Algeria's Military Gerontocracy Plunders its People and Overburdens Entire Maghreb with Sahara Issue - News Portal

In a story under the title "The Algerian Impasse," Mokhtar Salamate highlights how an "investment of 45 years (...) by the Algerian regime in order to deprive Morocco of a third of its territory and establish a dummy state there, went up in smoke overnight," following the full recognition by the United States of Moroccan sovereignty over the southern provinces.

At the political level, the generals, who won the civil war they inflicted on Algeria, successfully implemented the scorched earth policy. Today there is no credible political party, no political class worthy of respect and no statesmen capable of getting the country out of this shipwreck.

Stressing the fact that the generals have deliberately made any political evolution impossible, the author points out that prospects for democracy in Algeria, human rights, freedom of expression and the return of genuine national pride are obstructed by generals who control everything, who rely on annuity income and who have clung to power since 1962.

"This is Algeria's real problem. A solution must be found with this military gerontocracy that came out of the French colonial army," the author writes.

According to him, the inability to upgrade and diversify the Algerian economy makes the situation even more complicated and further weakened Algeria.

The Algerian generals have proven they are unable to create a liberal, inclusive and value-producing economy, Salamate said. "This economic failure makes Algeria one of Africa's counter-models. Billions of dollars have evaporated without any convincing results benefiting Algerians," he added.

"A key cause of the Algerian regime - the separatist cause - has evaporated with no strategist, politician, statesman or observer being aware of its advent," the author notes, speaking of a "collective suicidal blindness."

Today, the generals are making the country pay the heavy price of their blockade, plunging looted Algerians into depression, poverty and uncertainty. "Then, they make the region pay a considerable price. Some voices in the region, especially the Tunisians, are now courageously asking for a way out of the nightmare that jeopardizes the future of 100 million North African citizens for the sake of an unrealistic and unattainable dream," Salamate writes.

According to the author, nothing has worked despite the easy money, the alignment with the socialist bloc, the extravagance of the USSR, the triumphant Third-Worldism that mocked the United Nations General Assembly and the irresistible and demagogic verbiage of the liberation of peoples. Too busy Plundering the Algerian people, the generals have, for decades, repeated over and over this scenario which is a pure product of the Cold War, without realizing that the world was changing.

The Socialist camp collapsed, the Berlin Wall collapsed, the USSR was swept away but Algeria remained the same: "a people under the boot, generals at the cash register, an oppressed civil society and a political class under the iron fist." They did not realize that nobody in the world wants a 6th state in the Maghreb region that is bound to collapse under the Algerian rule. Yet, they have persisted to the point of turning the fake Sahrawi cause into a national obsession, the author writes.

The Kingdom of Morocco is still there, stable and productive, a few steps ahead of Algeria, in terms of economic achievements, political and social governance and the maturation of its civil society. Tunisia too has taken exceptional steps in its March, he says.

"Faced with this picture, the Algerian generals sail by sight without direction and favorable winds. They are ridiculous and laughable remnants of the Cold War period with completely obsolete ideas and a totally out of step vision of the world," the author underlines.

The Algeria of generals can no longer influence a decision that fundamentally changes the regional geopolitics. The Sahara issue, which turns out to be a strict Algerian-Moroccan issue has become, over time, a ball and chain for Algeria, preventing it from considering the future with all its complexity, according to the author.

The latest US decision on the Sahara "that will soon be shared -- in a matter of time -- by the Spanish, French, British, Germans and many others who will not give up their own interests for the benefit of the Americans alone," clearly means that the time of the military in power is over in the Maghreb.

The corrupt old Algerian generals must make way for the reconstruction of a new Algeria with its living forces and youth. The persistence of the status quo is becoming a threat to the Mediterranean, the Sahel and the Maghreb, and the iconoclastic idea of creating a failed state in the Maghreb from scratch is definitely not acceptable to anyone, Salamate explains.

Now that the geopolitical situation has changed completely, in order to save its essential interests, Algeria must sit at the table with Morocco to talk seriously about all the problems that have been dragging on since 1962. "That's all. Everything else will follow," Salamate concludes.