The
kingdom is using an army of flacks to keep the illusion of peace and stability.
AAYOUNE, Morocco — The peculiar form
of Western Saharan hospitality, at least as practiced by the Moroccan
government, is to watch visitors closely. Upon our arrival last winter to
Laayoune, the capital of this disputed territory, as part of a delegation of
six female journalists, the first gesture was two pairs of headlights behind us
as we drove from the airport to our hotel. We'd been invited by the
International Women's Media Foundation (IWMF) to travel to Western Sahara to
report on this often forgotten story.
Men in dark sunglasses and leather
jackets were ready for our arrival at the hotel, posted on the corners across
the street. As our group of six journalists and two IWMF staffers traveled
around town in the days to come, the men stayed close, on motorbikes and in
dark cars. These men, who looked like the security agents ubiquitous around the
Middle East, usually pulled around a nearby corner as we rolled to a stop. When
we looked their way, they made feeble attempts to duck around a corner or hide
behind a car.
This kind of surveillance, we'd been
warned, was standard for foreign visitors to Western Sahara. Even tourists
report being followed and watched. We knew that journalists -- and anyone else
who might meet with the local activists who seek independence from Morocco --
were subject to special scrutiny and sometimes expelled. Morocco
claims Western Sahara as its own and has occupied the territory since 1976,
when an indigenous independence movement led by the Algeria-funded Polisario Front
began fighting Moroccan troops. Western Sahara is the only territory in Africa
still on the United Nations' list of non-self-governing
territories -- places that wait in limbo to be decolonized.
Today Western Sahara is one of the
world's longest-running unresolved conflicts. Despite the ceasefire signed
between Morocco and the Western Sahara liberation movement, called the
Polisario, in 1991, the territory's status has to this day never been finally
settled. With so many other conflicts today absorbing the international
community's attention, the half-peace in Western Sahara means the issue has
been relegated to the sidelines of international diplomacy.
As we experienced firsthand, Morocco
does not just rely on anonymous security agents -- it also uses press flacks
and de facto Washington lobbyists to burnish its image abroad. The day after we
arrived, a representative of the Ministry of Communications in Rabat, Mohamed
El Bour, showed up to orchestrate our meetings with local officials and focus
our attention on Western Sahara's economic promise rather than its political
strife. On our third day in Laayoune, he was joined by a woman in a dark suit,
stilettos, and sunglasses.
She introduced herself as
Fatima-Zohra Rachidi, also with the Ministry of Communications in Rabat. She
was in Laayoune with another delegation and had been asked to join us at the
last minute, she said in a flawless American accent. The line "I just
happened to be here" was one we would also hear from many Rabat-based
officials we encountered in Western Sahara, and one we came to doubt. "Let
me know if you need anything," she added breezily.
Fatima remained with us the rest our
time in Western Sahara, accompanying us to several of our meetings with
officials and groups with close ties to the government. (She and the minders
did not accompany us when we met opposition activists.) She was mostly quiet
during meetings -- but was obviously listening closely, stepping in
occasionally to re-translate a salient point about the government's position
into English.
On our final day in the territory,
as we sat in the departure lounge of the airport, we were summoned to the VIP
lounge, where the Moroccan-appointed provincial governor lectured us about
being fair in our coverage. And there was Fatima again: She stood among the
local officials who flanked the governor, and, because she was there to help
the government communicate, interrupted our translator to clarify a few points
of the governor's monologue. When he was through, we asked for her card -- she
had no more left, she said, but gave us a Gmail address with which to reach her
in Rabat.
We quickly discovered that Fatima
was not only a government emissary, but an example of the close ties the
kingdom maintains to Washington lobbying shops. After we left Western Sahara,
we found Fatima's picture on the website of the Gabriel
Company, a Washington lobbying firm headed by former U.S. Ambassador to Morocco
Edward Gabriel. On the Gabriel Company's website, she goes by the name
Fatima-Zohra Kurtz.
The Gabriel Company has had the
Moroccan government as a client since 2002, and during that time has been paid
more than $3.7 million, according to records filed under the Foreign Agent
Registration Act (FARA). FARA requires foreign governments and the groups they
hire to lobby on their behalf in the United States to file detailed reports of
their lobbying activities with the Justice Department.
The Gabriel Company's fees are just
the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the funds Morocco has lavished on
lobbyists to stay on Washington's good side. Since 2007, the kingdom has
employed nine U.S. lobbying firms, according to FARA records.
Altogether, since 2007 the kingdom has spent roughly $20 million lobbying policymakers and soliciting sympathetic coverage from journalists in the United States on all issues, including Western Sahara.
Altogether, since 2007 the kingdom has spent roughly $20
million lobbying policymakers and soliciting sympathetic coverage from
journalists in the United States on all issues, including Western Sahara. In
2009, it lobbied members of Congress, the executive branch and journalists more
than any other Arab country -- more than twice as much as Egypt, according to
the Sunlight Foundation, a Washington-based nonprofit
that advocates for government accountability and transparency.
Fatima accounted for the difference between what she told
us was her surname, and what she goes by with the Gabriel Company, by saying
she uses her maiden name, Rachidi, in Morocco and Kurtz, the name of her
ex-husband, in the United States.
Whichever name she's using, her career provides a window
into the interlocking network of nonprofits and lobbying firms that are tasked
with boosting Morocco's image in Washington. In addition to what she called a
consulting job with the Ministry of Communications and her vice presidency at
the Gabriel Company, Fatima also works for other organizations funded by the
kingdom. She heads the Moroccan American Cultural Center,
which tries to build cultural ties between the United States and Morocco
through events and is one of the three organizations under the umbrella of the
Moroccan American Center. The Moroccan American Center for Policy (MACP), a
registered Washington lobbying firm the Moroccan government relies on heavily,
is another organization under the same umbrella. And while it's not listed on
the website, a contract filed under FARA
revealed that Fatima is also MACP's senior vice president for operations.
Morocco has paid more money to MACP
than any other U.S. firm it has hired to influence lawmakers and journalists.
According to filings made under FARA, the kingdom has paid more than $13.8
million to MACP since 2007 to contact journalists, congressmen, and State
Department officials to advance Morocco's interests.
When contacted at the Gabriel
Company office on K Street in Washington, Fatima vehemently denied that she has
ever been a lobbyist for the two lobbying firms where she's an executive. She
said that from 2003 to 2009, she was registered as a lobbyist with FARA, which
requires people engaged in direct lobbying or "quasi political
activities" on behalf of a foreign government to disclose the details of
those activities. But she said she deregistered in 2009 at the advice of her
lawyer, because she "did not participate in lobbying activities." But
since U.S. law is vague about what qualifies as "quasi political
activities," Fatima seems to operate in a legal gray area where what
constitutes lobbying and what doesn't is hard to pinpoint.
*
* *
Since the start of the Arab Spring, Morocco has been keen to project an image of stability in a troubled region.
Since the start of the Arab Spring,
Morocco has been keen to project an image of stability in a troubled region. As
fellow North African countries like Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt have struggled to
follow through on the promise of their revolutions, Morocco has pitched itself
as a regional player able to offer the kind of security guarantees Europe and
the United States are looking for.
According to FARA records, Western
Sahara has consistently been a key topic in Morocco's lobbying of Washington.
The kingdom's lobbyists have framed Morocco's struggle for control of the
territory as another front in America's war on terror. In April 2013, MACP circulated
an editorial by email
arguing that the refugee camps in Algeria filled with Western Sahara citizens
have "reportedly become a recruiting grounds for al-Qaeda-linked
groups," a development that should prompt "active diplomatic action
from the United States."
A May 2012 PowerPoint presentation
attached to the FARA records submitted by LeClairRyan, another Washington group
lobbying for Morocco, warns darkly about the chaos that would follow Morocco's
withdrawal from the territory.
"Morocco can never allow -- nor
would any other country in its position allow -- [Western Sahara] to become an
'independent state,' because as such it would be incredibly weak, a failed
state from Day One, and a magnet for terrorism, drug trafficking, human
trafficking and other evils," the presentation warns.
Morocco's millions appear to have been
effectively spent, as the United States has never pressured the kingdom to
follow through on its pledge to hold a referendum
on self-determination in Western Sahara. The 2014 appropriations bill
recently passed by Congress mandates, for the first time, that some of the
foreign aid to Morocco be used in Western Sahara. The bill specifically
stipulates that the State Department develop a plan to "resolve the
longstanding dispute over the Western Sahara, based on autonomy under Moroccan
sovereignty." The MACP cheered this development in a press release.
The lack of public attention on
Western Sahara may be one reason its lobbying is so successful: Stephen Zunes,
a professor at the University of San Francisco, who wrote a book about the conflict, said that because it is
relatively unknown to the public, Moroccan lobbying can have a
"disproportionate amount of influence" on attitudes in Washington.
"The reason [the U.S.-Moroccan
alliance] hasn't been challenged, the reason it's not an issue, is because of
the influence the lobby has on Congress," said Zunes.
Of course, the other side lobbies,
too. Algeria, a long-time supporter of the Polisario and Western Sahara
independence, also retains lobbyists in Washington -- but the funds it spends
are dwarfed by Rabat. Between 2007 and 2013, Algeria spent roughly $2.4 million
lobbying Capitol Hill, according to FARA -- or slightly more than 10 percent of
the funds Morocco has spent. FARA records show that almost all meetings
organized by Algiers-funded lobbyists are about Western Sahara. The Polisario
hired Independent Diplomat to represent the group in Washington in 2008, and
has paid it $42,433 since 2009.
Several congressional offices
declined to talk about their meetings with lobbyists, and others did not
respond to repeated requests for interviews.
*
* *
So far, Morocco's image consultants
seem to blur their association with U.S. lobbying firms. When we contacted
Fatima in April, she said she saw no reason to mention her work at the Gabriel
Company, the MACP, or MACC when we first met her because it was unrelated to
her work in Western Sahara as a consultant for the Ministry of Communications.
And though we found a contract she'd signed on behalf of MACP hiring
the lobbying firm Western Hemisphere Strategies, headed by former Congressman
Lincoln Diaz-Balart, to "positively affect relations between the United
States and Morocco," she called her role purely administrative.
Bill Allison, the editorial director
of the Sunlight Foundation, an organization dedicated to government
transparency, says anyone who attempts to shift the U.S. public debate on
behalf of a foreign power should register as a lobbyist. "If you're trying
to influence U.S. public opinion, and that would include talking to
journalists, you're supposed to be registered [with FARA]," says Allison.
"That includes if you're in a role presenting the Moroccan government's
views, trying to create a favorable impression. The whole point of FARA is so that
you can know who you're talking to, and there is no ambiguity. " (The
Justice Department declined to comment on Fatima's unregistered status.)
However they get the job done,
Morocco's lobbying efforts still appear capable of influencing American policy.
The U.S. mission to the United Nations, for instance, recently proposed adding a
human rights mandate to the U.N. mission in Western Sahara -- it is, after all,
currently the only U.N. peacekeeping force without one. But the United States dropped the proposal after the government of
Morocco and its allies lobbied against it -- and even canceled an annual
joint military exercise for U.S. and Moroccan troops in Morocco. The U.S. then
reverted to its longstanding position of posing no serious challenge to
Morocco's position on Western Sahara.
That non-confrontational attitude
looks set to continue. On Nov. 22, President Barack Obama received King
Mohammed VI in the Oval Office -- and used the meeting to hug the kingdom even
tighter. In a statement following the
meeting, Obama and the king also reaffirmed their commitment to working
together "to counter the threat of violent extremism in the region."
The White House also praised Morocco's plan for the Western Sahara, which is
widely rejected by Sahrawi activists, as "serious, realistic, and credible."
Meanwhile, as Morocco continues to
spend millions on lobbyists and public relations efforts, the decades-long
conflicts drags on with no end in sight.
AFP/Getty Images
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