Arab League, African Union deafening silence regarding Algeria-Spain feud
Nothing demonstrates the deep isolation of the Algerian regime in its Arab and African environment than the abstinence of the Arab League and the African Union from taking a stand on the Algeria-Spain feud.
In contrast, when Spain tried to Europeanize its crisis with Morocco last year, the Arab League, the Arab Parliament and the African parliament reacted in support of Morocco’s position and lauded its efforts to curb illegal migration.
But with Algeria, there is a resounding silence as the civilian façade stumbles on its erratic decisions.
Algeria had canceled a neighborliness deal with Spain, asked its banks to abstain from processing import and export activities with Spain and tacitly threatened to use the migration card against Spain. All of these measures came in retaliation for a sovereign Spanish decision to support Morocco’s sovereignty over the Sahara.
The Arab League and the African Union are aware of Algeria’s hegemonic agenda and its use of separatist militias for decades in a failed bid to unsettle its neighbor Morocco. As the feud with Spain becomes a conflict with the EU, Algeria is left alone acting like a pariah state ready to use its only resource, gas, to blackmail its second trading partner, Spain.
As Algeria receives a blow from the EU asking it to backpedal on its hostile and discriminatory measures against Spain, the rest of the Arab world and Africa watch and wonders what is Algeria doing? It is actually showing its real face as the real party that prevents a political solution to the Sahara conflict.
Algerian diplomacy, faithful to its nervous reactions on the hot, has issued a statement saying they are not waiting for any friendly state or organization to support it in its crisis with Spain, in a tone that indicates the isolation of Algeria in its immediate neighborhood.
Even the Arab League summit, that was scheduled for March in Algiers, is shrouded in uncertainty due to Algeria’s constant warmongering and hostile moves against Morocco.
Algeria’s isolation is self-imposed by a regime that is ready to shoot itself in the foot as it reluctantly realizes that the days of the Polisario separatists are over.
