Association of Concerned Africa Scholars
Analysis and Action on Policies Impacting Africa

Western Sahara and the United States’ geographical imaginings

By Konstantina Isidoros | June 2010

Recently, US official commentary has heightened in pitch with allegations linking its imagined ‘al-Qaeda’ in the Sahara to Western Sahara’s Frente Popular de Liberación de Saguía el Hamra y Río de Oro (Frente Polisario), accompanied by the interminable drip-drip of Moroccan official propaganda to bolster its autonomy plan and, under international law, illegal claims to territorial sovereignty of Western Sahara. As an anthropologist researching the western region of the Sahara, these problematic discourses raise personal reservations and analytical questions.

Introduction: Securitizing the Sahara

By Jacob Mundy | June 2010

Since 2002, the US government has been pursuing a series of counter-terrorism initiatives in Northwest Africa’s Sahara-Sahel region. These measures began with the Pan-Sahel Initiative (PSI), to ‘assist Mali, Niger, Mauritania, and Chad in protecting their borders, thus supporting the U.S. national security interests of waging war on terrorism and enhancing regional peace and security’. In 2005, the United States reformulated the PSI into the half-billion dollar Trans-Saharan Counterterrorism Initiative (TSCTI), ‘designed to provide a regional response to terrorism by offering a balanced program of military assistance, intel[ligence] sharing, democratization and good governance support, and humanitarian aid’. The TSCTI also expanded the scope of participation, bringing Algeria, Burkina Faso, Morocco, Senegal and Tunisia into the project. The 2010 budget request for the re-branded Trans-Saharan Counter Terrorism Partnership (TSCTP) was $80.3 million. In the brave new world after 11 September 2001, this is small beans for a US development-security outlay; it represents just two percent of the 2010 development budget for Afghanistan (the State Department’s side of the civil-military counter-insurgency effort) or what the Pentagon plans to spend on Iraq and Afghanistan every six hours in 2010. The TSCTP is described in US government documents as ‘a multi-faceted, multi-year strategy aimed at defeating terrorist organizations by strengthening regional counter-terrorism capabilities, enhancing and institutionalizing cooperation among the region’s security forces, promoting democratic governance, discrediting terrorist ideology, and reinforcing bilateral military ties with the United States’. Apparently the TSCTP has been so successful that its ‘best practices’ have also been adapted to the East Africa Regional Strategic Initiative, a similar counter-terrorism program focusing on the Horn. Despite this commitment from the US government to the Sahara-Sahel, there is no consensus among policy makers, observers, regional governments and locals on-the-ground as to the ultimate rationale for these security initiatives.

The Western Sahara conflict: regional and international repercussions

By Yahia H Zoubir | June 2010

The lack of resolution of the Western Sahara conflict boils down to two main points: the conflicting positions of Morocco and Western Saharan nationalists, on the one hand, and geopolitical considerations, on the other hand. These geopolitical interests have been the main impediment to the resolution of the conflict because they strengthened the obstinate position of Morocco, which argues, thanks to external support, that it will only negotiate on the basis of ‘autonomy’ within Moroccan sovereignty. This proposal currently enjoys the implicit consent of France, the United States, and Spain, regardless of UN resolutions that refute any preconditions for the current negotiations.

AFRICOM and the Geopolitics of African Oil

By Daniel Volman | June 2009

On 1 October 2008, the new Africa Command (AFRICOM) officially became operational as America’s newest combatant command, with its headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany, to oversee U.S. military activities on the continent. Until the creation of AFRICOM, U.S.-African military relations was conducted through three different commands: the European Command, which had responsibility for most of the continent; the Central Command, which oversaw Egypt and the Horn of Africa region along with the Middle East and Central Asia; and the Pacific Command, which administered military ties with Madagascar and other islands in the Indian Ocean. This reflected the fact that Africa was chiefly viewed as a regional theater in the global Cold War, or as an adjunct to U.S.-European relations, or—as in the immediate post-Cold War period—as a region of little concern to the United States.

From The Geopolitics of Petroleum ACAS Blog Series

Making Peace or Fueling War in Africa

By Daniel Volman | March 2009

At the end of President Barack Obama’s inauguration ceremony, civil rights leader Rev. Joseph Lowery invoked the hope of a day “when nation shall not lift up sword against nation, when tanks will be beaten into tractors.” No one expects such a utopian vision to materialize any time soon. But both Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have spoken eloquently of the need to emphasize diplomacy over a narrow military agenda. In her confirmation hearing, Clinton stressed the need for “smart power,” perhaps inadvertently echoing Obama’s opposition to the invasion of Iraq as a “dumb war.” Even top U.S. military officials, such as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen, have warned against overly militarizing U.S. foreign policy.

AFRICOM: The New U.S. Military Command for Africa

By Daniel Volman | July 2008

On 6 February 2007, President Bush announced that the United States would create a new military command for Africa, to be known as Africa Command or Africom. Throughout the Cold War and for more than a decade afterwards, the U.S. did not have a military command for Africa; instead, U.S. military activities on the African continent were conducted by three separate military commands: the European Command, which had responsibility for most of the continent; the Central Command, which oversaw Egypt and the Horn of Africa region along with the Middle East and Central Asia; and the Pacific Command, which administered military ties with Madagascar and other islands in the Indian Ocean.

U.S. Military Activities in Kenya

By Daniel Volman | January 2008

Now that President George Bush’s special envoy to the Kenyan crisis, Jendayi Fraser (US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs) has admitted that the elections in Kenya were seriously flawed (a polite way of saying they are fraudulent) and ordered President Mwai Kibaki to meet the opposition leader, Raile Odinga, it is easy to forget that the United States Ambassador in Kenya only weeks ago declared the elections free and fair.

How the ‘War on Terror’ Undermined Peace in Northwest Africa: The Western Sahara Conflict After 9/11

By Jacob Mundy | August 2007

Whether we like it or not, the effects of September 11, 2001, can be witnessed in some of the remotest spaces of the Earth. In this essay, I will outline two ways in which post-9/11 U.S. policy has affected the Western Sahara conflict between the occupying power, Morocco, and the Polisario Front, a Sahrawi nationalist independence movement. The most obvious effect of the ‘War on Terror’ is rhetorical; a shift in the way Morocco now characterizes the conflict. Yet this mutation, as I will argue, is mere substitution. Moroccan efforts to securitize the discourse in its favour are an old trick that unfortunately works in Washington. Secondly, I will describe how and why the George W. Bush administration undermined the UN peace process in Western Sahara in the name of the ‘War on Terror’.

Meeting with Nadia Yassine: Non-Violent Islamists who Threaten the Regime in Morocco

By Fouzi Slisli | August 2007

“Fil Maghrib la tastaghrib/In Morocco do not be surprised,” says an old Moroccan saying. This is true even in politics. Where else would one find the largest Islamist movement in the country having a woman as its most outspoken member? Where else would a grandmother preaching non-violence and democracy constitute the biggest threat to the regime? The lady in question is Nadia Yassine. The movement is the banned Islamist group Adl wal Ihssan - Justice and Spirituality Association (JSA). In August 2007, on the eve of the Moroccan legislative elections, I had the opportunity to visit and interview Nadia Yassine with colleagues from The Economist, BBC World, and MacClatchy Newspapers. At the time, the media was still debating her last court appearance, lips taped with a red X to symbolize the government’s attempt to silence her. She had declared to the press that monarchy was not suitable for Morocco, that she prefers a republic, and that the regime (known by its traditional name Makhzen) was near collapse. In Morocco, where the constitution defines the person of the king as “sacred,” Yassine’s statements were bound to get her in trouble. She and the editors of the weekly where her statements were published now face up to 5 years in prison.

Political Islam in Morocco: The Case of the Party of Justice and Development (PJD)

By Mohammed Hirchi | August 2007

The impact of America’s War on Terror on the evolution of the Moroccan democratic initiative and especially on its impact on the moderate Islamic Party of Justice and Development (PJD) is important to comprehending the current political conditions in Morocco. This analysis will look at the evolution of the PJD since the Casablanca bombing in 2003 and will explain how this event has created new political dynamics between the government and the party.