Congress of U.S. Decision Concerning Western Sahara | Not Forgotten International

by Janet Lenz • January 26, 2012 • Advocacy, Sahara Desert, Uncategorized • 0 Comments

CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES

Title I

DEPARTMENT OF STATE AND RELATED AGENCY DEPARTMENT OF STATE

MOROCCO. - Prior to the obligation of funds appropriated by this Act under the heading: “Foreign Military Financing Program” for assistance to Morocco, the Secretary of State shall submit a report to the Committees on Appropriations on steps being taken by the Government of Morocco to:

(1) Respect the right of individuals to peacefully express their opinions regarding the status and future of the Western Sahara and to document violations of human rights; and

(2) Provide unimpeded access to human rights organizations, journalists and representatives of foreign governments to the Western Sahara.

(The full text of this bill is available at opencongress.org.)

Layman’s explanation:

The US has granted funds for many years to Morocco to support their military, as Morocco is a long-time friend of the US. Before future funds can be given to Morocco’s military by the US government, the Secretary of State will have to give our government a report about how Morocco is doing 2 important things:

(1) The people of Western Sahara must be able to freely express their opinions in a peaceful manner about their destiny as well as how they are treated by Morocco. If you recall, there have been many Saharawi imprisoned, tortured, and killed for speaking out against Morocco’s occupation of their homeland of Western Sahara. This peaked in November, 2010, when a “tent city” demonstration of thousands of Saharawi was violently destroyed by Moroccan troops. These actions will now affect Morocco’s access to funding from the US.

(2) For decades, since Morocco took occupation of Western Sahara, “objective eyes” have been kept out of the Saharawi’s homeland…..organizations like human rights watchers, foreign government representatives, and journalists. This has kept the truth of what has been done to the Saharawi away from the world’s awareness.

We are very happy to see that the US is taking this stand. The Saharawi are thrilled. They have longed for America to use its influence to help end the decades-long oppression of those living in the Homeland. They have longed to be able to have a voice as to the future of their homeland….whether to be an independent nation or to become part of Morocco. This ruling by the US Congress is a wonderful start in changing the stalemate that the Saharawi have been caught in for 37 years.

Thank you to all who have used your voices to speak to our government, and for using your voices to speak to God on the behalf of the Saharawi.

Tags: Congress, Morroco, United States, Western Sahara

About Janet Lenz

Janet is the Director of International Partnerships for NFI. She has been involved with the Saharawi since 1999. Janet also knows American Sign Language and is a Certified Interpreter for the Deaf.

ISS - News - The Western Sahara and North African People’s Power

26 January 2012

Abdelkader Abderrahmane, Senior Researcher, Conflict Prevention and Risk Analysis Division, ISS Addis Ababa

In April 2011, the mandate of MINURSO—the United Nations (UN) Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara, which has been tasked since 1991 with maintaining a ceasefire and monitoring Africa’s longest territorial dispute between Morocco and the Sahrawi Polisario Front— was yet again renewed. Twenty one years since MINURSO was set up, closer attention ought to be placed on the Western Saharan dispute, one which has exhausted and frustrated a large number of UN special envoys.

It is important to recall that the occupation of the Western Sahara - a land once described by a MINURSO observer as “the worst police state I have ever seen”- by Morocco is in blunt violation of international law. Back in 1963 the Western Sahara was included in a list of territories, identified by the UN, which sought self-determination. The notion of self-determination was already enshrined in the UN Charter and is supported by UN resolution 1514 which stipulates that “all people have the right to self-determination”. This was further supported by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in a ruling on October 16^th 1975 when it declared that the Western Sahara was not a territory without a master (terra nullius) at the time of its colonisation by Spain. The ICJ judgement, therefore, declared that Morocco had no valid claim on the Sahara based on any historic title.

Having said that, Moroccan intransigence has only been possible with the biased involvement of Western states, principally the US and France, aided no less by Saudi Arabia’s massive financial handouts. This can be explained by the fact that Morocco has long been considered a stable regional Western ally, one that maintains strong economic ties with the US and the European Union. Morocco’s pro-Western antics, however, do not detract from its continued occupation of the Western Sahara. Such a double standard policy can also be compared to the liberation of Kuwait in 1991. Indeed, the latter’s invasion by Iraq was based on historic claims similar to Morocco’s, but was rightly rejected by the UN Security Council.

Similarly, in the case of Sudan, Western powers were deeply involved for Khartoum to finally accept the idea of an independent South Sudanese state. However, regarding the Western Sahara, neither the Security Council nor Washington nor Paris has ever acted against Rabat. Moreover, in April 2011, Paris threw all its diplomatic weight at the UNSC to prevent the renewal of MINURSO’s mandate.

It is also probably time for the African Union (AU) to become more actively involved in this conflict and put all its diplomatic weight to find a final solution. In this period of profound political changes affecting North Africa, the AU must put more pressure on the USA, France and the United Nations (UN) for them to engage in serious and genuine talks on this issue.

Indeed, given the absence of any resolution to this protracted conflict on the horizon, any hope for a referendum may now rest on the emergence of a North African boisterous civil society. The so-called ‘Internet and Facebook generation’, which has succeeded in ousting despotic regimes in the region, may well in the future unite and become a transnational force to press for a solution. Change is already in the air: Moroccans, who are constitutionally bound not to challenge the country’s position on Western Sahara, have quietly begun questioning the legality and high financial cost of the continuing occupation of this territory. Additionally, a growing number of Moroccan settlers in the occupied territory are beginning to consider the idea of a Sahrawi independence. These settlers are indeed all too aware that if Morocco were to ever cede on the idea of Western Sahara’s independence, the tax and other economic privileges that they currently enjoy to live in the occupied territory would definitely end with the territory’s independence. And after having lived there for so long, they may well decide to remain in a newly independent Western Sahara.

Today, this long-running conflict has become a powerful motivator for the Sahrawi people to achieve their nationalist ambitions. They are profoundly convinced of the justice of their cause and undoubtedly believe that in the end, it will prevail just as it has happened in Eritrea, Namibia, East Timor and more recently in South Sudan. Given the current political dynamics of the region, Morocco’s current ruler, Mohamed VI, would do well to consider that even the harshest forms of repression are very difficult to sustain.

The protests against the Moroccan occupation in November 2010 in Al-Ayun and other cities in the Western Sahara should only be a reminder to Rabat as North Africa uprisings were just the continuity of the Al-Ayun protests. Morocco can either help facilitate an amicable solution to the Western Sahara conflict, one in which its economic interests remain firm, or the status quo ante may one day witness a violent rupture, one in which any future peaceful relations with the Polisario, may forcibly end at the hands of a bulging tide of people power.

Morocco’s occupation of the Western Sahara is primarily motivated by the immense natural wealth present in the region. Indeed, Western Sahara has some of the world’s biggest phosphate reserves, which provides a tremendous income stream for Morocco, together with the revenue generated from the local fishing industry. This revenue is crucial for Morocco given the huge sums Rabat has poured into the territory to cover tax incentives it provides to Moroccan settlers who live there as well as the cost of maintaining its army in the region (some 100,000 soldiers are stationed there, making up for a third of the total Moroccan population present in the territory) - an army that has also strong economic investments and interests in Western Sahara. Furthermore, a withdrawal of its troops would also be a conundrum for Rabat, which would have to find a solution for those soldiers that would no longer be needed. Finally, from a geo-strategic perspective, Rabat is also aware that by withdrawing from the Western Sahara, its ambition to become the regional leader would literally vanish.

Source: African Institute for Security Studies

UK: exhibition on Western Sahara at the University of Warwick | Sahara Press Service

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UK: exhibition on Western Sahara at the University of Warwick

Fri, 01/27/2012 - 1:54pm Tags:

• Western Sahara

London, January 27, 2012 (SPS) - An exhibition on Western Sahara has been organized at the University of Warwick, UK, as part of the international exhibition “Week of Africa and the Middle East,” reported Thursday the Polisario Front representation in the UK.

The opening of the exhibition was attended by the Polisario Front’s representative in the United Kingdom, NGO Sandblast, the organization “Saharawi Justice” and students of the University.

The exhibition showed crafts, Sahrawi traditional clothing, books about Western Sahara conflict and the crimes of human rights committed by the Moroccan authorities against the Saharawi people.

“We need your support to break the two walls that seriously threaten the Saharawi people,” said Sidi Breika, deputy representative of the Frente Polisario to the UK, pointing to the Moroccan wall of shame with a length of 2700 km and contain a large amounts of land mines and the wall of silence imposed on the occupied territories.

“It's a shame that there is still colonialism in the 21st century. The Western Sahara is the last colony in Africa and the UN is still responsible for its final decolonization,” said the director of Sandblast, Danielle Smith. (SPS)

090/089/TRA

source: http://www.spsrasd.info

King of Morocco to be biggest benefactor of EU trade agreement - Telegraph

A new EU trade agreement that is set to boost the personal fortune of King Mohamed VI of Morocco is facing opposition because it promotes the exploitation of disputed territory of the Western Sahara.

By Fiona Govan, Madrid5:35PM GMT 29 Jan 2012
The European Parliament's committee for International Trade last week gave the green light to a new agriculture agreement that will ease restrictions on the importation of fruit and vegetables from Morocco.
But it has emerged that the single biggest beneficiary of the deal will be the King of Morocco, who is head of one of the three largest agricultural producers in the north African country and lays claim to 12,000 hectares of the nation's most fertile farmland.
Human rights groups have warned that royal estates covered with polytunnels stretch across swathes of the Dahkla region of the Western Sahara, the former Spanish colony annexed by Morocco in 1975.
They argue that the deal amounts to a breach of international law and effectively legitimises Morocco's occupation of the disputed Western Sahara region.
The Western Sahara's Polisario Front independence movement is preparing to lobby the EU Parliament not to ratify the deal when it is put to the vote next month.

A similar row over fishing rights in waters off the Western Sahara led the European Parliament to cancel a deal last December that allowed trawlers from EU countries to fish in Moroccan waters in exchange for annual payments to Rabat.
If approved the agricultural agreement will immediately increase concession in the fruit and vegetable sector, liberalising trade on 55 per cent of EU imports from Morocco.
"It is deeply regrettable to see agreements adopted without excluding produce grown in the Western Sahara," said Lamine Baali, the Polisario representative to London.
According to a UN study of 2002, any economic activities that are not in accordance with the wishes and interests of the people of Western Sahara would be in violation of international law.
"The region is recognised as not being part of Morocco under international law and we urge the EU to specifically exclude the Western Sahara, whose people do not wish this and will not benefit," Mr Baali told the Daily Telegraph.
The Western Sahara Resource Watch (WSRW), which is currently undertaking a study of the impact of the agricultural industry on the Sahrawi people, said the new EU agricultural agreement "effectively endorses Morocco's strategy to settle the southern parts of the Western Sahara."
"The King of Morocco has ownership of the tomato industry in occupied Western Sahara," noted Erik Hagen of WSRW. Reports estimate that some 10,000 are employed on fruit and vegetable plantations in the Dakhla region yet the majority are Moroccan settlers.
"The EU makes a distinction when it comes to produce from occupied Palestinian territories, but fails to apply the same principles to its trade agreements with Morocco," said Mr Hagen. "It is highly unethical, as it undermines the UN peace efforts and gives an unfortunate sign of support to Morocco's illegal presence in Western Sahara."
Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk

World Report 2012: Morocco and Western Sahara | Human Rights Watch

Responding to the pro-democracy Arab Spring movements and to pro-reform demonstrations in Morocco, King Mohammed VI proposed in June constitutional amendments with substantial human rights guarantees but few significant curbs on the monarch’s own powers. The electorate voted the amendments into law in July.

The new constitution recognizes Amazigh, the Berber language, as an official language and prohibits torture, inhuman, and degrading treatment; arbitrary detention; and enforced disappearances. It also requires any person who is arrested to be informed “immediately” of the reason for his arrest, and to enjoy the presumption of innocence and the right to a fair trial. However at this writing the amendments had yet to transform Morocco’s decidedly mixed human rights performance.

Freedom of Assembly, Association, and Expression

Inspired by popular protests elsewhere in the region, Moroccans began marching on February 20 to demand sweeping political reforms. The marches—usually spearheaded by the youthful, loosely-organized February 20 Movement for Change and backed by other political and civil society forces, including the powerful Islamist Justice and Spirituality movement—sometimes exceeded 10,000 participants and were staged in several cities simultaneously. The police tolerated some of the protests, but on some occasions attacked and beat protesters severely. Some of the harshest police violence occurred at peaceful protests in Casablanca, Kenitra, and Rabat, the captial, during the weeks prior to the king’s much-anticipated speech in June outlining constitutional reforms.

On May 29, security forces in the town of Safi beat Kamal Ammari, a 30-year old protester. He died on June 2. The Office of the Prosecutor announced that forensic doctors concluded that Ammari died from a pre-existing condition that was "aggravated” by “a simple blow to the torso that would normally have been benign.” The case remains under investigation.

Terrorism and Counterterrorism

On April 28, a bomb exploded in a Marrakesh cafe frequented by foreign tourists, killing 17 persons and wounding dozens.No group claimed responsibility for what was the deadliest terrorist attack in Morocco since 2003. The special terrorism chamber of the Rabat Court of Appeals on October 28 convicted nine suspected Islamist militants in the attack and sentenced one to death and the others to prison. Moroccan courts continue to impose the death penalty but Morocco has not executed anyone since the early 1990s.

Hundreds of suspected Islamist extremists arrested in the aftermath of the Casablanca bombings of May 2003 remain in prison. Many were convicted in unfair trials after being held in secret detention and subjected to mistreatment and sometimes torture. Since further terrorist attacks in 2007, police have arrested hundreds more suspected militants, many of whom were convicted and imprisoned, not for having committed acts of terrorism, but for belonging to a “terrorist network” or preparing to join “the jihad” in Iraq or elsewhere.

There were fewer reports than in previous years of intelligence agencies interrogating terrorism suspects at unacknowledged detention centers and holding them in pre-charge custody for longer than the 12-day maximum period the law allows for terrorism cases. In May delegations from parliament and the new National Human Rights Council (NHRC), which the king established in March to replace his Advisory Council on Human Rights, visited the reported site of the most notorious of these detention centers, the headquarters of the General Directorate for the Surveillance of the Territory in Témara, near Rabat. They reported finding no evidence during their visit of a detention facility operating there.

Police Conduct and the Criminal Justice System

Courts seldom provide fair trials in cases with political overtones. Judges routinely ignore requests for medical examinations from defendants who claim to have been tortured, refuse to summon exculpatory witnesses, and convict defendants based on apparently coerced confessions.

The minister of justice in August 2010 suspended Judge Jaâfar Hassoun from his post as president of the Marrakesh Administrative Court. Then in December 2010 Hassoun was ousted from his membership in the High Council of the Magistrature (HCM). Authorities accused Hassoun of disclosing confidential deliberations of the HCM to Essabah newspaper. Hassoun said he was innocent and the authorities were persecuting him for his judicial independence, such as his 2009 ruling that invalidated a Marrakesh mayoral election won by a candidate from a pro-palace party. In January the king signed an order expelling Hassoun from the judiciary.

In January an appeals court upheld the conviction and imprisonment of champion boxer Zakaria Moumni for fraud after his trial at which the complainants never appeared and a confession allegedly coerced by torture was used as evidence. Moumni, who was being retried at this writing, contends that his prosecution is politically motivated and stems from his persistent and public lobbying of the palace for government benefits to which he says he is entitled.

In March Mohammed VI pardoned and freed retired Maj.-Col. Kaddour Terhzaz. In November 2008 a military court convicted Terhzaz of disclosing “national defense secrets” based on a 2005 letter he wrote to the king criticizing what he saw as Morocco’s bad treatment of its pilots whom the Polisario had imprisoned for a quarter century.

In April the king also pardoned five political figures convicted in the mass “Belliraj” trial on charges of mounting a terrorist plot. In 2010 an appeals court had upheld the guilty verdict against all 35 defendants even though most had repudiated their confessions. The court refused to investigate the defendants’ allegations of torture, detention in secret jails, and the falsification of confessions. Twenty-nine other defendants in the case continued to serve their prison terms, which included a life term for alleged ringleader Abdelkader Belliraj. Another defendant had already been freed in 2010 after serving a two-year term.

A Casablanca court on April 14 provisionally released prominent, non-violent, pro-independence, Sahrawi activists Ali Salem Tamek, Brahim Dahane, and Ahmed Naciri, after 18 months of pre-trial detention. The police had arrested them and four other activists in October 2009 upon their return from a visit to the Polisario-run refugee camps in Algeria. The trial of the seven, on charges of “harming [Morocco’s] internal security,” started in October 2010, but was postponed repeatedly. At this writing it had not resumed.

Twenty-three Sahrawi civilians remained in pre-trial detention before a military court for their alleged role in clashes in and around El-Ayoun in November 2010 between security forces and Sahrawis that caused fatalities on both sides. Another 120 Sahrawis were bailed and faced less serious charges before a civilian court for their role in the clashes. One year after they occurred, no trials had begun.

Freedom of Association

Morocco boasts of thousands of independent associations, but government officials arbitrarily impede the legalization of many, undermining their freedom to operate. Groups affected include some that defend the rights of Sahrawis, Amazighs (Berbers), sub-Saharan immigrants, and unemployed university graduates, as well as charitable, cultural, and educational associations whose leadership includes members of Justice and Spirituality, a well-entrenched, nationwide movement that advocates for an Islamic state and questions the king's spiritual authority. The government, which does not recognize Justice and Spirituality as a legal association, tolerated many of its activities but prevented others.

Local and international human rights organizations operate with few impediments in the major cities, but individual activists sometimes pay a heavy price for whistle-blowing. Chekib el-Khayari, president of the Association for Human Rights in the Rif, served two years of a three-year term for “gravely insulting state institutions” and minor currency violations, before the king pardoned him in April. The authorities jailed el-Khayari after he accused certain Moroccan officials of complicity in narcotics trafficking.

Women’s Rights

The new constitution guarantees equality for women, “while respecting the provisions of the Constitution, and the laws and permanent characteristics of the Kingdom.”Major reforms to the Family Code in 2004 raised the age of marriage and improved women’s rights in divorce and child custody. However, the new code preserved discriminatory provisions with regards to inheritance and the right of husbands to unilaterally repudiate their wives.

On April 8 Morocco withdrew its reservations to articles 9(2) and 16 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, while maintaining other reservations. The withdrawal signaled a commitment to eliminate gender discrimination in marital rights and responsibilities and reflected a 2007 law that gave Moroccan mothers the same rights as Moroccan fathers to confer Moroccan nationality on their children when the other spouse is non-Moroccan. In its first national study on violence against women the Haut Commissariat au Plan, a government agency tasked with compiling national statistics, found that 55 percent of Moroccan women surveyed between 18 and 64-years-old experienced domestic violence during 2009; 15 percent reported suffering physical violence and 48 percent emotional violence.

Domestic Workers

In July an employer allegedly beat to death an 11-year-old domestic worker in el-Jadida. The case drew attention to the tens of thousands of Moroccan children employed as live-in household workers, and the abusive conditions to which they are often subjected. The case was still in court at this writing. Morocco approved a draft law in October that, if approved by parliament, would toughen sanctions on persons who violate the prohibition on employing children under 15 and would tighten conditions for employing persons aged 15 to 18 in households.

Freedom of Media

Morocco’s independent print and online media investigate and criticize government officials and policies, but face prosecution and harassment when they cross certain lines. The press law includes prison terms for “maliciously” spreading “false information” likely to disturb the public order or for speech that is defamatory, offensive to members of the royal family, or that undermines “Islam, the institution of the monarchy, or territorial integrity,” that is, Morocco's claim on Western Sahara.

Moroccan state television provides some room for investigative reporting but little for direct criticism of the government, or dissent on key issues. Hundreds of journalists who work for state-controlled media, notably the television channels and the state news agency, held protests on March 25 to demand, among other things, more editorial independence.

In April authorities arrested Rachid Nini, a popular columnist and editor of al-Masa’ daily. In June a Casablanca Court of First Instance convicted him of attempting to influence judicial decisions, showing contempt for judicial decisions, and falsely accusing public officials of crimes. The court gave him a one-year prison term and refused to free him provisionally pending appeal. The evidence against him consisted of articles he wrote that criticized Morocco’s intelligence agencies and accused persons close to the royal palace of corruption. An appeals court confirmed the verdict and sentence on October 24.

Morocco revoked or delayed renewal of accreditation of some journalists working for foreign media. Voicing its displeasure with Al Jazeera’s coverage of the Western Sahara conflict, the government closed the station’s news bureau in Morocco in 2010.

Key International Actors

In 2008 the European Union gave Morocco “advanced status,” placing it a notch above other members of the EU’s “neighbourhood policy.” Morocco is the biggest Middle Eastern beneficiary of EU aid after the Occupied Palestinian Territories, with €580 million (US$757 million) earmarked for 2011 to 2013.

France is Morocco’s leading trade partner and source of public development aid and private investment. France increased its Overseas Development Assistance to €600 million ($783 million) for 2010 to 2012. France rarely publicly criticized Morocco’s human rights practices and openly supported its autonomy plan for Western Sahara. On July 18 the French presidency of the G8 praised the results of the constitutional referendum and pledged the G8 countries’ “concrete support” for “the full and swift implementation of Morocco’s reform agenda.”

The United States provides financial aid to Morocco, a close ally, including a five-year $697 million grant beginning in 2008 from the Millennium Challenge Corporation to reduce poverty and stimulate economic growth. On human rights, the US continued to publicly praise Morocco's reform efforts and advances made by women. However, US Deputy Assistant of State Tamara Wittes, on a visit to Morocco in June, said that US officials had voiced concerns to the Moroccan government about police violence when handling peaceful demonstrations.

The 2011 United Nations Security Council resolution renewing the mandate of the peacekeeping force for Western Sahara (MINURSO) contained human rights language more explicit than in previous years but did not enlarge the MINURSO mandate to include human rights monitoring, an enlargement that the Polisario supports and Morocco opposes. MINURSO is the only peacekeeping operation created since 1990 that has no human rights monitoring component. Resolution 1979 encouraged “the parties to work with the international community to develop and implement independent and credible measures to ensure full respect for human rights.” It welcomed “the commitment of Morocco to ensure unqualified and unimpeded access to all Special Procedures of the United Nations Human Rights Council.”

source: Human right Watch

Pambazuka - Western Sahara: Denial of self-determination and human rights abuses

Malainin Lakhal

2012-01-19, Issue 566



cc T SThe case of the Western Sahara is a clear proof of failure of the international system that is governed by few powerful states: the five members of the Security Council who have turned the UN into the biggest non-democratic organisation in the world.

In May 2006, and for the first time since the UN adopted the famous General Assembly’s resolution 1514, a delegation from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human rights visited Western Sahara to investigate the human rights situation in this last colony in Africa. The mission accomplished its task by writing a report concluding that:

‘1. As has been stated in various UN fora, the right to self-determination for the people of Western Sahara must be ensured and implemented without any further delay. As underlined above, the delegation concludes that almost all human rights violations and concerns with regard to the people of Western Sahara, whether under the de facto authority of the Government of Morocco or of the Frente Polisario, stem from the non-implementation of this fundamental human right.’

Nevertheless, this report was kept under embargo because a powerful member in the UN Security Council, France, refuses any kind of protection and monitoring of human rights in Western Sahara.

The right to self-determination is a sacred principle on which international law, and all international covenants are built. It is enshrined in the UN Charter as one of four pillars of international legality. It is a focal right in the two international covenants and is actually one of the main claims of all protests and revolutions in the Arab World, where the peoples ‘wanted’, and where the peoples ‘demanded’ and where the peoples ‘decided’ to take their political fate in their hands.

Western Sahara is clearly defined by the international community as a ‘Non-Self-Governing territory’, whose people are recognised as ‘the people of Western Sahara’ and are entitled according to the different UN resolutions adopted since 1963 to exercise a genuine right to self-determination to chose between independence, self-determination and autonomy with an existing political entity; yet, the people of this territory are still denied their right to decide the future of their country.

As a result to this denial, many anomalies are marking the situation of the territory and the lives of its people. The main one which I would like to talk about is the violation of human rights in Western Sahara. Morocco systematically violates the political, economic, social, cultural and environmental rights of the people of Western Sahara in total impunity.

SELF-DETERMINATION AND THE FUTURE OF PEACE IN THE WORLD

Arab revolutions proved one basic thing: That the people will fight for their basic right, and most important for their sacred right to their homeland and its future. No regime and no power can deprive a population of its sovereignty over its homeland, its natural resources and its innate right to decide the political future of its country. This is the main lesson that the Arab spring is giving the world, and this is exactly what the Saharawis have been fighting for since the first days of the colonisation of Western Sahara in 1884. The Saharawi people fought against all colonial invaders of their country including the French and the Spanish, and they were not given a choice but to fight against their own brothers and neighbours, Morocco and Mauritania, when these two countries violated this brotherhood.

The case of the Western Sahara is a manifest proof of the failure of the international system that is governed by few powerful states, the five members of the Security Council, who are make the UN the biggest non-democratic organisation in the world. Western Sahara is recognised by the so-called international community as a Non-Self-Governing territory; the Saharawi people are recognised as the party that has got the legal and legitimate sovereignty over the territory; but still the world looks the other side while Morocco continues to illegally occupy Western Sahara and violates human rights with total impunity. Worse, France opposed any kind of monitoring or protection of human rights in Western Sahara while it champions the defense of human rights in other parts of the world to the point of using armed force in Libya.

On the other hand, the Saharawi people have always been denied an opportunity to communicate their sufferings to the Arab world especially because of the shameful position the Arab states are adopting from the conflict since the seventies. Most of the Arab states, it should be recalled, had supported the Moroccan invasion in one way or another, especially Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iraq and the Gulf States in general. Morocco has also been supported by Israel, the US, Spain and France and continues to be supported by the European Union, which is signing shameful fishing accords with Rabat to exploit the resources of Western Sahara.

CIVIL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS

Morocco militarily invaded Western Sahara on 31 October 1975 in flagrant violation of the UN Charter and in violation of the Saharawi people’s right to their land. Western Sahara was then a Spanish colony and the UN had reached the agreement with the government of Madrid to organise a referendum for the Saharawi people in 1975. Instead of that, the Spanish weak government of the dying Generalissimo Franco was forced by France and Morocco to sign an illegal tripartite agreement with Morocco and Mauritania according to which the two Arab countries divided the land of Western Sahara and its people into two zones, while Spain maintains the privileged status keeping 30 percent in the phosphate exploitation and a priority in the exploitation of fishing resources in the Saharawi rich waters.

Morocco has thus violated the Saharawi people’s right to self-determination and as a result kept violating their civil and political rights to: physical integrity and safety and their right to the protection from all kinds of discrimination, in addition to their individual rights such as freedoms of thought and conscience, speech and expression, religion, the press and of movement. These Moroccan violations generated a set of crimes against humanity and crimes of war in addition to phenomena such as forced disappearances and the systematic practice of torture by the different Moroccan corps.

The Moroccan army committed atrocities against the Saharawi population in the first years of the invasion, killing thousands of Saharawi families, especially nomads, poisoning waters in the desert and exterminating livestock which was the main economic wealth of the Saharawi people. The Moroccan Consultative Council for Human Rights recognised these crimes in a report it elaborated for the Human Rights Council in 2010. In this report, that was used within the HR Council without much advertisement, Morocco recognised the army’s responsibility in the death of some 352 Saharawis killed according to the report ‘because of bad conditions of imprisonment’ in different Moroccan secret detention camps. No other measures were undertaken to face this crimes, since the families of the victims never received information from the state before they accidentally read this report after some organisations spread it around.

The violations never stopped since 1975 indeed. Hundreds of Saharawis experienced forced disappearance, some for more than 15 years in secret detention. The majority of these victims were suddenly released in 1991, but the phenomenon, again, didn’t stop because one of the latest cases of disappearance is as recent as 2005 involving 15 young Saharawi activists who disappeared because of their participation in the popular uprising of 2005. Their mothers are still demanding the truth about their fate without success.

In addition to the phenomenon of disappearance, the Moroccan authorities systematically practice torture against demonstrators, prisoners, arrestees not only in prisons or police stations but also in streets and outside the cities. Since 2005 many demonstrators have been arrested by police but never taken to police stations; they are driven in the outskirts of the cities, beaten to death, sometimes raped and abandoned in most cases unconscious 40 or 50 kilometres away from the cities.

Demonstrations in Western Sahara are always faced with violent police interventions. Thousands of Saharawis have been injured, arrested, tortured, beaten or even killed after they participated in peaceful demonstrations. Police do not tolerate demonstrators who lift Saharawi flags or chant slogans in favour of independence of their land.

Saharawi human rights organisations without exception are considered illegal by the Moroccan authorities and treated as such. Even in the case of the Association of the Victims of Gross Human Rights Violations Committed by the Moroccan State (ASVDH) which was given a high court decision to work legally under Moroccan laws, the Moroccan authorities never recognised its militants’ right to monitor the human rights situation. Its president, vice-president and member of its bureau are victims to different human rights abuses; some of them are now in prison.

Another human rights organisation, the Collective of Saharawi Human Rights Defenders (CODESA), chaired by the emminent human rights defender, Ms. Aminatou Haidar, was not allowed to operate, and is still banned. Morocco is imprisoning now many human rights defenders, to name just a few: Naama Asfari, Ahmed Lemjid, Ahmed Sbaai, Brahim Ismaaili, Tahlil Mohamed, Banga Cheikh and Hafed Iaaza. There are 64 Saharawi prisoners of conscience right now in Moroccan prisons, 23 of whom went on a hunger strike for 38 days demanding a fair trial or an immediate release after having spent 14 months without trial. They were arrested in November 2010. 14 months after their detention they still wait for a trial, while Morocco is determined to bring them before its martial court in Rabat.

Saharawi prisoners of conscience are denied procedural fairness in law, such as the rights of the accused, including the right to a fair trial; due process; the right to seek redress or a legal remedy. Saharawis in general are denied the rights of participation in civil society and politics such as freedom of association, the right to assemble and the right to vote in a referendum on self-determination to decide over the political future of Western Sahara.

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC RIGHTS

Since 1975 Morocco led a systematic policy of plundering of the natural resources of Western Sahara without the consent of its people or their legitimate representative, POLISARIO liberation movement. In 2002 the UN Security Council asked Under-Secretary General of the UN for Legal Affairs, Hans Corell, to look at the legality of the exploitation of the natural resources in Western Sahara. The UN jurist clearly ruled that it is illegal to exploit the resources of the Non-Self-Governing territory as long as the decolonisation process is not finished. He considered, however, that the exploitation can only be possible if the people of Western Sahara are fully profiting from its income, otherwise Morocco must stop such plunder.

Morocco propaganda has always spread false information about what it calls ‘The process of development and progress of the Sahara’. In 10 October, 2010, more than 20,000 Saharawi citizens from all generations built 8,000 tents in the famous protest camp of ‘Gdeim Izik’ 12 kilometres east the occupied capital of Western Sahara, El Aaiun, ‘to demand the most rudimentary economic and social rights Morocco is depriving them of’, they said. The protest camp that was described by the American philosopher, Noam Chomsky, as the starting point of the Arab Spring, was for demanding the people’s right to work, housing, to social services such as health care and an adequate standard of living and their right to profit from the wealth of their country, but also their right to dignity and their political rights. The Moroccan response came one month after in 8 November 2010. The 8, 000 tents were burned down by the army, thousands citizens were arrested, beaten, injured, hundreds of them were detained for days and 23 were kept in prison and are going to be brought before martial court.

In all Saharawi cities different social groups are organising demonstrations, sit-ins and hunger-strikes to demand basic economic rights. But the normal response from the Moroccan authorities is oppression. Saharawi organisations assert that Morocco is adopting a systematic policy to impoverish the Saharawi citizens in their own country. Saharawis are denied the right to work, they are denied opportunities of investment in many sectors, they are subjected to all kinds of economic restrictions if they defend Western Sahara independence. Most of the time they are dismissed from work, their salaries frozen or they are deprived of any kind of promotion in their jobs if they are actively in favour of the right to self-determination.

Saharawi students find a lot of restrictions that hinder their enjoyment of the right to education. Students have to travel to the Moroccan cities to study because the Moroccan authorities didn’t build a single university or high school in Western Sahara. Secondary school students are daily harassed by police. Since 2005 the Moroccan authorities posted police and soldiers inside primary and secondary schools to stop students from organising peaceful demonstrations. This armed presence usually generates confrontations and human rights violations.

CULTURAL RIGHTS

The first thing Morocco attacked in 1975 is the nomadic life of the people of Western Sahara. They forced thousands of people to move to the cities, thousands others were killed during raids or forced to flee their country seeking refuge in the neighbouring Algeria, where they are still living. Since 1976 in the Saharawi refugee camps they are relying on international aid.The Moroccan authorities also attacked the Spanish component of the Saharawi culture. They banned the study and use of Spanish from school since 1977. Hundreds of Saharawi students couldn’t finish their studies because of the change of the curriculums.

Lately, the Moroccans are even attacking the use of the traditional tents or any kind of tent by Saharawis as a reprisal against the population after the use of the tent as a symbol in the Gdeim Izik protest camp in 2010.

Saharawi writers can not print books about the Saharawi culture, history or politics. Most of them exercise self-censorship because they are forced to find false links between the Saharawi culture and the Moroccan one or their books would be banned. Morocco went further in putting the Hassania language (the Saharawi dialect) in the Moroccan constitution as a Moroccan dialect! The Moroccan authorities organise many cultural festivals to promote the idea that the Saharawi culture and heritage is Moroccan. On the other hand Saharawi associations and intellectuals can not express their own views on these attempts of appropriation of their culture by the colonising power because they risk detention and oppression.

VIOLATION OF ENVIRONMENT

Morocco started its invasion of Western Sahara with poisoning of wells and the scarce springs of water. The Moroccan army was given orders by the Moroccan King Hassan II to kill anything that moves in the desert to force the Saharawi nomads to move to cities so that his authority he could control the population. Saharawi survivors talk about terrible raids against livestock. Camels, goats and cheep were the main cattle raised by Saharawi nomads. Each family of nomads used to own hundreds of animals. In 1976 Saharawis were fleeing for their lives from Moroccan air force raids that used Napalm and White Phosphor bombs against them. Thousands of lives were lost away from the eyes of the civilised world that was applauding the Moroccan ‘Green March’. Hundreds of thousands of animals perished too.

Further, the Moroccan army built the biggest military walls now existing on earth. Six walls were built from 1981 to 1987 around the main Saharawi cities but also to protect the main natural resources behind a well defended wall so as to plunder the resources without big trouble. Morocco built around 4,000 kilometres of sand walls, using more than five million landmines, according to the most modest estimations. Nowadays, only 2,700 kilometres of this wall are operational though the rest of the walls remain dangerous because of the arbitrary use of landmines by the Moroccan army during the seventies and eighties.

The Moroccan wall doesn’t only part the Saharawi people in two parts, but it also causes a huge problem for the flow of waters (rivers and sources of water), and causes serious damage to the Saharawi livestock. It also destroys Saharawi nomadic free movement traditions and constitutes a constant danger on the lives of individuals and animals because of landmines.

The Moroccan wall also affects the wild animal life in Western Sahara. The Saharawi Gazelle is under threat of extinction because of landmines and because it was deprived of the freedom of movement in the desert. A similar fate is threatening the different species in the once rich Saharawi waters that risk becoming dangerously poor because of over-exploitation.

CONCLUSION

The right to self-determination is one of the main pillars of international law, and is one of the main guarantees for the establishment of peace, democracy and respect of human rights in the world. There are many international attempts to normalise the violation of the right to self-determination by some big powers and through their proxies such as Morocco, and the aim is always to set chaos and destabilise order in the world so as to profit from possibilities of exploiting natural resources of weak peoples.

The maintenance of the occupation of Western Sahara and Palestine, the destruction of the political stability in Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, Somalia, Libya and the countries of the Sahel, and in future in other countries that have big reserves of oil, gas and waters will be the result of the success of these countries in violating the peoples’ right to self-determination and sovereignty over their land and resources. This is why the peoples must keep an eye on their real enemies and always create new tactics and methods to defend their rights, otherwise humanity will loose its future; humanity will simply disappear.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA.

* Malainin Lakhal is secretary general of Saharawi Journalists and Writers Union
* This is a lecture presented during a conference organised in Cairo, Egypt, from 15 to 17 January 2012 by the Habitat International Coalition under the title: ‘Sovereignty over the land and peoples’ right to self-determination’.
* Please send comments to editor[at]pambazuka[dot]org or comment online at Pambazuka News.