Mohammed Ould Boah

No figures, no locations, no dates: the Polisario has proclaimed “general mobilization” against Morocco on the very day Algerian diplomacy suffered another setback at the UN. The announcement appears to have mobilized the Algerian press more than anyone else.

After the Kabylie wildfires and the drying up of reservoirs, now comes poisoned water. The Algerian regime is accusing Morocco of deliberately polluting the Hammam Boughrara Dam in Tlemcen. Five ministers have been dispatched to the scene, and state television has produced a documentary designed to make the case. Yet the only technical report it shows describes a reservoir overrun with algae, without a single mention of Morocco.

With potatoes in desperately short supply, Abdelmadjid Tebboune convened his ministers yesterday to rescue agriculture. Yet the official statement does not mention the word “potato” even once. The culprits, it turns out, are fallow fields, farmers holding on to their harvests and cows eating maize. It was left to a senator appointed by the president to propose the remedy: eat grass.

A prime minister convening his governors, a president threatening prison, laws providing for life sentences and seizures at wholesale markets: in Algeria, the potato has become a matter of state. Even voices considered close to military circles are now making it a symbol of a regime unable to feed its people.

The dollar is now approaching 250 dinars on Algiers’ black market, while the Bank of Algeria quotes it at 136. The gap between the official dinar and the real dinar exceeds 80%. Yet the government has based its 2027 budget on an exchange rate of 131 dinars to the dollar. A rate that no longer exists anywhere except in its spreadsheets.

On November 1, Algeria’s international television channel aired a film about the “decontamination” of the site of France’s Béryl nuclear test at In Ekker: a banner, a procession of technicians in white protective suits, idle cranes—and no actual decontamination. It is a well-rehearsed routine. The same approach has kept the Gara Djebilet mine alive on screen for years, though nobody has seen it operating. The film also leaves out the most important fact: most of France’s nuclear tests in the Sahara took place after Algerian independence, with Algiers’ consent.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres acknowledged the end of MINURSO on November 1 and announced that the mission would begin winding down. His statement makes no mention of a referendum or any return to the past. MINURSO is now history, and the UN is calling on the parties to help ensure its withdrawal as quickly as possible.

Twenty-four hours after the UN Security Council vote, Algeria’s Foreign Ministry finally broke its silence. Its statement did not celebrate a victory. Instead, it expressed the government’s “deep regret” over the end of MINURSO’s mandate. It blamed the US draft resolution, while making no mention of the Russian veto that Algerian diplomacy had sought.

Other United Nations missions have been disbanded before MINURSO. Some withdrew at the insistence of their host countries; others were brought down by a permanent Security Council member’s veto. MINURSO is the first to face both. And history shows that none of those missions has ever returned.