Foreign Relations of the United States, 1981–1988, Volume XXIV, North Africa

90. Telegram From the Embassy in Algeria to the Department of State¹

3253.

Algiers, June 11, 1988, 1305Z

SUBJECT

• The Day After: A Maghreb Mini-Summit.

1. Confidential—Entire text.

2. Summary. The day after the close of the emergency Arab summit,² Chiefs of State of Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Libya, and Mauritania held their “Maghreb mini-summit” on Friday June 10. Bendjedid and Hassan met before the full gathering, and King Fahd joined the Maghrebians for lunch. Leaders decided to form a committee to study the building of Grand Maghreb. Committee will hold its first meeting in Algiers July 13. Hassan and Bendjedid were stars of the event. Polisario was notably absent, and Western Sahara barely earned a mention in Algerian press commentary. End summary.

Fahd, Hassan, and Bendjedid the Stars

3. The leaders of five Maghreb states—Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Libya, and Mauritania—met in Algiers June 10, day after the closing of the Arab League emergency summit. Session began with a meeting between Hassan and Bendjedid accompanied by their entourages. Algerians attending were the entire top echelon of government: FLN Permanent Secretariat Chief Messaadia; Foreign Minister Ibrahimi; Presidential Cabinet Director Belkheir; and Interior Minister Khediri.

4. Following the full session, the two Chiefs of State moved to Bendjedid’s beach house in nearby Zeralda, where Saudi King Fahd joined them for a three-way private meeting. Then the other three Maghreb leaders arrived for a lunch with Fahd, Hassan and Bendjedid. Fahd left Zeralda after lunch, and the five Maghrebian leaders held their meeting that afternoon. According to the communique issued afterward, the leaders decided to form a committee to prepare the means of building a Grand Maghreb. This committee will meet July 13 in Algiers.

5. From media point of view, Hassan and Bendjedid were the stars, with King Fahd in a major supporting role. Bendjedid’s early morning visit to Hassan on his boat; the latter’s gracious thanks to his host at the conference closing ceremony; and the media and official attention lavished on the Moroccans their last day here indicate both sides are determined to maintain the euphoria created by the restoration of relations (now almost a month old). Fahd’s presence represented both his blessing the meetings and an acknowledgement of his role as mediator and reconciler.

6. Comment. At first glance, the five-way summit itself produced little of substance beyond forming the committee and the photo-session. Nevertheless, the meeting itself demonstrated that frictions surrounding the summit, especially between Qadhafi and Hassan (see Algiers 3249)³ would not prevent the leaders from meeting under Algerian auspices. End comment.

Wither the SDAR?

7. Mini-summit was most notable for who was not there: the Polisario. It is clear that the Algerians now consider the Grand Maghreb an arrangement of five states and that Polisario’s interests will have to be advanced in some other way. The Algerians’ message from both the Bendjedid-Hassan and the multi-lateral contacts was clear: the Polisario and the Western Sahara question are not going to interfere with Algerian-Moroccan reconciliation and with Algeria’s Arab-based regional diplomacy.

8. Algerian Press Service (APS) commentary in June 11 daily El Moudjahid drove home the above message. Its editorial, entitled “On the Way to Unity”, made no mention of the Western Sahara and made only oblique references to “painful problems still unresolved.”

9. Same editorial also distorted history when it claimed that the FLN Central Committee meeting of June 1987 had issued a call for Maghreb unity. Central Committee had done no such thing, but had instead urged bi-lateral Libyan-Algerian unity as a “natural and historical necessity”. Central committee message was suppressed until after FLN Politburo met two weeks later and set the record straight by issuing call for building a greater Maghreb on solid economic and cultural foundations.

10. Comment: We suspect the above example of doublethink from Algeria’s Ministry of Truth is an acknowledgement that even those who once urged union with Libya have now joined the bandwagon of a Grand Maghreb of five with Morocco in and the Polisario out.

Brayshaw

1. Source: Department of State, Central Foreign Policy File, Electronic Telegrams, D880503–0454. Confidential; Immediate. Sent for information Immediate to the Arab League Collective. Sent for information to Paris and USCINCEUR.
2. Reference is to the Fifteenth Arab League Summit held in Algiers June 7–9, which expressed support for the Palestinian intifada. Documentation on this issue is scheduled for publication in Foreign Relations, 1981–1988, vol. XIX, Arab-Israeli Dispute.
3. See footnote 2, Document 180.