North Africa Archive

United Nations-led talks to resolve Libya’s unrest have been undermined by revelations of extensive links between the outgoing U.N. mediator, Bernardino Leon, and the United Arab Emirates, one of the regional powers that openly backs one side of the civil war. But not everything is lost, provided Leon’s successor, the veteran German and U.N. diplomat Martin Kobler, can overcome three outstanding obstacles. Leon was trying to broker a country-wide cease-fire and a national unity deal between competing factions that have fought each other since the summer of 2014 and split Libya into two rival governments: the internationally recognized one in […]

Mounting tensions between opposing factions of Tunisia’s ruling Nidaa Tounes party came to a head Monday, when 32 of its 86 lawmakers announced their resignation from the governing bloc in parliament. Just days prior, a meeting of the party’s executive board turned violent, indicating that long-simmering internal feuds might finally boil over. If confirmed, the shakeup would leave Nidaa Tounes’ coalition partner, Ennahda, the Islamist party that was elected in 2011 to lead the constitution-drafting process that ended last year, with the plurality of seats in parliament—69 of 217. Divisions within Nidaa Tounes are not new. The party, which comprises […]

Last month, 5,400 troops from across Africa participated in a military exercise in South Africa, the last joint exercise before the African Standby Force becomes fully operational. In an email interview, Gilbert Khadiagala, a professor of international relations at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, discussed the state of multilateral security cooperation in Africa. WPR: What are the planned objectives for African multinational security cooperation, in terms of institutional architecture and force structures, and where do those plans currently stand in terms of implementation? Gilbert Khadiagala: The African Union’s (AU) Peace and Security Architecture includes the creation of […]

In Morocco’s largest protest since 2011, more than 20,000 demonstrators, primarily youth, rallied in Tangier on Saturday, decrying the exorbitant cost of water and electricity. Although mass gatherings are scarce in Morocco, where the king holds a tight grip on power, the past three weeks have been punctuated by demonstrations over utilities prices, with protests spreading to other major cities in recent days. Protesters lashed out against Amendis, a subsidiary of the French utility company Veolia Environnement, which has serviced the relatively impoverished northern cities of Tangier and Tetouan since 2002. “Amendis, go home, Tangier is not yours,” demonstrators chanted, […]