader of the Moroccan American Center is identified as one of the other members of the delegation. As to what they were doing there, the article reports that “The American delegation met with some people who have fled the Tindouf camps and returned to Morocco, and discussed the terrorist threat in the Sahel-Saharan zone and the involvement of members of the polisario in numerous illegal activities.” And while none of the reports specify who paid for or organized this nice little trip, I have my suspicions that Abinader did a lot of leading Alexander around by the nose.

My point here is that even a cursory look at Yonah Alexander’s recent history reveals a disturbing amount of collaboration and cooperation with the American Morocco lobby. On the Western Sahara issue, this pro-Moroccan alignment translates into anti-Polisario/anti-Western Sahara policy recommendations that, if implemented, would prove disastrous for the Western Sahara, Morocco, the Maghreb, and ultimately US interests. I repeat: “Yonah Alexander ain’t no dove.”

Not having any idea at all about Mr. Alexander’s ethnic background, I was perhaps presumptuous in using the Hebrew translation of Yonah/Jonah as a hook in this article. Wikipedia informs me of a couple other derivations of the name Yonah that might have been more appropriate. Yonah, for example, means “bear “in Cherokee and “’right now’ in the sense of being hopeful” in the Oromo language in Ethiopia. Hmmmmm. Actually, the more I think about it, the Cherokee angle would have been a good hook, given the rather startling similarities between the atrocious treatment of the Cherokee nation at the hands of the US government and military in the 1830s and what Professor Alexander proposes to inflict on the Sahrawi nation today. Maybe for another post.       

The Moroccan American Center for Policy’s Rogues List

In my recent post about J. Peter Pham’s hypocrisy on the Western Sahara, I mention that he is prominently listed as an expert source on the Moroccan American Center for Policy’s website, Morocco on the Move.

I thought it might be illuminating to take a look at the whole list. Here it is:

Dr. J. Peter Pham, Director of the Atlantic Council’s Michael S. Ansari Africa Center

Professor Yonah Alexander, Director of the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies’ International Center for Terrorism Studies

Leila Hanafi, Staff Attorney and Programs Manager, The World Justice Project

Professor I. William Zartman, Professor Emeritus, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of the Johns Hopkins University

Professor Lahcen Haddad, Morocco Country Representative, Management Systems International

Ambassador Edward M. Gabriel (ret.), President, Moroccan American Center

Jean R. AbiNader, Executive Director of the Moroccan American Trade and Investment Center

Robert M. Holley, Executive Director, Moroccan American Center for Policy

Robert M. Holley, Jean R. Abinader, and Edward M. Gabriel are all listed in the latest data available online as foreign agents of Morocco under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) registration of the Moroccan American Center for Policy (MACP). While I would never suggest that the $1,031,579.27 MACP received from the Moroccan government in the first half of 2011 would in any way cloud the judgment of or bias the analyses or opinions of these three experts, my close monitoring (1,2 & 3) of their statements and actions since they registered with FARA in 2004 strongly suggests they are factually challenged Moroccan stooges.

Professor Lahcen Haddad is listed here as “Morocco Country Representative, Management Systems International.” Perhaps MACP’s meager budget doesn’t include an IT person, but one would think that they might have changed this online bio to include his appointment on January 3 of this year as Minister of Tourism under the new Moroccan Head of Government Benkirane. Whatever, as a member of the Moroccan government he is undoubtedly part of the problem and not the solution on the Western Sahara issue. Furthermore, mention in his bio (for the Moroccan Tourism Administration) of previous employment with Kerr McGee – who for years colluded with Morocco’s illegal exploitation of the Western Sahara’s natural resources – hardly instills any confidence in this expert source.

I guess a cameo appearance by Professor I. William Zartman here could be expected. I have written extensively (1 & 2) of Professor Zartman’s pro-Moroccan views, his disdain for international law, and his recent attempts to justify forcing autonomy down the throats of the Western Saharans. Western Sahara historian, Jacob Mundy, says it best when he tells us that Zartman defends a solution [autonomy with Moroccan sovereignty] that his own theories [in the fields of conflict resolution and game theory] would reject.” As a recipient of the prestigious designation of Commander, Ouissam Alaouite, delivered by King Mohammed VI, I really wonder about the Professor’s objectivity.

Yonah Alexander’s appearance on the list also could be expected, given his series of reports on terrorism in the Maghreb and Sahel since 2009 which consistently ties the solution of the economic and security ills of the area to a settlement of the Western Saharan problem on Morocco’s terms. His most recent report’s suggestion to close the Tindouf camps and disperse the inhabitants is particularly preposterous. He represents a toxic strain of thought (shared by fellow terrorist experts and Morrocan royalist sycophants Yossef Bodansky and Claude Moniquet) that merges a pro-Israel worldview with pro-Moroccan sentiments with a total antipathy toward international law that arrives finally at an extreme hate of self-determination for the Western Sahara and extreme demonization of the Polisario Front. I have written before (not kindly) about Alexander’s first Potomac Institute Maghreb terrorism report (along with Zartman’s group at Johns Hopkins), Why the Maghreb Matters: Threats, Opportunities, & Options for Effective US Engagement in North Africa. Again, Jacob Mundy’s suspicions about the Potomac-SAIS report are I think right on:

The Potomac-SAIS ‘task force’ was likely an initiative organized by the Moroccan-American Center for Policy (MACP), a registered agent of the Kingdom of Morocco. Though MACP’s fingerprints are nowhere to be found in the report, it is an open secret in Washington that this project, culminating in the Potomac-SAIS report, has been in the works for several months. And little surprise, then, that the report’s recommendations attempt to equate US interests with those of the Moroccan Monarchy. Paying for policy is quite normal in Washington.

Having written two articles already about J. Peter Pham (1 & 2), I have probably already said enough. Let me just reiterate here that his ardent addlepated neoconservative defense of the greater Moroccan thesis is hardly convincing.

I really don’t have a clue how Leila Hanafi gets on this list. A Moroccan-American international lawyer recently out of college she is listed as a Staff Attorney and Programs Manager, The World Justice Project. She is also a Co-Editor/Legal Expert for Morocco World News , an American newsgroup on Morocco with strong editorial support for Rabat’s expansionist agenda, and regional coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa at the Coalition for the International Criminal Court. An online search for any basis for her designation as an expert source turned up next to nothing.

In recap, the expert source list for Morocco on the Move is made up of one member of the Moroccan government, three paid foreign agents/lobbyists of the Moroccan government, one American academic decorated by the Moroccan Government, one Zionist terrorism expert, one extreme neocon, and one complete neophyte. My main reason for looking at this list is to highlight the extent to which it is an extremely biased and untrustworthy group of Moroccan propagandists and apologists – especially on the Western Saharan issue.

Certainly, if you are looking only for the totally biased and slanted Moroccan royalist line on the Western Sahara, this group I guess works well enough. If, however, accuracy, truthfulness, international law, and balanced analysis are concerns, I suggest you go elsewhere. Professor Stephen Zunes at University of San Francisco and Professor Jacob Mundy at Colgate University, who recently co-authored the excellent Western Sahara: War, Nationalism, & Conflict Irresolution, are good places to start. Anna Theofilopoulou, who covered the Western Saharan crisis at the UN and worked closely with James A. Baker III during his stint as Personal Envoy of the Secretary-General on Western Sahara, is another recommended expert source.

The Chutzpah of J. Peter Pham & More Tales of Hypocrisy on the Western Sahara

Is there any limit to the chutzpah of J. Peter Pham? Recently he was quoted in an Associated Press article titled Senegal President Spends $200K To Lobby US -- about President Abdoulaye Wade’s contracting with a US lobbying group “to research and draft a ‘white paper’ showing that the 85-year-old was legally entitled to seek a third term in office, even though the Senegalese constitution was revised to impose a maximum of two.” Here is what Pham had to say:

"It saddens, but doesn't surprise me that it has come to this," said Peter Pham, the Africa director at the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think tank. "After more than a decade in office, Abdoulaye Wade is apparently so desperate to cling on to power that he has to hire a foreign law firm to conjure up legal 'facts' that the plain language and intent of the Senegalese constitution and the relevant amendment's legislative history would not otherwise support."

What I find so disturbing about Pham’s comments is his long history of making common cause with a whole host of Moroccan lobbyists and foreign agents who get paid far more than $200K by Mohammed VI to convince us that Morocco’s illegal occupation of the Western Sahara is in fact legal. Just two of the many Moroccan lobbyists operating in Washington, the Gabriel Company and the Moroccan-American Center for Policy, reported receiving over a million dollars from the Moroccan government in the latest Foreign Agents Registration Act report available online (for the six months ending June 30, 2011). Most of this money goes directly towards sugarcoating Morocco’s trashing of legality in the Western Sahara for Congressional consumption.

Let me remind you that the plain language and intent of the 1975 International Court of Justice opinion on the Western Sahara, not to mention innumerable UN resolutions, unambiguously established the illegality of Morocco’s occupation. For the umpteenth time, I repeat the Court’s conclusion "that the materials and information presented to it do not establish any tie of territorial sovereignty between the territory of Western Sahara and the Kingdom of Morocco....” Yet, despite the clarity of this opinion, Pham in his writings sees fit to conjure up all kinds of “facts” that the tribes of the Western Sahara owed allegiance to the Moroccan Sultan “from at least the Arab conquest of North Africa in the 7^th century C.E.” and that Morocco’s invasion was only a reassertion of that historical sovereignty. (see Western Sahara: Time to Move Ahead, Realistically, Why Morocco Must Stay, and Moroccan Exceptionalism?)

Within the context of the Senegal article, what is even more ironic and damning about Pham’s writings on Morocco and the Western Sahara is his referencing of paid stooges and agents of the Moroccan government to bolster his case – for instance former U.S. ambassador to Morocco and current Morocco lobbyist Edward Gabriel, and Claude Moniquet’s European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center, which reportedly is a client of the Moroccan embassy in Brussels. Furthermore, Pham is prominently listed as an expert source on the new website (Morocco on the Move) of the Moroccan-American Center for Policy (MACP), Morocco’s factually challenged lobbying organization in the United States. Robert M. Holley, head of the MACP, has been for years Rabat’s liar for hire in Washington.

It saddens but doesn’t surprise me that Pham should be so critical of President Wade’s attempt to rewrite reality and distort legality with the help of paid lobbyists, while at the same time lauding and colluding with Mohammed VI’s longtime million-dollar lobbying efforts in Washington to do pretty much the same thing. Only difference I can see is that Wade is trying to illegally cling to power and Mo VI is trying illegally to cling to the Western Sahara. I say it doesn’t surprise me because Pham is the master of the double-standard. His recent championing of South Sudanese independence and simultaneous rejection of independence for the Western Sahara is a case in point. Pham’s selective application of the standards of legality and feasibility are completely incomprehensible, given the Western Sahara’s far better claims to self-determination (as an ex-colony) and successful statehood (note, for starters, its much higher developmental numbers for literacy, education. paved roads, etc. and lack of border and ethnic/tribal issues).

J. Peter Pham’s sadness at the lobbying shenanigans of President Wade of Senegal is pure unadulterated hypocrisy given his delight with the far worse shenanigans of the king of Morocco.

Pham the Sham and the Sahrawis

Recently, a very creepy character by the name of J. Peter Pham has been spearheading a media assault on the rights of the Western Saharans. After his entrance into the debate on the future of the territory with an article in the World Defense Review (June 11, 2008) titled Western Sahara: Time to Move Ahead, Realistically, he has continued with a steady stream of pro-Morocco and anti-Polisario articles with revealing titles such as Moroccan Exceptionalism? and Why Morocco Must Stay . His strenuous arguments in favor of Morocco’s autonomy plan for the region follow closely the royalist party line: the Western Sahara has always been Moroccan, the referendum never took place because the parties could never agree on things, Western Saharan independence is not realistic because it is too small, too poor, and would be a failed state, the Polisario has Al Qaeda sympathies, Moroccan hegemony over the region is essential for the war against terrorism, the autonomy plan is a wonderful compromise. Same ‘ol stuff. His genuflection before the Moroccan monarch is so servile one would think he is auditioning for the Commander Alouite. It is not hard to understand how he has become perhaps the most quoted source by the pro-Morocco crowd.

Pham’s thing is clearly the failed state/war on terrorism argument. He makes only a half-hearted attempt to justify Moroccan invasion and occupation historically, and international law is just of no concern to him (he never even mentions the International Court of Justice opinion). His point of view boils down to the following:

... given the importance to the United States and its allies of a stable and secure Maghreb, the compromise of autonomy offered by Morocco—reasonably located between complete assimilation into the Sharifian Kingdom and total independence—is the only realistic course. With no arable land to speak of and only the barest of natural resources, an independent Western Sahara would be an instantaneous failed state. Its prospective population of less than 200,000—that is, those Moroccans (including Sahrawis) who didn't opt for the more promising prospects of life in Morocco and abandon the territory before any independence—would thus be among the poorest and least economically viable people in the world.

Predictably, Pham offers up little or no evidence to back up his assertion that the Western Sahara would be “an instantaneous failed state” whose population would be “among the poorest and least economically viable people in the world.” Stephen Zunes and Jacob Mundy in their illuminating recent book, Western Sahara: War, Nationalism, and Conflict Irresolution, estimate earnings from the Western Saharan fishing and phosphate sectors alone at upwards of three-quarters of a billion dollars. Pham’s “evidence” from his 2008 article that the phosphate sector “has seen its price continue to plummet to below half of what it was only a year ago” completely ignores the huge run-up in phosphate prices since 2006 which currently still leaves the phosphate price several times higher than the 2000-2006 average. Furthermore, if you can believe on-line advertisements for wind-surfing vacations on the Western Saharan coast, there is tourism potential. Last but not least, Morocco continues to believe that there is oil under the Western Sahara, and solar energy potential appears limitless. The economic viability of an independent Western Sahara is clearly far greater than Mr. Pham is willing to admit.

So who the hell is this J. Peter Pham? A bio from the National Committee on American Foreign Policy, where he his is Senior Fellow and Director of the Africa Project, reads as follows:

Dr. Pham is currently on leave from James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, where he is tenured as Associate Professor of Justice Studies, Political Science and Africana Studies and served as Director of the Nelson Institute for International and Public Affairs. He is also non‐resident Senior Fellow for Africa Policy Studies at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington, D.C., and has been part of the adjunct faculty of the Sub‐Saharan African Studies Program at the U.S. Air Force Special Operations School, Hurlburt Field, Florida and a Research Fellow at the Institute for Infrastructure and Information Assurance, a National Security Agency Center of Academic Excellence.

A specialist on U.S. foreign and defense policy, African politics and security, and terrorism and political violence, Dr. Pham is the author of over three hundred essays and reviews and the author, editor, or translator of over a dozen books. He also writes a weekly column on African security issues and American interests, “Strategic Interests,” which is distributed by the World Defense Review, and contributes to a number of online publications, including National Interest Online and ForeignPolicy.com. Dr. Pham has appeared in various media outlets, including CBS, PBS, CBC, SABC, VOA, CNN, the Fox News Channel, MSNBC, National Public Radio, the BBC, Radio France Internationale, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, USA Today, Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report, The Weekly Standard, New Statesman, and Maclean’s.

Dr. Pham has testified before the U.S. Congress on a number of occasions – most recently on June 25, 2009 – and conducted briefings or consulted for U.S. and foreign governments as well as private firms. In 2005, he served as member of the U.S. Agency for International Development‐funded International Republican Institute (IRI) delegation monitoring the national elections in Liberia. He also served on the IRI pre‐election assessment (2006) and election observation (2007) delegations to Nigeria. In May 2008, at the invitation of General William E. “Kip” Ward, he gave the keynote address at the first Senior Leaders Conference of the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) in Mainz, Germany.

Dr. Pham is the incumbent Vice President of the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA), an academic organization chaired by Professor Bernard Lewis and representing over 750 scholars of Middle Eastern and African Studies at more than three hundred colleges and universities in the United States and overseas.

Dr. Pham was the winner of the 2008 Nelson Mandela International Prize for African Security and Development presented by the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) for Defense and Security Studies, the Brenthurst Foundation, and the Nelson Mandela Foundation.

On first reading this, I have to admit to being somewhat intimidated by the shear weightiness of these credentials. Furthermore, I just couldn’t figure out how I had never even heard of the guy before he came out with his Western Sahara article in 2008 – especially since I too consider myself somewhat of an africanist. Pham’s institutional affiliations give us an idea of where he is coming from.

The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) where he is a Senior Fellow is described by Sourcewatch as “a neoconservative think tank that claims to conduct ‘research and education on international terrorism’” issues. With a strong pro-Israel/zionist orientation, its leadership Council includes Louis J. Freeh, Newt Gingrich, Bill Kristol, and Joseph Lieblerman and Board of Advisors Richard Perle, Gary Bauer, and Charles Krauthammer. One critical assessment of the FDD pegs it as “one of the most influential and powerful of the Zionist lobbies which changed its name and sprung into action immediately after 9-11.” For an interesting description of the marriage of convenience between the Israel and Morocco lobbies, I refer you to Morocco and AIPAC -- What They Have in Common from the blog Milfuegos.

Pham’s vice-presidency of the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA) puts him in the company of popular author and scholar of Islam and the Middle East and Chair of the organization, Bernard Lewis, who is described by Western Sahara historian, Stephen Zunes, as a “notorious genocide-denier” (for his work on the Ottoman Empire and the Armenians). Perhaps genocide denial has a place in this discussion, given Professor Pham’s desire to have the Sahrawis turned over to the Moroccan crown for disposal. What makes Pham’s background even more fascinating, however, is another bio, this one from 1997:

John-Peter Pham, a Roman Catholic priest of the Diocese of Peoria, Illinois, is a fellow of the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty. He is the editor of upcoming volume, "Centesimus Annus": Assessment and Perspectives for the Future of Catholic Social Doctrine, and served as the co-moderator of the International Congress on Social Doctrine in Rome (1997), sponsored by the Acton Institute and the Pontifical Athenaeum "Regina Apostolorum". He holds advanced ecclesiastical degrees in theology and canon law in addition to his prior studies in economics at the University of Chicago, where he wrote his thesis on The Declining Labor Force Participation of Older Americans since 1970 under the direction of Dr. D. Gale Johnson and for which he was awarded the Donnelly Prize for 1990.

First of all, from photos attached to this bio, it is clear that John-Peter Pham and J. Peter Pham are indeed the same person. He apparently, decided to alter his name a bit during the 2000’s. His transformation from a Roman Catholic priest in 1997 to academic and africanist is, indeed, fascinating. In August 2004, Pham joined the faculty of James Madison University (JMU). Biographical information from the JMU website fills in many of the gaps in this transformation:

Before coming to JMU, Pham held various diplomatic appointments through the Vatican Secretariat of State, including serving as the interim head of the diplomatic mission mediating the regional conflict in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone from 2001-02. He was acting deputy chief of mission at the Vatican Embassy in the Philippines in 2000 after a five-year tenure as counselor to the president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, the Vatican office in charge of human political, economic and social rights.

Pham apparently caught the Africa bug while serving in the Vatican diplomatic service (talking about Neanderthal institutional affiliations) in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, and by 2004 he was ready to turn in his priestly garb for academic tweed. His book on Papal succession that year seems to be the last of his religious writings, and with his appointment to JMU his subsequent work is on Africa/International affairs topics.

In the end, I find Pham’s demonization of the Polisario, denigration of Western Saharan nationalism, and glorification of Morocco highly suspicious, given his sympathetic treatment of some of the other self-determination cases in Africa – most notably South Sudan and Somaliland. His attempts to rewrite Western Sahara history to justify Morocco’s invasion and occupation only reinforce my suspicions. His willingness to ignore the Western Sahara’s clear-cut case for self-determination under international law in the name of some ill-defined and nebulous drivel about viability and political realism makes it hard to see him as anything more than an apologist for Moroccan expansionism

And again, I can’t help but find J. Peter Pham incredibly creepy. It’s just that neo-con/zionist-aligned pontificating papists-turned-africanists who have gone through mid-life name changes and choose to vilify the most deserving national liberation movement on the planet totally freak me out.

Frederick Vreeland, High Solar Rollers, and the Looting of the Western Sahara

While researching my last post on Samuel J. Spector and Hurst Hannum, I reread Ambassador Frederick Vreeland’s March 3, 2007, New York Times op-ed in support of Morocco’s autonomy proposal. Once again, Vreeland’s arguments in favor of autonomy were firmly slapped down by Professor Hannum in a letter to the editor the next day, and, in addition, three weeks later, the Times issued a correction stating that the “Op-Ed article should have more fully disclosed the background of the author,” as he was “also the chairman of a solar-energy company that has had contracts with the Moroccan government.”

Not having heard anything out of Vreeland for quite a while, I got to wondering what he was up to – especially since solar-energy has been a hot topic of late. Apparently, he’s been up to quite a bit.

His Marrakech-based solar-power company, Noor Web, is “a supplier of photovoltaic systems and related energy services in rural and remote areas of Morocco,” according to the International Finance Corporation, a member of the World Bank Group, which in 2002 had received a project financing application from Noor Web. Vreeland founded the company in 1996 with financial backing from E & CO, an energy investment spin-off from the Rockefeller Foundation and has served as chairman ever since. As of mid-2002 when the IFC released its project report, ownership included: “Shell Overseas Investment (39%); Al Tayyar – a middle east investment fund-- (21%); Marocaine Industrielle Financière Agricole (18%); Mr. Frederick Vreeland –an individual-- (10%); E&Co (9%), and others (3%).” This is one very well-connected company with very deep pockets. Shell Overseas Investment is a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell; Al Tayyar is an Abu Dhabi-based renewable energy investment fund founded by Prince Moulay Hicham of Morocco, cousin of King Mohammed VI; Vreeland brings in his heavy-duty US government connections; and again E & CO has the Rockefeller connection.

Until recently, Noor Web appears to have concentrated on small-scale solar projects in the mountainous province of Taroudant south of the company’s offices in Marrakech. From an interview with Noor Web executives, by 2001 they were serving a mere 2,200 customers and acquiring 200 new households a month.

Increasingly, it seems that Noor Web’s small-scale orientation is changing. The last couple years have seen seismic changes in Morocco’s solar-power landscape. Most notably, two gargantuan solar initiatives have emerged -- one from the Moroccan government and the other a European/Mediterranean group.

Back in July 2008, Western Sahara Resource Watch (WSRW) alerted us to the launch by Morocco’s Office Nacional de l’Electricité (ONE) of an invitation for the expression of interest and prequalification for three solar plant projects (using “electricity generation technology … based on Photovoltaic (PV) panels”), one based in Morocco (Ouarzazate) and the other two in occupied Western Sahara (Dakhla and Boujdour).
According to the tender, dubbed the Courak Iniative (appearing also as Chourouk), the awarded company would “construct, operate and own the plant for a period of 20 years,” during which ONE would buy all the electricity generated. WSRW strongly criticized the inclusion of Dakhla and Boujdour in the prequalification tender:

The planned investment could provide the necessary infrastructure to further back up Moroccan industry and illegal settlers in the neighbouring and occupied country Western Sahara. The UN has previously asked Morocco to terminate the occupation of Western Sahara, but now Morocco offers the world electricity companies a 20 year contract in the occupied territory…. Morocco has in the offering presented Dakhla and Boujdour of being within "the Kingdom of Morocco", despite the fact that no state in the world recognises Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara.

Keeping on top of the issue, WSRW in February 2009 listed the names of the 21 groups that were prequalified to participate in the tender, urged them to withdraw from the tender, and informed them that any awarded company that started supplying electricity in occupied territory would be “subject to a public campaign.” Within the context of this article, the name on the list that jumps out is number 16, Solar Ecopower/Taqa/Noorweb /Solon.

Noor Web’s prequalified group offers up impressive credentials in the energy and solar sectors to complement its already impressive ownership pedigree. Solar Ecopower is a German company that provides “investor services for large scale solar PV farms/plants, solar PV system integration, and procurement services and direct product sales.” Abu Dhabi-based Taqa describes itself as “a global leader in the energy sector…. that is fully integrated with operations from wellhead to wall socket.” It has majority ownership by the government of Abu Dhabi and minority shares traded on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange. Taqa has a huge and long-established foothold in Morocco with a 30-year contract to operate the Jorf Lasfar coal-fired plant 130 kilometres southwest of Casablanca which on average supplies 50% of the country’s electricity demand. Solon is a publicly-traded Berlin-based manufacturer of photovoltaic solar systems with an expertise in power-plant construction.

Morocco’s solar plans became clearer in November 2009 when Rabat officially launched a $9 billion dollar solar energy project, expected to meet 38% of the country’s energy needs by 2020. While the 2008 prequalification tender mentioned Ouarzazate, Boujdour, and Dakhla as the sites for solar plants, the new plan identified again Ouarzazate and Boujdour, but replaced Dakhla with Ain Bni Mathar, Foum Al Oued and Sebkhat Tah. Of the new lineup, Ouarzazate and Ain Bni Mathar are in Morocco and Boujdour and Foum Al Oued are in occupied Western Sahara. Sebkhat Tah appears to straddle the border. At the end of February 2010, Morocco officially opened up for bids on construction of the Ouarzazate facility, and the commercial operation date for Ouarzazate was projected for March 2015.

At the same time as Morocco was ratcheting up its solar plans, a pan-Mediterranean group, the DESERTEC Foundation, was putting together a massive 400 billion euro solar energy plan to meet potentially over 50% of the electricity needs of the EUMENA region (Europe, the Middle East, North Africa) by 2050. A major part of this vision involves harnessing the solar potential, and to a lesser degree the wind, of the Sahara and exporting North African energy to Europe. The DESERTEC Concept has been around since 2003, when it was developed by the German Club of Rome and a network of experts called Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation (TREC). The project started to gather steam in 2008 with the birth of the DESERTEC Foundation to coordinate the activities of the DESERTEC Networks, the creation of the Mediterranean Solar Plan by the Union for the Mediterranean, and the launching of the DESERTEC Industrial Initiative (Dii Gmbh). To get a graphic depiction of DESERTEC’S vision for solar (and wind) power development in North Africa and the prominence of the Western Sahara in that vision, I urge you to link here to the DESERTEC Foundation’s website.

Given the importance of the Western Sahara in both DESERTEC’s scheme and Rabat’s solar plans, there has been much speculation about whether DESERTEC might place one of its test plants in the occupied territory. In an April 23, 2010, article in the UK Guardian, a DESERTEC spokesperson stated that while Morocco was a “a natural choice for the first Desertec pilot plant as the country is already connected to Spain via a sub sea electricity cable,” they would not build in the Western Sahara for “reputational reasons.” A German NGO, the Society for Threatened People, had earlier condemned Morocco’s plans to build a solar plant in Boujdour and had urged DESERTEC to reveal where they planned to build their first pilot project in Morocco. These words from DESERTEC are certainly encouraging. Nevertheless, I wonder how long DESERTEC can maintain this principled stance as it becomes more and more evident that the occupied status of the Western Sahara and chilly relations between Morocco and Algeria might jeopardize the feasibility of the whole project

It would be fair to say that Frederick Vreeland very much finds himself in the right place at the right time. He has been on the ground in Morocco since 1996 doing solar, and the solar market appears to be on the verge of exploding. Morocco’s tender for Ouarzazate is ongoing, but of course building a solar power plant there is not a problem since it would be in Morocco. Where the solar picture gets far thornier is when and if Morocco opens up for bids on Boujdour and Foum Al Oued in the Western Sahara. Given that almost all groups looking into the matter see the solar potential of the Western Sahara as far greater than that of Morocco, it will be interesting to see how Rabat proceeds. Any companies bidding on those contracts in the occupied zone would undoubtedly find themselves the target of widespread international condemnation along the lines of Western Sahara Resource Watch’s campaign against oil exploration companies that chose to explore in and off Moroccan-occupied territory. Would Shell, for instance, with the largest ownership stake in Noor Web, risk an international campaign against it by getting involved in the Western Sahara?

One aspect of the Morocco and Western Sahara solar issue that hadn’t occurred to me until I started looking into all this is the heavy involvement of Germany. Germany has historically shown little interest in the Western Sahara. This might be about to change. It seems that wherever I looked in researching this post, some German connection appeared. Two of Noor Web’s partner companies in the group that was pre-qualified for the solar business, Solar Ecopower and Solon, are German companies. The DESERTEC Industrial Initiative (Dii Gmbh) is a German company and the DESERTEC Concept very much has its roots in Germany. Furthermore, when Morocco announced its 9 billion dollar solar plan, one report noted: “Among potential partners, Morocco has already secured agreement with the World Bank, the European Commission, and Germany. During a visit to Berlin in January, the Chief Executive of the Moroccan Agency for Solar Energy Mustapha Bakkoury held talks with officials from Germany’s development bank KfW about investing in the pioneering project.” Somehow energy issues have a way of leading Germany and German leaders into the arms of strange bedfellows. Look, for instance, at former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder’s canoodling with Vladimir Putin while in office and his relationship with various Russian oil interests, especially involving the Nord Stream pipeline project, after stepping down. An increased German government perception that it is in its national interest as well as the interest of some of its companies to side with Morocco could lead to a higher profile supporting Rabat, which would be a highly unwelcome development.

What does this all mean for the Western Sahara? With the potential for solar energy perhaps rivaling or even exceeding that of oil, Morocco, its agents, and its sympathizers will almost certainly let out all stops in attempting to convince the international community that the Western Sahara must be recognized as part of Morocco. This has actually already begun, as the U.S. media over the past year has been bombarded by an unprecedented volume of pro-Moroccan articles urging the U.S. government, the world community, and the UN to recognize and accept Moroccan rule over the non-self-governing territory. Contrary to international law, Morocco is already looting the fish and phosphates of the Western Sahara. The potential for solar generation in the Sahara is so huge that it is hard to imagine that Rabat won’t go all out to also steal the sun.

And what can we expect from Frederick Vreeland? I rather suspect that given his conflict-of-interest and transparency issues and his well-known propensity for supporting Rabat’s expansionist agenda, he will keep a very low profile on the PR front and will concentrate instead on making money and lobbying his buddies in the U.S. government to support Moroccan sovereignty over the Western Sahara. Besides I assume he is more than happy to let his fellow-ex-ambassadors-to-Morocco, Michael Ussery and Ed Gabriel, do the dirty work for him. Once again his company, Noor Web, has already prequalified, as part of Ecopower/Taqa/Noorweb/Solon, for upcoming Moroccan solar projects, and he has shown interest in proceeding to the next level; he was recently quoted by a group called North Africa Advisers as saying, “I am interested in the Morocco government’s $9 billion solar energy project announced under the auspices of King Mohammed VI in early November 2009.” And should Rabat go ahead with its plans to loot the sun of the Sahara, Frederick Vreeland will undoubtedly do what he has always done, which is to ignore international law and the rights of the Western Saharans in pursuit of his own self-interest.