By Magdi Abdelhadi
North Africa analyst
In Morocco they call them the occupied "Sebtah and Melilah". The rest of the world knows them as the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla in North Africa. They are the only piece of European territory on mainland Africa - a political and legal reality that has never been recognized by Morocco, which has continued to demand their return, along with four other smaller territories in the Mediterranean all in the narrow strait of Gibraltar.
Last month, an exceptionally large number of migrants crossed the border in one single day - some 8,000, mostly Moroccans. It also emerged that the Moroccan guards turned a blind eye to the breach.
The incident quickly developed into a diplomatic crisis between Spain and Morocco, prompting the Spanish government to send reinforcements to the territories and Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez to describe it as an "unprecedented [crisis] in recent years between the EU and Morocco".
As the crisis was unfolding, Moroccans launched a campaign on Twitter, with the slogans: "Ceuta and Melilla is not Spain" and "Ceuta and Melilla are Moroccan - end colonialism".
Arab media reported on ugly scenes inside Ceuta showing angry altercations between Spanish protesters opposed to migration and Muslim women of Moroccan descent.
"These are not migrants, they are in their own country," one person tweeted. …
… "From a political and administrative standpoint, for the most part of their history, these two enclaves were not considered full-fledged Spanish cities.
"Their status varied between being military fortification and open-air prisons [presidios] where shadowy people were sent to serve their sentences or were outright disposed of and kept away from the peninsula," he says
But what does international law say on the claim and the counter-claim?
"Under international law, Morocco doesn't have strong claims to Ceuta and Melilla, which have been Spanish for hundreds of years. There are significant legal and political barriers to any change in status of those territories in favour of Morocco," writes Dr Jamie Trinidad of Cambridge University in the UK.
"Politically, the fact that the populations of Ceuta and Melilla wish to remain Spanish is the most significant barrier to any change of status. The idea of Morocco taking over these cities against the wishes of their populations is almost unthinkable in this day and age," he adds.
In other words, even if there were ever a dramatic change in the balance of power and the question of sovereignty was put to the people of Ceuta and Melilla, what are the chances of them ever opting to be ruled by Morocco rather than a European democracy? It's not hard to guess.
Whole Article: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-57305882
Read more...