The Movement for the Autonomy of Kabylie (MAK), which calls from Paris for self-determination for the mountainous region of northern Algeria, has hired a US lobbyist based in Morocco to advocate with officials and US lawmakers to enlist their support.
According to the MAK, this move is motivated by “concerns aroused by the deepening of ties between Algeria and Russia ” and “the severe repression of pro-democracy demonstrations”.
According to records filed this week with the US Department of Justice, the MAK recruited Elisabeth Myers, an American lawyer, to represent it in Washington. The contract was signed on June 25.
“The MAK will underline the closeness of the Algerian government to Russia [of President Vladimir] Putin”
– Movement for the Autonomy of Kabylie (MAK)
Elisabeth Myers registered as a lobbyist using an address in Marrakech on the same day.
“[His] activities will consist of promoting American friendship with Kabylia, understanding the region, its people, and the impact of the Algerian government’s heavy-handed tactics on the region,” the documents state.
The MAK has already held meetings with the offices of two US lawmakers.
Ferhat Mehenni, president of the self-proclaimed Kabyle provisional government since 2010, under an international arrest warrant since 2021, sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment by an Algiers court in 2022, was to meet virtually, Thursday, June 19, senior officials in the office of Democratic Senator Tim Kaine and Democratic Congressman Don Beyer, according to a source familiar with the matter contacted by Middle East Eye.
Orbit of Moscow
“The MAK will underscore the Algerian government’s closeness to [President Vladimir] Putin’s Russia and ensure that congressional staff has a better understanding of the government’s massive human rights abuses against peaceful protesters and political opponents,” this source told.
After Russia invaded Ukraine, the United States tried to push Algeria out of Moscow’s orbit. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited the country in March 2022 as part of a larger trip to the region that included a stopover in Morocco.
But the friendly relations between Algiers and Moscow, which date back to the war against colonial France for the independence of Algeria, resist American pressure, even though relations between Algiers and Washington are very good: in June, Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune met Putin during a visit to Russia and they agreed to strengthen their strategic partnership.
At the same time, the rush of European countries to find alternatives to Russian gas has helped to strengthen the autonomy of Algeria, which has replaced Russia as Italy’s main gas supplier and now buys military equipment. of Italian manufacture.
Algiers has otherwise locked itself in a dispute with Spain over the status of Western Sahara , which has halted non-energy trade between the two countries.
MAK was designated as a terrorist organization
The Algerian system – a decision-making structure combining a set of civil, military, and economic networks and a powerful administration – is regularly questioned about violations of rights against journalists, activists and opposition parties.
The popular demonstrations of 2019, known as the hirak, which led to the fall of Abdelaziz Bouteflika, did not allow the system to begin a transformation towards more democracy.
Arrests at the highest levels of the military, and political hierarchy but also among captains of industry in the name of the fight against the mafia networks of the Bouteflika era have, on the contrary, contracted the system further and hampered initiatives in favor of more ‘opening.
Algeria has designated MAK as a terrorist organization in 2021. Authorities have accused the group of working with Morocco and Israel to start deadly forest fires in the Kabylie region. MAK and Morocco have denied these allegations.
A 2021 US State Department terrorism report called the terrorism label “more political than security-driven”, adding that Algerian authorities refrained from discussing the movement or its threats with their counterparts. Americans.
Morocco and Algeria often accuse each other of stirring up trouble across their common border.
Algeria hosts and supports the Polisario Front, an armed political movement behind the creation of the self-proclaimed democratic Sahrawi Arab Republic in 1973 in disputed Western Sahara, which Morocco annexed in 1975 after the end of colonial rule Spanish.
The United States unilaterally recognized Moroccan sovereignty over the territory in exchange for Rabat normalizing relations with Israel.
The Amazighs, sometimes also called Berbers, are an ethnic group scattered across Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco and Libya whose roots in the region predate the Arab conquest of North Africa.
Amazighs are thought to make up around 20% of Algeria’s 44 million people. Their culture and language have historically been suppressed by the Algerian government. Amazigh militants played a leading role during the hirak.
