Brussels, April 29, 2017 (SPS) – Algerian ambassador to Brussels, Amar Belani, has denounced Friday "yet another falsehood of Morocco," describing the screening at the European Parliament of a documentary that compares between the Sahrawi liberation movement, the Polisario Front, and the terrorist organizations activating in the Sahel region as a "rude operation of disinformation."
"This is yet another falsehood of Morocco to the European parliament. In fact, this is a rude operation of disinformation, designed and applied by the local relays of the Special Services,” he told APS.
According to Belani, "this scheming has been so rude that all the invited MEPs, including the one who was to be the main sponsor, have preferred to abstain from participating, fearing discredit due to a harmful operation of manipulation."
Last Wednesday, a Moroccan-born Belgian Euro deputy from the Reformist Movement (MR), Latifa Ait Baâla organized at the European Parliament the projection of a documentary entitled, "Sahara et Sahel Connexions - trafic, drogue, terrorisme"( Connections Sahara and Sahel - trafficking, drugs, terrorism), directed by Moroccan Hassan al-Bouharrouti, expert in propaganda documentaries and supporter of the Moroccan colonialist theories.
This "documentary" which main actors are Euro deputy Aymeric Chauprade, expelled from the French far-right party, le Front national (the National Front), for xenophobia, and the director of the Central Bureau of Judicial Investigations (BCIJ), Abdelhak El-Khiame, tries to discredit the Polisario Front, classified by the UN as a national liberation movement, presenting it as a terrorist group like AQMI and MUJAO.
The mobilization of many European parliamentarians against the projection of this documentary discouraged the event sponsor, Belgian MEP and former European Commissioner Louis Michel to be present.
MEP Louis Michel had the same attitude during the screening, in April 2016, of another propaganda documentary entitled Western Sahara - source and resources, by the same Moroccan director Hassan al-Bouharrouti.
Seized by the Euro deputies, EP president Antonio Tajani insisted that "even if such events are organized in the headquarters of the Parliament, they do not represent the EP official stance which is expressed through its plenary resolutions or via its official bodies."
"So, the organizers at the Moroccan chancellery were forced to appeal their man, who is the + NostAlgerique + at the Parliament and the representative of a political hateful current, to serve as ‘a master of ceremony’ of this ridiculous farce," added Belani.
Indeed, out of the 751 deputies in the European parliament, only Aymeric Chauprade attended the screening of the "documentary."
The organizers also had to introduce some change to the "documentary film" presentation poster, removing the reference to the Polisario Front, which was included on the original poster alongside terrorist organizations.
The film ignored the fact that Morocco remains one of the world’s largest drug suppliers in the part on drug trafficking from Latin America. Speaking about the connections between crime and drug trafficking, the documentary has voluntarily neglected, the Algerian ambassador to Brussels recalled that the recently published Frontex report 2016 entitled "Africa-Frontex Intelligence Community Joint Report" "blames Morocco in its section on the cross-border crime."
Citing the Frontex report, Belani said that Morocco has become a "hub for cannabis trafficking to Europe and local markets," noting that the report stresses that "drug trafficking is the most profitable activity for criminal groups operating in northern Morocco, and that cannabis resin traffic, as a low-risk and high profit activity, remains more attractive than migrant trafficking. " (SPS)
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