King Mohammed VI of Morocco arrived in the Western Sahara on Monday. The unwelcome visit followed the commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic, declared by the Polisario Liberation Front. The King's trip is allegedly aimed at building support for his so-called autonomy plan. During his last visit to the area in 2002, the Moroccan monarch said that his country would "not give up one inch of its Saharan territory, which is inalienable and indivisible".
The Sahara Press Agency reporting on one response says that Saharawi students at the University o Marrakech organised marches on Tuesday evening to denounce the visit of Mohamed VI to the occupied capital of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic, El Aaiun, and advocated the exercise by the Saharawi people of their right to self-determination and independence.
During the peaceful marches the Saharawi students raised pictures of the Saharawi human rights activist and political prisoners in addition to placards on which it was written: "We reject the visit of Mohamed VI to El Aaiun and ask for the right of the Saharawi people to exercise their inalienable right to self-determination and independence", the same source indicated.
They also called to the "immediate withdrawal of the Moroccan repressive machine from the occupied territories of the Western Sahara and the unconditional release of all the Saharawi political prisoners", imprisoned in the Moroccan prisons, the same source added.
The Moroccan repressive forces, composed of CMI, police and GUS immediately intervened to disperse the demonstrators an proceeded to the sealing of all the streets leading to the place of the demonstration
SPA also reports that Saharawi students of the secondary school of the occupied city of El Aaiun refused on Tuesday to be forcibly transported in Moroccan military trucks to attend, against their will, to the "royal activities" in the occupied capital of the Saharawi Republic, in a signal of denunciation to the visit of Mohamed VI to the Western Sahara and advocating the right of their people to the self-determination and independence, reported SPS’s correspondent on the ground.
Demonstrators raised the flags of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic and chanted in favour of the independence of the Western Sahara, refusing to answer this appeal to attend "these activities."
SPA reports, they also faced the Moroccan settlers stopping them from crossing the Saharawi popular neighbourhood "Giratoria", raising the flags of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic and distributing tracts rejecting the visit of the king of Morocco, Mohamed VI, to the Western Sahara.
The Moroccan forces of occupation violently intervened so as to protect and support the settlers, who failed to enter the Giratoria, according to SPA.
Many people, especially youth have been arrested.
Khalil Sidi M'Hamed, Minister of the Occupied Territories and Communities, called Tuesday on the Moroccan and Saharawi civil citizens in he Western Sahara to "dissociate from these reprehensible practices", underlining that the two people, Saharawi an Moroccan, "are victims to the same Moroccan Government".
The Saharawi official also asked the UN to intervene so as to "protect the Saharawi civil citizens, who are victims to these abuses and to grant them the respect of their fundamental freedoms until the decolonisation of their territory".
The first statement below comes from Western Sahara On Line. The second article is some good background on the whole crappy situation regarding the Western Sahara and is from the Norwegian Support Committee for Western Sahara.
Moroccon King Just Not Welcome!!!
Many media and international news agencies as well as reliable reports emanating from the Saharawi occupied territories have recently been reporting that, on the eve of the forthcoming visit to be conducted by the Moroccan King to the occupied Western Sahara, the Moroccan authorities have intensified their military and security presence in the Territory. Thousands of Moroccan soldiers, police forces, gendarmerie and different security corps have been deployed throughout the occupied territories. Barriers and checkpoints have been erected, and security units have been deployed to patrol the key areas. Besides, houses on main streets as well as university campuses were broken in and evacuated. All these measures aim at terrorising and violating the human rights of Saharawi citizens not only in the occupied territories but also in Southern Morocco and in Moroccan universities where Saharawi students study.
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How To Be Ignored
Depressing lessons in realpolitik from the Western Sahara.
By Carne Ross
Posted Tuesday, March 21, 2006, at 6:59 AM ET
TINDOUF, Algeria—If any part of you wants to believe that the world is fundamentally just, that wrongs are eventually righted, and that those of us in the West are fair and righteous in the way we treat other countries and cultures, consider the story of the people of Western Sahara. Their history proves that you can have right wholly on your side, international law emphatically in support of your cause, be on the agenda of the U.N. Security Council for decades, and still be ignored.
In 1975, Morocco invaded the former Spanish colony of the Western Sahara. A long and inconclusive guerrilla war followed. The Polisario Front, which represents the people of the Western Sahara known as the Sahrawis, was supported by Algeria. Morocco was supported by France, the United States, and other major powers.
At the cease-fire in 1991, Morocco declared that it would accept a U.N.-supervised referendum on the status of the territory, as an earlier ruling of the International Court of Justice required. At last, the Sahrawis would decide their own future. The United Nations set up a commission to run the referendum. The U.N. Security Council passed scores of resolutions over the years that followed supporting a referendum. But thanks to perpetual obstruction by Morocco, the vote never took place. The United Nations' commission to run the referendum—called MINURSO—still exists, at a cost of nearly $50 million a year. Today, there seems less chance than ever that there will be a vote.
When Morocco first invaded, hundreds of thousands of Sahrawis were driven from the territory. The Polisario Front set up refugee camps in the far southwestern corner of Algeria near the town of Tindouf. Home to some 150,000 refugees, the camps' orderliness and the industry of the inhabitants is striking. The rows of huts and tents are tidy; women and children attend classes. But visitors cannot escape the deep sense of despair and frustration. There are middle-aged people who were born here but have never seen their homeland. Recently the camps, which lie deep in the western reaches of the Sahara desert, were devastated by floods ( see this map). To the rest of the world, out of sight is out of mind.
Geography is one reason the Western Sahara is ignored. The suffering of the Sahrawis lies a long, awkward, and expensive journey away, in a country—Algeria—that most Western countries have long warned against visiting because of its own bloody civil war. Reaching the occupied territory itself is even more difficult, thanks to restrictions placed by the Moroccan authorities, who are no doubt reluctant to publicize the recent wave of Sahrawi demonstrations and consequent arrests (described in a recent Amnesty International report). They have also blocked access to Web sites—such as www.arso.org—that cover events in the territory.
"Where's the story?" editors demand of journalists seeking the expensive plane fare to visit Tindouf. And where indeed is the story, except in the tedious, endless denial of justice to an entire population. With no bombs, only occasional killings (a Sahrawi demonstrator was recently beaten to death by the Moroccan police), and an appalling lack of diplomatic action, the story, though rich in tragedy, lacks the immediate drama required to propel it to the front pages.
The attention we give to blood and destruction also helps keep the story off the news agenda. Since the 1991 cease-fire, the Polisario have forsworn violence as a means to further their cause. The Polisario's leaders know that if they were to resume guerrilla action, the Moroccans would be quick to cry terrorism in order to turn their powerful allies against them. Eager for the simplicity of "us" against the "terrorists," the world's press would almost certainly play along. But the paradox of an ugly world is here very evident: Without bloodshed, no one pays any attention to the Polisario. For all the celebration of the nonviolence of Mandela or Gandhi or King, in the real world pacifism has brought the Polisario virtually nothing.
If you talk to diplomats covering Western Sahara, almost all will admit that right is on the Sahrawis' side. The U.N. special envoy recently told the Security Council that the law clearly favors the Sahrawis. But this means nothing, when, in terms of realpolitik, Morocco has all the countries that matter in its camp. Morocco is a loyal U.S. ally in the war against terrorism (including, allegedly, torturing suspects at Washington's behest). It is equally staunch in fighting illegal immigration into Europe. Morocco is the jumping-off point for many African would-be emigrants, who desperately try to cross the Mediterranean or battle their way into the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla. To demonstrate its helpfulness, Morocco has begun to dump the migrants it captures into the minefields beyond the fortified sand barrier known as " the berm" that protects its occupation in the Western Sahara. Some have died.
At the United Nations, there is much hand-wringing about finding a "mutually acceptable" solution to the "dispute," which is, in reality, an occupation. But nothing is done. Morocco has sat tight, watched U.N. envoys come and go, and successfully fooled the world into thinking it a "reforming" Arab government. Meanwhile, it suppresses democracy at home and remains in illegal occupation of someone else's land. It has exploited the mineral wealth of the territory and is now in the process of selling— illegally—rights to fish the Western Sahara's waters to the European Union, which is happy to preach about justice and international law in places where it costs nothing to do so.
This is the ultimate and depressing lesson of the Western Sahara. Whatever anyone tells you about "values" such as democracy or rights being the organizing principles of Western diplomacy, the world is still run according to the dismal calculus of "interests" and realpolitik. Morocco is with us, so the Sahrawis can go to hell. And, frankly, hell is a pretty accurate description of those refugee camps in the Sahara.
Carne Ross is a former British diplomat and director of Independent Diplomat, a nonprofit group that is advising the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, the government-in-exile of the Sahrawi people.
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