A Tale of Deception and Dishonesty about Morocco’s Autonomy Plan for the Western Sahara

Likewise even the touchy issue of Moroccan sovereignty over the former Spanish Sahara has seen forward movement. In 2007, the government advanced a proposal to break the long-standing impasse over the issue by offering generous autonomy to the area (including not only an elected local  administration but also ideas about education and justice and the promise of financial support). Under the plan, the only matters that would remain in Rabat’s control would be defense and foreign affairs as well as the currency. The regional authority, meanwhile, would have broad powers over local administration, the economy, infrastructure, social and cultural affairs, and the environment. No less senior a U.S. official than Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has described the autonomy proposal as “serious, credible, and realistic.”

From “Morocco’s Momentum” by J. Peter Pham, Journal of International Security Affairs. Spring/Summer 2012

Since the ”Moroccan Initiative for Negotiating an Autonomy Statute for the Sahara Region” was released by Rabat in 2007, the Moroccan government, and its lobbyists and fellow travelers in the U.S., have united behind the proposal, portraying it as a noble and generous compromise to once and for all end the thorny Western Sahara crisis. I quote the above paragraph from a recent article by J. Peter Pham because it is typical of the deceptive and dishonest pro-autonomy material flooding the media of late.

The paragraph begins with the predictable pro-Moroccan spin: “Likewise even the touchy issue of Moroccan sovereignty over the former Spanish Sahara has seen forward movement. In 2007, the government advanced a proposal to break the long-standing impasse over the issue by offering generous autonomy to the area….”

Pham’s painting Morocco’s offer of autonomy as “forward movement” is puzzling given that the Polisario Front has categorically and adamantly rejected the proposal and refuses even to discuss it.  Furthermore, the series of meetings between the parties organized by UN Personal Envoy Christopher Ross in the wake of Rabat’s autonomy proposal have failed miserably to bring the parties closer together. With pro-independence demonstrations in the occupied territory becoming increasingly frequent and confrontational and with the Polisario’s renewed contemplation of a return to arms, it is much easier to see Morocco’s autonomy proposal as contributing to a deterioration of the issue.

Similarly, Pham’s proposition that Morocco is “offering generous autonomy to the area” is pure unadulterated spin. Morocco can offer anything it wants, but unless the offer includes independence as an option it is clearly incompatible with widely accepted international law, is unlikely to be considered by the Polisario and the Western Saharans, and if forced on the region is unlikely to work.  And, of course, Morocco took independence off the table years ago. The Moroccan Initiative is nothing more than a ploy to get international legitimization for its illegal occupation.

Having informed us of the generosity of Morocco’s proposal, Pham continues: “Under the plan, the only matters that would remain in Rabat’s control would be defense and foreign affairs as well as the currency.”  This is the point where Pham’s commentary spins out of control and lurches over the line from spin into flat out dishonesty. Anyone who has actually read the Moroccan Initiative knows that what Pham is saying here just isn’t true. Even more damning, it is far from the truth.  Items 13 and 14 of the Moroccan Initiative deal specifically with the proposed division of powers between the autonomous region and Rabat:

13. The Sahara autonomous Region will have the financial resources required for its development in all areas.  Resources will come, in particular, from:

· taxes, duties and regional levies enacted by the Region’s competent authorities;
· proceeds from the exploitation of natural resources allocated to the Region;
· the share of proceeds collected by the State from the exploitation of natural resources located in the Region;
· the necessary funds allocated in keeping with the principle of national solidarity;
· proceeds from the Region’s assets.

14. The State shall keep exclusive jurisdiction over the following in particular:

· the attributes of sovereignty, especially the flag, the national anthem and the currency;
· the attributes stemming from the constitutional and religious prerogatives of the King, as Commander of the Faithful and Guarantor of freedom of worship and of individual and collective freedoms;
· national security, external defense and defense of territorial integrity;
· external relations;
· the Kingdom’s juridical order.

While the major statement of those areas in which the State “shall keep exclusive jurisdiction” is contained in Item 14, I have also included Item 13 for what it has to say about control of natural resource income.  In particular, I point to the statement that, “[financial] Resources will come, in particular, from … the share of proceeds collected by the State from the exploitation of natural resources located in the Region;” What this tells me is that Rabat envisions retaining control over the Western Sahara’s natural resources and doling out a portion to the region. In other words, income from the Western Saharan phosphate mines – which alone would make an independent Western Sahara one of the largest phosphate exporters in the world – would continue to flow to Rabat. Similarly, it appears that revenues from fishing licenses sold to foreign states to fish in Western Saharan waters would also be retained by Rabat. And if oil is one day discovered in Western Saharan waters, anyone who thinks that the autonomous region would get a fair share of the revenues has probably been smoking too much Rifian hashish.

While Pham for some reason identifies only the “currency” as “an attribute of sovereignty” that would be retained by Rabat, the Initiative goes much farther specifying “the attributes of sovereignty, especially the flag, the national anthem and the currency.”

The next category of Item 14 is totally ignored by Pham: “the attributes stemming from the constitutional and religious prerogatives of the King, as Commander of the Faithful and Guarantor of freedom of worship and of individual and collective freedoms;” Keep in mind that, even with the recent constitutional changes, Morocco is still a far cry from a western-style constitutional monarchy such as Spain or the UK. The crown retains the bulk of the power in the country. This assertion of the primacy of the King’s constitutional prerogatives means that democracy in the region would be just as flawed as in the rest of Morocco, and the Crown would have carte blanche to interfere as it deemed necessary in the autonomous region’s affairs. Similarly, Pham’s ignoring the bit about the religious prerogatives of the King is inexcusable since the hundreds of thousands of Sahrawi who despise the King and resent his authority would chafe mightily at any assertion of these religious prerogatives.

Of the next areas reserved for Rabat, “national security, external defense” and “external relations” appear to be adequately covered by Pham under “defense and foreign affairs.”  He ignores, however, Rabat’s exclusive jurisdiction over “defense of territorial integrity.” Inclusion of this specific item in the Initiative means to me that the Crown retains the right to prevent the autonomous region from seceding. And I think it is fair to assume that ultimately what this means is that Rabat would have the right to cancel autonomy if “territorial integrity” were threatened.  And if you believe, as I do, that any imaginable autonomy plan is doomed to failure, this is not a very encouraging feature.

Finally, Pham totally ignores the Initiative’s keeping “the Kingdom’s juridical order” within Rabat’s exclusive jurisdiction. Given the Kingdom’s notoriously corrupt and non-independent judiciary, this is likewise a recipe for disaster. The judiciary could and would overrule anything in the autonomous region the Crown found objectionable.

Again, it is not my purpose here to give a comprehensive critique of the Moroccan Initiative. That is a topic for another day, because there are just too many things seriously wrong with the plan. My purpose is to highlight the extent to which pro-Moroccan commentators, and specifically J. Peter Pham, have been systematically lying about the autonomy plan to make it more palatable for US policymakers.

Once again, Pham informs us that “Under the plan, the only matters that would remain in Rabat’s control would be defense and foreign affairs as well as the currency.” In recap, he neglects to inform us that under the plan, control of natural resources, all the attributes of sovereignty, constitutional and religious prerogatives of the King, defense of territorial integrity, and the juridical order would also remain in Rabat’s control. The autonomy plan is far from being “generous.”

In conclusion, I think a short comment is in order about why I like to pick on J. Peter Pham so much. After all, he is hardly the only one out there lying about Morocco’s autonomy plan.  Former Congressman and notorious Sahrawi hater Tom Lantos, for instance, characterized the plan even more dishonestly than Pham at a 2007 Congressional hearing: “Only external security and foreign affairs will be controlled by the central Moroccan government.” Right.  It’s just that Pham, as director of the Michael S. Ansari Africa Center at the Atlantic Council, is a widely known and visible Africa scholar who is very much a professional researcher. When he gets something very very wrong (as he does with the autonomy proposal), I think you can be confident that it is not because he has done sloppy or lazy research, but because he is pushing some agenda. In other words, I am totally sure that he has thoroughly read the Moroccan Initiative, and he just chooses to lie about it. Of course, this begs the question of what his agenda is. Is it a zionist thing? The fact that the quote under discussion here appeared in the in-house rag of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), a right-wing zionist think tank, might support this thesis. Or is it the neo-con thing? His thoroughly inconsistent support of South Sudanese independence and simultaneous rejection of the far more justifiable independence of the Western Sahara might support this idea. Or is he just a Moroccophile? I. William Zartman’s faulty research on the Western Sahara would be a precedent here.  Or is it a Jarch Capital thing (more on this at a later date)? Who knows? What I do know is that he gets a lot of things seriously wrong on the Western Sahara, and he should be held accountable.

In the end, however, the important point is that NO autonomy plan will work. Whether autonomy is as good as Pham would have us believe or whether it is a bad as the actual Initiative, the Sahrawis are unlikely to accept it given their long history of opposing Moroccan rule.

The New York City Bar Association recently came out with a marvelous study on the legal aspects of the Western Sahara crisis, "The Legal Issues Involved in the Western Sahara Dispute: the Principle of Self-Determination and the Legal Claims of Morocco." The study concludes that “any plan which eliminates the independence option for the exercise of self-determination is illegitimate under well-established international law” and “limiting the choice of the people of Western Sahara to the Moroccan 'Autonomy Plan' does not comply with international law.” In their “Recommendations for a Way Forward,” they offer up a very sober and realistic set of options for once and for all resolving the crisis:

 (1) Enforcement of the original U.N.-OAU Settlement Plan:

Under this alternative, the referendum would be conducted by MINURSO in accordance with the provisions of the Settlement Plan agreed to by the parties to the conflict, and the list of eligible voters established by MINURSO, under the supervision of the Security Council and the AU, and consistent with internationally recognized legal norms.

(2) Enforcement of a version of the Peace Plan, or an alternative plan which provides for an act of self-determination with an option for independence, and which ensures that the electorate will be those entitled to the right to self-determination under international law; Under this alternative, a referendum would ultimately be held which includes – among other options – a ballot option for independence. The contours and the specifics could vary, so long as the provisions are aimed at ensuring that the decision is made by the “people” of Western Sahara.

(3) Order negotiations on a “political solution” with preconditions, which include (1) the requirement that all options for self-determination be included, including independence, and (2) a timetable for such negotiations, after which, if no agreement is reached, a referendum will be held with all options available.

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.