Bernabe Lopez (Granada, 1947) has devoted a lifetime to studying the relationships between spain and Morocco, its history and migratory flows derived from a shared past, as well as the conflict in Western Sahara, which has been going on for almost five decades. Honorary Professor of Arab Studies at the Autonomous University of Madrid and founding member of the Workshop on International Mediterranean Studies (TEIM), López has come to Barcelona this week to present his latest book ‘Sahara, Democracy and Morocco. Is a reconciliation possible?’ in it European Institute of the Mediterranean (IEMed)after which he attends to El Periódico de Catalunya, from the Prensa Ibérica group.
Last March, President Pedro Sánchez sent a letter to the Moroccan government in which he considered Rabat’s autonomy plan for Western Sahara as “the most serious, realistic and credible basis for resolving differences”. What do you think this change of position is due to?
Of course, to try to fix the tension that was so strong, to try to fix the disagreement.
And do you think it was the right decision?
It is that in reality there was not, as has been wanted to recognize, that 180 degree change. An adverb was added, ‘más’, which sounded very bad in the Spanish public opinion. President Sánchez made that decision to try to fix the situation a bit. The problem is that he did not do it by previously informing public opinion, it was not done by consensus with the opposition. But neither was it necessary to ask the opinion of the opposition, especially when there was no 180 degree turn. What Sánchez did was continue on the path marked out by (José Luis Rodríguez) Zapatero since 2004, which in turn (Mariano) Rajoy had followed.
“With Western Sahara, Sánchez has followed the path marked out by Zapatero and followed by Rajoy”
Does this plan have any chance of prospering, taking into account the direct rejection of the Polisario Front?
It is impossible. We are where we were because there is not and never has been a joint negotiation as the different United Nations special envoys have wanted. The Polisario could have sat down to negotiate to demand, for example, the release of the Saharawi prisoners and create a climate that would alleviate the suffocation of the Saharawi population in the territory. In short, set your conditions and present them to the special envoy, ask Morocco for a gesture. He does not ask for fear that it will be interpreted as sitting with the oppressor. And so we are after 47 years…
Given this scenario, are there really possibilities of spotting a solution on the horizon?
Well, in the context of the war in Ukraine, where not a few things are changing on the international scene, we cannot deny that there may be a coincidence. Neither Algeria nor Morocco want to make enemies with Russia. On the other hand, the American and NATO pattern weighs heavily in today’s world. And Algeria does not want to get in trouble with the boss either, who is the boss of its enemy. With which there is a new situation that the new special envoy, Staffan de Mistura, should try to take advantage of for a rapprochement between the parties. We also know that when the United States sends a message, Morocco listens. So either Mr. (Antony) Blinken (US Secretary of State) gets involved in passing the messages and subduing Algeria on the one hand and Morocco on the other, and the Polisario would go directly into whatever is necessary, or there is no arrangement.
You refer in the title of your book to the fact that without democracy a way out is practically unfeasible.
Clear. On Morocco’s part, for autonomy in Western Sahara to make sense, a democratic framework is essential that it has to define in order to move towards the consolidation of a Rule of Law. And the Polisario Front has made (in its last congress) a bet for the war that basically is nothing more than a flight forward to gild the pill of a youth that sees no other way out than either war or emigration, because continuing to live in the camps is a sentence.
But are there short-term options for Morocco to move towards a democracy?
In the short term, certainly not. He has some very small politicians. He has been taming the strength of the parties based on the cooptation of their leaders, based on compromises. This makes civil society not strong and free. There was a fantastic opportunity in 2011, with the Arab Spring. The demonstrations worried the authorities and the king himself promised a constitutional debate. But in that debate not a single party called for the parliamentaryization of the Government, because they knew that the monarch did not like it, and they ended up cutting the king’s powers very little. Nor was the Sahara discussed in any debate. The result was that the Constitution did not reflect the changes that would have brought credibility closer to a possible rule of law in Morocco.
“Morocco and Spain addressed issues in their meeting that have always been taboo in relations”
Apart from the absence of the monarch, how do you think the meeting went?
Well, I am not as pessimistic as the opinion that seems to have been generalized. It has been said that Spain has brought nothing, that the adverb ‘more’ that Sánchez gave to the Moroccans has not had an obvious counterpart. But if the 70 points of the final communiqué are read with a magnifying glass, it is seen that it includes topics that have always been taboo in relationships. In point 42, it is clearly stated that there is an attempt to normalize Ceuta and Melilla, which would not mean that Morocco recognizes its Spanishness, because it probably will never do so, just as Spain will not do so with Gibraltar. But there is a normalization that this is there and it is not an obstacle to relations and, above all, it can be an incentive to find a point of understanding between neighboring populations, to turn them into a pole of development and investment instead of of at a pole of tension. Regarding the Sahara, it has not gone further than what the United Nations demands so as not to disturb either one or the other. But I believe that there is understanding in many aspects, that there is a future, although relations are fragile and may continue to be so.
Is the role of gendarme that the European Union has given to Morocco to control immigration appropriate?
They were right or they weren’t right, I don’t think it’s the right word, since if the EU wants to continue with the immigration containment policy, it has no other solution than to find a gendarme in Turkey and Morocco. The word gendarme bothers a lot in Morocco, but it is the role that one way or another accepts and plays with it. Play with the services it provides in security and immigration issues. And in order to achieve what is his sacred cause, that the Moroccan nature of the Sahara be openly recognized, he exerts all kinds of pressure and blackmail. Sometimes it happens in heat and horrors occur, like the tragedy in Melilla last year. And of course, it is very easy to tear your clothes off and place all the blame on Morocco. But the great responsibility is that we ignore Africa and that we don’t give a damn what happens there.
More and more voices warn of the jihadist tinderbox in the Sahel, especially after the withdrawal of France and its allies from Mali.
The Russian presence through its mercenaries is also worrying… The area is turning into a powder keg, but I don’t know if this jihadism would have the virulence of the one that was provoked in the Middle East at another juncture. In the midst of all this, Israel is at the gates, stuck in Morocco, and for Algeria that is the key to everything. Or the great excuse. For the jihadists, this is a provocative element. And the problem is that we are heading towards an increasingly uglier world.