Morocco-Algeria and a history of geopolitical differences that could lead to a boycott of the African Nations Championship

After the brilliant performance of his team at the World Cup in Qatar, crowned by fourth place, Moroccan football is back at center stage, albeit this time due to a sporting conflict, anchored in historical geopolitical differences, which could lead to a boycott of the African Nations Championship (CHAN) to be held between 13 January and 4 February in Algeria.

Winners of the last two editions (at home in 2018 and in Cameroon in 2021), the Moroccans are the favorites to win this edition too, the seventh in the history of the competition in which teams made up of players who play in local leagues participate. each of the participating countries. However, no one can guarantee that the lions of the atlas they can tackle the defense of their crown in two weeks.

The axis of the conflict, at least on the surface, lies in how the delegation will arrive in Constantine, where the team will play its three group C matches against Sudan, Madagascar and Ghana at the Mohamed Hamlaoui stadium. . That’s because Moroccan commercial and military aircraft have been banned from flying over its neighbor’s airspace since September 2021, just days after the government led by Abdelmadjid Tebboune announced it was breaking diplomatic ties with the monarchy led by Mohamed VI.

Faouzi Lekjaa, president of the Royal Moroccan Football Federation (FRMF), warned this Thursday at a press conference in Rabat that his team will not participate in the competition if a flight operated by the national airline Royal Air Maroc is not authorized from your capital of the country and landed in Constantine on January 10 at around 2:45. The leader reported that he had sent this request to the African Football Confederation (CAF) and insisted that Algeria, as host, should “guarantee all the facilities for the participating countries, as stipulated in the program agreement (of the tournament )”.

A few hours after the Moroccan warning, Abdel Razzak Sabkak, the Algerian Minister of Youth and Sports, confirmed that he had received a request from the CAF linked to the FRMF’s request and explained that the government will take 24 hours to prepare a response.

On Wednesday, the president of the organizing committee of the African Nations Championship, Rachid Okali, had ensured that the body he presided over had no power to respond to the Moroccan request since its functions were limited to “guaranteeing the conditions of transport within the ‘Algeria for all participating delegations” and that the way in which the teams arrived in the host country was “the prerogative of the national federations, which must provide for the flights and bear their own expenses”.

The restrictions on Moroccan flights were one of the consequences of the Algerian government’s decision to sever ties with its neighbor on August 24 last year. “The Moroccan security and propaganda services are waging a cowardly war against Algeria, its people and its leaders, spreading malicious and inflammatory rumors and information,” Foreign Minister Ramtane Lamamra justified at the time.

These allegations of espionage and destabilization were just another milestone in a long-running conflict that began in the 1960s over a border dispute after both nations gained independence, leading to the War of the Sands in 1963, and which its central point is the dispute over sovereignty over Western Sahara, a territory that Morocco annexed in 1975 despite the opposition of the Sahara Liberation Movement (MLS).

The independence of that territory is promoted by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el Hamra and Rio de Oro (known as the Polisario Front), heir to the MLS and created with the aim of “ending Morocco’s illegal occupation of Western Sahara and achieve that the self-determination of the Sahrawi people and the independence of its homeland be completed,” as he explains on his website.

The Polisario Front has the support of Algeria, which demands respect for Resolution 690 of the United Nations Organization, which in April 1991 ordered the holding of “a referendum on the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara” which was not never held. outside. The position of Morocco, which recognizes that territory as its own, has the support of the United States, Israel, Germany and Spain, among others.

In the context of this dispute, last year the permanent ambassador of Morocco to the UN, Omar Hilal, defended the initiative of the Movement for Self-Determination of Kabylia, which is fighting for the independence of that mountainous region of northeastern Algeria inhabited by a Berber people population.

“The people of Kabylia were subjected to Ottoman and French colonialism in the past, and are now subjected to Algerian colonialism. Why doesn’t Algeria allow Kabylia to decide its own destiny, its population to freely express themselves and choose their own destiny in the same way that Algiers asks for the (Sahrawi) residents of the Tindouf camps?”, he wondered? then the Moroccan diplomat. .

It is not the first time that Algeria and Morocco have interrupted their diplomatic relations: they had already done so between 1976 and 1988, on the initiative of Rabat and as a result of Algiers’ recognition of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic, proclaimed by Polisario Davanti. As part of these historic tensions, the land border between the two nations has been closed since August 1994.