The Sunday Mail
. . . as Morocco fields candidate
Africa Moyo —
TOURISM and Hospitality Industry Minister Dr Walter Mzembi, who was endorsed by the Heads of State and Government as Africa’s candidate for the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) Secretary General’s post, is fretting over the candidature of a top Moroccan official for the same position.
Morocco’s minister of Tourism Mr Lahcen Haddad, is understood to have thrown his name in the hat for the May 11 and 12, 2017 UNWTO SG poll, which is scheduled for Madrid, Spain.
This is despite a standing pact of African Heads of State and Government entered into at the Kigali summit in July this year that the continent would field one candidate, Dr Mzembi, for the influential global tourism position.
Morocco is not a member of the African Union after dumping the organisation in 1984 when it was still known as the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in protest over the group’s support for the Polisario Front separatist movement and its recognition of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR). This means Morocco can argue that it is not bound by AU agreements, despite having attended the Kigali summit that endorsed Dr Mzembi as the African candidate.
It is unclear if Mr Haddad is being backed by Morocco. In an interview on Kenya-based Punchline TV recently, Dr Mzembi said he was aware that Mr Haddad had filed his name for the UNWTO SG job, but urged him to respect the wishes of African leaders.
“I am aware of the candidature of the Minister of Morocco Tourism Mr Lahcen Haddad, and I hardly think that he has the endorsement of Morocco itself.
“If he has, it’s in conflict with the overall big picture desire of the Moroccans who want to get back into the African Union . . . I am sure the superior argument of belonging to Africa would prevail.
“I was there (in Morocco) and I met the minister of Agriculture, who is the Acting Minister of Tourism and I didn’t get the sense that they wouldn’t support me. I actually got a sense that if we package our act together as Africa, and make them understand that there was a decision made by the African Heads of State, which is now being translated into action by the African Foreign Ministers and Tourism Ministers, they will respect that decision and they will urge the brother who is trying to compete against the national interests of Morocco to step down and respect African decisions and the glorious product that they have in tourism in Morocco,” said Dr Mzembi.
Morocco’s King Mohammed VI wrote a lengthy letter to the July 2016 AU summit in Rwanda, declaring his country’s intention to rejoin the continental body.
The King’s letter wasn’t void of reproach and blame towards the AU for its support of SADR, which has been a conflict zone since the Polisario was founded in 1973 to liberate Western Sahara from what it deemed “Moroccan colonialism”.
But Dr Mzembi urged Mr Haddad not to “spoil” Morocco’s intended return to the AU by pressing ahead with his candidature for the UNWTO SG’s post.
“If you look at the map of Africa, Africa is not complete without Morocco and I am very encouraged by their overtures to the African Union that they want to come back in.
“And they should be encouraged to come back in. However it is a coming back that should respect the prevailing African decisions, one of them being the African candidature on my race to the UNWTO.
“I am carrying the cross for Africa and the AU Heads of State, in their collective, the 54 of them, endorsed my candidature during the Kigali summit,” said Dr Mzembi.
He said it was critical to “take our candidature in its absolute sense” and turn bloc votes to the voting and not allow anyone from outside the continent to divide “our unity, our absolute sense of collectivity”.
Western countries thrive on dividing Africa on key matters mainly on the basis of who their former colonisers were.
Analysts say West and some parts of North Africa, which were largely colonised by France, pander to the whims of Paris while those that were colonised by the British such as Ghana and Nigeria, are also conditioned to support the aspirations of London.
Dr Mzembi says other candidates believe they can easily divide Africa – as is feared to be happening with the Morocco debacle – and win the UNWTO SG polls.
“My plea is that we comply with the African Union Heads of State decision to take a united Africa to the elections that are going to be held on the 11th and 12th of May 2017.
“With Africa marching together into Madrid, we are certain to go through the first round or scoop the election on the first round. So my plea is for African unity, my plea is for Africa Tourism ministers to respect the decisions of their own Heads of State.
“It is our time; we should never allow anything to rob us of our time to run global tourism and place on the agenda of global tourism our thoughts on how we can grow the cake rather than to share the little which is happening now,” said Dr Mzembi.
Global tourism has largely plateaued, growing at 4 percent to 5 percent every year but is generating US$1,5 trillion in direct exports.
The world over, US$1,2 billion is generated in terms of travels while 288 million people are employed in the tourism sector.
However, of all the statistics, Africa’s market share is a mere 3 percent to 5 percent, making it the weak link.
Dr Mzembi suggests that if African Tourism ministers play ball in Madrid, he would strive to transform the continent’s fortunes and put it at par and in equity with the other five regions.
“I seek to place Africa on the agenda of global tourism, an Africa that will be understood differently through a “Brand Africa” construction that will show our strengths more than our weaknesses. We have very few weaknesses compared to the globe but because we don’t control the media, our story is not told properly,” he said.
Global media organisations blow out of proportion events such as hunger and terrorism in Africa, but downplays similar, if not worse events, when they occur in the West. The West has announced travel warnings to Kenya following the 2013 Westgate Shopping Mall shootings that claimed 67 lives, but the same has not happened for France, where terrorists gunned down 12 journalists for satirical weekly newspaper, Charlie Hebdo in Paris early last year.
Similarly, in July this year, 84 people were mowed down by a lorry driver in Nice, France, on Bastille Day and no travel warnings have been issued.
Only last week, a tractor trailer barreled into a crowded Christmas market in Berlin, Germany, and killed 12 people, but reportage in global media organisations such as SkyNews, CNN and BBC, appears to focus only on the alleged Tunisian-born terrorist, and not the country as an unsafe tourist destination.
