Polisario Confidential goes to Washington

Polisario Confidential, as you may or may not know, is one of the ten or so sites that were thrown online by the Moroccan government about a year back, to get some anti-Polisario web buzz going. Given the relatively lax interest of Moroccan bloggers in the Sahara issue, it seems to be a pretty smart strategy. Hiring a webmaster and paying domain names is not very expensive, and it helps muddle the Polisario argument by creating a constant barrage of accusations they are forced to defend against. For example, it doesn't matter how many times the child-slavery-on-Cuba-nonsense is debunked, because (a) most Moroccans will never find out, given that their media does not report it, and (b) most foreigners, being new to the issue, don't know that it has been debunked. The same goes with accusations of Polisario and al-Qaida collaboration, or Polisario being a Marxist-Leninist terrorist group, or the Tindouf camps being concentration camps, and similar over-the-top mudslinging. It's classic shotgun tactics: fire away wildly, and something is likely to hit.

Most of these sites share the same material, all are registered at the same place and appeared at approximately the same time, and they all, most notably, insist that they have VERY TOP SECRET INSIDER INFORMATION. The general idea is that people googling about for information, hopefully journalists, will pick up some scare quotes and run with them. Since so few people outside the region knows much about the conflict, planting a few seeds like that can pay off handsomely in global media coverage. It would seem that strategy is working pretty well. Since Polisario doesn't have a website of its own, Polisario Confidential has by now reached # 3 in a standard English-language Google search for "polisario", beaten only by the unbeatable Wikipedia.

The only real problem seems to be one of execution: apparently it is impossible, just impossible, to hire a moderately competent writer for the job, despite the plethora of talented Moroccans out there. As evidence, and because it is likely to change, I here reproduce Polisario Confidential's latest newsflash in facsimile:

Exclusif : les communicants payés par Alger déploient la nouvelle stratégie du Front Polisario Ecrit par Khalid Ibrahim Khaled 27-09-2008
Alors que Washington, par la voix de « Condi » Rice, vient de réitérer le soutien américain à une forme d’autonomie pour régler le conflit du Sahara Occidental, les conseillers en communication du Front Polisario se sont réunis à New York en milieu de semaine avec leurs clients dans un célèbre restaurant de la « grande pomme », et ont décidé de dérouler une nouvelle stratégie. Au cœur de ces discussions, auxquelles a participé un adjoint du représentant permanent algérien auprès des Nations Unies -étant donné que c’est Alger qui signe les chèques des « consultants »-, la volonté de mouiller absolument le Maroc dans le récent coup d’état en Mauritanie, afin de le faire apparaître comme un « parrain régional ». Cette stratégie n’est cependant pas totalement au goût des « sponsors » algériens du Front Polisario, qui craignent que ces accusations systématiques, bien que fantaisistes, ne contribuent qu’à forger l’image d’un Maroc extrêmement puissant, et ne fassent de l’ombre à l’hôte du palais de la Mouradia, extrêmement soucieux de son image. En réalité, cette nouvelle stratégie de communication, théorisée par les communicants américains et anglais sous contrat avec l’état algérien, reflète la certaine fébrilité dans laquelle se trouve le front Polisario suite à la démission de Peter Van Walsum. En effet, tant que le diplomate hollandais était en poste, il constituait la tête de turc de la guérilla, celui à blâmer pour les soutiens qui s’amenuisent, et le ralliement des grandes puissances au plan d’autonomie marocain. En perdant son « meilleur ennemi », le Front Polisario se retrouve maintenant dans la position de devoir inventer un rôle au Maroc dans les bouleversements récents en Mauritanie, quitte à mettre en péril les liens qu’il entretient lui-même avec les nouveaux maîtres de Nouakchott…

This "exclusive" report, then, pretends to have information on a secret meeting between the Polisario leadership and Algeria-paid image consultants in a fancy restaurant in New York, where a new and nefarious strategy to tarnish the good name of Morocco was drawn up, presumably whilst consuming large amounts of alcohol and childrens' blood en plein Ramadan. The strategy consists in insinuating that the regime in Rabat is supportive of the recent coup in Mauritania -- something which obviously only a deranged hater of all things Moroccan would do.

This doesn't sound very plausible to begin with, but okay. Now, however, note the photograph that Polisario Confidential magically managed to snap of the secret meeting: Polisario leader Mohamed Abdelaziz poses with one of the consultants, eyes masked with a black stripe. It was filed as "abdelaziz_consultant.jpg," leaving little room to wonder who the guy to the right is: obviously one of the oil-paid Algerian public relations agents.

Unfortunately enough, a lot of the people likely to read Polisario Confidential -- we're not that many -- are also likely to read One Hump or Two, the very funny Western Sahara blog by US university student Will Sommer. That, in turn, means that they are quite likely to recognize the "consultant" as, precisely, Will Sommer. He took this photo of himself and Mohamed Abdelaziz while visiting a reception in Washington last spring with a friend, and posted it as seen to the right (without the eye masking) under the heading "How I met President Abdelaziz," on March 17, 2007.

Priceless! As Will recently wrote, "Whatever Morocco is paying the spies who run Polisario Confidential, it is too much."

As for me, I'm getting just the right amount of Algerian oil millions to be able to afford a Blogger account in support of the UN line on self-determination for the Sahara ... But should a better offer appear, I guess I might yet come to discover the merits of unilateral autonomy. Just saying.