MEETING WITH MOROCCANS ON WESTERN SAHARA

C O N F I D E N T I A L RABAT 000291
SIPDIS
STATE FOR S, P, S/P, NEA, NEA/MAG AND IO/UNP
NSC FOR SHAPIRO
E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/06/2019
TAGS: PBTS PREL WI AL MO
SUBJECT: MEETING WITH MOROCCANS ON WESTERN SAHARA
Classified By: Charge d'Affaires, a.i., Robert P. Jackson for reasons 1
.4 (b) and (d).

1. (C) Summary: In his meeting with Secretary Clinton on
April 8, Moroccan Foreign Minister Taieb Fassi Fihri will
present a letter from King Mohammed VI requesting support for
a resolution on the Western Sahara favorable to Morocco and
rejecting a human rights monitoring role for MINURSO, the
United Nations (UN) peacekeeping mission. The letter has or
will be passed to the "P5" and other "Friends of Sahara."
The Foreign Minister may complain about Algeria since the
King,s overtures to Algeria have been rebuffed. Most
observers believe progress on Moroccan-Algerian ties is a
prerequisite for a Western Sahara deal, but no one seems to
know how to strike a deal, in view of Algerian reticence.
Without prejudicing a USG policy review on the issue, it
would be important at least to share our support for a
political solution, with autonomy as a potential basis for
negotiations, and solid backing for UN Personal Envoy
Christopher Ross. On human rights, it would be useful to
note past progress and the need for Morocco to take
additional steps to stop abuses and open up even more
political space in the territory. End Summary.
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Answering the Moroccans on Sahara
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2. (C) Moroccan Foreign Minister Taieb Fassi Fihri is coming
to Washington with a letter from King Mohammed VI that we
understand has been or will be delivered to the Governments
of China, France, Russia, Spain and the United Kingdom.
According the Spanish, the letter requests support for a
strong resolution on Western Sahara and asks that MINURSO not
get a mandate to monitor human rights. The Embassy fully
understands that the Administration has not fully parsed its
position on the Western Sahara issue.

3. (C) We believe elements of a USG response could contain:
-- A strong statement of support for an agreed political
solution with "autonomy" as an element, and recognition of
the importance of improving Moroccan-Algerian relation;
-- Recognition that Morocco can do more to build confidence
by continuing to improve human rights in the territory,
offering some political space to its opponents, even to those
who support the Polisario. For starters, it could give legal
status to Sahrawi human rights organizations sympathetic to
self-determination;
-- Morocco should also decisively signal its abhorrence of
human rights abuses by punishing -- or at least removing from
the territory -- well known security officials accused of
multiple abuses. Such removals in 2008 successfully
encouraged those left behind to behave better for a time; and
-- On regional issues, we should listen carefully to Moroccan
concerns about Algeria and ask what the Government of Morocco
(GOM) would be willing to put on the table to help their
friends in the international community encourage the Algerian
Government to be more responsive.
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A Long-Simmering but Non-Violent Dispute
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4. (C) The Western Sahara dispute has been frozen
diplomatically since April 2008 when the UN Security Council
mandated a 12-month rollover of the UN's peacekeeping Mission
for a Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO using the French
acronym) in Resolution 1813. Because of disputes over who
might vote in the referendum, it has never been held and
MINURSO has lost its political role. MINURSO now polices a
cease-fire that has hardly seen a single shot fired since it
went into effect in 1991.

5. (C) A year ago, Peter Van Walsum, the then Personal Envoy
of the UN Secretary General, took the unusual step of
tabling, outside the official report, his personal view that
independence for the territory was "not realistic," because
Morocco would never relinquish its control of the territory
and the international community would never force it to do
so. After the vote to extend MINURSO,s mandate for one
year, the U.S. delegation explicitly endorsed that view, but
no other member did, not even traditionally pro-Moroccan
France, even though the international community, including
Russia, appears to agree.

6. (C) Resolution 1813 recognized the four rounds of
UN-sponsored talks in Manhasset, New York, since Morocco
submitted its proposal for autonomy in 2007, as progress,
which the GOM took as an endorsement of its efforts. In
fact, the talks were sterile, with the Polisario unwilling to
discuss the Moroccan proposal and the GOM delegation under
strict orders to discuss nothing else.

7. (C) After the vote, Algeria and the Polisario refused to
deal with Van Walsum, calling him partial, and UN Secretary
General (SYG) Ban Ki-Moon did not renew Van Walsum's
contract. This deeply upset the GOM, which dragged its heels
into 2009 before accepting the appointment of new envoy,
former U.S. Ambassador to Algeria Christopher Ross. Ross,
one of our own and among the world experts on the region,
recognized that resolution of the Sahara problem remained
linked to ameliorating the dispute between Morocco and
Algeria, and he obtained a mandate from the UNSYG to address
it.

8. (C) The term "unrealistic" was never used by Ross, who
considered it unbalanced. The term also disappeared from the
last administration's discourse, with Secretary Rice's visit
to North Africa in September 2008. The GOM has continued to
seek its enshrinement in USG policy and UN documents.

9. (C) Ross believes that one provocative element of the
Moroccan approach is the inclusion in the delegation of
Kalihenna Ould Er Rachid, a Sahrawi who headed the local
government when the Spanish left and is current Chairman of
the Royal Advisory Council on Sahara (CORCAS). The Ould Er
Rachid clan controls much of Sahrawi politics through the
best developed political machine in the Moroccan system, but
he is unpopular, even among many Sahrawi supporters of
Moroccan sovereignty. His political machine won seats in the
Sahara that gave Prime Minister Abbas El Fassi,s Istiqlal
(Independence) party its margin of victory in the September
2007 parliamentary elections. There have been signs
recently, however, that the GOM may be distancing itself from
Ould Er Rachid.
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The Algeria Factor
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10. (C) The closed Moroccan-Algerian border has stifled
trade, growth and regional integration and remains a major
political blockage. In early 2008, King Mohammed VI made an
initially clumsy, but apparently sincere, effort to reach out
to Algiers, and has continued to pursue this. Unfortunately,
for reasons possibly inked to internal dynamics and President
Bouteflika,s re-election, Algeria rebuffed these overtures.
It is clear there are personal tensions, perhaps
generational, between him and Mohammed VI. Several world
leaders, including the French, Spanish and even Russian
(i.e., Prime Minister Putin),have attempted to mediate,
without success. Algeria declined Secretary Rice's
invitation for a trilateral meeting on the margins of the UN
General Assembly last September. However, it did participate
in Secretary Clinton,s Sharm el Sheikh meeting with the
Moroccans and Tunisians. Nonetheless, a modest USG
initiative begun at the "P-level" in 2007 to encourage
regional stability by supporting North Africa's Arab Maghreb
Union (AMU) appears to be derailed.
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In the Western Sahara
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11. (C) The Western Sahara territory itself is mostly calm,
and has been since the autonomy offer was tabled. Morocco
has poured both people and money into the territory since it
won control in 1975 and overall social conditions are better
than in most of Morocco, although limited resources and local
industry constrain employment.

12. (C) A majority of the current population of some 400,000
appears to have migrated from the north of the territory or
are children of migrants, but this is complicated by the fact
that many of them are themselves ethnically Sahrawi, a
culturally distinct people who speak a separate dialect of
Arabic, i.e., Hassani. Sahrawi tribes are the majority in
and rule Mauritania, and traditional tribal territory extends
well into southern Morocco and western Algeria. Unlike with
the Kurds, whose situation is similar, neither the Polisario
nor any Sahrawi has laid claim to any lands outside the
Western Sahara, suggesting the dispute may be more a product
of regional state politics than ethno-nationalism.
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Human Rights Improving but Still a Major Issue
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13. (C) The Western Sahara experienced severe repression
during the "years of lead" under the late King Hassan II.
The security force profile and human rights violations, both
high, declined since disorders in 2005. By the end of 2008,
as noted in the annual Country Report on Human Rights
Practices, beatings and physical abuse had largely stopped.
Political rights remain sharply constrained, however.
Supporters of independence/self-determination can meet and
organize, and restrictions on their overseas travel
disappeared in 2008. They may not, however, hold public
meetings or demonstrations or publicize their views.
Carrying a Polisario flag or literature will mean arrest and
confiscation. The Embassy has pushed the GOM to allow full
political rights and freedom of assembly. Morocco could give
legal status to Sahrawi human rights organizations whose
members are sympathetic to self-determination. In one case,
this was already ordered by Moroccan courts, but never
implemented, and then later appealed by the Ministry of
Interior (MOI).

14. (C) The Embassy saw a spike in early 2009 in the number
of credible reports of abuses from contacts in the Western
Sahara. This coincided with both the change in local
governor and the visit of an EU parliamentary delegation.
That visit represented an unprecedented lifting of
restrictions on the ability of activists to publicly meet
international observers, although some of those activists
were later briefly detained. There were several allegations
against specific officers for physical and other abuses,
including a February report of sexual abuse, vehemently
denied by authorities, although Ministry of Justice contacts
told us they have opened an investigation. The Charge
bluntly raised the increased abuses with the Foreign Minister
on February 25, and we have also expressed direct concern to
the MOI. Whether there is a linkage or not, the reports of
abuses appear to have dropped dramatically since these
demarches. Although some abuses continue, reports of abuse
appear to be often exaggerated by pro-Polisario activists.

15. (C) Human rights monitoring is a major issue. The
Polisario, with some support from international human rights
organizations and from some Members of Congress, has asked
that MINURSO do the monitoring. Morocco opposes this
proposition. Ambassador Ross believes that monitoring may be
useful, but MINURSO should not be the vehicle, suggesting a
possible role for UN human rights entities. The Mission
believes that Morocco can best address this question by
improving the situation and continuing its opening to
international monitoring.
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Comment
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16. (C) In sum, we believe that the Secretary,s April 8
meeting with Foreign Minister Fassi Fihri affords an
opportunity to press Morocco to show greater respect for
human rights in Western Sahara, explore ways to improve
Moroccan-Algerian relations, and support Personal Envoy
Ross, efforts to get Morocco, Algeria and the Polisario to
talk as equals )- even if they are not. The meeting could
also encourage the GOM to have more regular meetings with the
Algerian Government on issues of mutual concern and interest,
such as counterterrorism, energy, and production of cheaper
fertilizers using Moroccan phosphates and Algerian gas. End
Comment.
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Jackson