SCENESETTER FOR CODEL REYES

UNCLAS RABAT 000710 SENSITIVE SIPDIS C O R R E C T E D COPY CAPTION STATE FOR H, NEA/RA AND NEA/MAG E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: OREP PTER ASEC PREL PGOV MO SUBJECT: SCENESETTER FOR CODEL REYES REF: STATE 079755 ¶1. (SBU) Representative Reyes, we are looking forward to your and your delegation's visit to Morocco. The Moroccans are eager to share their assessment of domestic and regional terrorist threats. Your meetings with Moroccan officials will afford good opportunities to shore up our strong bilateral counterterrorism relationship. -------------- Moroccan Government, Politics, and Economics -------------- ¶2. (SBU) Governance: Morocco's political scene is stable but evolving. King Mohammed VI rules as well as reigns. Morocco's Constitution and reality ascribe to the Palace the balance of political power. The King has made significant political reforms, including relative freedom of expression, advances on human rights, and enhanced legal protections for women, particularly through bold revisions to the family law code in 2004, which are controversial with conservative Islamists. Partly as a result of this reform record, public support for the King and his reform agenda is generally solid. ¶3. (SBU) Parliament and Political Reform: The September 2007 legislative elections were certified as free and transparent by a team of international monitors (funded by the USG). In the elections, the Islamists performed below expectations but led the opposition as the second largest bloc in parliament. The elections were marred by a record low turnout, broadly seen as a reflection of low public confidence in the Parliament and political parties. To address this, for the past few years, the USG has been funding capacity-building programs for the Parliament and political parties. ¶4. (SBU) Current Government: Prime Minister Abbas El Fassi's government, formed in the Fall after the September legislative elections, is built on a minority coalition. Most observers believe it will not last for the full five-year mandate of Parliament, and see a growing role for Fouad Ali El Himma, an intimate of the King, head of the Parliament's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, and catalyst behind a new political bloc calling itself the Movement of All Democrats (MTD). Islamists, socially conservative but loyal to the King, won the popular vote in the fall elections, but lost the race for parliamentary seats and will remain in an opposition role. We currently see no prospect for a significant shift in Morocco's foreign and security policies. Neither Parliament nor the Prime Minister has much say in these issues, which are managed by the Throne directly with concerned ministries. ¶5. (SBU) Economics and Trade: The economy is relatively robust with growing foreign investment and remittances, increasing tourism and a booming stock market, marred by increasing disparities in wealth. Since implementation of our Free Trade Agreement on January 1, 2006, bilateral commerce has more than doubled. Moroccan exports to the U.S. have increased 38 percent, and U.S. exports to Morocco have increased 155 percent. However, Morocco still looks economically to Europe first. Agriculture remains the sector that determines whether GDP rises or falls. In 2007, drought and a small crop limited economic growth to only 2.3 percent, but better, if still below average rain and crops this year should revive growth. Rising food prices have quickly become a principal domestic issue for Morocco, sparking sporadic protests. The Government will continue to subsidize basic goods, remembering the food price riots of the 80's and 90's that threatened the stability of the nation. ¶6. (SBU) U.S. Assistance: We are focusing our assistance to Morocco on four priorities: counterterrorism, economic growth, democracy and governance, and supporting quality education. One of our many tools will be the Millennium Challenge Account Compact with Morocco wherein USD 697.5 million will be provided over the next five years to support economic growth and reduce poverty. -------------- Morocco's Domestic Terror Threat -------------- ¶7. (U) A relative lull since the 2003 Casablanca bombings, which targeted Jewish and Western interests and killed 45 people, was shattered when a series of suicide bombing attacks took place in Morocco in 2007. The spring 2007 violence again centered in the city of Casablanca, Morocco's commercial capital, but the last attack occurred in August 2007 in the interior city of Meknes. ¶8. (SBU) Characteristics of the attacks support previous analysis that Morocco's greatest terrorist threat stems from the existence of numerous small "grassroots" Salafi Jihadist groups in Morocco willing to commit violent acts against the state, foreigners, and innocent civilians. ¶9. (SBU) The attacks in 2007, which appear to have been, at best, poorly coordinated events, contrast sharply with more elaborate plots in 2006 that were thwarted by the vigilance of Moroccan authorities. In the most prominent of these, Moroccan authorities arrested 51 members of the so-called Ansar al-Mahdi cell, five of whom were Moroccan soldiers, in early August 2006. (Fifty defendants in this case were convicted in January 2008 and received sentences of 2 - 25 years.) ¶10. (SBU) Throughout 2007 and 2008, the Government of Morocco (GOM) continued to dismantle terrorist cells within the Kingdom. -------------- External Threats -------------- ¶11. (SBU) Morocco has several external terrorist threats including AQIM, the Pakistan-based al-Qa'ida, and jihad veterans returning from Iraq. Al-Qa'ida number two Ayman al-Zawahiri implicitly called for attacks on the two Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla in 2006 and 2007. -------------- Returning Iraqi Fighters -------------- ¶12. (SBU) The GOM is concerned about Moroccan veteran jihadists eventually returning from Iraq to propagate jihadist activity at home. While overall numbers of Moroccans fighting in Iraq are difficult to estimate, some press reporting puts the number at several hundred. -------------- Morocco's CT Approach -------------- ¶13. (SBU) A key to the GOM's counterterrorism (CT) strategy has been a comprehensive approach which not only emphasizes neutralizing existing terrorist threats through traditional law enforcement and security measures, but also engages in preventative measures to discourage terrorist recruitment through political reform and policy measures and by taking advantage of the Islamic "high ground" through the King, as religious leader, and the religious establishment. As a religious and political leader for all Moroccans, King Mohammed VI has led this effort by unambiguously condemning terrorism and those who espouse or conduct terrorism. ¶14. (SBU) In 2008, the GOM continued to implement internal reforms aimed at ameliorating socio-economic factors that create conditions conducive to extremism. The National Initiative for Human Development, launched by King Mohammed VI in 2005, is a USD 1.2 billion program designed to generate employment, combat poverty, and improve infrastructure, with a special focus on rural areas. The embassy is chipping in with programs targeted at vulnerable youth and we have a proposal for FY 09 funding to sponsor prison reform and deradicalization. -------------- Counter-extremism -------------- ¶15. (SBU) Morocco's Ministry of Religious Endowments and Islamic Affairs (MOIA) also continues reforms launched in 2004 to counter extremist ideology and promote religious moderation and tolerance. In 2006, 30 imams were dismissed in favor of those preaching a government-sanctioned message. The MOIA also supervised revisions to the country's religious curriculum, broke with the precedent by appointing 50 women as spiritual guides at mosques, and installed a closed-circuit television network that broadcasts moderate religious sermons to 2,000 mosques each day. ¶16. (SBU) The GOM also emphasized adherence to human rights standards in the pursuit of terrorist suspects and increased law enforcement and justice transparency as part of its CT program. The GOM this year provided NGOs unprecedented access to prisons and demonstrated unprecedented frankness in presenting to the public candid assessments of the terrorism threat. -------------- Legal Reform -------------- ¶17. (SBU) Following the suicide bombings in Casablanca in May 2003, Morocco passed laws to broaden the definition of terrorism, proposed heavy sentences for inciting terrorism, and increased investigative authorities, powers against suspected terrorists. In an effort to combat terrorist financial transactions, the new laws also allowed for freezing of suspect accounts, and permitted the prosecution of terrorist finance related crimes. -------------- Regional and International Issues -------------- ¶18. (SBU) Border Troubles with Algeria: The Moroccan relationship with Algeria remains tense, and the border between the two countries remains closed. Although possessing common languages and some ethno-cultural roots, the two countries have evolved in politically divergent directions. Territorial tensions began shortly after Algerian independence, when a dispute over the demarcation of the border between the two countries in 1963 led to a brief period of hostilities known as the Desert (or Sand) War. For the last 30 years, a major bone of contention has been the Western Sahara issue and Algerian support for the self -proclaimed Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic and its political and military leadership, the POLISARIO Front. The Moroccan purchase of F-16's was apparently motivated by the sense of threat from a previous Algerian purchase of advanced aircraft from Russia. In March, Morocco publicly proposed opening the border between the two countries, which was quickly rebuffed by the Government of Algeria (GOA). Morocco subsequently made a second proposal to upgrade bilateral dialogue, to which there has not yet been a public response from Algeria. In the interim, the two Prime Ministers met, in their role as leaders of the parties that led the North African states to independence, the highest level encounter in years, but with little broader impact. ¶19. (SBU) Western Sahara: Moroccan foreign policy is dominated by defending and seeking political recognition of its sovereignty claims over Western Sahara. The issue remains the most visible source of tension with Algeria, which has historically supported the POLISARIO's quest efforts for independence by way of a UN-sponsored referendum. The issue provoked Morocco to leave the African Union and helped block regional integration through the Arab Maghreb Union. Approximately one year ago, Morocco proposed a new autonomy plan for Western Sahara, and a series of UN-sponsored negotiations with the POLISARIO began in Manhasset, New York. This proposal, deemed "serious and credible" by the USG, would provide Sahrawis--indigenous people of Western Sahara--autonomy in administering local affairs while respecting Moroccan sovereignty over the territory. After the recent renewal of the mandate of the UN peacekeeping mission, the U.S. announced we considered the independence option for the territory, "not realistic," which was appreciated by the GOM. Visit Embassy Rabat's Classified Website; http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/nea/rabat Riley