The fawning Moroccan press would have it that King Mohammed VI has stamped his authority on the troubled country in his first five years on the throne. If M6, as he is colloquially called, does rule with a gentler hand, it is because his father, who enjoyed popping into prisons to keep his torturing techniques sharp, is an impossibly brutal act to follow.
The fact is M6 has been a bitter disappointment to those who believed his promises of social reform when he was crowned.
Morocco pretends to be a democracy. In fact it remains an absolute monarchy. Understanding the governance of the kingdom requires not listening to what is said in its Parliament, but scanning the speeches of M6, to whom every civil and military figure swears allegiance.
Last month M6 was received by President George W Bush in Washington and the United States concluded a free trade agreement with Morocco — its first in Africa. In doing so, Bush has embraced a country that brutally suppresses its own people and shows contempt for its continental partners and the international community. In addition, Bush has further demonstrated the US’s ability to turn a blind eye to tyranny when it believes this is to its strategic advantage — particularly in the Arab world.
The US has given M6 $60-million to fight terrorism in Morocco. Fifteen months ago a dozen suicide bombers killed 45 people in a coordinated series of attacks at five locations in Casablanca. Security forces have since detained thousands and 14 people have been sentenced to death in connection with the blasts.
Moroccans feature prominently on the lists of suspects in the March 11 bombings that killed 191 people and injured close to 2 000 in Madrid. This certainly has not assisted the anticipated thaw in relations between these neighbours when a Socialist government took power in Spain.
Neither will the new initiative by the government of Jose Luis Zapatero to fire up the issue of the Western Sahara.
Morocco has illegally occupied this former Spanish colony since 1975 and turned its back on Africa when the Organisation of African Unity admitted the government in exile of the Western Sahara as a member.