Western Sahara News

New York –The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Thursday gave strong backing to his Western Sahara envoy Christopher Ross after the Moroccan government said it had "no confidence" in the diplomat. "The secretary general has complete confidence in Christopher Ross," said the UN spokesperson Martin Nesirky in reaction to the Moroccan government statement which accused the envoy of being "biased and unbalanced". Morocco's attack on Ross follows months of growing tensions between the Rabat government and the United Nations over Western Sahara, the territory it started to annex in 1975 as Spanish colonists withdrew. A UN report on Western Sahara released last month said that Morocco's tactics had "undermined" UN attempts to report on events in the territory. UN-brokered talks between Morocco and Polisario Front rebels are deadlocked. Morocco's Foreign Minister Saad Dine Otmani met UN leader Ban last week and said after that he raise

On 18 April 2012, the El Ayoun Court of Appeal sentenced six human rights defenders to three years in prison. Mr Atiqu Barrai, Mr Kamal Al Tarayh,Mr Abd Al Aziz Barrai, Mr Al Mahjoub Awlad Al Cheih, Mr Mohamed Manolo, who were arrested in October and November 2011, and Mr Hasna Al Wali, who was arrested in January 2012. They are all members of the Western Sahara Organisation Against Torture and are renowned for their advocacy for self-determination for the people of the Moroccan-administered Western Sahara. The sentences were handed down by the Court of Appeal which convicted them, amongst other things, of "forming a criminal gang", "complicity in murder", "violence against public employees" and "damaging public property". All these charges were brought against them in relation to violent events in the city of Dakhla in September 2011, which resulted in the death and injury of a number of people and the damage of property. All six human right

Q&A: Confidence building programme helps Sahrawi families reconnect GENEVA, April 25 (UNHCR) - Since 2004, the UN refugee agency has been running a programme of Confidence Building Measures (CBM) aimed at establishing direct contact between separated families from the Western Sahara and at helping them reconnect. At the heart of the CBM programme are weekly flights that briefly reunite Sahrawi refugees living in windswept, arid isolated camps in western Algeria's Tindouf region and their relatives in the Western Sahara Territory. In what has become one of the world's most protracted refugee situations, the Sahrawi started arriving in western Algeria in 1976, soon after Spain withdrew from the Western Sahara and fighting broke out over its control. To ensure that more people can benefit from the reunion flights, UNHCR earlier this month began using a larger aircraft - a Boeing 737 - between Tindouf and cities in Western Sahara. Georges-Patrick Menze, acting head of the CBM

Tomorrow (17 April), Security Council members are set to receive a briefing in consultations on the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO). The Secretary-General’s Personal Envoy, Christopher Ross, and the head of MINURSO, Hany Abdel-Aziz, are scheduled to brief on developments and on the latest report of the Secretary-General (S/2012/197). In the coming week or so, the Council is likely to adopt a resolution renewing MINURSO’s mandate for a further 12 months before it expires on 30 April. It appears that the Group of Friends of Western Sahara (France, Russia, US, UK and Spain) has already held discussions on a possible draft resolution. Following tomorrow’s consultations, all Council members will likely be involved in the process. Prior to the distribution of the Secretary-General’s final report last week, two earlier advance copies—both distributed on and dated 6 April—were subsequently replaced with a redacted advance report on 11 April. (It would appear that the

The 36-year dispute between Saharan nationalists and Morocco over Morocco's occupation of the mineral-rich Western Sahara region is at a stalemate, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has told the Security Council, which on Tuesday will discuss the future of its peacekeeping mission there. The Moroccan government and Polisario Front rebels have held nine rounds of informal talks since 2007 that achieved nothing except agreement to hold more talks, the UN chief said in his report. Morocco has occupied Western Sahara since invading in 1976 and annexing the territory in 1979. Morocco has proposed wide-ranging autonomy for the region, but the pro-independence Polisario Front insists on the "inalienable right" of the people of the former Spanish colony to self-determination through a referendum on the territory's future. Morocco consolidated control of the region in the 1980s by building a 1,700-mile (2,735-kilometer) sand berm through the desert dividing it from neighboring

Links: Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg faces embarrassment after it was revealed his wife Miriam represents a company accused of trampling on human rights By SIMON WALTERS AND GLEN OWEN Nick Clegg faces embarrassment after it was disclosed that his wife represents a firm that has been accused of trampling on the human rights of ‘Africa’s last colony’. A ‘substantial’ part of lawyer Miriam Clegg’s work, for which she is paid up to £500,000 a year, is understood to come from Moroccan mining giant OCP. The company is at the centre of international controversy over the treatment of the Sahrawi nomadic tribesmen of the Sahara. Morocco, which runs the mining firm, annexed Western Sahara, where the tribesmen live, in 1975, enabling it to seize the world’s biggest phosphate reserves worth billions of pounds. It embarked on a ruthless campaign of forced removals of Sahrawis to refugee camps and Moroccans were brought in to run the mines. The United Nations

The Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony in Africa, was progressively abandoned by Spain from 1975 onwards. In view of the situation, the International Court of Justice pronounced the right of the Sahrawi people to self-determination. However, on November 6 of that same year, King Hassan II, taking advantage of the political crisis rife throughout Franco’s regime in Spain, ordered the “Green March”, whereby 350,000 civilian settlers and 25,000 soldiers of Moroccan origin occupied the region. He therefore sought support and legitimisation for annexation of the area to the Kingdom of Morocco, meanwhile preventing a referendum being held to legitimise the independence of Western Sahara, in view of the more than foreseeable result. The operation was “sold” to European public opinion as a “peaceful invasion by the local population”, despite the fact that the civilian occupation was accompanied by military invasion of the region and that the humble Moroccan settlers, substantially differ