En un análisis titulado "Salvad Freedonia" (aludiendo al país imaginario que es tema de la película que alcanzó renombre gracias a los hermanos Marx), The Guardian estima que los cambios de la postura de EEUU en estos últimos tiempos y su alineamiento con la posición marroquí, "son obra de los grupos de presión compuestos especialmente por descendientes de cubanos dirigidos por Alberto Cárdenas, pero también de otros grupos de presión partidarios de Israel encabezados por el número dos del Consejo Nacional Norteamericano de Seguridad, Eliot Abrams.

"El régimen marroquí, añade el diario, ha gastado cerca de 30 millones de dólares destinados a comprar las posiciones de los miembros del Congreso de Estados Unidos para apoyar su plan relativo al Sáhara Occidental, territorio que ni siquiera conocen, y también para mantener una campaña denigrando al Frente Polisario al que ellos presentan, tan pronto como un aliado de Castro para ganarse el apoyo de Cárdenas, tan pronto como "un peligro terrorista potencial", para ganarse a los partidarios de Israel, representados por Abrams, cuyo nombre está unido a los escándalos del mercado de armamento del Congreso o el del Irangate".

Para el diario británico, Estados Unidos y Francia han querido adaptar el Derecho Internacional a favor del "plan marroquí" que propone la autonomía a los saharauis "tras de que Marruecos haya rechazo el derecho del pueblo saharaui a la autodeterminación" al que habían recurrido las Naciones Unidas y el Tribunal Internacional de Justicia, y que Marruecos aceptó antes de retractarse, ya que tomaron conciencia de que la autodeterminación no era de su interés.

Esta recorrido ha fracasado, continúa The Guardian, ya que el Consejo de Seguridad ha aprobado una resolución "consensuada" que no apoya el plan marroquí y pide negociaciones entre Marruecos y el Frente Polisario "con el fin de llegar a una solución política justa, duradera y aceptable por las dos partes de manera que garantice al pueblo del Sáhara Occidental el derecho a la autodeterminación".

Criticando la posición inestable de EEUU, el diario señala que "la nueva política norteamericana a favor de Marruecos apareció una semana antes de que el Consejo de Seguridad votara la resolución 1754 sobre el Sáhara Occidental, durante la cual algunos miembros del Congreso dirigieron una carta de apoyo al plan marroquí, cuando no saben nada de este asunto".

"Puede afirmarse, sin temor a equivocarse, que todos los firmantes de la carta no han oído hablar jamás del Sáhara Occidental", añade el diario londinense "The Guardian".

El diario no deja de señalar el sospechoso papel de Abrams, conocido por ser uno de los más grandes amigos de Israel implicados en la planificación de la guerra contra Irak y uno de los arquitectos de la "guerra contra el terrorismo" norteamericana.(SPS)

020/090/700 030935 Mayo 07 SPS

When it comes to Western Sahara, America's Africa policy is so bad you'd think it was dealing with an imaginary country from a Groucho Marx movie.

Ian Williams

Not many people have heard of the Western Sahara dispute and most congressmen could not tell it from Freedonia - until the lobbyists came a-knocking.

Yesterday, the UN Security Council fought back a Franco-American effort to rewrite international law in favour of Morocco and against the people of Western Sahara. Morocco has offered dubious "autonomy" to Western Sahara, but is refusing to hold the referendum in the territory that the World Court and the UN Security Council have called for - and to which Morocco had agreed, until it became clear that it would lose.

The compromise resolution did not endorse the Moroccan plan, but called for talks between Morocco and the Sahrawi Polisario, "with a view to achieving a just, lasting and mutually acceptable political solution, which will provide for the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara." The Moroccan plan directly precluded self-determination.

The US's new pro-Moroccan policy was heralded last week when no less than 168 members of congress signed a letter demanding that the White House support Morocco - regardless of international law or previous policy.

We can safely assume that at least 160 of them had never heard of Western Sahara a month ago. When the learned members of congress rush to sign a fact-free letter on foreign policy, you can be sure that there is a lobby at work.

Not that the lobbies have to work too hard. In foreign policy matters congressmen can be like urinal walls - you can write anything on them. In 1992, a Spy magazine reporter called some two score Republican congressional new-comers for the Newt Gingrich revolution and asked them what they were going to do about the situation in Freedonia. The neocons had not taken over then, so not one of them suggested regime change and getting rid of Groucho. Instead, they waffled in a statesmanlike way about the efforts they would take to ensure stability there.

So, on this occasion, who could be too surprised to discover that the lobbyists responsible for those diplomatic triumphs, the war in Iraq, the war on terror, the embargo on Cuba and America's uncritical support for whichever nudnik heads the Knesset were also those who garnered the 168 signatures?

Morocco has put in some $30m into its lobbying effort and, through its surrogate, the "Moroccan American Policy Center", has been tickling the soft underbelly of the congress.

Toby Muffett, a former Connecticut representative who had been elected on a Naderite clean-up-Congress ticket, engagingly described a week in the life of a lobbyist in the Los Angeles Times recently:

I leave and rush to the House side of the Capitol to meet another client, the ambassador from Morocco. We have a meeting with a key member of the Appropriations Committee. Morocco has a good story to tell. It is a reliable friend of the U.S. It believes that the long-standing dispute with Algeria and the rebel Polisario group over the western Sahara must be resolved.

We tell the congresswoman and her staff that the region is becoming a possible Al Qaeda training area. ...My idea is to sell this as a chance for Democrats to resolve a dispute in a critical region, in contrast to the president's utter failure to fix anything.

And on the Republican side, Elliot Abrams the "deputy national security adviser for global democracy strategy", a hawkish pro-Israeli supporter and one of the neocon devisers of the Iraq war, has also been pushing the Moroccan plan, betraying the same insouciance towards legal technicalities that he did when convicted over the Iran/Contra scandal.

In Washington, the Moroccan Embassy hired Edelman for $35,000 a month as its lobbyist, which of course had nothing to with the timely letter from an increasingly conservative and belligerent American Jewish Committee weighing in with a letter of support for the king, who combines being chair of the Organization of the Islamic Conference's Committee for Jerusalem with being one of Israel's best friends in the Arab world.

For Morocco supporters, an enemy's friend is a hated foe. Polisario has the dubious benefit of Castro's support and that is enough, (plus a $15,000 monthly retainer) to rally the Florida delegation, which has also noticed that El Jefe has a soft spot for the Palestinians as well, with similar results on their voting patterns.

The 168 signatories are almost a roll-call of anti-Castro, pro-Israeli members of Congress, and their numbers were doubtless boosted when the MACP recently hired the law-and-lobbying firm of Alberto Cardenas, a veteran anti-Castro Cuban American who served two terms as head of Florida's Republican Party and co-chaired Bush's 2004 effort in the Sunshine State.

That alone should put in relief his concern for Democracy in north Africa. But just in case you had lingering doubts, Freedom House and similar bodies give Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara and Zimbabwe the same human rights score, just beating, by a wrenched out finger-nail, Tibet, Cuba, North Korea, and Sudan.

If in doubt, of course, invoke terrorism. Most of the letters from the King's men and women invoke the Polisario-held areas as potential heartlands of al-Qaida style terrorism. Oddly enough, in the real world, the Polisario's biggest supporter is Algeria, which is battling Islamic extremists with some considerable vigour - indeed a little too much for some tender minded observers - while Polisario itself was, until recently, proclaimed a communist plot by American politicians, which is why they have tacitly supported the Moroccan occupation all these years.

But luckily, it's not all Duck Soup on Capitol Hill - even if there are far too many horse feathers around for comfort. Most of the members of the African subcommittee in the house were among the 50-plus who signed an opposing letter demanding US support for Sahrawi self-determination. But without Moroccan money behind it, not many people heard about the story.

It's no way to rule a world!