Morocco Strengthens its Foothold in Latin America
Morocco has made of diversifying partners at the international level a pillar of its active diplomacy as it continues winning allies in Latin America, with Paraguay joining the list of Morocco’s friends in the region.
At the end of the first session of Morocco-Paraguay political consultations in Asuncion, attended by Morocco’s state secretary to the foreign minister Mounia Boucetta, the two countries issued a joint statement underscoring their shared willingness to cooperate at the economic level and promote joint investments.
They also agreed to foster political consultations and convened to hold a joint committee next year in Rabat.
On the Sahara issue, Paraguay’s deputy minister for foreign affairs Hugo Saguier Caballero reaffirmed that his country backs Morocco’s position over the regional dispute that has lasted for four decades.
“Morocco can always rely on Paraguay’s support in order to reach a peaceful solution to the regional dispute,” he said.
The Polisario front, which by the past used ideological rhetoric to delude South American leaders, is now on the demise in Latin America where only failing states are still attached to promoting separatism.
Actually, the Polisario has been dealt severe blows in South America in recent years. In August 2017, a Uruguayan court turned down a request to seize a phosphates shipment originating from the Sahara following a similar rejection by Panama to a similar request early June the same year.
In September 2017, Peruvian authorities declared Polisario official Khadijatou El Mokhtar persona non grata and proceeded to her deportation manu military to Madrid.
The increasing withdrawals of recognitions deal the Polisario severe blows. An increasing number of states are coming to terms with viewing the Polisario as totalitarian organization fed by an ideological anachronism peculiar to the Cold War era.
Over the last years, support for the Algerian-sponsored separatist thesis in the Moroccan Sahara has been waning as 43 countries have withdrawn their recognition of the SADR entity out of 80 that previously recognized it in a Cold War context.
As relic of the cold-war, the Polisario remains obedient and dependent financially and diplomatically on its paymaster, Algeria, which uses it to achieve regional hegemony to the detriment of regional stability.
