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Attajdid: Algeria Islamist leader calls Sahara issue artificial
Leader of the Algerian outlawed party, Islamic Salvation Front, Abbasi Madani, said the Sahara issue is an "artificial" one that is part of a colonial plan whose seeds were sown by western colonialists.
| "Couldn't possibly be our fault, regardless of anything we did..." |
Madani told Moroccan Islamic-leaning "Attajdid" daily the persistence of the problem is an "abnormal situation that has no reason to exist, because our (Moroccan and Algerian) interests are converging and interests are the same. The Algerian politician was referring to the dispute over the Moroccan Sahara and to Algerian support to the secessionist Polisario movement that claims the independence of the territory, retrieved by Morocco in 1975 under a tripartite agreement with Spain (the former colonial power) and Mauritania. Madani, whose party was dissolved by Algerian authorities, also stressed that the border issue between the two states is also an abnormal dispute, insisting that the late King Mohammed V (grandfather of King Mohammed VI) had been a staunch champion of the liberation movement in Morocco. "Our affection toward our Moroccan brothers is a virtue that bears testimony to the depth of our bonds, in the past, in the present and in the future," he went on, recalling how Morocco stood by Algeria and supported its liberation revolution against (French) colonizers. Madani also argued that the future will be endangered without union, insisting that the two states have always been tied by a shared destiny.
| Right. That's what Morocco needs: union with Algeria. Take a functioning state and unite it with a failed state and expect good results... |
Posted by: Fred Pruitt 2003-12-16 |
