Algeria has just carried out a ministerial reshuffle, the most important change of which was made at the level of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. By dismissing Ramtane Lamamra to replace him with Ahmed Attaf, what change for Algerian diplomacy?
The new Algerian foreign minister, Ahmed Attaf, is not new to the mysteries of Algerian power. At 70, the diplomat was called to become Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1996 to 1999 before disappearing completely from the Algerian political scene.
This dusting of a dinosaur operated by the presidency to replace a man of Lamamra’s caliber, isolated by Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, reflects the delicate situation within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the instability of Algerian foreign policy .
Before thanking him, Ramtane Lamamra was ignored and orders to take away his powers and give them to the secretary general of his own ministry, simply shocked. For many weeks, it was Amar Belani, a close associate of the president, who led talks and meetings with foreign officials while Lamamra was neither sick nor absent.
This change comes as the Algerian government has taken an even more threatening and hostile turn towards Morocco in recent years. The creation of a tailor-made post for Amar Belani, whose only competence is to fire red balls at Morocco, as “special envoy for Western Sahara” and then his recent appointment to the general secretariat of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs foreign affairs, testifies to this new direction taken by the Algerian presidency.
The severance of diplomatic relations with Morocco is also one of the determinants of this new policy hostile to Morocco assumed in Algeria. All these things did not fit with Ramtane Lamamra, who nevertheless endorsed these positions and these decisions, thus becoming the ministry that signed the break with Morocco.
However, in the furious madness of the Algerian President, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, supporter of the closing of the borders and of the army represented by Said Chengriha who cut his teeth on the Moroccan border, a head of diplomacy was needed who would obey the finger and the eye without expressing any reservations.
The name of Belani was tipped for this post but the “surprise” was to bring out a former who made the national school of administration like Abdelmadjid Tebboune, and also a supporter of the closure of the borders even well before their closure in 1994.
Ahmed Attaf had expressed his opinion regarding relations with Morocco while the two countries had normal and even cordial diplomatic relations at the time. An extremist, he wanted to close the borders and risk triggering a diplomatic crisis for no valid reason.
It is therefore an anti-Moroccan profile to which Abdelmadjid Tebboune appealed to take the head of the Department of Foreign Affairs whose name also changed during this ministerial reshuffle to take a name similar to that of the Moroccan ministry.
Regarding the subject of the closure of the borders with Morocco, at the time Ahmed Attaf was not yet a minister, he nevertheless held the post of Secretary of State for Maghreb Affairs. He justified this position by smuggling between the two countries.
At the time, Algeria closed in on itself, heir to communism, but the Algerian people did not want it. He wanted to be in tune with his time and wear American brands, Levi’s jeans and drink Coca cola that he discovered in Morocco, and that’s how all these products banned in Algeria, found their way to Algerians because there was a request from the Algerian people.
At the same time, in need of foreign currency to be able to buy other consumer products, the Algerians exchanged fuel with the Moroccans at the border, going so far as to dry up the reservoirs in Algeria. This situation was becoming untenable for the Algerian leaders who saw no other solution than to close the borders to stop these incessant comings and goings between Morocco and Algeria.
On the Sahara issue, Ahmed Attaf naturally adopted the Algerian military position which seeks to exculpate itself from this story to highlight the Polisario militia that it pays and maintains militarily.
Product of military thought, Attaf will have to continue to execute foreign affairs under a military-security approach, which will amount to new disappointments for Algeria, which has continuously fallen into political errors since the accession to power of Abdelmadjid Tebboune. .
His appointment should worsen the position of the Algerian administration at the diplomatic level and weaken Algeria at the regional and continental level.