Great moment in US-Algerian relations

Not quite the under cover operation he was hired for:

The CIA's station chief at its sensitive post in Algeria is under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department for allegedly raping at least two Muslim women who claim he laced their drinks with a knock-out drug, U.S. law enforcement sources tell ABC News.

Expect all hell to follow when this breaks in Algeria. Already before, many Algerians viewed their country's relationship with the US as being on precisely the terms here formulated my Mr. Date Rape:

The alleged victim said she remembers being in Warren's bed and asking him to stop, but that "Warren made a statement to the effect of 'nobody stays in my expensive sheets with clothes on.'"

For more sad and sensationalist detail, here's a search warrant affidavit as PDF document

No country for old men

He's an affable little fellow, but not everyone loves Abdelaziz Bouteflika.

Here, for example, Rachid Benyelles lambasts the president in a long column in El Watan, one of Algeria's biggest French-language private dailies. Not only is the president a gangster and a corrupt police-state dictator, he's also old, sick and almost dead. Criticism of Bouteflika is of course par for the course in Algeria, but here, at the end, Benyelles breaks every conceivable taboo by essentially calling for a coup d'état:

The constitution and the political parties must be suspended, the parliament dissolved, and power be handed to a transitional government. During its six to twelve month mandate, it would be tasked with managing daily affairs and installing a National Council for the Installment of Democracy (CNID).

[picture: rachid benyelles]

This Benyelles, born 1935 and no youngster himself, is a retired general. In the mid-80s he briefly served as secretary-general of the Ministry of Defense under Chadli Bendjedid (meaning he was in effect the country's minister of defense, since he answered directly to the president). He was sidelined later on, by being moved to the post as minister of transport, and has not been of much importance since the end of the 1980s. Unless he's writing with backing from someone else, this should not be taken as anything other than an old man's angry rant. On the other hand, Benyelles's military background is interesting; not least because the article largely absolves the military of responsibility for the country's situation (and it doesn't even mention the DRS).

Even with the rather brutal tone of Algerian political commentary, this piece stands out for openly demanding total regime change. Such seems to be the mood as Bouteflika gears up for a third term, having eliminated all opposition and rewritten the constitution -- one of anger and desperation among his enemies, and raw bulldozer determination among his allies.

Two new blogs!

Hannes Bahrenburg -- The first one is run by Hannes, who has been commenting a lot on Mauritanian issues here. Seems like he's going to continue doing that on his own new website.

Maghreb Politics Review -- A nascent group blog started by Kal from The Moor Next Door, which will hopefully include a lot of other Maghreb-centered bloggers soon, among them me. If it works out well for me there, I'll probably kill WSI.

Embassy enigma

[picture: no hostility there]

Why is Morocco closing its embassy in Venezuela? The government claims it is because the Chavez government in Caracas is "hostile" to the kingdom's "territorial integrity", i.e. supportive of POLISARIO and Algeria. And sure, it is. But that's not a new thing. There has long been a Sahrawi embassy in Caracas, the highest level of diplomatic support possible.

So what has happened to cause a rift in relations now, all of a sudden? Perhaps the government has decided on some sort of active support for POLISARIO (aid, training, scholarships), or perhaps Chavez was planning some public humiliation for Morocco that has now been avoided. Or perhaps Morocco was just planning to shut down a low-importance embassy anyway, and used the opportunity for some Sahara grandstanding? (On second thought, that doesn't sound very likely, since the embassy is moved to the Dominican Republic -- for all its virtues, hardly a regional powerhouse.)

And it gets more mysterious. Instead of parading this as a diplomatic victory, or a demonstration of its influence, POLISARIO denies that Western Sahara is the root of the problem. The Sahrawi Republic instead claims that Morocco is breaking with Venezuela due to Chavez's tough stand on Palestine, rather than Western Sahara. Chavez recently cut ties with Israel, and is wildly popular in the Arab world for his outspoken public diplomacy on the issue.

That this would be about Palestine sounds very unlikely, to me, but what do I know. Seems more likely that POLISARIO wants to exploit Arab nationalist ill-will towards the Moroccan government, after it boycotted the pro-Gaza summit in Doha. But most of all, I figure this must be an attempt to ride the Gaza media wave -- whereas a closed embassy due to the Sahara issue could easily drown in the wall-to-wall Palestine coverage in Arab media, this way, the Sahrawis hope to ensure that the news are picked up.

Sahrawi youth x 2

The French think-tank IFRI has two essays on the political upbringing of Sahrawi youth, under Moroccan rule (by Omar Brouksy) and in Tindouf (by Cédric Omet). Both are in French, both seem very interesting, and both are available as PDF files here.

Gaza summit, Ross, rumors & more

The slow pace of posting is likely to continue, but comments are always welcome in the meanwhile. Here's some catch-up.

Arab diplomacy: It's Gaza, Gaza, Gaza. On the fringes of that, Gen. Mohamed ould Abdelaziz, the Mauritanian junta leader, attended a special Arab League summit on the crisis in Doha. This marked a PR victory for the junta, since many/most Arab states have been reluctant to recognize the legitimacy of the coup. Also, the junta has upped its "Arab" standing by suspending relations with Israel (which it recognized in 1999) in protest over Gaza, after first recalling its ambassador. That's a very popular move domestically, and it carries less cost than it used to, now that Western donor nations have broken with Nouakchott since the coup. It was Western pressure that initiated and maintained the relationship with Israel, and if Western nations aren't going to be of any help anyway, Gen. Abdelaziz faces no penalty for catering to his domestic constituency.

[picture: gen. mohamed ould abdelaziz, leader of the mauritanian junta]

The summit itself was called by Qatar, against the wishes of major US-aligned Arab players such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, who prefer to see Hamas stew for a little longer in the fires of Gaza. In consequence, Riyadh and Cairo boycotted the summit, officially in favor of a less prestigious gathering on the margins of a prescheduled economic summit in Kuwait. The Saudis and Egyptians also in the end managed to prevent a substantial number of smaller pro-US states from attending, which meant it didn't count as a legitimate summit -- that requires the attendance of 2/3 of the total League membership, meaning I think 14 governments. This is presumably also why the Nouakchott junta found it so easy to get in: the organizers desperately wanted to reach quorum.

Among the other Maghreb states, Algerian Pres. Bouteflika went in person, and apparently exchanged greetings with Gen. Abdelaziz -- without Algeria signalling any relaxation of its opposition to the coup. Libya and Morocco instead announced they would send only their foreign ministers. In Morocco's case, it seems even this didn't hold up, and that Morocco abstained completely from the summit, in deference to sugar daddy. As for the motivations of the Brother Leader for not going himself -- who the hell knows.

Western Sahara: Some Moroccan newspapers are claiming that POLISARIO Sec.-Gen. Mohamed Abdelaziz suffers from cancer, and will be replaced by Mohamed Lamine ould el-Bouhali, the current SADR minister of defense. Apparently, all the papers are using the exact same source, and there's no evidence whatsoever to back this up, so I wouldn't put much faith in it. Also, Abdelaziz is still pretty young (well, early sixties) despite leading POLISARIO for over 30 years, and he hasn't shown any obvious signs of being ill. So unless something more credible pops up, I'm going to go ahead and call this psyop spin.

Oh, and Christopher Ross, the UN envoy and successor to van Walsum, has finally been approved. Moroccan objections were holding him up, for whatever reason. Officially, Morocco indicated that it wanted negotiations to be based on the autonomy plan, but that never seemed likely. It could just have been an attempt to play hardball, so Western nations do not get the idea that Morocco is ready for more compromise; also, it's worth bearing in mind that Morocco is rather comfortable with the status quo, and would rather extend it than enter unknown diplomatic territory.

Algerian-Moroccan relations: I posted on the border issue here, including some apparently uninformed lines on border closure & economy, and was duly molested in comments by The Lounsbury. More on his blog, which is always worth listening to on Maghreb issues (and for sheer enjoyment).

Gas: Algeria and Spain recently finished a second gas pipeline project. Unlike the older one, this pipeline goes across the Mediterranean, without passing Moroccan territory. Also in gas news, the Russian-Ukranian spat of course heightens European interest in Algerian gas, although it's not as if the two suppliers are exchangeable: not only are Algeria's export volumes much smaller, they also go to southern European states that generally do not import from Russia, with limited possibilities of filling the gap left by Gazprom. Kal has some thoughts on Algerian-Russian relations in this context.