A report from the National Police yesterday called into question the official Government narrative about Morocco’s involvement in the invasion suffered in Ceuta at the end of July. “There is no information from the State security forces, the CNI, or any intelligence center that raises any doubt about the participation, in one way or another, of the Moroccan authorities,” the president stated on the microphones of the Ser network last Monday, perhaps too categorically.
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The police report released yesterday – conveniently 24 hours before Pedro Sánchez’s intervention today in the Congress of Deputies – reveals that there was “total permissiveness” from the Moroccan gendarmes, who made “no serious attempt to try to reduce, disperse or move away” the migrants arriving at the border. Upon learning of this document’s existence, the Interior Minister, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, made public a letter addressed to his own Director General of the Police in which he asked him to clarify more precisely the Government of Morocco’s link to the assault, while lamenting not having had prior knowledge of this report.
The images provided by the dossier – mostly videos that circulated on social networks during the days of the assault – corroborate the passivity of some agents. The only argument the Government clung to yesterday was that the report could not directly attribute the organization of the assault to the Moroccan authorities. But the police report’s impact had already been made. And it added to the coordination errors of the different intelligence services, which failed to detect the assault of more than 70,000 people at the border.
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As we wrote yesterday, Spain’s current dependence on Morocco to be able to expel part of the migrants still in Ceuta and prevent more from entering forces the Government to be very cautious in its criticisms of Rabat. But this translates into a wear on the credibility of the Executive’s discourse. Sánchez has today the opportunity to expose the harsh reality or continue with euphemisms so as not to offend the Moroccan neighbor.
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