Opinion

Trucks in the desert and other ways of generating conflict

photo_camera marruecos-argelia

The story goes that, at the dawn of the Spanish-American War of 1898, when newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst was unable to obtain reliable reports on any kind of internal conflict in Cuba, his envoys there asked permission to return to New York: "No. I do the news. You provide the pictures and I'll provide the war," he told one of his illustrators. The rest we already know: after a series of sensationalist articles full of lies replicated all over the country, Hearst, the forerunner of yellow journalism, achieved his political purpose: to provoke a war that would end with the well-known 'disaster of '98'. 

In the 21st century, a few days ago we woke up to the news of two Algerian goods lorries allegedly bombed and burnt on the Ouargla - Nouakchott route, with three fatalities. In this case, the Algerian-Polish media apparatus immediately started to accuse Morocco of having carried out the attack in the Mauritanian area, which turned out to be untrue, as it turned out to be a false accusation. This turned out to be untrue, as the Mauritanian Ministry of Defence quickly responded to the self-serving hoaxes circulated by the media, which were endlessly replicated on social networks, by issuing a statement denying the claims. In other words, the incident did not take place within Mauritanian borders. 

The next international blow to the propagators of lies who wanted to start an escalation of war came from the UN itself, through its deputy spokesman Farhan Haq, when he stated in an initial assessment of the facts, using MINURSO itself as a source, that they confirmed that the site of the attack was near Bir Lehlu, east of the wall, in an area controlled by the Polisario and with restricted access. Moreover, the UN spokesman went so far as to state with incredulity about the reasons for the presence of these trucks in this area of military operations - especially since there is another route - that he has "no explanation as to why the trucks are where they are". 

Beyond the tragedy of the death of three human beings, which seems to have been forgotten by those who are shamelessly using it for propaganda purposes, it is more than obvious that the two Algerian trucks were in an inappropriate area, and that the contents of the cargo of these vehicles and who it was intended for are unknown, especially given their location at the time of the incident, details that make the whole thing certainly suspicious, as it could very well be a shipment of weapons. It is even possible that they could have crossed a minefield. In any case, Morocco denied the accusations when a government spokesman said "Morocco has a very scrupulous respect for the principles of good neighbourliness with everyone"

What is even more striking is the shamelessly rapid way in which the Polisario issued a communiqué supporting Algeria, condemning the incident and supporting Algeria by taking a totally uncorroborated version as valid, which they expressed automatically with the usual fanaticism, and then followed up with the corresponding threats in a belligerent tone. In this regard, we should not forget how the Polisario recently threw sand on the sand - never better said - to cover up two incidents in which the Algerian army assaulted the Sahrawi population living in the camps, which we denounced at the time. I am referring to the cases of the gold diggers who were attacked between October 2020 and April 2021, one of the cases even with the victims burned alive. Indeed, the double standards and double standards of the Polisario leaders, alarmed, outraged and devastated by the fate of these three Algerian truck drivers, but completely unconcerned and contemptuous of the attack and murder of their own by Algerian soldiers, are striking. They disregarded the lives of their own people only a few months ago, but now they are doing an absolute exercise in political and media 'mamporrerismo' towards their Algerian protector. 

The balance in this area, and essentially between these two countries, is particularly delicate. And there will always be those who are on the lookout to whip up public opinion, fan the flames and sow chaos using inventiveness as their main weapon. In this case not to sell newspapers like Hearst did back then, but the importance of the economic background to everything that happens in this region is clear. 

At this point, knowing the background of those who designed and propagated this story, it would not even be possible to rule out the possibility that this is a false flag attack. Nothing can surprise us any more about Algeria and the Polisario. After reading the latter's daily war reports, full of hyperbolic war exploits, but without any evidence to prove them, anything is possible. As in 1898 with the battleship Maine, some need something to happen even if nothing is happening, a trigger. And if not, let's invent it.