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Vol 59 No 11

Published 1st June 2018


Morocco

The Sahara conflict is back

Rabat’s new engagement with sub-Saharan Africa is raising the temperature of its dispute with Polisario

One of Africa's most prominent militant groups gathered thousands of supporters and threatened to storm the Moroccan wall on 10 May. It was not a confrontation between Polisario forces and the Moroccan army over the heavily fortified sand wall Morocco built in the middle of the disputed territory. The wall in question surrounds the Moroccan embassy in Pretoria and the pickets outside it were members of Julius Malema's Economic Freedom Fighters. Speakers damned Morocco as the 'most reactionary African coloniser'. EFF secretary general Godrich Gardee went further: the embassy should be closed, South Africa should not support Morocco's 2026 FIFA World Cup bid, and 'we must treat the Moroccan government as nothing but an apartheid state', he said.

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