ALGERIA-MOROCCO Views from both sides of the border

The escalation of declarations between the Kingdom of Morocco (encouraged by the State of Israel) and the Algerian regime led the latter, on 24 August, to break diplomatic relations between the two countries. But the workers and peoples of the Maghreb have nothing good to expect from a confrontation between the two countries. This is what is expressed in the documents sent to us by our correspondents in Algeria and Morocco (which we are publishing excerpts from).

MOROCCO « Only fraternity and peace can help build the unity of the peoples of the Maghreb »

Again, the two brother peoples, the Algerian and the Moroccan people, are now filled with concern and worry. On 24 August, the Algerian government decided to break off diplomatic relations with Morocco, which was accused of carrying out hostile actions against Algeria, particularly in the recent fires that broke out in the North of Algeria, in addition to the statements made by the Moroccan ambassador to the UN, Omar Hilale, at a meeting of nonaligned countries on 13 and 14 July, submitting a note in which he wrote that « the Kabyle people in Algeria deserve more than any other to fully enjoy their right to self-determination « *. (…) During his official visit to Rabat on 11 August, the Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yair Lapid, expressed “his concern about the role played by Algeria in the region and its rapprochement with Iran”. The next day, an Israeli diplomat told AFP: « Israel and Morocco are a representative part of a pragmatic and positive axis in the region confronting an axis that goes in the opposite direction and that includes Iran and Algeria.” 

The Algerian and Moroccan peoples want to live in peace and brotherhood. This was the choice of our ancestors during the struggle for national liberation, a struggle that linked together our fathers and grandfathers for the independence and national sovereignty of the Maghreb countries, particularly within the framework of the North African Star (ENA). 

History teaches us that the imperialist powers, under the aegis of American imperialism, in order to have a free hand to plunder our agricultural and mineral wealth, only fuel tensions and stir up conflicts between the peoples of the Greater Maghreb; they only fuel policies of destruction of nations. This same history teaches us that the future of our two brother peoples is closely linked and cannot come undone, that only fraternity and peace can help build the unity of the peoples of the Maghreb against the imperialist protectorate. (…) With the workers 

and youth of Morocco, we support the mobilisation of the Algerian people and their Hirak (popular uprising – Ed. N) for a free, sovereign and socialist Algeria, and we are involved in the mobilisations of the Moroccan workers and people so our social and democratic demands are met. 

This is the only way to establish a sovereign Constituent Assembly in Morocco and Algeria on the way towards building a Maghreb federation free from imperialist control. 

Down with the imperialist protectorate over the Maghreb! For peace and brotherhood between the peoples of the region! Long live the solidarity of the workers and peoples of the Greater Maghreb! 

Minbar Lichchighila (Workers Tribune), Casablanca, 31 August 

*This is part of an attempt to dismantle the Algerian nation… which has nothing to do with the legitimate democratic aspirations of the Amazigh-speaking population (note from redaction)

ALGERIA « The tensions between the two regimes are not in any way in the interests of the two peoples »

Morocco and Algeria are two countries dominated by imperialism. Both regimes are subordinated to it. Both regimes are of the same nature: anti-worker, bourgeois and pro-imperialist. 

Both regimes have become competitors to attract foreign capital. This rivalry has led them to « reform » their economies in the direction desired by the IMF and the World Bank. The recommendations of these two imperialist financial institutions are the roadmap for both regimes. 

In Algeria, the gains of 1 November (1954, i.e. the gains of the revolution ed. note) are targeted: reform of the pension system, of the Labour Code, abrogation of state aid for the prices of basic goods, destruction of the public health system, opening up of the capital of public companies to foreign investors… 

There is a great similarity in the means used by the two regimes to try to  » restrain  » the two popular movements: repression and creation of firewalls. Calls for « national unity » to save « the fatherland in danger » are one of them, supposedly particularly effective. From experience, the Algerian and Moroccan regimes know the political advantages of pointing at each other as the external enemy, responsible for all domestic ills. (…) 

Fighting against both of these regimes equals fighting against the threat of war! 

High tensions between the two regimes, which would lead to an armed confrontation, are not and will not in any way be in the interests of the two peoples. 

Let us repeat that the conditions are not yet ripe for such an option. But if, unfortunately, the two regimes were to succeed in drawing the two peoples into such a war, there would be enough militant forces in Morocco and Algeria to oppose this move. 

These forces will dismiss the two regimes equally, and call on the two peoples not to kill one another and to remain on the terrain of the irreducible class struggle, to act for their own interests and their own cause, for the sacred goal of the emancipation of the peoples and of the enslaved classes. 

To all of you who will suffer from war and through war, we cry out to you across and beyond the borders, over and beyond the battlefields, throughout the countryside and the cities that will be devastated: « UNITE! Stand up against your own regime and your own capitalist class to build the brotherhood of peoples!” 

Abdelkader Bentaleb, Algeria, 29 August 2021