Unjust Representation for 81 years… Why is Africa still outside permanent membership of the Security Council? Copy link

By Amar Belani, former Algerian Ambassador

Algeria Gate: The interview given by Massad Boulos, senior advisor to US President, Donald Trump, on Arab and African affairs, to France 24 this week was no polite diplomatic exercise. In four clear statements, Washington’s envoy dismantled the triumphalist narrative Morocco has relentlessly pushed for the past year.

First statement: Recognition of a temporary deadlock while Rabat proclaimed victory

“There is, at the moment, no solution that you can see or touch.”

Morocco built its entire communications strategy on a simple fiction: that Security Council Resolution 2797 had settled the Western Sahara question, leaving only the task of collecting the spoils. Boulos’s words cut through that claim. After three rounds of talks, the dossier remains stalled. Reality has overtaken propaganda.

Second statement: The patience that embarrasses those demanding an ultimatum

Boulos is waiting for the Polisario Front’s response. No deadline. No ultimatum.

While Rabat called for a more aggressive American approach and counted on Washington’s impatience to force the pace, the United States has chosen to wait. Moroccan diplomacy’s calculations have been exposed.

Third statement: Algeria praised, not singled out

For years, Rabat has insisted that Algeria is the real obstacle that must be isolated to unblock negotiations. Boulos chose this precise moment to do the opposite. He highlighted a constructive partnership and publicly thanked the Algerian authorities.

Fourth statement: Algeria cannot impose a solution

This is the line that will echo longest in Rabat. Boulos stated clearly that Algeria cannot impose a solution on Western Sahara, yet it can encourage the process—and, according to Washington, it has done so.

This position directly contradicts Morocco’s long-standing attempt to portray Algeria as the principal party to the conflict. Under the United Nations framework, the two parties remain Morocco and the Polisario Front. Algeria and Mauritania are neighboring countries invited to cooperate. Nothing more, nothing less.

What Rabat refuses to see

These four statements deliver a single message: the American administration never handed Morocco a blank cheque.

In its feverish and poorly calculated triumphalism, Morocco treated Resolution 2797 as an accomplished Algerian surrender. The US official has just reminded everyone that it was only a framework for negotiations.

A framework produces no result by itself. An agreement must still be reached, and above all the Polisario Front must give its clear and freely expressed consent. That remains the only condition for a mutually acceptable solution.

Algeria Gate: In a historic statement from the United Nations podium, the Prime Minister of the Republic of Niger, Ali Mahamane Lamine Zeine, said that his country has remained resilient thanks to its people and thanks to Algeria, which he described as a neighboring and brotherly country that chose to accompany Niger on its development path by supporting it in the exploitation of its natural resources.

In his speech during the general debate of the High-Level Week of the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly, the Nigerian official added that his country had been able to withstand various challenges thanks to the sacrifices of its sons, the solidarity existing among the Sahel countries, and the accompaniment provided by Algeria to Niger.

Three years ago, Lamine Zeine said, some expected Niger to collapse under the weight of sanctions and isolation. Today, however, Niger is standing on its feet.

Niger is standing because its people refused to bow, and because it found within the framework of the Confederation of Sahel States a family and solidarity — a family in every sense of the word in the African context.

The same official continued that Niger is standing today because the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria, the brotherly and neighboring country, chose to accompany it through significant investment in the exploitation of its natural resources and through continuous support for its defense system.

The Nigerian Prime Minister also stated that his country is working with Algeria to develop dynamic cooperation in the fields of health, education, energy, water resources, and agriculture. Added to this are a number of major structuring projects, such as the tripartite gas pipeline and the Trans-Saharan Highway.

He concluded his remarks about Algeria by saying that Algeria has contributed to strengthening Niger’s energy infrastructure through the construction of a 40-megawatt power plant in the capital Niamey, in addition to cooperation in the exploitation of oil resources, particularly through the “Kafra” project in northern Niger, where Algeria and Niger launched exploratory drilling works last August for the “Kafra Southeast 1” well.

Opinion article by: former Algerian diplomat Amar Belani
The results of the legislative elections in Morocco still hold surprises

Algeria Gate: In the occupied Western Sahara, democracy took a quantum leap, while the rest of Morocco stayed where it was, committed to silence and calm. 77% turnout in Laayoune versus 38% in the kingdom! Statistically, this is closer to a ritual miracle than to an election.

This achievement is presented to us as proof of a spontaneous love for the ballot box, in a region where merely uttering the word “referendum” has made the United Nations cough since 1975.

Strange, this electoral enthusiasm precisely in the place where the real question has never been allowed to be put to a popular vote: “To whom does ownership of this territory belong?”

This perfected trick has become a ready-made recipe. Take an electorate shaped over decades by declared settler colonialism, add a sprinkle of carefully invited “international observers,” then decorate the scene with eight “Sahrawi” female deputies displayed as prizes for progressive virtue, and the vote is thus transformed into a certificate of sovereignty, stamped with a diplomatic visa.

But the high point of the show remains this contradiction: while Rabat and Casablanca shrug their shoulders at the ballot boxes, Laayoune races to the polling stations with the enthusiasm of a last-minute conversion.

A great deal of naivety is required not to see in this anything other than a polished production in which the record turnout is used not so much to elect deputies as to silence, once again, the issue of the occupied Western Sahara with blows of fictitious percentages.

The sincerity of a vote is not measured by the number of hands raised when you have carefully chosen who is allowed inside the hall.

So be it! Organize a self-determination referendum.