Major Event

La Vie Eco : Morocco-Polisario…the other war on the Internet
12/25/2009

In its issue of this week, the weekly “la vie éco” devoted a file of its political column to the Sahara, entitled “Morocco – Polisario, the other war …. On the internet “ , this file tackles the information battle led by Morocco through the internet in favour of the defence of its territorial integrity with a particular accent put on the action of Corcas .

Concerning the background of the struggle, through the internet related to the national cause, about the evolution of the situation of the last years , as well as the perspectives of such battle the article of “ la vie éco” considers that the awareness of the matter is relatively recent .

“… just yesterday, the internet was a separatist territory “recalls the weekly by indicating that the Royal advisory council for Saharan affairs was in the avant-garde of being aware of the matter, and the reversal of the situation. The article mentioned the chairman of Corcas Mr Khalihenna Ould Errachid who said “when the internet was created in the nineties, until 2006, the year of the establishment of Corcas Polisario dominated the cloth, whereas Morocco was absent. Polisario was able to influence the Moroccan public opinion through the internet, or with the help of its supporters, Polisario managed to create an international network of blogs, and sites influenced by the vision of both Algeria and Polisario of the issue”

Noticing that Morocco “has been able to catch up its delay in the cloth “. The article enumerates the projection which allows the Corcas with its various internet sites, and which ensure the access to the internauts to “a true small encyclopaedia” which broadcast the information in all fields about the Sahara issue such as culture, urban and social economic development via the six sites using eight languages, meaning the total of 48 sites.

Equally the newspaper indicated that “the council manages a trifle of 2000 blogs” and foresees to carry on developing this figure in the future.

The other aspect pointed out by the weekly magazine is the battle lead by Corcas in terms of “ research engines” which allowed to clearly improve the classifying of the Moroccan sources of information about the Sahara issue, the fields of social networks , fora , blogs , where the internauts have access to a more balanced information

when it comes to blogs , fora , and others , this strategy lead to significant results “ notices the newspaper , adding that thinks to the action led by Corcas , “ Morocco has improved particularly at the level of Global voices on line , the site of journalists and bloggers in the under developed countries, and also in terms of Wikipedia”

Another chapter of the battle via the internet , is the one related to the “ names of domains” , particularly the one of : eh , given by the international regulation authority “ ICANN” to the Sahara region , , in this context he “ name of domain” required by the Polisario was finally frozen by the ICANN , thanks to the Moroccan opposition , particularly thinks to the letter sent by the chairman of Corcas to the Chairman of the ICANN .

English version of the interview:

La vie eco: in the previous 6th of November, the king announced a new reform of the Corcas; what was the initial mission of the council after its creation three years and half ago?

Khalihenna Ould Errachid: established by his majesty the king Mohammed VI on the 25th of March 2006, Corcas meant to put in phase the Sahara issue with the evolution of the national politics. The decree which created the council clearly attributes the missions as follow : helping his majesty to maintain the national territory unity, contributing to the economic social and cultural promotion of the southern provinces and of course bring Sahraouis and the international community to adhere to the autonomy project

La vie eco: at the end, did the structure accomplish its mission?

KOR: the human action never ends as a result of success or failure, but I can qualify our action of “success story”. From the diplomatic point of view, the Moroccan situation has clearly improved: it has never been as favourable as it is now. At the legal and diplomatic levels, the successes are real, the situation in the southern provinces has been as stable as it is now, also calm. Issues such as Aminatou Haidar or Ali Salem tamek are not able to mobilize whoever in these provinces, besides Corcas was the central element in the elaboration of the autonomy project. The main work in 2006 has in fact been linked with the elaboration of this project which had to be built from scratches, because jurisprudence including the legal constitutional and administrative aspects of it did not exist in Morocco. It is a project which serves as the basis to the Moroccan initiative for autonomy presented to the Security Council and the international community, qualified being “a serious and credible project”.

We have participated in the elaboration of this text, but also to make it known in the world. Yet our mission consists, before anything else in adhering Sahraouis to the project and to promote it all over the world. Corcas is basically a Royal advisory council for Saharan affairs, intended to allow sahraouis to express themselves, and to involve them firstly in the elaboration of The project, its defence and to invite them to adhere to this project being a main choice. This project has changed the nature of the conflict, therefore the situation becomes in favour of Morocco. In 2006, in addition to the participation in the elaboration of the autonomy project, we have equally contributed to appease the political situation which prevailed over then. It was primarily a matter of putting an end to the unrest in the southern provinces, and launch the process of reconciliation.

LVE : what was the origin of this unrest ?
KOE : the Sahara politics prevails over everywhere . The influence of separatism was strongly established since 1976. The situation should have been reoriented. That is why we have studied the causes of the origin of the unrest. We have then discovered a certain number of social deficits, administrative injustices which permanently contributed to upheaval. The sovereign put us in charge of facing these problems. That is when he pardoned 46 prisoners, and then the prosecution against 300 persons was given up, particularly youngsters who were searched for by the justice for various reasons which contributed to the unrest.

And then we had to face the sectorial problems which poisoned the atmosphere, such as the case of phosphate employees who demanded justice since 1977, and the one of teachers from the Spanish era, in addition to members of the old council who were not compensated. The problem of sheikhs who did not received their decrees of acknowledgment of action, the case of those who joined Morocco and so on and so forth in brief, a number of problems inherited from the past , which are not related to each other, and which contributed to a non –stop unrest .

All these allow us to loosen the atmosphere by making our action more credible. And then we have faced other problems, more important ones, like the one related to the camps and raised by people who came to take part of the identification process, these camps became shanty towns, creating of feeling of injustice, misery, insalubrities. Now, these problems have been solved, we had to deal with such problems during both sessions of December 2006 and July 2008. There are no more shanty towns in the southern provinces.

LVE: the 25th of March the mandate of Corcas will end what are the fields you would like to tackle during the last session?

KOE : there are plenty of issues to be dealt with such as breeding or agriculture we have not tackled the social action of the state, ie: employment .

LVE : and at the international level
Koe : at this level , our action is permanent to defend the Moroccan project but also to send delegations abroad . we have participated in so many occasions in the human rights commission of the United Nations meetings in Geneva, where we were able to make sure that Polisario and Algeria kept quiet .from now on Morocco will not suffer when it takes part of such meetings , thanks to actions launched by Corcas and in coordination with departments in question : foreign affairs, justice , Polisario in future is not influential anymore in Geneva, the same goes for the fourth commission of the general assembly of the united nations and the UN commission of 24 . These are some new diplomatic accomplishments for Morocco which corcas has substantially contributed. It is equally notable that the four resolutions adopted by the Security Council of the UN about the Sahara issue since 2007 have changed the nature of he conflict. The same goes for negotiations at Manhasset, Polisario and Algeria have failed to win

LVE : what are the steps to come at the international level ?

KOE : first of all , Morocco is not scared any longer of negotiations , he has got a credible and serious project, which gained the approval of most sahraouis, and not only those who live in the southern provinces, because we have to take into account a big number of those who live in the refugee camps . We should not mix up these Sahraouis and the Polisario front. The latter is a military / political organization under the control of its protector, whereas Sahrouis are not. Most of the camp inhabitants approve of the autonomy proposal. It is thanks to this approval that the situation in our Saharan provinces has entirely escaped the Polisario’s influence .

LVE : you seem to be satisfied with the assessment of Corcas , any regrets at all?

KOE : the sovereign has put all the means at the disposal of Corcas : the government collaboration , departments , the state budget , and so on and so forth . In fact we have done everything we should have done and even more. We are very satisfied of the accomplished work.

LVE : what are the difficulties you have come across ?

KOE : difficulties we had to face are not political ones, but rather administrative , for instance study or a badly done diagnostic .

LVE : Yet today , several members of Corcas criticize the functioning of this structure . Some accuse you of monopolizing the power within the Corcas?

KOE : Corcas is run within the framework of rules mentioned in the decree . I do not know which powers they are talking about, but as a chairman of Corcas, I execute the decree strictly speaking. Corcas is a royal advisory council, and not a local authority, we can not do any propositions outside of what it exists, and outside of the content of the decree. The council is formed of 141 members belonging to all political parties from the extreme left to the extreme right, all social classes in addition to the civil society, it is then very difficult to manage these members whom the vision and approaches are also different

LVE : we have to point out also that the Corcas’ commissions have not met since their establishment . Two sessions every year, is it really enough?

KOE : As a chairman , I had to maintain the credibility of CORCAS , sahraouis should believe in the ability of this institution to bring something positive , which is very important, the first I have done is to gather the commissions in order to find out in which sense they would like to work . I found out that these commissions were simply going to do the same job, knowing that they have got no right to make any recommendations, contrary to the sessions which have the statutory power to propose to the king, and engage budgets with the state bodies; this has not changed much since that everything should be discussed within the commissions, yet sessions are not useless or unproductive. All our sessions have brought positive results, real and practical.

LVE : the reform of Corcas was announced in the royal speech of 6th November, what should be changed in the council ?

KOE : the only thing I can say is that the royal speech opens a new era , it has been proceeded to the resorption of the economic, social, and diplomatic deficits . From now on it is going to be a matter of implementing an advanced regionalization. It is within this framework that his majesty talked about the restructuring of Corcas and the agency of development of the southern provinces, in conformity with the decree, the Corcas will reach on the 25th of next march the end of its mandate of four years. The new phase which his majesty just opened is the advanced regionalization which requires new tools, among others these reforms.

LVE : what are the themes tackled by Corcas since its establishment ?

KOE : we have dealt with almost the whole infrastructure and social sectors among others : housing , air transport , and the road infrastructure . We have also tackled the problem of education as a whole, and particularly the higher education, with the creation as from 2010 of institutions of higher education in the region.

LVE: when is the establishment of a university in Laayoune?

KOE : we have first of all to start by schools of higher education, and the creation of two or three schools according to needs, to transform them into universities . For the time being with the ministry of education, we have aimed at a path which is more interesting for students and which corresponds more to the employment market: trade and technical studies. During these sessions Corcas has equally dealt with the problem of water, health, and the professional training, fishing, the hassanie culture and human rights. All programs are supposed to be achieved by year 2012

LVE : how about human rights ?

KOE ; the sessions of Corcas , which are statutory always include two issues in the agenda, one is economical and the other one is political . Human rights issue was not a taboo for us. We have tackled this issue since day one. Following the amnesty, we even have convened the rules to be respected by everybody including those who sympathize with the Polisario front, and the state apply them faithfully : everybody is free to circulate , to travel and say whatever he wants, to explain what he wants , but without using violence in any situation generally speaking this situation was respected

Source: Corcas

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