Ceuta, Melilla and Morocco: Chronology (recent) of an endless conflict

In the midst of the idyll in relations between the Government of Sánchez and Morocco, the authorities of the Maghreb country assure in a letter to the UN that there are no “land borders” between the two countries because Melilla is “an occupied prison” Although the two autonomous cities They have never been mentioned by name by the Moroccan authorities since the normalization of relations with Madrid took place, Rabat will never recognize the Spanishness of Ceuta and Melilla.It is an inalienable claim for Morocco”Melilla continues to be an occupied prison”. The affirmation has not come from the lips of some exalted columnist in the Moroccan media or from the banner of any activist pro-annexation of the Spanish squares and cities in North Africa, but it is recorded in a letter with the letterhead of the Permanent Mission of the Kingdom before the United Nations sent to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. The letter bears the date of last September 9, therefore after five or months since the two States signed in Rabat the road map of the “ambitious” and “new” stage in the Spanish-Moroccan association. The opposition of the Government of Spain to the US recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara triggered a disagreement at the end of 2020 that was only overcome on March 18 with the letter from Pedro Sánchez to Mohamed VI in which the head of the Spanish Executive supported the autonomous proposal under Moroccan sovereignty over the former Spanish colony. The text, response to a request from several UN rapporteurs to Rabat for the “excessive and lethal” use of violence in the events at the Melilla border on April 24 -23 sub-Saharan migrants died according to official figures from Morocco-, insists on reminding the UN “again” how “inaccurate” it is to speak of “Spanish-Moroccan borders”. For the Moroccan representatives, Melilla is an “occupied prison” by Spain in its territory, so the dividing line between the city and Morocco is not a “land border”, but forms “simple crossing points”. The expression of ” occupied prisons” is not at all new among the Moroccan authorities and media, although it is true that its use has been much less common in recent months, probably coinciding with the good stage in which relations between Madrid and Rabat are since the last March. When asked about the issue in Congress by popular spokesperson Cuca Gamarra, Sánchez himself apparently settled the issue on Thursday, October 13, asserting that “Ceuta and Melilla are Spain. Period”. The reality, beyond the honeymoon that the two administrations are experiencing at the moment and other sweet and bitter moments in the bilateral relationship, the Alawite monarchy will never publicly and explicitly recognize the Spanishness of Ceuta and Melilla , nor will it do about the Spanish places of sovereignty in North Africa (islands of Alhucemas and Chafarinas and the rock of Vélez de la Gomera). Hours after the content of the letter sent by the Permanent Mission of Morocco to the UN and From the brief response of the President of the Government of Spain, a senior official of the Moroccan Foreign Ministry – who did not reveal his identity – corrected his country’s representatives before the United Nations by admitting that the two countries do have “land borders”. Paraphrasing the Joint Declaration for a “new partnership” signed in April by the two delegations in the presence of Sánchez and the King of Morocco “the full normalization of the circulation of pe people and goods will be restored in an orderly manner, including the appropriate customs and people control devices at the land and sea border level.” Although, yes, the anonymous high command of the Moroccan Foreign Ministry did not specify which land borders exactly I was referring to -the most ironic may have thought of the minuscule border formed by the isthmus that separates the rock of Vélez de la Gomera from the Moroccan Rif coast-, because the Moroccan position belonging to Foreign Affairs avoided pronouncing to the EFE agency the names of Ceuta and Melilla. Since then there has been no public statement on the issue from official Moroccan bodies. Bourita: “Normalization” of “land crossings” Just three weeks ago, the Moroccan Foreign Minister, Nasser Bourita, welcomed together with his Spanish counterpart José Manuel Albares and at the time he made public the opening of commercial customs in Ceuta and Melilla during the next month of January to the “normalization of the passage of goods and people through land and sea crossings”. The head of Moroccan diplomacy avoided pronouncing the word “border”, nor the proper names of Ceuta and Melilla. Precisely the opening of customs has been the protagonist of the endless soap opera of Ceuta, Melilla and Morocco. The creation of a commercial customs office in Ceuta and the recovery of the one in Melilla was one of the promises made by the Government of Spain after the normalization of relations with Rabat. However, the customs proposal is not clearly stated in the joint Declaration signed by both administrations in Rabat on April 7. The third point of the text states that “the full normalization of the movement of people and goods will be restored in an orderly manner, including the appropriate customs and people control devices at land and sea level.” Nor, let us remember, in the aforementioned Declaration was the requirement of mutual respect for the territorial integrity of both countries expressly stated. Therefore, in the new road map there was no reference to respect for the borders of the two countries, much less to Ceuta and Melilla, although to the Sahara. The first point ensures that “Spain recognizes the importance of the question of Western Sahara for Morocco, as well as the serious and credible efforts of Morocco within the framework of the United Nations to find a mutually acceptable solution. In this sense, Spain considers the Moroccan autonomy initiative, presented in 2007, as the most serious, realistic and credible basis to resolve this dispute”. The UN General Assembly put an end to long weeks of uncertainty in which the Government of Spain gave no clues about the future of customs on the borders of Ceuta and Melilla with Morocco. The only direct reference to the state of the matter since April occurred in June, when the director general of Moroccan Customs and Indirect Taxes, Nabyl Lakhdar, almost ruled out the creation of customs, citing lack of space in an interview in the Moroccan media TelQuel. “At the moment, not even the geographical conditions allow it. The steps of Ceuta and Melilla are just small corridors. Customs control requires much more than that.” Hours after the content of the interview was revealed, Lakhdar himself backtracked in statements to EFE, opening the possibility that customs would become a reality if the circumstances were right: “When the two Ministries agree on aspects related to Ceuta and Melilla, we apply them”. Neither in the interview nor in the subsequent statement did the Moroccan official speak of “borders.” Maria Antonia Trujillo and the two “colonial anomalies” The most recent of the controversies occurred in the classrooms of the Abdelmaalek Essadi University of Tetouan, where the former Housing Minister of the Government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero María Antonia Trujillo affirmed in a conference on September 2 that the two autonomous cities are “two colonial anomalies”, “an affront to the territorial integrity of Morocco” and “vestiges of the past that interfere” in relations between the two countries. For the also former Minister of Education of the Embassy of Spain in Morocco until last May, the Moroccan claim on the two Spanish autonomous cities is “fully justified”. The former minister was declared persona non grata by both the Ceuta and Melilla Assembly on later dates.🇲🇦🇪🇸 The former minister María Antonia Trujillo (PSOE) assures in a forum in the Moroccan city of Tetuán that Ceuta and Melilla ” they represent an affront to the territorial integrity of Morocco” and “they are vestiges of the past that interfere” in the relations of this country with Spain. pic.twitter.com/wIdPpGPhye— Deciphering the War (@descifraguerra) September 3, 2022 In case it had not been clear in her university talk, the former Minister of the Government of Spain with José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero insisted on an interview with the digital Moroccan Rue 20 published last Tuesday in which “the time had come” to “open the dossier” of the annexation of Ceuta and Melilla by Morocco. “You can no longer look away. Morocco has claimed these territories on many occasions to this day: in all kinds of forums, international and national, and by multiple actors,” said Trujillo. The former Minister of Education of the Spanish Embassy in Rabat had no problem referring to the controversial document sent by the Moroccan authorities to the United Nations Human Rights Council: “Without going any further, specifically last Thursday, October 13, the Morocco Charter to the UN Human Rights Council and the subsequent clarification of the borders terrestrial/points of passage of these cities has reopened the debate in Spain. The issue is on the board”. The President of the Parliament places Ceuta in Morocco “Ceuta is not a European territory, but Moroccan land located in the territory of the Kingdom of Morocco”. The words were pronounced in the midst of a diplomatic crisis between the two countries by the president of the Moroccan House of Representatives, at the time Habib el Malki, in response to the resolution of the European Parliament of June 10, 2021 rejecting the Moroccan attitude in the migration crisis in Ceuta. The ‘invasion’ of Tarajal The zenith of the disagreement in relations between the two countries took place between May 17 and 18, 2021 on the Ceuta border of Tarajal. Around 10,000 people, including young North Africans and sub-Saharans, entered without difficulty thanks to the inhibition of the Moroccan security forces in the territory of Ceuta in just 48 hours. Several Army units were deployed on the border. A few hours ago #Ceuta has suffered a new invasion, encouraged by Morocco, through Benzú and Tarajal. The number of illegal immigrants may approach two thousand.
The justice, history and security of Spain demand the total Spanish domination of North Africa. pic.twitter.com/S8ffUo1rQE— Agencia FARO (@Agencia_FARO) May 17, 2021 A month ago there had been the irregular entry of the Polisario Front leader Brahim Ghali into Spanish territory to be treated at a hospital in Logroño for coronavirus, a fact which would unleash the fury of the Moroccan authorities.