Celebrating its national day Friday, Algeria is showing a new stable and well-heeled profile in relations  with Africa. 

July 5 is the 62nd anniversary of Algeria’s independence from France. The  135-year French rule of the oil-rich North African state ended in a bloody eight-year liberation way in which Algerians popularly say not a single family went untouched. Official figures put the death toll at more than 1-5 million

Algeria became a bastion of revolution in the sixties that hardly endeared it to the West, fighting communism in Eastern Europe and Asia at the time.

In the United Nations, Algeria was at the sharp African point opposing the apartheid regime in South Africa and supporting the liberation struggles, particularly in Africa.

It remains  the strongest supporter of the Western Sahara people fighting the last colonial struggle in Africa against the illegal occupation  by Morocco.

Algeria had its extremely tough time fighting an Islamist insurgency in the 80s and 90s.

Success in  this operation earned it the regard of the very Western powers that criticized it two decades earlier.

Algeria has become the  go-to African country in the fight against terrorism

Importantly it has overtaken Nigeria to become the third richest African country behind South Africa and Egypt.

With  latest GDP figures growing to $266.7-billion from $186 billion in 2023, Algeria is expected to overtake its fellow-Arab North African  country by the middle of this peace.

Being Africa’s  largest gas exporter has spurred annual economic growth to 4.1%.

Algeria has three pipelines into Spain and Italy. Morocco as cut off one of these.

By year’s end it will have completed another pip[eline into Nigeria from where it will increase gas exp[orts for Europe.

A fleet of ship- carriers liquid petroleum gas from Algeria to  markets  around the world, including the United States.

President Abdlemadjid Tebboune, who faces an election on September 7, presides over a country barely recognizeable from the from the troubled land of 20 years ago.

He says this enables Algeria to be a key player in exporting peace and security in its neighborhood and beyond and to help in dealing with security threats in Africa and region.

Algeria has become  an essential actor in Africa, involved in several mediation effort  in conflict and crises.

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This rests on the  poor performance by the current ruling party in opinion polls indicating its will lose its overall parliamentary majority. This that has fallen from  62% when Nelson Mandela led it to power in 1995  and to 57% at the previous election in 2019 

Dirk Kotze, a lecturer in University of South Africa, who widely quoted as an authoritative commentator in South African media says the ANC would be loathe form an alliance with the breakaway uhMkonto WeSizwe led by disgraced former President Jacob Zuma or the far left Economic Freedom Fighters led by former ANC youth leader Julius Malema.

He believe the ANC is more likely to turn to the Democratic Alliance or the Zulu-dominated Inkatha Freedom Party to make up its majority in the legislature.

“Who this is will largely determine South Africa’s foreign policy,” says Kotze.

“President Cyril Ramaphosa wants to adopt a more non-aligned centrist approach. This is not the classical Global South posture.

“As a member of BRICS, South Africa  will maintain good relations with Russia and China.

“This will not, however be to the detriment of relations – particularly economic  ties with our traditional Western trading partners.

Kotze says the United States is a good example.

“Washington might be angry with South Africa  because of its tough stand against Israel’s attacks on Gaza and its refusal to condemn Russia’s operation in Ukraine but it remains one of South Africa’s top three tradition partners and regards South Africa ss the gateway  to Southern and Central Africa: Namibia, Zimbabwe, Zambia and the Democratic Republic Congo.

“Africa is a highly contested economic market. I am told by sources in the Department of Economic Relations and Cooperation that he five major summits between Africa and the U.S., Japan, China, Turkey and the EU will grow to nine next year.”

Kotze says Ramaphosa’s desire to play to meditating role in international conflicts will not be affected by the ANC’s poor political performance.

“South Africa remains more favorably regarded abroad that it does at home where corruption, failure of service delivery and poor economic performance have whittled away at ANC support.” 

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The dirt-poor, landlocked West African country has made one bad decision after another.

The military coups in 2020 and 2021 indubitably rank at the top of the list.

The pretext for the putsches was that the authorities were unable curb the jihadi extremism rendering the Sahelian nation of 22,5 million ungovernable.

When the regional organization ECOWAS slapped sanctions on Mali for its unconstitutional change of power, as it did again Burkina Faso, Guinea and Niger for exactly the same reason, they quit the body.

Ill advised as this show of temper was, it is explicable, as is the decision to end historic ties with Fence which has over the years sought military solutions to clearly socio-political and challenges.

Ironically, this is exactly the path that coup leader Assimi Goïta has chosen

One has to ask what he was thinking when he denounced the Agreement For Peace And Reconciliation in Mali that resulted from the Algiers process.

From its bitter history fighting integrists, Algeria is internationally recognized as an expert in this field.

Throughout its efforts to find peaceful solutions to Mali’s security problems and restore the stability crucial to development, the nation’s northern neighbour, with which it shares a 1400 km other has studiously avoided interfering in  the internal affairs of Bamako.

It has, according to a statement from Algeria, shown “sincerity, good faith and unwavering solidarity towards Mali.”

Assimi has now been forced to suspended all political activity in Mali to silence opposition demands for an explanation as why he has broken his promise to hold February elections that would have restored Mali to constitutionality.

Algeria maintains Assimi’s “denunciation of the Agreement For Peace and Reconciliation by Mali absolutely does not correspond in any way to the truth or to reality.

“Indeed it has escaped no one’s notice the the Malian authorities have been preparing this  decision for a long time.

“The warning signs  for two years have been their almost total withdrawal from the implementation of the  Agreement, their almost systematic refusal of any initiative tending to relaunch the implementation of this Agreement, their contestation of the integrity of international mediation, their desiignation of signatories to the Agreement, duly recognized, as terrorist leaders, their request to withdraw from (the UN stabilization mission) MINUSMA, the  recent intensification of their arms programs financed by third countries and their recourse to international mercenaries.”

The Algeria statement  said closing the military option is a threat to Mali unity and territorial integrity.

“It carries within it the seeds of civil war in Mali, it postpones national reconciliation instead of bringing it closer  and it finally constitutes a source of real threat to regional peace and security.”

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Ghali flew home with host President Cyril Ramaphosa’s assertion that the coloniaisation of Africa continued so long as Morocco maintained its illegal 47-year occupation of Western Sahara.

Ramaphosa is expected to emphasize this to Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sànchez when he visits South Africa next week.

As the colonial power that abandoned Western Sahara following the 1975 death of dictator Francisco Franco, Spain still bears responsibility under international law for its former colony.

Sànchez is under fire domestically for appearing to support continued Moroccan occupation of the Western Sahara.

Bourita claims South Africa is on the wrong side of history and unable to persuade some African countries to back Western Sahara independence.

The historical reality is that the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic was a founder member of the African Union at its inception in Pretoria twenty years ago.

Morocco is a latecomer to the continental body. It’s membership in 2017 was opposed by South Africa, among others.

Morocco is back at war with Polisario Front, the Saharawi liberation movement because it violated the 1991 ceasefire that ended the 15 year conflict following its occupation.

As part of that truce Morocco promised to hold a referendum on self determination in the occupied territory, an undertaking it has reneged on.

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President Brahim Ghali is meeting the MPs in Cape Town tonight and tomorrow having been received in Pretoria by President Cyril Ramaphosa who pledged South Africa’s “firm and unwavering support” for the Saharawis right to self determination.

Ramaphosa added his concern at the international silence about Morocco being the last colonial oppressor in Africa and its failure to keep its promise to have a self-determination referendum in Western Sahara..

When Ghali was received by Morocco’s neighbour Tunisia in August, Morocco withdrew its ambassador and began a trade and sporting boycott  against the little country.

Morocco would not dare take such drastic action against a continental power.

The Moroccan embassy in Pretoria was firmly put in its place when it officially complained about a noisy demonstration outside its embassy in Pretoria on the eve of Ghali’s arrival calling for South Africa to sever diplomatic relations with the occupier.

The terse response from the host government was that the demonstration was peaceful with police in full attendance.

Furthermore the embassy was told that demonstrators were merely exercising the same right Morocco does when it makes public statements in South Africa.

Suitably chastised, the Moroccan government has turned to its state controlled media to make its feeling known.

The Moroccan World News website accuses the South African Government of renewing its hostile position against Morocco’s territorial integrity.

The Saharawi President told South African supporters, mostly from the ruling African National Congress, that Morocco was corruptly using resources stolen from Western Sahara to buy friends in the African Union.

Morocco quit the continental body when it received  the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic as a member in 1984.

It sought without a smidgeon of success to become a member of the European Union.

More than 30 year later it sought membership of the transformed African Union.

The African countries who voted to allow this have been paid with phosphates stolen from Western Sahara.

They are still waiting impatiently for the economic bonanza promised them by Rabat.

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They tend to punch above their weight and are, when they wish to be, African, Arab or even southern European.

Their position, just across the Mediterranean, makes them strategically difficult to disregard.

If things go badly for them, it is generally bad for Europe too, particularly those countries in the south of the world’s most prosperous continent.

The Maghreb Arab Union incorporating the five North African countries on which the sun sets was conceived as a powerful trading bloc for dealing with Europe.

However the MAU has been paralyzed by differences between Morocco Algeria and  Western Sahara.

Some analysts are suggesting that the other members of the MAU should get on with the job of presenting a united front to Europe and leave the parties in dispute to sort things out.

When dictator Franco died in 1975 and Spain quit its colony known as Spanish Sahara, Morocco and  Muaritania stepped in and occupied it in defiance of the United Nations.

“Defiance of the United Nations” sounds tougher than it really is.

A half century ago countries like Israel and South Africa turned their defiance  into an art form, to the exasperation of the three Western permanent members of the Security Council who were obliged to protect them from the wrath of the fourth and fifth permanent members, namely the Soviet Union and China.

Remember this was the height of the Cold War and entirely different priorities were at play.

In 1975 South Africa both occupied Namibia in defiance of the world organisation and operated its policy of apartheid, judged to be a crime against humanity by the very United Nations the apartheid regime was thumbing its nose at.

The liberation movements fighting apartheid in South Africa – the African National Congress and the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania – got short shrift from the Western powers who saw them as acolytes of the Soviet Union and China.

This was exactly the treatment meted out to the Saharawi liberation movement known as the Polisario Front.

Morocco benefitted  from the simplistic “domino” theory coined by U.S. President Dwight D Eisenhower who argued that the fall of French Indochina would set off the demise of other Asian nations.

This misguided theory became the cornerstone of U.S military intervention in Vietnam and globally to Western opposition to liberation wars

South Africa cynically  profited from such thinking, and posed as the strategic Western protector of the Cape   sea route.

Hardly surprising then that when Morocco faced a liberation war by Polisario, which had proclaimed the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic, the racist regime in Pretoria was an enthusiastic backer and one of the kingdom’s armourers.

There is nothing morally different from the invasions by Morocco and Russia  of Western Sahara and Ukraine respectively.

Both were cynical and flagrant violations of international law.

The Western powers failed to act in 1975 and were powerless to intervene correctly in 2022 because the aggressor was one of them: a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.

Morocco’s King Hassan had barely survived two coup attempts by rebel officers in the early seventies. He  managed to persuade France that if he were defeated on the issue of Western Sahara, huge chunks of the kingdom, such as the Rif,  would secede, thereby destroying a pro-western bastion against Islamist militants just across from Gibraltar. 

A major factor in the ceasefire in Western Sahara in 1991 was Morocco’s promise to hold a referendum on self determination of the Saharawi people.

Thirty one years later it is clear Morocco has no intention of honouring its undertaking. Its Western backers, in turn,  have no stomach for forcing it to.

Morocco stormed off in anger in 1984 when the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic was recognized by the Organisation.

When the OAU was transformed in 2002 to become the African Union, the SADR was a founder member and Morocco continued to turn its back on Africa in the vain hope of becoming a member of the European Union.

Recognition of Western Sahara by the Organisation of  African Unity did not stop Morocco looting the resources of the occupied country.

Mauritania, that had seized the Southern third

of Western Sahara was beaten off by Polisario fighters.

As the Nouakchott forces left, Morocco stepped into the areas they had occupied.

Morocco sold fishing rights in Western Sahara waters to European and other nations even though the International  Court  of Justice had declared this illegal..

They have continued to plunder Saharawi phosphates that have made Morocco on of the world’s largest suppliers of this vital fertilizer.

At about the time the OAU became the African Union European countries had tired of their North African wannabe with its hand perpetually outstretched.

Stopped from selling resources stolen from Western Sahara, Morocco has limited commercial appeal to  Europe.

It is the continent’s largest supplier of marijunana

It also sells oranges and prostitutes into the European market.

Thus Morocco was forced to  show new interest in joining the new continental organisation.

Fifteen years after the formation of the AU, Morocco managed to sell a majority of the countries sharing its continent the shopworn line no longer bought by Europeans that it is a profitable partner.

No fewer than 39 African countries voted to admit Morocco in 1917, to the chagrin of major players like South Africa and Nigeria  who had long ago tired of Moroccan lies about seeking settlement with Western Saahra.

“Africa is my home and I am coming home,” said King Mohammed VI disingenuously.

Five years later some African countries have received some phosphates stolen from Western Sahara. The bulk have yet receive any dividends from letting Morocco in.

Morocco claimed delight at re-established diplomatic ties with South Africa in 2014 – 14 years after recalling its ambassador when the SADR opened its embassy in Pretoria.

This has resulted in the envoy from Rabat  having to s endure  a number of lectures from the ANC government about about the shame of representing the last colonialist in Africa.

Morocco has made several unsuccessful attempts to marginalise the SADR.

It is no match for the powerful pro-Saharawi lobby in the AU and ever-vigilalant SADR diplomatic representatives.

Morocco has assumed apartheid South Africa’s role as Africa’s bully boy.

King Mohammed VI has said the Western Sahara is the lens through which its views bilateral relations.

He had some good fortune in the dying months of the Tump Presidency when the beaten US president recognized Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara is exchange for Rabat signing a peace deal with Israel.

Half way through the Biden Presidency, Washington has yet to endorse this muddled thinking.

By removing guards from the Moroccan side of the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melila on the North African coast, Morocco pressured the socialist President Pedro Sánchez to take a more charitable view of Morocco’s stance on Western Sahara.

It remains to be seen whether he can sustain this view which runs strongly against popular opinion in Spain.

Morocco bullied Tunisia by recalling its ambassador and applying trade sanctions when President Kais Saied received President Brahim Ghali for the Tokyo International Conference on African Development that it hosted.

Interestingly, Morocco never dared take such action when Japan received the Saharawi leader at the previous TICAD meeting in Tokyo.

My bet is the bully will be equally quiet when Ghali visits South Africa for the third time later this month.

Of course I could be wrong because Morocco has inherited another feature of its apartheid friend: the  ability to shoot itself in the foot.

Lately the Rabat authorities have turned on France, that has been their shield and protector since 1975.

Rabat’s  state-controlled media has made the fanciful assertion that Morocco will look elsewhere if France does not take a stronger line like the Trump administration and the Sanchez Government.

This is no easy task for Presidential Emmanuel Macron who is seeking new African friends to replace those West Africans who have turned their backs on Paris.

The condemnation by the African Court on Human and Peoples Rights of  Morocco’s occupation of Western Sahara has given France and others pause, particularly since it is followed by  the court’s declaration that Morocco’s illegal military occupation of the country is in violation of international law. 

There has not been a top level bilateral visit between France and  Morocco in more than two years.

By contrast, Macron has been to Algeria twice this past year and French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne was in Algiers with a top level Cabinet team  this past weekend to concretise the new relationship forged between Presidents Macron and Tebboune.

The European are content to let Morocco seek trade ties elsewhere. It was precious little that they want.

I am confident that Africans will come to the same realization. It is just a matter of time.

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He’ll also miss  Angolan President João Lourenço’s inauguration in Luanda tomorrow.

Is this because Western Sahara President Brahim Ghali was and will be there?

Or is he embarrassed about his envoy being caught lying about a meeting he had with William Ruto last year.

My betting is the former. 

Moroccan officials shamelessly lie about their dealings – particularly their illegal occupation of the former Spanish colony.

They have been caught out many many times and continue regardless.

The Saharawi President was and will be treated with the pomp and protocol befitting a head of state in Nairobi and Luanda.

Morocco has been cautiously mum about it.

Rabat’s silence confirms my earlier assertion that Morocco has replaced its old friend apartheid South Africa as the African bully.

Last month it recalled its ambassador to Tunis when President Kais Saied received Brahim Ghali for the Japanese development summit known as the Tokyo International Conference on African Development.

In addution to withdrawing its ambassador, Morocco also slapped a unilateral  trade and sports boycott on Tunisia.

This means Morocco may not share in the $30 million dollars in development aid promised to Africa by Japan at TICAD, because Morocco shunned that gathering.

With the new trade boycott against its neighbour it loses one client for its major exports which are daggers, oranges and prostitutes.

Granted, not a major client. Tunisia is small enough to push around.

So angry was Morocco that it accused Tunisia of being in alliance with France and Algeria in seeking to  prolong the Western Sahara conflict.

Another lie, of course.

Morocco is solely responsible for the conflict in the country it has occupied in defiance of the international community since 1975.

Morocco could stop that conflict in a jot by agreeing to allow a referendum on self-determination among the the Saharawi’s under its occupation.

Indeed, Morocco’s  promise in 1991 to allow such referendum is what ended the 16-year war with Western Sahara following the occupation.

Sadly that has turned out to be yet another lie from Rabat.

I call Morocco a bully because it enthusiastically gets tough with Tunisia, which is a quarter the size of  the kingdom and has a GDP and  population  three times smaller.

It does this because it perceives Tunisia as having strayed from its impartial stance on Westerns Sahara.

When confronted with countries like Mozambique, Kenya, Angola and South Africa that muscularly support Western Sahara self determination, that  have diplomatic relations with the occupied nation and have received Brahim Ghali as its head of state,  Morocco is cravenly silent.

Last year Morocco’s ambassador to Nairobi, El Moktar Gambon emerged from a meeting with then Deputy  President William Ruto saying  his host had accepted that as a rotating member of the United Nations Security Council and a member of the African Peace and Security Council, Kenya should take an impartial stance on Western Sahara.

In fact, Kenya has repeatedly condemned Morocco’s occupation of the country and called it the last vestige of colonialism in Africa.

A furious Ruto nailed the ambassador’s lie and called on his foreign affairs department to take appropriate action.

He pointed out that a clip used by the ambassador to support his lie was in fact a clip of Ruto at a totally different event that had nothing to do with the Moroccan’s claims.

Plainly Morocco’s assertion that it will judge its friendship with African countries by their attitude to Western Sahara applies only to countries. smaller than itself.

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The German leader stepped all over Ramaphosa’s  careful explanation of why South African abstained in a United Nations General Assembly vote condemning Russian aggression.

Ramaphosa carefully added that his German counterpart had understood South Africa’s wish for negotiation, dialogue and engagement to end what hecalled “the conflict”, carefully avoiding taking any sides.

“I don’t see any other way,” said Ramaphosa.

“Sanctions against apartheid were different to the sanctions imposed on Russia.

“What really ended apartheid was negotiation.

“Our position will be to end the conflict through negotiation and Chancellor Scholz understands that.”

Without hesitation Scholz countered: “We agree that the war in Ukraine is a war of aggression by Russia to conquer territory that does not belong to it.

“Ukraine must be give the ability to defend its territorial integrity and sovereignty.

“There must be no new delimitation of the Ukraine border,” he said, adding for his host’s benefit that the Kenya’s  President Uhuru Keyatta had acknowledged this at the United Nations.

“We are giving financial support and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine along with other European countries

.” said Scholz

“Ukraine must be able to defend itself and this is why we though sanctions against Russia are necessary.

“We discussed South Africa’s action in the UNGA and how this differs from Germany’s position .

“We are doing our utmost  to stop the war and get Russia to withdraw its forces from Ukraine.

“We want to see the restoration of Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty and integrity.

“We also discussed the global implications of Russia’s aggression in Ukraine.  Many countries in Asia, Africa and America are affected.”

Scholz confirmed Germany was supplying weapons, along with other countries, to enable Ukraine to defend itself and said he supported excluding Russia from the G20 summit and inviting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Scholz said Germany  intended stopping oil imports from Russia by the end of this year and also finding alternative LNG sources to those currently coming from Russia.

Germany intends having  a carbon neutral economy by 2045.

In this regard he and Ramaphosa will be visiting Sasolburg, south of Johannesburg later today for the launch of a green hydrogen project 

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