Wasaps from Moncloa reveal the fear of Rabat due to immigration: "Another wave will be tremendous"

Internal government WhatsApps reveal the fear in Moncloa of Moroccan attacks on immigration policy like the one suffered by Ceuta in May 2021. El Confidencial has had access to the communications that the Executive maintained with the authorities of the autonomous city during that crisis that marked the high point of diplomatic tensions between Madrid and Rabat. The Ceuta Administration asked to distribute the migrants throughout the peninsula, but Moncloa refused because they could not send that message to Morocco: “You have to think that another wave of arrivals in Ceuta or another territory would be even more tremendous”. In these communications, in addition, the Government of Pedro Sánchez admitted that the massive entry of people led him to seek “a political strategy with Morocco”. The conflict ended almost a year later with the recognition of the autonomy of the neighboring country over Western Sahara..

These confidential conversations were on the mobile phone of the vice president of Ceuta, Mabel Deu, prosecuted together with the former government delegate Salvadora Mateos. They are accused of having committed a crime of continued prevarication by illegally returning to Morocco 55 minors who entered Spain in that massive entry two years ago now. Mabel Deu has provided the court with her wasaps with Moncloa, with the Ministry of Social Affairs, directed by Ione Belarra, and with the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migrations. There are hundreds of messages maintained at the highest level around one of the most sensitive points of the legislature, the relationship with Morocco and immigration policy.. The most fluid contact occurred with the former Chief of Staff of Vice President Carmen Calvo, Isabel Valldecabres.

Communication between Deu and Valldecabres began on May 19, 2021. “We are requesting the Army,” the vice president of Ceuta wrote to the senior Moncloa official. “And me!” Replied the right hand of Carmen Calvo. Two days earlier, the border with Ceuta was the scene of a massive entry of people due to the passivity of the Moroccan security forces, who did nothing to prevent it.. The authorities described the events as an “invasion” and estimated 12,000 people who accessed illegally. Among them were at least a thousand minors.. Ceuta has a population of 84,000 inhabitants and its local government declared itself overwhelmed. In the messages held by this newspaper, it can be seen that there were several requests for express help made to the central Executive.

Mabel Deu's last request for help took place on June 29, 2021, a month and a half after Morocco opened wide the migratory tap on the border city: “Good morning Bela (Isabel Valldecabres), is there any news? ? The situation is really chaotic, and we cannot make more calls for help and help and we do not see any change in this”. Carmen Calvo's number two did not answer until four days later: “Mabel, we continue to press for Morocco to accept minors. You have to maintain that objective because whatever your minors leave Ceuta will take away our strength… we understand the situation, but you also have to think that another wave of arrivals in Ceuta or another territory will be even more tremendous”.

Carmen Calvo's chief of staff went further when it came to justifying the blockade situation and confessed that the solution with the migrants was linked to a long-range agreement with Rabat: “I understand that you are overwhelmed with the situation there. We share the concern, but the Government has to establish a political strategy with Morocco”. In the previous weeks, the high office of Moncloa also showed that the massive entry of people into Ceuta was part of a more complex context, and that the Maghrebi authorities were torpedoing repatriations: “We are going to talk to the liaison magistrate in Morocco Let's see if we can organize a return of the children as soon as possible, but you know what attitude Morocco has now”. Days later, he insisted on this idea: “Mabel, we are speeding up the returns as much as possible but you know that it is not something that is never done quickly with Morocco and now less”.

That massive entry occurred just a few weeks after the Spanish Government received the leader of the Polisario Front, Brahim Ghali, Morocco's number one enemy in its dispute over control of Western Sahara, in a hospital in Logroño.. The events on the Ceuta border further strained relations on both sides of the Strait. It ended precisely with a letter published in Moroccan media, according to which, the Executive of Pedro Sánchez recognizes the autonomy of Rabat over the territory, a former Spanish colony. From the Executive they announced a new era in the relations of both nations with special attention to the control of migratory flows.

In that period of diplomatic tension, it was learned that President Sánchez was spied on with the Pegasus program.. Also the Ministers of Defense and Interior, Margarita Robles and Fernando Grande-Marlaska. The attacks occurred between the months of May and June 2021, in the midst of an escalation of tension and with the city of Ceuta overwhelmed. There is no evidence that Morocco was behind this attack on the cell phone of the leader of the Spanish Executive, but there are reports and investigations that place Rabat among the clients of the Israeli company that distributes the Pegasus program.. The National Court opened some proceedings to investigate the case, but has recently filed them due to Israel's lack of collaboration.

Carmen Calvo left the Government in July of that year in the framework of a reshuffle in which Minister José Luis Ábalos also left the Cabinet. His chief of staff left the position with Calvo, who was no longer at Moncloa when, in mid-August, the repatriations of minors began. Justice has already determined in contentious-administrative proceedings that that repatriation was illegal, and now it is being investigated through criminal proceedings as an alleged crime of prevarication. In the messages that Mabel Deu has provided to the court, there is no relevant information about those days in August, but the relationship she had with Moncloa weeks before shows, as this newspaper announced, that Interior was at all times behind the idea of handing over to minors at the border.

“Now we can bend the hand of the Prosecutor's Office”

“Interior insists that if you make a request from your entity that the minors be returned, they start managing it,” Valldecabres told the vice president of Ceuta from Madrid on June 22. Being minors, specific guarantees were necessary that are not required of adults. “The prosecutor is causing problems,” warned the senior Moncloa official, which is why she insisted: “If you tell Interior that you authorize their delivery to Morocco, they can request it (…). A letter to the Government Delegation will suffice”. “Morocco has said that they have to return and we have to invent the procedure. If you request the return, we can bend the hand of the Prosecutor's Office ”, they added from Moncloa.

The events finally happened as both leaders spoke. On August 10, the Ministry of the Interior definitively activated the return of the minors by means of a letter sent to the Government Delegation. From the department directed by Fernando Grande-Marlaska they allege that it was not an order, but rather an unofficial request and that it was made at the request of the city of Ceuta. Instead of being governed by the Immigration Law, Spain and Morocco sought to streamline procedures by resorting to a bilateral agreement signed in 2007 on immigration that had never been used before.. The defendants, Mabel Deu and the Government delegate, affirmed in court that everything was decided from Madrid.

In the messages that work in the case, it can be seen that at the beginning they even considered the possibility of housing the most vulnerable migrants in military barracks, but they ruled it out from Madrid: “The barracks thing, unthinkable, there are 3,300 soldiers, weapons, etc. I know that they have been able to welcome the civil guards who have gone there, but they are civil guards, not minors in those conditions “. Finally, they opted for warehouses and sports halls, but the messages show the chaos that surrounded the management: “Last night 13 more escaped from the isolation warehouse, which could be returned but there was a leak with a terrible fall inside a nearby warehouse with intervention of firefighters and transfer to the Hospital, he finds himself with significant polytrauma, critical in the ICU, this is terrible and devastating”.

In the documents that Mabel Deu has sent to the court, it can be seen that there are deleted messages and others derived from that crisis, such as the lack of harmony between the two souls of the coalition Executive. The ministry headed by the leader of Podemos, Ione Belarra, formally opposed the handing over of minors under these conditions and expressed it up to two times in writing. Although in the summary there are direct messages between Mabel Deu and Belarra, her interlocutor was the Secretary of State for Social Rights, Ignacio Álvarez. From Moncloa they transmitted to Ceuta that the role of this trusted man of Podemos was not relevant: “Oh, Mabel, in confidence, Nacho is offside in this and it better be that way”. Despite this, the right hand of Carmen Calvo wanted to know what were the movements of her government partner in this crisis. “What is he transmitting to you?” he asked Mabel Deu in Valldecabres. Both agreed to speak later, and the answer does not appear in the transcript of the messages.

Publicly, the Government does not question Morocco's actions in immigration matters, but internally the Executive does assume the destabilizing power of the neighboring country with immigration. At least that is the thesis that the State Attorney maintained in the case to defend the delegate of the Government of Ceuta in the judicial process. According to the legal services of the Government, the difference with other irregular entries of migrants in the autonomous city was “the participation and facilitation of the Kingdom of Morocco in the illegal access” and “the well-known situation of deception that motivated the entry of many of minors, as well as the profile of migrants”. The scenario in this case was the separation border fence with Melilla. Dozens of sub-Saharans, mostly Sudanese, lost their lives trying to access European territory. Moroccan security forces fired gas canisters at them, and the crowd crowded over a fence at the Chinatown pass that gave way under the weight and caused a deadly avalanche.. When the full scope of the tragedy was not yet known, Pedro Sánchez —on vacation these days in Morocco— described the events as well resolved. Days later, he qualified that, when he uttered those words, he had not seen the images of what happened, but he asked to put himself in the shoes of all those involved, including the Moroccan gendarmes. The Executive has never held the neighboring country accountable for what happened on the shared border.