Western Sahara News

Rabat — The UN's Western Sahara envoy met Morocco's foreign minister Monday, official media reported, during a new tour of the region to push for a peaceful resolution to the frozen conflict. Christopher Ross was received by Salaheddine Mezouar and his deputy Mbarka Bouaida, Morocco's MAP new agency said, without giving further details of the meeting. Last week he visited Algeria, the main backer of the pro-independence Polisario Front, where he met Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal, and then travelled to the Sahrawi refugees camps in Tindouf, in western Algeria, where he held talks with Polisario leader Mohamed Abdelaziz. Appointed in 2009 as the personal envoy to the Western Sahara of UN chief Ban Ki-moon, Ross said after his last regional tour in October that there was still no hope of convening face-to-face talks between Morocco, which occupies the disputed territory, and the Polisario Front. "He will convene another round of face-to-face negotia...

Exploring the decades of secret ties between Jerusalem and Rabat. Soon after independence, Israel began following a "periphery doctrine" in its foreign affairs: seeking ties with Arab countries on the margins of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. No example has illustrated the wisdom of that strategy more than links with the kingdom of Morocco.  Many factors explain this special relationship. In the years following their independence, both Israel and Morocco needed Western assistance to deal with domestic challenges and foreign threats, especially communism and pan-Arabism. "When Morocco became independent, its borders were wide open to hostile elements, especially Egyptian spies, who sought to build a secret infrastructure, in an effort to facilitate the Soviet penetration of North Africa," explains Shmuel Segev, former Military Intelligence officer and author of The Moroccan Connection: The Secret Relations between Israel and Morocco.  ...

By Kerry Kennedy, Special to CNN Editor’s note: Kerry Kennedy is the president of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights. The views expressed are her own. Aminatou Haidar was pulled from her vehicle by a mob, shoved to the ground and repeatedly assaulted in a four hour public attack that left her severely beaten. Inside her car, destroyed during the November 2012 incident, sat her teenage daughter and her sister. Haidar, a Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award laureate, was heading home from a meeting with United Nations officials in Western Sahara. Sadly, this wasn’t the first time her family had been attacked. Months earlier, a group of men on a bus recognized her son and daughter and attacked the children, sending them home bloody and bruised as a message to their mother. Before that, she says a thug snarled at her teenage son: “I will rape you 'til you're paralyzed.” The most troubling aspect of all this? In all three cases, the attacke...

by Khalil Asmar Starting from US/Morocco joint statement on November 22nd, 2013 that comprised a whole paragraph on Western Sahara till the 2014 appropriation bill signed into law by president Obama on January 17th and passed by congress, Rabat regime’s lobbyist doesn’t seem to swallow the hard blows every time the US administration stresses on international legality on the decades long procrastinated struggle between Morocco and Western Sahara republic’s sole representative the Polisario Front, and desperately endeavoring to search for the slightest hint to market fancy stories fearing the disappointment of a generous regime ready to pay for any comforting lies.  First, in the joint statement, the US administration considered Morocco plan of autonomy an option among others to resolve the Western Sahara issue and not the only valid and viable solution as channeled by Morocco corrupt US-based lobbyist and state propaganda media and press. The paragraph in the joint state...

New document provided by WSHRW as an exclusive worldwide presentation. A new exclusive world first revelation by WSHRW. For the first time is published the opinion of the Legal Service of the European Parliament on the so-called “Agricultural Agreement”, the new Association Agreement between the EU and Morocco signed at the end of 2009, at the time that Morocco illegally deported Aminatu Haidar. Said Agreement was finally published in 2012 in the Official Journal of the European Union. The Trade Committee of the European Parliament requested an opinion of this Institution’s Legal Service on the legality of the agreement. The opinion issued by the Legal Service, which is very negative for Moroccan interests, was kept secret. The European Commission and the European Council themselves have not ventured to invoke it to address the action brought before the European Court of Justice by Frente Polisario against this Agreement. The opinion establishes in two key paragraphs ...

by Khalil Asmar Just few years after Morocco took its independence from France in 1956, the ruling monarchy found itself in palpable tension with the Moroccan national movement, resulting in the assassination of its high-profile political leader El Mahdi Ben Barka in 1965. This incident generated a legacy of bitterness and uncompromising mistrust, not only between the monarchy and the Moroccan national movement, but extended to the international level. In the 70s of the last century, the monarchy reached its peak status of isolation both nationally and internationally, and what remained of the political parties descended from the national movement stood obstinately resolute against any participation or power sharing with a corrupt monarchy, which in any case was about to be wrecked by two coups d’état. Since then, Morocco entered what became known as “the leaden years,” and the yelling of the democratic voices rose up, denouncing the grave human rights situation that spread a...

SALE (MOROCCO)- The Saharawi political prisoners, "Gdeim Izik" group, jailed in the Moroccan prison of Salé, stressed Tuesday that MINURSO is the only UN mission which does not have a mechanism of human rights monitoring. These prisoners, cited by the Sahrawi news agency (SPS) recalled "the incessant calls from international human rights defending organizations and the UN Secretary General’s call in his latest report for the implementation of a UN mechanism to monitor human rights in Western Sahara." They expressed the "full and complete compliance with national and international campaigns for the protection of human rights in Western Sahara", calling on all Sahrawi people to spare no effort to ensure the success of these campaigns initiated by coordination of human rights defending organizations in Western Sahara." In addition, Moroccan policemen brutally tortured on Sunday Saharawi citizen, Lala Lhatra Aram before setting her hous...

Saharawi Voice  compiles the “stories from the forgotten people of Africa's last colony”, with the aim of conveying a sense of daily life in Western Sahara and the hardships of living in an occupied territory. Western Sahara  is a disputed territory in the  Maghreb  region of North Africa, and one of the most sparsely populated places in the world, mainly consisting of desert flatlands. Nearly 40% of the population lives in El Aaiún, the largest city in Western Sahara. Occupied by Spain since the late 19th century, in 1975 it relinquished administrative control of the territory to a joint administration between Morocco and Mauritania. A war erupted between those countries and the Sahrawi national liberation movement, the  Polisario Front , proclaimed the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic  (SADR) with a government-in-exile in  Tindouf , Algeria. Mauritania withdrew in 1979, and Morocco eventually secured effective control of most of t...

In October of last year a Canadian company imported possibly the first conflict materials into the country since the South African Apartheid. Even though the phosphate rock bought is from the Bou Craa mines in Western Sahara, the money has ended up in the hands on the Moroccan government. As purchases of this nature become commonplace in the international community, serious questions are raised concerning their legality and the impact they are having on progress to the region. In October 2010 a shipment of Phosphate arrived on the shore on North Vancouver carrying a cargo of worth $10 million. The new owner of this shipment is Calgary based agricultural business ‘Agrium’, who have entered into an agreement with Morocco to buy 1 million tones a year until 2020, a deal worth over $100 million. Mike Watson, president and CEO of Agrium, said: “We believe this agreement signifies the start of a significant partnership between Agrium and Morocco, offering clear benefits to bot...

by Khalil Asmar If you stop the loud noises coming from the fanfare of the Moroccan media, about its diplomats-special envoys-flamboyantly adventurous trips and achievements in central and South-America, you will be deafened by the absurd silence its diplomacy makes. In other words, big hats no cattle. The king grouped all his ambassadors last year, announcing he wanted to give his diplomacy a new road-map, a Facelift actually. Because underneath this cosmetic surgery, still lay the old wrinkles of the old weak foreign policy of Rabat. The king sent a flamboyant group of envoys or as they are also known as "experts in corruption diplomats" to Haiti, Panama and Paraguay to gain their support for the autonomy plan in Western-Sahara. They have also made a quick stop in the Dominican Republic. The first three countries mentioned above, have had supported the Polisario and the call for the self determination of the people of Western-Sahara. But as history recalls...

Morocco is likely to seek investment for new solar power plants from Arabian Gulf states, after tensions between the government and the regional independence movement the Polisario Front put European investment in the country’s disputed Western Sahara region at risk, according to Reuters. The country’s solar energy agency announced plans for five plants in the Western Sahara in 2009, which it will seek to tender imminently. The German development bank KFW, the European Investment Bank and the European Union, have all expressed reluctance to invest in the politically contested region, however. “If we support those investments, it would look like we are supporting the Moroccan position. We are neutral regarding that conflict,” one source, who declined to be named, told Reuters. In 1975, when the region’s Spanish colonists withdrew, the Western Sahara was annexed by Morocco and Mauritania. The Polisario Front had been campaigning for independence while the territory wa...

(SeeNews) - Jan 6, 2014 - KfW Ipex-Bank GmbH, the World Bank, the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the European Union (EU) are not willing to finance Morocco’s ambitious solar projects in Western Sahara due to the political conflict there, Reuters said Thursday citing sources. Yet, the news agency quoted other informants as saying that some alternative funds could come in the form of bilateral financing from Arab Gulf states. A few years ago Morocco unveiled plans to install 4,000 MW of solar and wind power capacity by the end of the decade. Several parks are intended to be built in Western Sahara where the Algeria-backed Polisario Front is currently fighting for independence. One of the bank sources told Reuters that supporting any of the renewable energy projects in Western Sahara could be considered by some as support for Morocco’s position. The banks aim to remain neutral to the Morocco-Algeria conflict. Reuters cited Morocco’s Mines and Energy Minister Abdelkade...

In early December 2013, I arrived in La’ayoune, the capital of the Western Sahara. The issues that frame the Sahrawi people’s ongoing struggle for independence had led me to the refugee camps of Smara, Dakhla and Tindouf. The legal status of the Western Sahara and the question of sovereignty remain unresolved. The territory is contested between Morocco and the Polisario Front. It is considered a non-self governed occupied territory by the United Nations. In Morocco, meanwhile, there is no debate as to whom the region belongs to; “it is Morocco’s land, it has always been part of our country” my taxi driver tells me quite confidently. Speaking about the issue over dinner raised a few eyebrows too. As for those directly suffering, the Sahrawi people, the outlook for the ongoing colonisation of their land can be best described as a political stalemate. The Saharawi people want to be granted the dignity of being met on their own terms, the recognition that they are equal to ...

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands but seeing with new eyes. (Marcel Proust) I am pleased to now be featuring photographs by renowned Mexican photographer Rodrigo Jardon. Rodrigo spent two weeks in the refugee camps in Tindouf, Algeria, taking photos of the landscape and the Sahrawis that inhabit it. The photographs are not only visually stunning but also give a real insight into the lifestyle in the camps. The images of the buildings and infrastructure allow us to see the amount of development that the Sahrawis have achieved in the 38 years since the camps were established. The portraits, on the other hand, show us that happiness and determination are still forceful entities in the camp, giving hope to a place otherwise shrouded in suffering and loss. Despite what most people would assume the camps are (more often than not) a place of normality, where the steadfastness of the people keep them smiling through the extreme heat and difficult circumstan...

By  PAUL SCHEMM LAAYOUNE, Western Sahara (AP) — Helmeted Moroccan riot police waded into the small crowds of women in brightly colored shawls who chanted slogans for independence on the streets of Laayoune, the capital of the disputed territories of the Western Sahara. Every time one group of the mostly women and children protesters was dispersed, another would appear farther down the street, attracting phalanxes of police. The confrontations continued long after dark and degenerated into stone-throwing contests. The harsh police response against the Sahrawis, as the region's native inhabitants are known, contrasted with the conciliatory gestures the Moroccan government have been extending to the restive desert territory that it annexed 38 years ago. Just weeks before the demonstrations, the government announced a potentially groundbreaking, 10-year economic plan to boost the standard of living and increase respect for human rights — but that has done little to ...