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Moroccan American News, Views and Opinions
Author: Hassan Masiky is a native of Kenitra, Morocco. He graduated from the University of the District of Columbia with a degree in political science in 1991. Upon graduation,Hassan joined the Washington DC based non government organization the Parliamentary Human Rights Foundation (PHRF) where he worked as a consultant for USAID democracy projects in Mexico, Haiti, Republic of Georgia and the European Parliament. After leaving PHRF, Hassan dedicated his time advising Amnesty International USA on African and Middle Eastern affairs and representing the organization in press conferences. Mr. Masiky was a host on several television shows discussing human rights and democracy. He is currently working for a Federal Agency in the Washington area.
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Friday, March 19 2010 14:22 |
Washington / Morocco Board News Service / Unprecedented, a breakthrough and a milestone: a carefully drafted letter sent by an array of bipartisan United States senators to the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urging her to” make the resolution of the Western Sahara stalemate a U.S. foreign policy priority for North Africa" is sending shock wave throughout North Africa, around the Middle East and in Western Europe. In a an unusual show of bipartisan cooperation, heavy weights senators from both parties took a unified stand in support of Morocco’s Local Autonomy Plan (LOA) as the basis of a final solution to the Western Sahara conflict.
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Assasinated Algerian National Police Chief Mr. Ali Tounsi
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03/05/2010 17:11 / Washington / Morocco Board News Service / Even by Algerian standards, the assassination of the head of the National Police (le directeur général de la sûreté nationale or DGSN for short) in his office was a shocker for Algerians. According to one official version, as there are several official accounts, Mr. Ali Tounsi was shot by one of his close collaborators and the chief of the Police Helicopters Unit, Colonel Chaïb Oultache. The first accounts issued by the Ministry of Interior, which supervises the National Police including the DGSN, reported that the Colonel shot Mr. Tounsi in a “fit of madness”, and then turned his weapon on himself. The Algerian public has been skeptical of the official reports on the incident. As one Algerian blogger wrote before the Ministry of Interior’s announcement: “They [ Government officials] will use the madness theory again to justify a political assassination as they did before in the case of the assassinated President Boudiaf, they must think we[Algerian public] are so stupid.”
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HASSAN MASIKY
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 Washington, March 2, 2010 - Morocco Board News Service - - The Spanish government is pulling out all the stops to ensure the success of the first Morocco-European Union (EU) summit, scheduled to be held on March 7 and 8 in Granada, Spain. Madrid is undertaking a massive diplomatic effort to assure the presence of King Mohammed IV during this highly important meeting. For now, the Royal Palace is not commenting on the event. Spain, which is currently holding the rotating EU presidency, is trying to cement its image as a bridge between the two sides of the Mediterranean.
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HASSAN MASIKY
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 Washington, February 17, 2010- - As the two days of informal talks over the final status of the western Sahara was winding down, it was evident that the parties involved are no where closer to an agreement than they were when the United Nations started the mediation efforts to settle the longest running conflict in Africa. Morocco and the Algeria backed and controlled Polisario separarist movement have not changed their initial positions on how to proceed with implementing a resolution to this devastating conflict.
The Polisario movement, with the political backing of the Algerian diplomacy, is not budging from its demand to have independence as a possible resolution for the future of the Western Sahara, while the Moroccans, who control most of the territory, are pushing for the adoption of a local autonomy under the Kingdom's sovereignty as the only plausible solution.
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HASSAN MASIKY
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 Washington, Feb 02, 2010 (Morocco Board News Service) --- Facebook group versus Al-Fassi-Fihri part II is on! Following the decision by the social networking website Facebook to shutdown the original Facebook group denouncing “the nepotism” and “over influence” of Morocco’s Prime Minister Abbas Al-Fassi and his extended family, a group of young Moroccans decided to restart a “new” similar group but with a slightly different name.
The original Facebook group’s wall contained various posting that were racists and prejudice. In fact, the administrator censored several legitimate comments while tolerating few unsavory comments. It is ironic to see a group pretending to denounce unfairness exhibits the same practice.
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HASSAN MASIKY
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 Washington, January 14, 2010-- As the world is witnessing in Yemen, in some parts of the world ignoring critical social, political, economical and security concerns comes at price for the rest of us. For people unfamiliar with the politics and the socio-economic situation in Yemen, the near collapse of the Yemeni state came fast and furious. However, experts on the region have been warning of an explosive state of affairs in this Arab peninsula country. The mix of a religiously mixed society, dire poverty and weak governmental institutions came to a boiling point with the arrival of Al-Qaeda to Yemen. To some degree, the North African country of Mauritania may be the next target in Al-Qaeda’s design to destabilize weak countries in order to establish safe heavens for its operations... |
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HASSAN MASIKY
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 Washington-- For the observers following the ups and downs of the political strains between Morocco and Spain, the Sahrawi separatist Haidar’s case was an eye opener. The high level of support to the Sahrawi cause and the Polisario movement in Spain exposed the depth and the intensity of the anti-Morocco feelings in some circles in Spain. In fact, from the far left to the extreme right, Spanish political parties and their social organizations showed a deep-rooted disdain to Morocco and Moroccans; an arrogance and a condescension reminiscent of a past... |
 Washington, 12/15/09- In a rebuke to Spain’s attempts to further internationalize the case of the Western Sahara Polisario activist Aminatou Haidar, the United State Secretary of State Hilary Clinton deliberately avoided to address the situation in the Canary Islands during her conference with Spain’s foreign Minister in Washington. Mr. Miguel Angel Moratinos, who is in visit to the United States, was hoping to get the US government involved adding more pressure on the Moroccan government to take back the Sahrawi Separatist on hunger strike in the Canary Island.
Washington’s position of impartiality boosts Morocco’s stance refusing the return of Haidar. The United States considers the case a matter of internal politics in Morocco. Haidar who renounced her Moroccan citizenship forfeited her rights to return to Morocco under the current circumstances.
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HASSAN MASIKY
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Wednesday, March 17 2010 15:50 |
Algerian Foreign Minister Murad Medelci speaking at Conference of the Sahara-Sahel States |
Washington / Morocco Board News / To show off its” lead role” in the war against terrorism, Algeria is organizing a regional conference on terror threats in the Sahel. The Algerian government invited foreign ministers from Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Chad, Niger and Burkina Faso to discuss the deteriorating security satiation in the Sahel and to coordinate responses to the threats posed by the Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).
However, Morocco, intentionally excluded by the Algerian authorities, was the elephant in the room... |
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HASSAN MASIKY
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The Maghreb Union without the "A"
Dr. Hussein Ben Kirat
 03/03/2010 / Oxford, UK The EU- Moroccan Meeting is not a Moroccan-Spanish meeting, and should have been a MU-EU meeting, if it weren’t for the stubbornness of the Algerian military regime. Without the Union du Maghreb, without the "A", because the Maghreb is far from being Arab, as they do not either master standard Arabic; ...
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 March 3, 2010 / Washington / Morocco Board News Service /As the Moroccan delegation gets ready to land in Granada, Spain, for an unprecedented summit meeting with the European Union, several European critics are questioning Morocco’s commitments to implementing a new Press Code and reforming its judicial system. Recent actions by the Moroccan government to close down independent magazines, to jail bloggers and journalists, and to use the judicial system to silence internal critics are giving anxiety to some of Rabat supporters in the EU, namely France.
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HASSAN MASIKY
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 Washington, 02/19/2010 - ( Morocco Board News Service )- During the thirty five years of the Moroccan-Algerian conflict over the Western Sahara, one constant has been gravely neglected and grossly overlooked: the thousands of civilians living under deplorable subhuman conditions in the Polisario run camps in Tindouf, Algeria.
Since the start of the Western Sahara conflict, it has been a common occurrence to dismiss reports about the exploitation and other abusive conditions in the camps as a propaganda tool used by the Moroccan government to embarrass its Algerian rival. To their credit, the Polisario leaders did a descent job in framing any discussion of human and civil rights abuses in the Tindouf camp as a Moroccan white noise within the Western Sahara conflict. On the opposite end of this spectrum is a weak Moroccan diplomacy that missed an array of opportunities to spotlight the miserable condition under which thousands of civilians live in Tindouf.
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HASSAN MASIKY
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 Washington DC—Feb 03, 2009--The most challenging appointment in the Moroccan government is the job of the Minister of Communications and spokesman for the government. This impossible task goes to Mr. Khalid Naciri. Mr. Naciri’s assignment has been made difficult because of few recent perplexing actions undertaken by the Moroccan government.
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HASSAN MASIKY
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 Washington, January 19, 2009 -Is Moroccan Prime Minister (PM) Abbas Al-Fassi becoming more of a political distraction and less of a leader of the Moroccan government? A recent attempt by few “Facebookers “ to start a Facebook® group to denounce what they call “the nepotism and abuse of power “of the Al-Fassi and El-Fihri families is a window into the political mind set of the average Moroccan. The Facebook group was an instant hit with more than 14000 members and counting. Some may dismiss the group as a cluster of young net savvy bored teenagers; however, the comments written on the “Facebook Wall” are serious and alarming.
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HASSAN MASIKY
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 Washington- Once again, the Moroccan Monarch had to personally intervene to put things back on track. King Mohammed VI latest speech on regionalism coupled with his decision to shuffle the cabinet are considered correction measures to address loopholes in the Moroccan government management of the Western Sahara( Sahara) dossier and a boost to democratic reforms . The King’s newly formed Commission on Regionalism, with emphasis on the Saharan Provinces, and the dismissal of the Minister of Interior- who is technicaly in charge of the domestic management of the Sahara, came on the heels of a major political and diplomatic fiasco. The Haidar case may have spared the Minister of Foreign Affairs but it claimed the job of the Minister of the Interior. |
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HASSAN MASIKY
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 Washington, 12/21/09-- The case of the Western Sahara separatist Aminattou Haidar ended by her return to Morocco. Rabat reversed its position refusing to allow Haidar to fly back to the Moroccan city of Laayoun in the Sahara. Morocco’s change of heart came amid a barrage of criticism of its treatment of the Polisario activist, and in the middle of a continuous fierce campaign aimed at tarnishing the standing of the Kingdom on the international scene. Clearly, the plan to derail Morocco’s effort to publicize its Local Autonomy Plan for the Western Sahara was a success.
With the Moroccan diplomacy looking bruised and disheveled, the public in Morocco is questioning the manner in which the Moroccan Foreign Ministry handled the crisis. Even supports of the current government have doubts about the competency of the Moroccan diplomacy, the qualification of Moroccan diplomats and the health of the Moroccan position on the Western Sahara dossier.
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