Perejil

On July 11, 2002, a small group of Moroccan gendarmes landed on the uninhabited islet of Perejil, an obscure piece of land barely larger than a football field, whose sovereignty had long been disputed between Spain and Morocco. They raised their country’s flag, sparking what appeared to be a minor border incident.

Days later, Spain’s Prime Minister José María Aznar ordered an unprecedented response: the coordinated deployment of the army, navy and air force to expel the occupying soldiers.

In the public imagination, the Perejil crisis has survived as a curious anecdote: an overblown military operation over a rocky, deserted islet. But behind that anecdote lay a far deeper and far more complex geopolitical conflict. Beneath Perejil was an international standoff involving the European Union, the United Nations, the Arab League, France, NATO and the United States.

Why did a seemingly insignificant rock trigger a conflict of such magnitude? What did Perejil represent for Spain, Morocco, and their allies? Was the sovereignty of Ceuta and Melilla at stake? And what do we really know about the crisis, 23 years later?

A gripping investigation that revisits a forgotten incident; one that was far less trivial, and far more global, than anyone imagined.