Morocco’s number 1 enemy and the reasons for the Ceuta crisis

Bedouins and Berbers have passed through the Sahara for centuries and centuries. Some tribes settled in the Maghreb, the desert area in eastern Morocco, and formed the Saharawi people. They are the natives of the sands. They have always lived there. And they stayed there when Spain discovered in 1800 that it was not just sand and opened the phosphate mines at Bu Craa. The fishing grounds on the Moroccan coast did the rest. The enclaves that Spain had under its rule since 1497 have become of unusual importance for Madrid. He was created the Spanish protectorate of Morocco formed by the regions of Rif to the north and Cabo Juby to the south, Western Sahara, Equatorial Guinea, the Canary Islands and the cities of Ceuta and Melilla. Spanish Africa.

Colonialism has left traces of hatred and war across the world, from the Malvinas to Syria to the Maghreb. And with them, the independence movements. In that case, the Polisario Front, which promotes the liberation of Western Sahara to end the occupation of Morocco and achieve self-determination for the Saharawi people. Spain, with its enclaves in Moroccan territory, is at the heart of the dispute.

When the Moroccan intelligence services discovered that “public enemy number one” of your country, Brahim Ghali, the leader of the Polisario Front, had been admitted with a false identity to be treated in a hospital in Logroño for infections caused by Covid, in Rabat it was considered an affront and they warned that it could have consequences. In Madrid, they did not know how to listen. It was then that Morocco used the most powerful weapon it has in its arsenal: opened the borders with the enclave of Ceutat. Some 6,000 sub-Saharan Africans and Moroccans still on the lookout for a loophole to enter Europe, they were launched by land and sea, creating the worst migration crisis in recent times. The Spanish army had to intervene, President Pedro Sánchez rushed to the region saying he would defend Spanish sovereignty in Ceuta and Melilla “under all circumstances”. The Moroccan ambassador to Madrid, Karima Benyaich, had declared that “there are acts which have consequences and which must be assumed”. And the European Union, trembling at a new wave of immigrants on its territory, has warned that “The Spanish borders are European borders”.

Brahim Ghali was taken to Spanish territory with the consent of the highest authorities in that country’s government. Otherwise, it could not have landed on April 21 at a medical plane at the Zaragoza military base. It is assumed that you arrived with a valid passport. From that moment, this is where the problems start since the Algerian doctor who accompanied Ghali entered the health center with a sort of pass issued with a false name. It was a question of hiding their presence in Spain. And everything gets even more complicated because Ghali has four cases opened in Spanish justice for kidnapping, rape and torture Spanish citizens in the area controlled by the Polisario Front.

Ghali, 73, heads the Saharawi organization with an iron fist and was the promoter of the declaration of war against Morocco, launched in November last year. He was born in Smara, in the former Spanish Sahara, in 1949, he joined the army as a soldier of the nomadic troops, although he soon joined the cause of independence. In 1973 he was one of the founders of the Polisario Front and he actively participated in the first incursions against the Spanish army then occupying the territory. After the withdrawal of the Spaniards, led the guerrilla war against the Moroccan and Mauritanian armies, claiming the independence of Western Sahara.

He was Minister of Defense of the provisional Polisario government between 1976 and 1991, a time when more and more attacks were committed against Spanish interests in the Sahara, in particular in the phosphate mines, and against the fishermen who worked in the Saharan bank, killed more than 300 people. He lost his post due to political differences at the top. But in 2016, he was the only candidate for the presidency of the SADR, the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, after the death of his predecessor Mohamed Abdelaziz.

Their presence in Spain has hardly been confirmed by various associations, including that of the Canary Islands victims and other entities. They demanded that legal actions be activated that exist against Ghali. All this while the 6,000 immigrants, among them 1500 miners, are crowded at the entrances to Ceuta. Local authorities fear that this is not only a migration crisis, but also unleash Covid contagions and ends up affecting the 80,000 legal inhabitants of the enclave.

The permanent guard in Ceuta has about 1,100 men, it has been reinforced by 200 soldiers and 200 other police officers. But immigrants have already set foot on Spanish territory and at least a good part of them will have to be admitted. In Berlin, Paris, Brussels and all the other major European cities are shaking. Those who enter through one country end up in others.

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