Par Taieb Dekkar
During a whirlwind visit to Algeria from Morocco, former US Secretary of State Colin Powell returned to Rabat to spend a second night in Morocco. He was questioned by the Algerian press, during a press conference, which ended his brief stay in the Algerian capital, on the reasons why he does not spend the night in Algiers. The former US Secretary of State politely replied:I prefer to spend the second night on the same bed
“. I report these facts to underline how the Algerian authorities are very touchy and fastidious, when it comes to visits by foreign officials to Morocco and Algeria, in the sense that they must, in the spirit of Algiers, reserve the same time in both capitals and the same respects. Also, the long stay of Antony Blinken in Morocco (two nights) once morest some six hours, at most, for Algiers, must have angered the Algerian leaders, including his “counterpart” Ramtane Lamamra, who would not have thought it useful to make the trip to the airport to welcome the American Secretary of State. Was it because of Antony Blinken’s multiple declarations in favor of autonomy, as the preferred option for settling the Sahara issue! → Read also:
Algeria-USA: Tebboune knocks out Antony Blinken with a pointless monologue
He had been welcomed by officials from the Algerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and members of the American Embassy. On Blinken’s talks with his Algerian counterpart which would have preceded the meeting with President Abdelmajid Tebboune, the Algerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs had reported on it, through a simple tweet. Was it to leave the primacy to the president, to “knock out” Antony Blinken with a twenty-minute monologue, of which he did not expect to read the full transcription in English, then the full broadcast in French. A monologue that denotes the lack of tact and diplomacy with regard to all the neighboring countries, whose jackpot had been reserved for the Kingdom of Morocco, although we are in a situation of total rupture.
The monologue, which in the end, only deserved regarding three minutes as a response from the American minister, included a set of serious untruths regarding Morocco, presented as an expansionist country. The biggest “presidential” lie is that we declared war on Algeria (1963), when our neighbor had just regained its independence. Not true. The Algerian leaders, to quell the rebellion in Kabylia which challenged the central power, imposed by force in Algiers, sent their troops to attack the Kingdom of Morocco, to remobilize the Algerian people once morest the “external enemy”. As today, to appease the ardor of Hirak and the Algerian people, subjected to the rationing of basic necessities, Chengriha and Tebboune invoke the external enemy, forest fires, the World Bank, drug trafficking, UNICEF etc.
The Algerian army had thus attacked Hassi Beida and Tinjoub and killed several Moroccan border guards deployed in these territories, which were not the subject of any border disagreement. The late Moroccan Sovereign had sent two delegations to President Ben Bella, to avoid any confrontation between the two countries, when the late HM King Hassan II had just returned from an official trip to Algiers. Despite a joint statement issued by the Ministers of Foreign Affairs Ahmed Reda Guedira and Abdelaziz Bouteflika, meeting urgently in Oujda, the Algerian army bombarded Tendrara, in the south of Oujda. Ben Bella showed no death sentence for Moroccan border guards, nor disposition for conciliation, as displayed by the Kingdom. It is indeed Algeria which provoked the 1963 war and it assumes full responsibility for it. This story is that of Abdelhadi Boutaleb, who was sent twice by the late Sovereign as an emissary to Ben Bella, following the attacks in Algiers.
Another theme invoked in this monologue is the theoretical capacity (on paper) of Algiers to export wheat to Morocco and Africa (it is technically possible, it is estimated), while our neighbor of everything is imported from abroad, including powdered milk. Algeria would have sunk a long time ago and famine would have eaten away at it, if God had not endowed it with hydrocarbons. This is the plain truth. “New Algeria” will convert itself into an agricultural power, obviously following the industrial and economic bankruptcy.
Journalist and writer
