Fact Checking the Arab Media

On August 27th and 28th, Tunisia hosted the eighth edition of the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD). In a move that deeply angered Morocco, leading to the withdrawal of its ambassador in Tunis, Tunisian President Kais Saied decided to invite and then personally receive at the airport the leader of the Polisario Front. The UN considers the Polisario Front to be the legitimate representative of the Sahrawi people and maintains that the Sahrawis have a right to self-determination. The Polisario Front, which is backed by neighboring Algeria to the great consternation of Morocco, is outlawed in the parts of Western Sahara under Moroccan control. Morocco has also long fought the Polisario’s recognition and participation in international fora alongside its military conflict with the Front.

In response, the leading online magazine Jeune Afrique published an article on September 1 analyzing Tunisia’s position on the Western Saharan question. The author asserted that “Kais Saied departed from the principle of neutrality always adopted by Tunisia on the question of the Sahara”. Such framing is certainly in line with the widespread narrative based on the official rhetoric on the question. Indeed, the Tunisian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement following the Moroccan reaction that the country maintains its complete “neutrality over Western Sahara issue in compliance with international legitimacy.” And yet, such statements of professed, longstanding neutrality does not actually reflect Tunisia’s historically undeclared bias toward the preservation of a status quo in Western Sahara in favor of Morocco. In February 1976, only a few months after Morocco’s takeover of Western Sahara, a US State Department cable, for example, explained that Tunisians saw the Algerian President’s “steps to internationalize Sahara Conflict” through the “sponsorship of Polisario Guerilla warfare” as a “greater danger”. One month later, Tunisia was one of several countries that opposed Algeria-led efforts to push the Organization of African Unity to recognition of the Polisario as a liberation movement or a government. The same year, a 1976 US State Department cable noted how Tunisian President Habib Bourguiba’s “sympathy for Moroccan policies on Western Sahara has affected” the country’s relations with Morocco and Algeria. Another leaked cable as late as 2008 documents then Tunisina President Ben Ali’s dissatisfaction with the Algerian position on the Sahara, i.e. in favor of Morocco.

Fact-Checking Assessment: False

By reproducing the official rhetoric about Tunisia’s supposed neutrality, Jeune Afrique failed to present an accurate picture of Tunisia’s historical standing on the Western Saharan conflict. Since the 1970s, Tunisia has privately supported, and at times officially lobbied for, Morocco’s sovereignty claims. As such, President Saied’s unprecedented reception of the Polisario Leader recently should actually be viewed as a more extensive departure from the norm, reversing the previous support for Morocco and throwing the Executive’s weight behind the Polisario.