Significantly the EU’s top court acknowledges that the government of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR)  is the internationally recognized authority over Western Sahara and thus controls the agriculture and fishing in the territory under Moroccan occupation.

This is a legal victory for the POLISARIO, the ruling party in the SADR who challenges the European Council that acts on behalf of the 27 EU member-states.

It finds the EU did not secure the consent of the Saharawi people before entering into agreement with Morocco.

Polisario representative to theEU Oubi Bashir hailed “a great victory for the desert cause”.

In early 2018 the European Court of Justice ruled that  a fisheries agreement between the EU and Morocco cannot include the waters of the Western Sahara.

This dealt a multi-million euro blow to the cash-strapped Kingdom that relies largely on  exports are dagga and oranges. 

Normally, Rabat acts petulantly against challenges to its occupation of the Western Sahara.

It quit the then Organisation of African Unity when the continental body accepted the membership of the SADR.

When Spain treated SADR President Brahim Ghali for COVID earlier this year, Morocco withdrew its guards from the two Spanish enclaves on the African continent.

This allowed Moroccans fleeing human rights violations and economic constraints in their home country to pour into Ceuta and Melila seeking a better life in Europe.

The latest European Court decision is certainly a blow to EU-Morocco relations.

In this matter,  the kingdom is forced to  be circumspect in demonstrating its anger.

The EU is far and away the largest trading partner with Morocco and the largest foreign investor in the kingdom.

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The mendacious Mediterranean kingdom sought to take advantage of the continental talkshop’s leadership paralysis.

Using PAP official stationery, a certain Roger Nkodo attacks the European Parliament for criticizing Morocco’s cynical use of refugees in a spat with Spain.

Nkodo purports to be a past president of the PAP and a goodwill ambassador of the African body.

Through its clerk, the PAP fired back: “Nkodo is is not a goodwill ambassador or a past president of the PAP and does not hold any position in PAP that entitles him to speak on behalf of PAP.

“His statement did not originate in PAP. It is his own personal statement without reference to or authority of the PAP.” 

Morocco is well used to being slapped down by European countries for playing fast and loose with the truth.

In recent months Germany reminded the kingdom that it holds no legal authority of Western Sahara.

A Spanish court summarily dismissed a glaringly fake legal bid by Morocco to have the Saharawi President Brahim Ghali tried for human rights abuses.

Madrid rejected Moroccan criticism for allowing Ghali to receive treatment for COVID in a Spanish hospital.

Morocco responded angrily to this by removing its guards around the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, allowing thousands of Moroccan refugees to stream onto Spanish territory.

The European Parliament rapped this action by Morocco.

Morocco has  recently return to the African family, decades after storming out of the OAU when it recognized the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic which has been illegally occupied by Morocco since 1975.

It is seeking to establish stronger ties with African countries, using its revenue as the largest importer of dagga into Europe.

It has skin in the game of the PAP leadership imbroglio, providing finance and private jet for the Malian candidate Haidra Aichata Cisse.

Undercover payments are not uncommon in African politics where they are euphemistically known as pot au vin or matabiche.

It remains to be seen how long African leaders will tolerate their new member’s bare faced lies.

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He is in Algiers tonight and will return to his country much of which has been illegally occupied by Morocco since 1975.

Algeria supports the SADR and provides shelter in refugee camps from where the government in  exile operates.

Morocco, which is an absolute monarchy, is furious at Spain providing medical treatment for Ghali.

The Madrid government insists it acted on perfectly justifiable humanitarian grounds

In retaliation last month, Moroccan guards were withdrawn from the Spanish enclave of Ceuta on the north African coast, allowing hundreds of people trying to flee the oppression the kingdom to swim around the fences into Spanish territory.

At least one man drowned in the process and the refugees were returned to Morocco.

A handful of  Moroccan-financed Saharawi made allegations of human rights abuses against Ghali.

Spanish judge Santiago Pedraz heard their evidence and  ruled there were no clear indications of Ghali’s involvement in any crimes. He rejected a call for Ghali to be detained.

Spanish  prosecutors have not pursued the matter.

Analysts say Morocco’s King Mohammed VI  has cut a rod for his back seeking legal action against Ghali.

It has created a precedent for legal action to be taken in Spain against the scores of Moroccan officials accused of human rights abuses against Saharawi nationals.

They risk arrest if the travel to or transit through Spain.

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So I was not surprised when the envoy from Rabat Youssef Amrani  walked up to the podium where I was speaking from at the Pretoria Country Club and yelled “Liar, liar” when I compared the regime of King Mohammed VI to those of John Vorster and P.W.Botha.

I likened Morocco’s illegal occupation of the Western Sahara in 1975 to South Africa’s futile attempt to hold onto South West Africa – now Namibia – that I

was reporting on at the United Nations in New York at the time.

So strong is Morocco’s wish to obliterate this truth, now that it is trying to forge better relations with African nations, that it forces its servile media to comply.

I have had personal experience of this having once attended an editorial conference of the newspaper Le Matin du Sahara.

When I asked whether they would ever publish a piece criticizing Morocco’s occupation of the Western Sahara, the editor sidestepped furiously.

When I followed this up with a question on whether they could ever, under any circumstances criticize the king, he literally left the room.

Since I was an official guest of the Moroccan government my visit was reported.

The next day the newspaper carried my picture taken with the editor in the pressroom.

The caption said the South African visitor had expressed amazement about the technology available to the newspaper.

Absolute balderdash.

Honest journalism has no place in a country where the leaders display a capacity to lie repeatedly to please the king.

Over the years I have noted the similarity in the ability of the Moroccans and the apartheid regime to shoot themselves in the foot.

When they reach a crossroad with an option between ethical behavior and ignominy, they can be relied up to take the latter path every time.

This week Morocco fumed as Spain taking in the President of the Saharawi Democratic Republic, Brahim Ghali, for COVID treatment.

Relations between Ranat and the former colonial power are shaky at best.

It was when the dictator General Franco died and Spain quit the Western Sahara that Morocco sent its troops in.

When Spain decolonized in Morocco, it retained two enclaves, Ceuta and Melila, on the African mainland to protect shipping on the Mediterranean and it has refused persistent Moroccan calls for their return.

Moroccan desperate to flee the poverty and parlous human rights in their own country frequently risk personal injury by trying to scale the two-meter-high, barbed-wire-topped fences around these enclaves which means effectively they have reached European territory

Not surprisingly, Spain has not apologized for its humanitarian gesture in treating President Ghali.

One has to ask what occurred to the Moroccan authorities to protest?

The Moroccan media have been dragooned into a rearguard action bombarding social media with reports of Spanish courts seeking to drag the president into court, based on complaints from a Saharawi dissident.

The mainstream media and the Spanish authorities put paid to this with discounting any idea of Brahim Ghali being summonsed.

One might say this has dented Moroccan credibility. However it is impossible to damage a quality that has not existed in decades.

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He was speaking after talks at the Union Buildings with with the Saharawi President Brahim Ghali.

President Cyril Ramaphosa says beating apartheid showed Africa that  no system, however oppressive, can deny the desire of a people to be free.

He’s certain the Western Sahara will be free because the liberation of Africa will not be complete without the liberation of that country.

“There can be no mistake about the determination of the Saharawi people to gain their own self determination and independence,” he says

Ramaphosa says the Saharawis’ continued support of their leadership’s  persistent  demand that Morocco keep its promise to hold a referendum and their suffering in refugee camps is  proof  of this  

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On a five-nation Southern African tour, Ghali’s stopped in Pretoria to thank Cyril Ramaphosa for the political and humanitarian support.

In an exclusive interview with EyeWitness News, Saharawi President Ebrahim Ghali says Morocco joining the continental body enables African Union members to apply increasing pressure on it to end its 43-year occupation of Western Sahara.

Morocco, which doing the bidding of multi-national companies seeking to exploit Saharawi fish, phosphates, iron ore, gold and possibly uranium, hopes to undermine the founding-member status of the territory it annexed.

The AU realizes,  however, that pandering to the wishes of a colonial occupier would undermine its credibility and make it look ridiculous. 

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He’ll talk about matters of mutual interest with President Cyril Ramaphosa.

President Brahim Ghali comes to South Africa from a State visit to Namibia where President  Hage Geingob, like his South African counterpart Cyril Rampahosa,  strongly supports the Western Sahara’s right to self determination and independence.

They regard the 43-year Moroccan occupation of the Western Sahara as one of the last colonial vestiges in Africa.

Both use Morocco’s admission to African Union to press Rabat to end that occupation and exploitation of Saharawi resources and to keep its promise to have a referendum in the Western Sahara giving the people an opportunity to determine their own future.

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However the Kingdom’s aspiration to be an AU member while still occupying his country will remain a hot potato for the 54-member union.

President Brahim Ghali, who was a guest of his South African counterpart Jacob Zuma, says in an exclusive interview with Eyewitness News, that the Western Sahara’s continued membership of the African Union  has the support of two thirds of it members.

It is also guaranteed in the AU constitution.

However he believes Morocco, funded by Gulf State and supported by former French colonies in Africa,  will persist in its efforts to achieving its exclusion, so that it can join the AU without ending its 42-year-occupation of Western Sahara.

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