European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center

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The European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center (ESISC) is a self-described think tank and lobbying group dealing with issues related to terrorism and security. ESISC notes on its website that its "lobbying operations can defend an industrial portfolio, the economic opening of a new market, or the political interests of a state." [1]

Contents

It is operated by Claude Moniquet, a French right-wing [2] journalist, who is known for his connections with Azerbaijani caviar diplomacy and receiving financial means to promote Azerbaijani interests. [3]

History, and overview

ESISC was founded in April 2002 by Claude Moniquet. In 2019, the ESISC website listed staff members from Russia, Morocco, Italy, and Belgium.

In August 2007, the Belgian Ministry of the Interior renounced the advisory services of ESISC accusing Claude Moniquet of embezzlement and illegal possession of arms. [4]

In 2018, Claude Moniquet announced that ESISC had entered into a collaboration with the Washington Strategic Intelligence Center (WSIC), "a new American think-tank." [5] According to its founders, all of whom are Moroccan, WSIC "follows the road traced by our King, His Majesty Mohammed VI, may God glorify his rule." [6]

Moniquet and his colleagues at ESISC promote controversial theories claiming that George Soros controls an international conspiracy through which "he wants to destabilize sovereign states in order to impose his agenda and defend his financial interests." In a 2017 report, ESISC warns that "Soros-financed 'destabilisation operations'" are targeting numerous states, including Russia, Hungary, Turkey, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Macedonia, and Serbia. [7]

Election observers

Representatives of ESISC participated in 2013 Azerbaijani presidential elections and 2015 parliamentary elections as observers. They evaluated the elections positively and criticized the assessments of the OSCE/ODIHR mission, in which the elections were recognized as inappropriate to democratic norms. [8]

According to the “Freedom Files Analytical Center”, ESISC lobbies for Azerbaijan's interests and provides services of “false observers,” whose task is to participate in the elections of autocratic states as observers, inform on a democratic vote, and criticize the OSCE/ ODIHR observation mission. [8]

According to Robert Coalson (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty), ESISC is a part of Baku's lobbying efforts to use analytical centers to change public opinion about Azerbaijan. [9]

Report on Western Sahara

In 2005 and again in 2008 [10] and 2010 [11] [12] ESISC issued reports on Western Sahara that dovetailed closely with official Moroccan views and claimed that there existed a link between Al Qaeda and the nationalist group Polisario, which seeks Western Sahara's independence from Morocco. Western Sahara expert Jacob Mundy described ESISC's publications as "think tank reports paid for by the [Moroccan] royal palace" to discredit Polisario. [13]

Le Journal Hebdomadaire, a leading Moroccan independent weekly, published an article critical of the first ESISC report and noted that it reflected the official views of the Moroccan government. Moniquet then sued the newspaper in a Moroccan court, which ordered Le Journal Hebdomadaire to pay him 360,000 dollars. [14] Unable to pay the fine, Le Journal Hebdomadaire was closed, in what Mundy termed the conclusion of a "successful five-year campaign to drive one of [Morocco's] few independent media voices out of existence". [15] According to Moroccan journalists, this was the largest-ever fine against the media in Morocco, and the Committee to Protect Journalists noted major irregularities in the trial. [16] Another press freedom organization, Reporters Without Borders (RSF), described the trial as “politically motivated and unfair.” [17] Human Rights Watch also voiced concern over the trial, [18] while Freedom House termed the lawsuit "a politically motivated effort to bankrupt the magazine." [19]

Social anthropologist of the Sahara Desert, Konstantina Isidoros, said that in both 2005 and 2008, ESISC issued two near-identical reports proclaiming distorted truths that Polisario is evolving to new fears terrorism, radical Islamism or international crime. According Isidoros "lies appear to play some peculiar importance in this report" [20]

The report “Republic of Azerbaijan: a model of good governance”

A month before the 2013 Azerbaijani presidential elections, ESISC issued a report entitled “The Republic of Azerbaijan: a model of good governance”. [21] According to Robert Coalson, a correspondent of Radio Free Europe, the "haphazardly edited" and "ungrammatical" report praised the stable social welfare" and the situation for women and religious minorities in Azerbaijan. Noting that the ESISC website advertises "customized reports, analysis, and [...] briefings responding exactly to the needs of each client in his or her sector of activity," Coalson accused ESISC of operating as a "front" for Azerbaijan." [9]

Syria, Rifaat al-Assad, and Russia

ESISC has also worked on behalf of members of the al-Assad family, producing a laudatory report in 2010 that portrayed Ribal al-Assad (a cousin of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad) as a leader of the Syrian opposition and a "democratic alternative" struggling for human rights. Ribal is the son of Rifaat al-Assad, brother of former Syrian President Hafiz al-Assad. According to France 24, Rifaat al-Assad personally oversaw the 1982 Hama massacre, [22] and Human Rights Watch reports that he ordered "the extrajudicial killings of an estimated 1,000 prisoners" during a single day in 1980. [23]

By 2019, ESISC had scrubbed the 2010 report from its website. [24] However, another report by Claude Moniquet from 2011 that similarly highlights Ribal al-Assad remained on the website. [25]

The report “The Armenian Connection”

On March 6, 2017, ESISC published the report “The Armenian Connection,” which leveled severe accusations against a number of NGOs specializing in human rights protection or researching human rights abuses and corruption in Azerbaijan, Turkey and Russia. ESISC claimed that these organisations aim to create a network of PACE deputies, who will participate in a political war against Azerbaijan. [26] This network included the then member of PACE Christoph Strässer (Germany), Frank Schwabe (Germany), Pieter Omtzigt (Netherlands), René Rouquet (France), François Rochebloine (France) and others. The report stated that Strässer and Schwabe were, within the SPD, the main actors of a campaign promoting the recognition of the 1915 Armenian genocide, and Pieter Omtzigt had close connections with the Armenian lobby in Netherlands. René Rouquet was the President of the French-Armenian friendship socialist parliamentary group; François Rochebloine presided the “France-Karabakh” Circle, and was active in organizing “solidarity” trips to the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan occupied by Armenia. [26]

A follow-up report published on April 18 claimed that the anti-Azerbaijani network included a number of prime ministers of European countries, Armenian officials, and public organizations: Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Human Rights House Foundation, Open Dialog, European Stability Initiative, Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, etc. According to the report, this anti-Azerbaijani network is funded by the Soros Foundation to serve the interests of George Soros and Armenia. ESISC also alleged that the Soros network targets other nations, such as Russia and Hungary. [27]

According to the Freedom Files Analytical Center, the ESISC report is propaganda and seeks to stop criticism of lobbying and corruption. [8] The European Stability Initiative stated that “the ESISC report is full of lies”. [28]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Foreign relations of Azerbaijan</span>

The Republic of Azerbaijan is a member of the United Nations, the Non-Aligned Movement, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, NATO's Partnership for Peace, the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council, the World Health Organization, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development; the Council of Europe, CFE Treaty, the Community of Democracies; the International Monetary Fund; and the World Bank.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Western Sahara</span> Disputed territory in North-western Africa

Western Sahara is a disputed territory in North-western Africa. It has a surface area of 272,000 square kilometres (105,000 sq mi). Approximately 30% of the territory is controlled by the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR); the remaining 70% is occupied and administered by neighboring Morocco. It is the most sparsely populated territory in Africa and the second most sparsely populated territory in the world, mainly consisting of desert flatlands. The population is estimated at 618,600. Nearly 40% of that population lives in Morocco-controlled Laayoune, the largest city of Western Sahara.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Political status of Western Sahara</span>

Western Sahara, formerly the colony of Spanish Sahara, is a disputed territory claimed by both the Kingdom of Morocco and the Popular Front for the Liberation of the Saguia el Hamra and Rio de Oro, which is an independence movement based in Tifariti and Bir Lehlou. The Annexation of Western Sahara by Morocco took place in two stages, in 1976 and 1979, and is considered illegal under international law.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mohamed Abdelaziz (Sahrawi politician)</span> Sahrawi President from 1976 to 2016

Mohamed Abdelaziz was the 3rd Secretary General of the Polisario Front, from 1976, and the 1st President of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic from 1982, until his death in 2016.

The Independence Intifada or the Second Sahrawi Intifada and also May Intifada is a Sahrawi activist term for a series of disturbances, demonstrations and riots that broke out in May 2005 in the Moroccan-controlled parts of Western Sahara and south of Morocco. This event has also been called The El-Aaiun Intifada by the same sources.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Settlement Plan</span> 1991 UN proposal for a referendum on Western Sahara

The Settlement Plan was an agreement between the ethnically Saharawi Polisario Front and Morocco on the organization of a referendum, which would constitute an expression of self-determination for the people of Western Sahara, leading either to full independence, or integration with the Kingdom of Morocco. It resulted in a cease-fire which remains effective until 2020, and the establishment of the MINURSO peace force to oversee it and to organize the referendum. The referendum never occurred.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Human rights in Western Sahara</span>

The Government of Morocco sees Western Sahara as its Southern Provinces. The Moroccan government considers the Polisario Front as a separatist movement given the alleged Moroccan origins of some of its leaders.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Western Sahara conflict</span> Armed conflict between Morocco and the Polisario Front

The Western Sahara conflict is an ongoing conflict between the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic/Polisario Front and the Kingdom of Morocco. The conflict originated from an insurgency by the Polisario Front against Spanish colonial forces from 1973 to 1975 and the subsequent Western Sahara War against Morocco between 1975 and 1991. Today the conflict is dominated by unarmed civil campaigns of the Polisario Front and their self-proclaimed SADR state to gain fully recognized independence for Western Sahara.

Le Journal Hebdomadaire was a French-language, Moroccan weekly magazine, published between 1997 and 2010. It was cofounded by Aboubakr Jamaï, who also co-founded its Arabic-language counterpart, Assahifa Al Ousbouia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Royal Advisory Council for Saharan Affairs</span> Advisory committee to the Moroccan government

The Royal Advisory Council for Saharan Affairs is an advisory committee to the Moroccan government on Western Sahara. It was created under Mohammed VI in early 2006, after a new autonomy plan proposed by Morocco to replace the United Nations' Baker Plan. The Polisario Front opposes Morocco's autonomy plan, demanding a referendum and independence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Human rights in Morocco</span>

Morocco became a highly repressive country under the absolute monarchy of King Hassan II, and continues to be considered repressive under the reign of King Mohammed VI, though the latter has instituted some reforms. Dozens of journalists, artists, and ordinary citizens are regularly sentenced to lengthy prison sentences for exercising basic rights enjoyed elsewhere in the world, such as freedom of the press, protesting the government, or criticizing government officials. Morocco heavily restricts basic human rights, such as freedom of speech, the right to assembly, and the right to criticize officials. Moroccans also feel the pressures of inflation within the country, such as the lack of basic services like healthcare, clean water, and the difficulty of parents to access quality education for their children. While there have been a handful of reforms that have been generally welcomed internationally, most Moroccans feel this is insufficient, and continue to be unhappy with the trajectory of the country under the policies of King Mohammed VI, despite his transition of the government to an ostensible constitutional monarchy. Under his father, King Hassan II, Morocco had one of the worst human rights records in Africa and the world, especially during the time period known as the "Years Of Lead", which lasted from the early 1960s until the late 1980s; it was a period in the country's history that was known for the brutal repression of political dissent and opposition, that involved wide-scale arrests, arbitrary detention, lengthy imprisonment, and even killings of political opponents. Currently, Morocco continues to face some of these issues, as well as other human rights problems, such as poor prison conditions, the mistreatment of women and the LGBT community, and the widespread use of torture by police. Despite the considerable improvements made in the last several years under the leadership of King Mohammed VI, who has rolled back some of his father's harshest decrees, repression of political dissidence, and torture of citizens by officials, is still commonplace in Morocco today.

Since the end of the 1980s, several members of POLISARIO have decided to discontinue their military or political activities for the Polisario Front. Most of them returned from the Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria to Morocco, among them a few founder members and senior officials. Some of them are now actively promoting Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara, which Morocco considers its Southern Provinces. Their individual reasons to stop working for POLISARIO, as reported in the media, vary, but include allegations of human rights violations, monopolization and abuse of power, blackmailing and sequestering the refugee population in Tindouf, and squandering foreign aid. They also claim POLISARIO is controlled by the government of Algeria and as one former member of POLISARIO put it, "[was] a group of Moroccan students who were urging the Spanish colonizer to leave and who had never claimed independence or the separation from motherland Morocco."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sahrawi refugee camps</span> Collection of refugee camps set up in the Tindouf Province, Algeria

The Sahrawi refugee camps, also known as the Tindouf camps, are a collection of refugee camps set up in the Tindouf Province, Algeria, in 1975–76 for Sahrawi refugees fleeing from Moroccan forces, who advanced through Western Sahara during the Western Sahara War. With most of the original refugees still living in the camps, the situation is among the most protracted in the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Western Sahara War</span> 1975–1991 armed conflict between Morocco and the Polisario Front

The Western Sahara War was an armed struggle between the Sahrawi indigenous Polisario Front and Morocco from 1975 to 1991, being the most significant phase of the Western Sahara conflict. The conflict erupted after the withdrawal of Spain from the Spanish Sahara in accordance with the Madrid Accords, by which it transferred administrative control of the territory to Morocco and Mauritania, but not sovereignty. In late 1975, the Moroccan government organized the Green March of some 350,000 Moroccan citizens, escorted by around 20,000 troops, who entered Western Sahara, trying to establish a Moroccan presence. While at first met with just minor resistance by the Polisario Front, Morocco later engaged a long period of guerrilla warfare with the Sahrawi nationalists. During the late 1970s, the Polisario Front, desiring to establish an independent state in the territory, attempted to fight both Mauritania and Morocco. In 1979, Mauritania withdrew from the conflict after signing a peace treaty with the Polisario Front. The war continued in low intensity throughout the 1980s, though Morocco made several attempts to take the upper hand in 1989–1991. A cease-fire agreement was finally reached between the Polisario Front and Morocco in September 1991. Some sources put the final death toll between 10,000 and 20,000 people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aboubakr Jamaï</span> Moroccan journalist

Aboubakr Jamaï is a Moroccan journalist and banker, and was the publisher of the newspapers Le Journal Hebdomadaire and Assahifa al-Ousbouiya. In 2003, he was awarded the International Press Freedom Award of the Committee to Protect Journalists.

The First Sahrawi Intifada forms part of the wider and ongoing Western Sahara conflict. It began in 1999 and lasted until 2004, transforming into the Independence Intifada in 2005.

Claude Moniquet is a retired French journalist and a former intelligence agent at the French Directorate-General for External Security (DGSE), operating extensively in eastern Europe and the Balkans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sahrawi nationalism</span> Ideology supporting indigenous rule of Western Sahara

Sahrawi nationalism is a political ideology that seeks self-determination of the Sahrawi people, the indigenous population of Western Sahara. It has historically been represented by the Polisario Front. It came as a reaction against Spanish colonialist policies imposed from 1958 on, and subsequently in reaction to the Mauritanian and Moroccan invasions of 1975.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Western Saharan clashes (2020–present)</span> Ongoing armed conflict in the disputed region of Western Sahara

Clashes between military forces belonging to the Kingdom of Morocco and the self-proclaimed Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), represented at the United Nations by the Polisario Front, broke out in the disputed region of Western Sahara in November 2020. It was the latest escalation of an unresolved conflict over the region, which is largely occupied by Morocco, but 20–25% is administered by the SADR. The violence ended a ceasefire between the opposing sides that had held for 29 years in anticipation of a referendum of self-determination that would have settled the dispute. Despite the establishment of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara in 1991, the referendum was never held.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aicha Duihi</span> President of the Sahara Observatory

Aicha Duihi is a Moroccan Sahrawi human rights activist who is the president of the Sahara Observatory for Peace, Democracy and Human Rights. Duihi has advocated against the Polisario Front's camps in the Tindouf Province of Southwestern Algeria on the border of Western Sahara, and serves as a spokesperson for those kidnapped and those being held captive in the Polisario camps. She seeks to combat propaganda and misinformation which further marginalise vulnerable women.

References

  1. ↑ L'opposition syrienne a-t-elle les moyens de ses ambitions ESISC: About Us, ESISC website.
  2. ↑ "Elections 2019: Claude Moniquet emmènera la Liste Destexhe au parlement bruxellois", Le Soir , 12 March 2019
  3. ↑ AN EXPLORATION INTO AZERBAIJAN’S SOPHISTICATED SYSTEM OF PROJECTING ITS INTERNATIONAL INFLUENCE, BUYING WESTERN POLITICIANS AND CAPTURING INTERGOVERNMENTAL ORGANISATIONS // Freedom Files Analytical Centre (Civic Solidarity Platform), March 2017
  4. ↑ “Greenpeace accuse Electrabel d'espionnage”, RTBF Info, 20 mai 2009
  5. ↑ Claude Moniquet, ESISC and WSIC: transatlantic cooperation for two think-tanks, ESISC, 4 July 2018
  6. ↑ 5 questions aux fondateurs du Washington Strategic Intelligence Center, Portail de l'IE, 6 July 2018
  7. ↑ Claude Moniquet, William Racimora, and Genovefa Etienne, The Armenian Connection: Chapter 2, ESISC, 2017,
  8. 1 2 3 AN EXPLORATION INTO AZERBAIJAN’S SOPHISTICATED SYSTEM OF PROJECTING ITS INTERNATIONAL INFLUENCE, BUYING WESTERN POLITICIANS AND CAPTURING INTERGOVERNMENTAL ORGANISATIONS // Freedom Files Analytical Centre (Civic Solidarity Platform), March 2017
  9. 1 2 Baku Smooths Over Its Rights Record With A Thick Layer Of Caviar // Radio Free Europe, November 08, 2013
  10. ↑ Claude Moniquet, "Front Polisario : une force de déstabilisation régionale toujours active", October 2008 (English version
  11. ↑ Claude Moniquet (under the direction of), "THE POLISARIO FRONT AND THE IRA - Two approaches to the process of negotiation", October 2010
  12. ↑ Claude Moniquet, "The Polisario Front and the development of terrorism in the Sahel, 3 May 2010
  13. ↑ Jacob Mundy, Failed States. Ungoverned Areas, and Safe Havens: The Terrorizaton of the Western Sahara Peace Process // Fonkem Achankeng. Nationalism and Intra-State Conflicts in the Postcolonial World. Lexington Books, 2015, ISBN   1498500269, 9781498500265. Pp.139-140. "Decades later, substitute "'Al-Qaeda" for "Communism" and the discourse is essentially the same. One of the first major salvos in the Moroccan offensive to link Polisario to Al-Qaeda was a series of think tank reports paid for by the royal palace (Moniquet, 2005, 2008). When a Moroccan newsmagazine, Le Journal hebdomadaire (December 9, 2005), dared expose the fact that the European Strategic Intelligence and Security Institute was being paid to tar and feather Polisario, thus began the regime's successful five-year campaign to drive one of the few independent media voices out of existence. Morocco even enlisted its academic voices to aid in the terrorization of the Western Sahara peace process by linking Al-Qaeda to Polisario. "
  14. ↑ "Morocco: Pioneer of independent press silenced amid censorship worries". Los Angeles Times . 16 February 2010. Retrieved 3 February 2012.
  15. ↑ Mundy, ibid.
  16. ↑ Courts, press law undermine Moroccan press freedoms // Committee to Protect Journalists, April 6, 2007. "In April 2006, the Rabat Court of Appeals upheld record damages against the independent newsweekly Le Journal Hebdomadaire in a defamation suit brought by Claude Moniquet, head of the Brussels-based European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center. A lower court had awarded 3 million dirhams (US$359,700) in damages to Moniquet, who said Le Journal Hebdomadaire had defamed him in a six-page critique questioning the independence of his think tank’s report on the disputed Western Sahara, which was annexed by Morocco three decades ago. The damages were the largest ever for a press defamation suit in Morocco, according to Moroccan journalists. Jamaï’s lawyers were prevented from calling expert witnesses, and the judge never provided an explanation for how he arrived at the extensive damages."
  17. ↑ Mise à mort du Journal Hebdomadaire : une semaine pour payer trois millions de dirhams de dommages et intérêts Archived 2011-07-22 at the Wayback Machine , Reporters sans frontières, 23 December 2006
  18. ↑ A record libel judgment against Le Journal , Human Rights Watch, May 2006
  19. ↑ "Freedom House: Freedom of the Press 2007 - Morocco". Archived from the original on 2019-01-26. Retrieved 2019-01-26.
  20. ↑ Konstantina Isidoros. Western Sahara and the United States’ geographical imaginings // ACAS Concerned Africa Scholars, BULLETIN N°85 - SPRING 2010
  21. ↑ William Racimora (ESISC's Vice-CEO), The Republic of Azerbaijan: A model of good governance, 9 September 2013
  22. ↑ 'The enforcer' who heads Syria’s dreaded army division France 24, 1 March 2012
  23. ↑ A Wasted Decade: Human Rights in Syria during Bashar al-Asad’s First Ten Years in Power Human Rights Watch, 16 July 2010
  24. ↑ L'opposition syrienne a-t-elle les moyens de ses ambitions ? ESISC, archived introduction, 2010
  25. ↑ Claude Moniquet, The situation in Syria: an assessment, ESISC, 15 April 2011
  26. 1 2 "The Armenian Connection: How a secret caucus of MPs and NGOs, since 2012, created a network within the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe to hide violations of international law". www.esisc.org. Retrieved 2017-04-26.
  27. ↑ "The Armenian Connection. Chapter 2: " Mr X ", Nils Muižnieks, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights". www.esisc.org. Retrieved 2017-04-26.
  28. ↑ Merchants of Doubt or investigating Corruption // ESI, 21 April 2017
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