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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There have been uniformly respectful official tributes from the neighbours of  ousted Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe who has died in Singapore  aged 95.

“South Africans join the people and government of Zimbabwe in mourning the passing of a liberation fighter and champion of Africa’s cause against colonialism,” says South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.

“Under President Mugabe’s leadership, Zimbabwe’s sustained and valiant struggle against colonialism  inspired our own struggle against apartheid and built in us the hope that one day South Africa too would be free.”

Namibian President Hage Geingob says: “ Comrade Mugabe was an outstanding revolutionary, a tenacious freedom fighter and a dedicated Pan Africanist.

“He made enormous sacrifices in the struggle against injustice and the liberation of Southern Africa from racial subjugation and colonial oppression.

“As Namibians we owe President Mugabe  deep sense of gratitude for his immense and selfless contribution to the liberation of our country. ”     

I first met Mugabe  in 1975 as a United Nations correspondent covering a conference in Maputo supporting the  liberation  movements in Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa.

His passionate call for the people of those countries to avoid the mistakes  that Mozambique had made in driving out white farmers and entrepreneurs made him one of the most impressive liberation leaders I had encountered.

Mugabe  took a tough line at the Lancaster House Conference three years later, repeatedly telling his British hosts that with power awaiting him, he did not need to be negotiating.

To no-one’s great surprise, Mugabe won a landslide victory in Zimbabwe’s first democratic election.

His first years in that job were a resounding success.

Apartheid ministers I  spoke to in Pretoria in  the  mid eighties said if Mugabe was the face of majority rule in the region, they could deal with it.

But then came the massacre of thousands of Joshua Nkomo’s supporters in Matabeleland backed by North Korean special forces.

When he lost a constitutional referendum and was  in danger of losing an election to the Movement For Democratic Change, Mugabe attempted to regain support by offering Zimbabweans land.

This he seized from whites farmers. He intimidated and even killed those resisting, driving at least 100 black workers off the land with every white farmer he dispossessed.

The policy lost him British government support and drove Zimbabwe into agricultural collapse and a downward economic spiral from which it has yet to emerge.

At one point inflation was 200 000 000 percent as the region’s bread basket, that once exported food to its neighbours, became the basket case dependent on emergency food aid.

Former anti-apartheid activist and British Foreign Office Minister Lord Peter Hain calls Mugabe a classical case of a liberation leader who betrayed the very values for which he was imprisoned and tortured.

“History will judge Robert Mugabe very harshly,” says Lord Hain.

“We were delighted when he came to power ending the white racist rebel government of Ian Smith. He talked of reconciliation and the values we had all be fighting for,” he says.

“Sadly he deteriorated into leading a corrupt regime that flouted human rights and the rule of law.”

Lord Hain advocated slapping sanctions on Mugabe’s Zanu PF government – which are still in placef- or stealing elections and violating human rights.  

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A SADC assessment team found Burundi President Pierre Nkurunziza’s decision to contest an unconstitutional extra term in power four years ago created unacceptable international security problem.

President Pierre Nkurunziza was not expecting this humiliating rejection when he sent a special envoy to SADC’s current head, Namibian President Hage Geingob, last month seeking Burundi’s admission.

Geingob has told his Tanzanian counterpart John Magufuli, who visited Namibia this week,  that the SADC assessment team that was  speedily despatched has given the application the thumbs down.

The rejection will grist be to mills of Nkurunziza’s domestic rivals who risk everything opposing an increasingly oppressive regime

The post SADC rejects Burundi’s application to join the regional grouping appeared first on Jean-Jacques Cornish.

 Of course King Mohamed VI and his Moroccan officials will say that their record-breaking five-time losing quest to host the football World Cup has nothing to do with his father annexing the Western Sahara 42 years ago.

They would, wouldn’t they?

The late King Hassan refused to acknowledge that his illegal occupation of the former Spanish colony put Morocco beyond the pale of international respectability.

He jailed any of his subjects who dared even to suggest this.

Whatever he says about presiding over a more liberal system, his successor , known as M6, has enforced this official myopia with equal vigour and cruelty.

I recall attending an editorial conference of a so-called independent Moroccan newspaper.

“Could you possibly conceive of ever publishing the views of a respected academic arguing for granting the Saharawi people self-determination?” I asked.

The l meeting ended right there as the terrified editor and journalists left the room.

I am waiting to see how the Moroccan media explains the harsh reality that the country’s  defiance of international opinion caused no fewer than 11 African countries – nearly a fifth of the  continent – to vote against the kingdom’s bid when FIFA took the decision in Moscow yesterday about who should host the 2026 football World Cup. 

South Africa, Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe were open about rejecting the last colonial vestige in Africa and their  support for the occupied Saharawi people.

Others said it was a straightforward business decision: the so-called united bid by the United States, Canada and Mexico guarantee a profit of $11 billion for FIFA. That is money that will trickle down to them.

Morocco indicated  it would make $5 billion, which is more than Brazil earned from its 2014 World Cup and certainly more than South Africa raked for World Cup 2010.

The point not being made by the sporting diplomats is that Morocco has shown time and again that it cannot be taken at its word.

It has lied internationally with promises like allowing the Saharawi people a referendum to determine their own future.

And it has lied to its own people about economic plans that have done nothing to reduce unemployment and spur economic growth.

Meanwhile it spends billions keeping 120 000 soldiers guarding the 2 700 km sand wall, or berm, between the occupied and liberated zones of Western Shara.

Morocco can barely maintain this.

It relies on financial support from France and the United State who hold their noses about Morocco’s lamentable human rights record because they see it as a bastion against militant Islam in North Africa.

Nevertheless Morocco has actually become one of the most dangerous breeding grounds for Islamist terrorists.

So how could the country that relies on aid, tourism – particularly European sex tourism, exploiting the dagga trade, growing oranges and raking in profits from stolen Saharawi phosphates possible afford to stage a World Cup?

The Rabat authorities managed to cobble together a pitch, but Morocco’s neighbours and fellow Africans clearly did not believe it.

If M6 and his men really plan to make yet another bid in 2030, they have their work cut out if  they plan to avoid another humiliation.

Ending their occupation of Western Sahara would be an excellent start.

But that is all it would be: a start.

The post How could a country that relies on handouts, dagga and the sex trade possibly host a World Cup? appeared first on Jean-Jacques Cornish.

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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Reporters Without Borders lists Ghana highest on the continent with Eritrea at the bottom of the 182 countries judged

Every year, Reporters Without Borders questions experts on the independence, pluralism, media environment, self-censorship, transparency and legislative framework of the media in their countries.

Its 2018 list is again topped by Norway.

Ghana, in 23rd place overall,  beats Namibia this year to the top African spot.

Eritrea has the poorest showing among African countries while North Korea is last on the international ranking.

On this day, set up a quarter of a century ago  to pay tribute to reporters who’ve died exercising their profession, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres

calls on governments to strengthen press freedom, and to protect journalists. 

He says promoting a free media is standing up for our right to truth.

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Home from the SADC political and security summit in Luanda, he calls on all parties in the central African giant to ensure the poll takes places place peacefully and  credibly.

The six SADC presidents gathered in Luanda had a first-hand briefing on political developments in the DRC.

As President Cyril Ramaphosa reports: “President Joseph Kabila was here himself and he says they are moving fun steam towards elections on December 23.

Ramaphosa says the SADC leaders decided it was no longer necessary to send Namibian President Hifikepunya Pohamba as a special envoy to the DRC.

Good progress is being made implementing the December 2016 political agreement in Kinshasa on the election calendar.

The country’s independent  electoral commission is confident it can oversee the process.

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Ramaphosa’s the current chair of the regional Southern African Development Community.

Angola currently heads SADC’s Organ on Politics, Defence and Security Cooperation. So Presidents Cyril Ramaphosa and Joao Lourenco have a heavy schedule of regional priorities to cover  in Luanda tomorrow.

The South African President has first hand experience as regional mediator in Lesotho’s protracted political miasma.

Ramaphosa moves on to Windhoek for discussions with Namibian President Heine Giengob.

On Saturday, Ramaphosa will be in Gaborone, the site of the secretariat for the 15-nation grouping,  for talks with Botswana President Ian Khama.

He’ll be accompanied by his new Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Lindiwe

Sisulu and Defence Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa Nqakula

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Reporters Without Borders says Apartheid era legislation and the 2004 terrorism laws are used to limit South African media  coverage of institutions in which national interest is supposedly at stake.

Reporters Without Borders’ annual barometer says Norway, Sweden and Finland have the freest media on the planet.

Namibia number 24, Ghana at number 26, Cape Verde, one place below that, and 31st placed South Africa are the top scorers on the continent.

At the bottom of the 180-nation table is North Korea with Eritrea only just place ahead.

Fifty two journalists died doing their jobs during 2017 and 178 were jailed by angry authorities.

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Defence sources in Maseru says its less than a quarter of what they were led to expect.

SADC leaders are meeting next Sunday to put the seal of authority on the contingency force they’ll be sending to Lesotho.

The figure of 250 has emerged from a meeting of security chiefs at SADC headquarters in Gaborone.

This will comprise soldiers, police, intelligence operatives and civilian support staff.

Angola, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe will provide them.

Indications are this the most SADC can afford.

Military sources in Lesotho say it’s not big enough to the job.

They were expect a force of battalion strength – that’s about 1 200.

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