NORTH AFRICA-INTEGRATION: Maghreb Union Trapped in Politics

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Nizar Al-Ali

CASABLANCA, Feb 17 1999 (IPS) - The Arab Maghreb Union (UMA), created amid great fanfare 10 years ago, remains snarled in a tangled web of political differences and has failed to integrate the aspirations of some 80-million people into tangible reality.

“The creation of UMA was applauded as a victory by the Maghreban peoples, who have always aspired to seeing their region develop into a heaven of peace and economic prosperity,” observes Youness Al-Figuigui, a professor of political science.

UMA was set up on Feb. 17, 1989 in Marrakesh, Morocco, with the objective of “consolidating the brotherly ties binding its peoples, achieving progress and prosperity, and preserving peace and security” among its members – Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia.

The lofty ideals and ambitions of the Union, however, have been reduced to mere ink on paper, because of the political differences among members, especially Algeria and Morocco.

According to Al-Figuigui, “the biggest problem facing the Maghreb is that its leaders favor what is political over what is economic, at a time economy have become the driving force all over the world.”

Mutual mistrust and “the fear of being the target of subversive acts from a neighbor’s territory” have aborted all integration dreams in the Maghreb, wrote a Tunisian journalist.

The Western Sahara issue, which has put Morocco and the pro- independence Polisario movement at logger heads, has been a major block on the road to real a real Union of Maghreb nations.

In 1994, Morocco asked Algeria – which at the time was rotating chairman of the regional grouping – to freeze the Union’s activities. Morocco was then protesting what it called “Algeria’s direct involvement in the Sahara issue” contrary to a UN settlement plan which vested only observer status on Algiers.

The Moroccan press, which usually echoes the official standpoint on the Sahara issue, unanimously blamed Algeria for causing problems with the Maghreb Union.

“The hope born after the creation of the union was killed by the policy of Algeria, which is hostile to Morocco’s territorial integrity,” wrote Al-Ittihad Al-Ichtiraqi of the Socialist Union of Popular Forces (USFP) of Prime Minister, Abderrahmane Yousoufi.

During the first five years of its existence, UMA moved at a reasonable pace toward integration.

Between 1989 and 1994, the five member nations concluded 26 cooperation agreements, including accords on investments protection, non-double taxation and the free movement of people and goods. They also concluded a convention, setting up a regional parliament wherein each member state would be represented by 20 members.

These accords, however, have remained a “dead letter”, say political observers, and any upturn will depend largely on the settlement of the political problems facing North Africa.

The issue of the 1988 bombing of a Pan-American airliner flying over Lockerbie in Scotland is another major obstacle. Libya detached itself from the Union in protest against the lack of UMA solidarity with the Tripoli position on the incident.

Libya has been under U.N. Security Council sanctions since 1992, including an air ban, for failing to hand over to Britain or the United States two Libyan suspects wanted in connection with the bombing incident that killed 270 people.

Morocco and Algeria, whose political disputes have been the major challenge to integration in the Maghreb, have declared they were upbeat as to the union’s future and that they are committed to the grouping’s spirit.

“The second decade of our nascent union will witness positive and decisive developments, dictated by the wisdom of our peoples and by the need to take up the challenges of the 21st century,” Morocco’s King Hassan in a message marking the 10th anniversary of UMA.

In Algiers, Abdelaziz Al-Sabe, spokesman of the Algerian foreign affairs department told reporters that his country “remains attached to the Union.”

“(Algeria) is determined to help the Maghreban Union overcome the ephemeral obstacles toward the achievement of its peoples’ aspirations…to integration,” he says.

Beyond such diplomatic statements, Maghreban civil society also believes that it has a duty to request the re-launching of the regional grouping.

“The Maghreb has all the assets to progress and to impose itself at the international scene as an influential human and economic grouping,” Al-Sabe says.

“Algeria and Libya’s gas and oil, Morocco’s phosphates and agriculture, Tunisia’s minerals and Mauritania’s iron are examples of plenty of potentials that can help North Africa move out of backwardness.”

Maghreban intellectuals are well aware that the galloping globalization will have no mercy on small and isolated entities.

“The Maghreban countries are doomed to live together and to plan their joint destiny together,” wrote Tunisian journalist Ali Lakhdar, “had it been up to the Maghreban populations to decide, they would have opted for full integration long time ago.”