Ceuta incidents showed scale of migration control burden carried by Morocco

In a first reaction to the recent incidents in Ceuta, which Morocco calls Sebta, Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita said that migration is not the cause of the crisis with Spain and that Morocco carried 99% of the migration burden on the borders with the Spanish occupied enclave.

The origins of the crisis are to be found in Spain’s decision to host under a false identity and an Algerian passport a separatist who wages war on Morocco on a daily basis and its attempts to cover up its prejudice by using “tricks”.

Migration crises recur and it is not the first time that a major crossing took place in Ceuta. Spain is using the recent migration crisis to derail attention from the root causes of the Moroccan-Spanish rift: the secret way of hosting Ghali under a false identity to shun justice.

Morocco has never failed its neighborliness obligations and maintains its security apparatus unchanged on land, he said. Those who crossed did so through swimming to the other-side in total inaction from the Spanish police.

Morocco undertakes 99% of migration control efforts as for every 100 Moroccan security forces deployed, there is only 1 policeman from the other side and it is not the few Euros that will make change, said Bourita.

Speaking to the press in Rabat, Bourita made it clear that Spain has dealt a blow to bilateral partnership in how it handled the presence of separatist leader Ghali and reiterated Morocco’s rejection of the humanitarian considerations used by Spanish officials.

Humanitarian logic does not mean “deactivating justice” or subjecting the judiciary to Algerian diplomatic calculations.

“Algeria has to explain to Europe how a raped woman demanding her rights has to wait for Spanish and Algerian diplomacies to coordinate,” he said.

A Reuters report said that Ghali declined to sign a court summons saying that he had to refer to the Algerian embassy which offered him, in connivance with Spain, a diplomatic passport bearing a false name to escape justice.

The minister said that Morocco will continue to demand clarifications from Spain and that bilateral partnership is based on mutual respect and is not only governed by an exclusive Spanish agenda.

Spain needs to realize that “Morocco of today is not like that of the past,” said Bourita, who rejected all accusations of blackmail saying that it is Spain who is using the Sahara issue to blackmail Morocco.