October 1990, Page 36

Maghreb Mirror

Gulf Crisis Tests Maghreb's Unity

By Jamal Amiar

From its first day, the Gulf crisis has put the unity of the two-and-a-half-year-old Arab Maghreb Union (UMA) to a serious test. Faced with Arab-world divisions elsewhere, the challenge has been to keep the union of North African Arab states tight. As a result, although the five Maghreb states have not been able to manage a common stand on the Gulf crisis, neither have they split.

Five Positions on the U.S. Presence

At the Aug. 10 Arab League summit meeting in Cairo, UMA member states Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia each took a different position on the U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. Algeria abstained, Libya voted against, Mauritania expressed reservations, Morocco approved, and Tunisia did not attend the meeting. The group of five, however, ensured that their differences did not have lethal consequences on their union. Within the UMA each government acknowledged from the outset that the others had their own constraints and self-interests.

For Rabat, it was clear from the first hours of the Gulf crisis that the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, and the threat it posed for the oil monarchies of the Gulf area, also threatened the stability of the Moroccan regime. Morocco was the first Arab state to officially condemn the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

So far, Rabat's decisive stand has created few problems at home. Political parties and the press on the whole support King Hassan's insistence on Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait and the return to power of Sheikh Jaber Al-Sabah. Some political groups, however, have expressed deep reservations concerning the presence of U.S. military forces in the Gulf area. There was an agreement that no solution to the crisis is possible before the return to the status quo ante in the Gulf, and Rabat did not hesitate for long before deciding to send 1,200 troops to participate in the "Desert Shield" operation.

In Algiers, the government officially condemned both the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia. Various political parties ranging from Ahmed Ben Bella's Movement for Democracy in Algeria to Abbassi Madani's Islamic Front of Salvation organized marches to protest the U.S. military presence.

In fact the crisis embarrassed many Algerian leaders. For example, the leadership of the Islamic Front, the main opposition party, was torn between two contradictory stands: it condemned the "U.S. military presence in the holy sites of Islam," but it also tended to back Riyadh against what it considers the leftish and atheistic Baghdad regime.

In Tunis, the situation was similar to that in Algiers. Perhaps even more than the Algerians, the Tunisians have absolutely no sympathy for any foreign military presence in the region.

Tunisians vividly remember Israel's aircraft attacking the PLO headquarters in Tunis, and American aircraft attacking Muammar Qaddafi's residence in Libya. Not surprisingly, a poll conducted by the newsweekly Le Maghreb found that 79 percent of Tunisians supported Baghdad's policy in the Gulf. At one point, however, the government warned journalists against excessive praise for Iraq, and excessive criticism of the Gulf states.

In Tripoli, the Libyan government condemned the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and, for obvious reasons, the presence of the U.S. military in the Gulf area as well. On Sept. 1, President Muammar Qaddafi presented his own peace plan, calling for Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait in exchange for the withdrawal from Kuwait in exchange for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Saudi Arabia. Libya was the only Maghreb state to announce it would not respect one aspect of the trade embargo of Iraq-that on foodstuffs.

The government of Mauritania expressed its official position at the Aug. 10 Cairo summit: it had reservations concerning the presence of U.S. troops in the Gulf. It did not address any other aspect of the crisis. In recent years, Nouakchott has been receiving military assistance from Baghdad and is rumored to have lent its territory to Iraq for missile testing.

The Maghreb Looking Glass

In an interview with the Parisian daily Le Monde a few days after the Iraqi invasion, King Hassan of Morocco expressed the hope that the Gulf crisis, "after breaking the Arab mirror, will not break the Maghreb mirror." The Moroccan monarch's point was that, regardless of the importance of the Gulf crisis for the Arab world, it should not impede the progress towards political and economic unity in the Maghreb. His point was well taken throughout the area. The follow-up came from Algiers, which holds the UMA presidency for the second half of 1990. A few days after King Hassan's interview, President Chadli Benjedid of Algeria declared that the Maghreb "had to increase diplomatic contacts and coordination."

On Sept. 2 and 3, the foreign ministers of Morocco, Libya, Tunisia, Mauritania, and Algeria met in Algiers to try to hammer out a common stand on the Gulf crisis. At the end of their meeting, they agreed to condemn the Iraq invasion of Kuwait, and, following a Libyan proposal, also expressed their refusal to "starve" the Iraqi people. According to Algerian Foreign Minister Sid-Ahmed Ghozali, the five agreed on supporting "international legality and the principles of the U.N. charter and of the Arab League."

In substance, agreement was found on minimal but crucial ground. It still remains to be seen how the Maghreb states will deal with the Arab League crisis. So far, all five states have refused to attend the Cairo meeting that is to decide whether the future location of Arab League headquarters will be in Tunis or Cairo.

The Economics of the Crisis

Besides the difficult political situation the Gulf crisis created within the Maghreb Union, it has sharply different effects on economic life in Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia.

The rise in oil prices following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait provided big financial benefits for Algeria and Libya. As oil prices rose from $19 to $27 per barrel in early August, Algeria earned an extra $6.5 million and Libya an extra $10 million daily. Algeria exports some 750,000 barrels of oil daily, Libya one million. Tunisia also received an extra $500,000 daily for its daily export of 55,000 barrels.

Oil-importing Morocco and Mauritania were exposed to the other side of the coin. While very little information is available on Mauritania, Morocco imported 52 percent of its 1989 oil needs from Iraq and 10 percent from Kuwait. Since early August, Morocco has had to look for new sources of supplies while seeing its energy bills skyrocket. If the price of oil remains at $28 until late 1990, Morocco will have to pay an estimated $200 million extra for its crude oil, and its energy bill in 1990 will reach an estimated $840 million. Following the trade embargo imposed on Iraq, Moroccan businessmen lost an estimated $75 million. Some 50 Moroccan businessmen were trading with Iraq and Kuwait until the Aug. 2 invasion.

Jamal Amiar is a U.S.-educated radio journalist based in Tangier, Morocco.