CALL FOR UN SANCTIONS AGAINST MOROCCO

As peaceful protests take place in over 80 countries around the world against the corrupt financial and political systems one only has to go to the Western Sahara to see the other side of the coin. Since the peaceful protest by tens of thousands of Saharawis last October at the Gdeim Izik protest camp Morocco has been turning up the desert heat. What was the largest ever protest in the occupied territories culminated on Monday, October 10, with Moroccan forces brutally attacking peaceful protesters in El Aaiun. The Polisario claims some 30 Saharawis were injured and many others arrested.


It was against this background that the President of the Republic and Secretary General of the Polisario Front, Mohamed Abdelaziz, called on the United Nations to impose sanctions against Morocco. The purpose is to make Rabat comply with the mandate of the UN and end its colonial policy in Western Sahara.

Mohamed Abdelaziz wrote to the UN Secretary General, Mr. Ban Ki-moon denouncing the situation of terror, siege, abductions and imprisonments, which take place in the occupied cities of Dakhla and El Aaiun and all the occupied territories of Western Sahara at the hands of Morocco.

The president wrote: “It’s clear that Morocco does not respect the provisions of international humanitarian law, clings to continue its flagrant violations of human rights in Western Sahara, which is under direct UN responsibility, pending decolonization and exercise of inalienable right to self determination and independence.” He then went on to urge the imposition of sanctions against Morocco to fulfil the UN mandate which affirms the right of the Saharawi people to self-determination.

Mohamed Abdelaziz also drew the attention of the UN Secretary General to the situation of the family of Saeed Dembar to recover its rights as well as finally being able to bury their son who was brutally murdered by Moroccan police on December 23, 2010

The various peaceful protests by the Saharawi are an attempt to show their deep frustration over the lack of political progress in the Western Sahara to the outside world. The only meaningful activity in the region is Morocco’s plundering of their natural resources.

The Saharawis have now lived through 36 years of illegal colonisation; nearly 20 years of waiting for a referendum on the status of Western Sahara. The referendum is demanded by international law and promised by the UN yet nothing has happened hence Mohamed Abdelaziz’s strong letter to the Secretary General.

The Saharawis are not totally alone and both Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have accused the Moroccan authorities of allegedly torturing many Saharawis. Amnesty International’s 2011Report accuses Rabat of “beatings, electric shocks and threats of rape.” It adds the detainees face military courts on trumped up charges after forced confessions.

As the protestors in New York, London, Madrid and around the world receive front page coverage in the press the authorities in Morocco maintain a media blackout in the Western Sahara. Morocco has banned the entrance to Western Sahara of media and independent observers as well as the Spanish International Association for the Observation of Human Rights (AIODH) from visiting Saharawi human rights activists held in prisons in Morocco. However the Saharawi voice has not been silenced and cries out for justice.

(A version of the above article appeared in the Morning Star on Friday October 21 2011)

ILLEGAL AND IMMORAL -

The commercial accord between the EU and Morocco that is currently going through the approval process in the European Parliament has been labelled as illegal and immoral. These were the conclusions reached at a seminar on the treaty held last week in Spain.

In a statement one of the participants, Ecologistas en Acción declared: “The conclusions are clear: it is an illegal accord because of the judicial situation of occupied Western Sahara, it is immoral because it includes resources of this territory and it is socially and environmentally prejudicial because it favours the benefits to the large corporations to the detriment of small farmers and the environment.

Juan Soroeta, an expert in International Law, stated that the accord was illegal, because amongst other reasons, “the natural resources of the non-autonomous territories, that is to say, the pending decolonisation of the Western Sahara – can’t be exploited to the detriment of the population and without the approval of the legitimate representatives, in this case Saharan – the Polisario Front that openly rejects the accord.”

Pilar Ramírez of the Western Sahara Resource Watch added: “the accord on the subject of fishing is also illegal. From the ethical point of view because they are exploiting the resources that are the property of the Saharan people.”

International maritime legislation says that you cannot negotiate with the fishing resources of a country that doesn’t have the pertinence of those waters and up till now nobody has recognised Morocco’s sovereignty over this maritime space.

From the political point of view, Alí Mojtar of the Polisario Front protested that “with this accord, Europe supports directly the Moroccan cause to keep the Western Sahara territories” and as a result violates the Declaration of Human Rights and worsens the situation under which the population of the Western Sahara lives.

Pressure is now being applied to Euro MPs not to ratify the new Accord of Association which sets out to liberalise commerce and agriculture between the EU and Morocco. In Spain demonstrations will be held against the agreement and in the country’s lower house of parliament, Congress, MPs are being asked to protest to the Spanish Government about the serious illegalities and violations of human rights.

The King of the Poor has 2,000 million euros

Meanwhile in Morocco itself the move towards democratic freedom amongst Arab nations is being keenly felt. This has led to the Moroccan monarch, Mohamed VI, moving to head off demonstrations that could endanger his regime.

Although Mohamed VI is known in Morocco as the “King of the Poor” he has five palaces in Rabat, Fez, Casablanca, Meknes and Marrakesh plus another in Bets in France some 70 kms from Paris which he inherited from his father Hassan II. The 47-year-old king is the seventh richest monarch in the world and according to Forbes has an estimated personal fortune of 2,000 million euros.

This puts him in a stark contrast to the average Moroccan who earns $3,000 per annum, slightly above the Egyptian norm but behind Tunisia with $4,100 and the highest earners in the Maghreb, Libya with $12,000.

However it is the jobless that were behind the power change in Tunisia. In Morocco the figure is around 10 per cent compared with 14 per cent in Tunisia and Algeria. The main problem facing Mohamed VI is that amongst his 35 million subjects half are under 25 years of age and these have been hit hard by juvenile unemployment. Mohamed VI has already doubled the subventions on basic food stuffs and domestic gas but this has not proved enough.

Wikileaks revealed that a US diplomat reported “the corruption in Morocco extends to the royal palace”. Now Moroccans want more transparency and given what has happened elsewhere in the Maghreb the king has decided to act.

Last week Mohamed VI announced a fundamental reform of the constitution that has been in place since 1996 and was introduced by his father. In a TV address he has spoken of giving total responsibility to the government, ensuring the independent power of the judiciary, and ceding to parliament the functions of representation, legislation and control.

It remains to be seen how the Movement of February 20 will respond. It has called for massive demonstrations on March 20 to demand political change, more employment, actions against institutionalised corruption and the reform of the Constitution.

Osama El Khlifi, one of the young people that started the movement on Facebook, says the king’s speech has changed nothing. “We are going to demonstrate on the 20 th with the same demands. There will be more people on the streets than in February.”

It remains to be seen how Mohamed VI will react.

(A version of the above article appeared in the Morning Star on Wednesday March 16 2011).

WESTERN SAHARAN HOMES IN FLAMES

On Tuesday morning the Frente Polisario news agency, SPS, issued the following press release: “Hundreds of Moroccan colonists, supported by lorries of the Moroccan occupation army” have set fire to Saharan homes in the Matalla quarter of the Western Sahara capital of El Aaiún.


At the same time various blogs published by Saharan activists claimed that Moroccan troops had overnight handed out weapons to the colonists and they were now involved in an armed house-to-house offensive and they were beginning to set fire to all the cars of the Saharans and various homes.

For its part the Consejo de Ministros of the self-appointed República Árabe Saharaui Democrática (RASD) described the attacks as “a vile act” and laid the blame at the door of the Moroccan monarch, Mohamed VI. The council said his comments on the anniversary of the “Marcha Verde” that saw Morocco take possession of the Western Sahara has done nothing to lessen tensions. Indeed it has described it as an order “to commit this massacre” which had coincided with the third round of informal negotiations between the Polisario Front and Morocco at the UN.

Meanwhile the Polisario has raised the number of Saharan dead after the violent attack on Monday by Moroccan security forces on the Gdeim Izik protest camp to 10. In addition there are reported to be 700 injured with 150 people have disappeared. For its part the Asociación de Derechos Humanos de Marruecos says 12 people have died, 60 are injured with 65 being detained. It adds that the number of dead amongst the security forces is placed at five.

There is growing anger in Spain where it is believed Morocco is intent on provoking a civil war in the Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony. There have been widespread demonstrations outside the Moroccan embassy in Madrid and the country’s consulates throughout the country. However the Spanish Government maintains its policy of not criticising its neighbour across the Strait especially over the Western Sahara.

The new minister for foreign affairs, Trinidad Jiménez, is thousands of miles away in the Bolivian capital but is in touch with the Spanish Ambassador in Morocco and with her government in Madrid. She is insisting all is not yet clear, has called for calm and voiced her support for the talks between the Polisario and Morocco under the UN special envoy Christopher Ross.

These talks at the UN were scheduled for Monday and Tuesday. The Polisario representative at the UN, Ahmed Bujari, has sent a letter to the Security Council asking it to intervene to lessen the tensions in the area.

Just back from Morocco is the Izquierda Unida Euro MP, Willy Meyer (pictured above), who along with three Spanish journalists were refused entry to the Western Sahara on Sunday. They were not allowed to disembark from their aircraft at El Aaiún and were forced to return to Gran Canaria in the Canary Islands.

Meyer is quoted as saying Morocco “does not want witnesses” in the Western Sahara and he demanded that the minister for foreign affairs, Trinidad Jiménez, demand immediate explanations from Rabat as why they had been denied access. Meyer added that Morocco had “cut off these territories from the press, elected politicians from Spain and those from the EU. An act that is “absolutely intolerable.”

PROTESTS OVER MOROCCO BANNING SPANISH JOURNALISTS

The Federación de Asociaciones de Periodistas de España (FAPE) which represents over 20,000 journalists in Spain has issued a strongly worded condemnation of Morocco’s banning of seven Spanish journalists from visiting the Western Sahara.

They were meant to fly from Casablanca to El Aaíun in the Western Sahara to report on the death of a 14-year-old boy in an incident on Sunday. The group representing Efe, Cadena SER, TVE, TV3 and El Mundo were due to travel with Royal Air Moroc but at the last minute were told their tickets had been withdrawn.

The journalists were all accredited to work in Morocco but since July 1 the Ministry of Communications has restricted foreign journalists to the capital Rabat unless they have been given specific permission to report from elsewhere.

FAPE stressed to the Moroccan authorities that in Spain the media was allowed to work freely and this was the norm in all democratic countries. It also restated the words of Morocco’s monarch, Mohammed VI, who promised three years after taking over the throne to honour press freedom. At the time he stated: “We want to reaffirm our firm decision to consolidate the freedom of the press, to preserve information pluralism and to guarantee the modernization of the sector that represents one of the pillars of our project for a modern democratic society.”

Spain’s relations with Morocco are fraught at the best of times. On one level there is the normal day to day relationship based on being neighbours across the Strait of Gibraltar. More difficult is the situation regarding the enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla which Spain views as being an integral part of the country whilst Morocco sees Spain as an occupying power. Then there is the Western Sahara which was literally abandoned by Spain in the dying days of Franco and left to Morocco and Mauritania to administer. When Mauritania withdrew Morocco annexed the area. Since then the people of the Western Sahara have sought independence but Morocco will only offer autonomy and moves towards that status have been slow in starting.

The Moroccan government has accused the Western Sahara independence movement Polisario and its backer Algeria of using journalists to politicise social demands by protestors who have set up a tent camp near the Saharan capital El Aaíun. Morocco perceives Spanish media as often siding with Polisario and has accused Algeria of using Spanish journalists in a “media war” against Morocco.

The incident the Spanish journalists wanted to cover was the killing of 14-year-old Najem el-Guareh near the protest camp on Sunday. There are two versions of the story. The Moroccan Interior Ministry stated on Tuesday that two cars tried to force their way through a police checkpoint. In one of the cars was Ahmed Daoudi, a known criminal who was transporting weapons in order to take revenge on the protestors who had expelled him from their camp. The occupants of one of the cars opened fire, forcing police to respond.

The camp residents tell a different story. According to the Spanish newspaper El País they denied the car occupants had opened fire. El-Guareh was shot. Several others, including Daoudi, were reportedly injured with at least one other person is reported to be in a serious condition.

On Wednesday it was reported that the mother of Najem el-Guareh had made an official complaint against the Gendarmería Real officers who shot him. She has also refused to accept his body until a post-mortem and investigation is carried out.

The demonstrators are demanding social improvements such as better housing. Morocco has cut down on the construction of social housing because of the economic crisis. The protest was taking separatist undertones, though it was not initially believed to be associated with Polisario.

Even the size of the camp is open to dispute with Morocco saying there are 1,000 protestors whilst Spanish sources say 10,000. However until Morocco opens up its country and the Western Sahara to the international news media the truth will never be known and in turn Morocco cannot be considered a modern democratic nation.

(The above article appeared in Panorama and a version of the above in The Morning Star on October 28 and 29 2010).