Tout sur le Sahara Occidental

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Êtes-vous pour ou contre l'indépendance du Sahara Occidental ?

oui je suis pour l'indépendance du Sahara Occidental et j'approuve le soutien de l'Algérie a cette cause juste !
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non je suis contre l'indépendance du Sahara Occidental et je n'approuve pas le soutien de l'Algérie a cette cause !
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yayoune
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Re: Tout sur le Sahara Occidental

Message par yayoune »

Is One of Africa’s Oldest Conflicts Finally Nearing Its End?

or the past forty years, tens of thousands of Moroccan soldiers have manned a wall of sand that curls for one and a half thousand miles through the howling Sahara. The vast plain around it is empty and flat, interrupted only by occasional horseshoe dunes that traverse it. But the Berm, as the wall is known, is no natural phenomenon. It was built by the Kingdom of Morocco, in the nineteen-eighties, and it’s the longest defensive fortification in use today—and the second-longest ever, after China’s Great Wall. The crude barrier, surrounded by land mines, electric fences, and barbed wire, partitions a wind-blasted chunk of desert the size of Colorado known as the Western Sahara. Formerly a Spanish colony, the territory was annexed by its northern neighbor, Morocco, in 1975. An indigenous Sahrawi rebel group, called the Polisario Front, waged a guerrilla war for independence. In 1991, after sixteen years of conflict, the two sides agreed to a ceasefire. The wall keeping the foes apart stretches from the Atlantic Ocean to the mountains of Morocco, roughly the distance from New York City to Dallas.

Late last year, I visited the Berm from the Polisario side, to the east, accompanying a handful of supporters of the group from around the world. Until we were about a hundred feet away, I didn’t sense that I was anywhere in particular in the expanse of the desert. My Polisario guide pointed out painted rocks indicating a minefield ahead. A few feet away, an unexploded mortar shell lay in the sand. We walked into a United Nations-controlled buffer zone and the Berm appeared in front of us, rising about six and a half feet behind a barbed-wire fence. I glanced left and right. The wall seemed to stretch endlessly, almost into the blue sky.

As we approached one of the tent-topped fortifications that dot the length of the Berm, a handful of Moroccan soldiers began to scurry around inside. “Will they shoot?” I asked one the Polisario guides. We could see the peaks of the soldier’s flat caps. “No, no,” he replied, laughing. He said that Sahrawis often demonstrate in front of the wall, demanding that Morocco leave the territory. “They’re used to this.” Two women began to shout abuse at the soldiers about Morocco’s King Mohammed VI. “Mohammed, you asshole,” they screamed. “The Sahara is not yours.”

Today, Morocco controls the western eighty per cent of the disputed territory, and the Polisario (which stands for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el-Hamra and Río de Oro) occupies the rest. The Polisario movement initially began as an armed rebellion against Spanish occupiers. Today, the Polisario calls Western Sahara “Africa’s Last Colony,” asserts that Morocco has replaced Spain as colonizer, and accuses the kingdom of exploiting the territory’s resources. Negotiations have repeatedly stalled, making Western Sahara the site of one of the world’s oldest frozen conflicts. The Polisario’s self-declared Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic is recognized by the African Union and Algeria, which has given the group military support for decades and currently hosts more than a hundred and seventy thousand Sahrawi refugees in squalid camps.


Women at a traditional festival at the Boujdour camp near Tindouf, in southern Algeria. Sahrawis try to keep traditions alive in the camps.Photograph by Nicolas Niarchos
Morocco has poured money into its side of the Berm, expanding cities and developing tourism. But the Polisario accuses the kingdom of filling the territory it controls with secret police and soldiers, and of violently suppressing free speech and pro-independence protests. Videos abound online of police roughing up Sahrawi protesters. Omar Hilale, the Moroccan Ambassador to the U.N., denied the accusations of human-rights abuses in the territory and blamed incidents of violence on unlawful protests. “You want to protest, you have to register—everywhere, even here in the United States,” he told me. Hilale pointed the finger at Algeria, which he said had sent trained rabble-rousers into Western Sahara. Morocco’s largest foreign backer is France, the country’s former colonial overlord, and the French and Moroccan leadership retain strong political, economic, and personal ties. French companies frequently use Moroccan firms to invest in Africa, where they are often unpopular due to their colonial and postcolonial history. Many French politicians keep lavish holiday homes in Morocco.

On December 5th, for the first time in six years, negotiations were held in an effort to initiate a resolution to the conflict. To the surprise of longtime observers, the talks proceeded civilly and the parties agreed to meet again in several months. Officials present told me that President Trump’s new national-security adviser, John Bolton, played an important role in getting the groups to the table. “John Bolton and the enormous engagement the Americans are now putting in helped a lot,” a senior official close to the talks told me. Some diplomats involved in the negotiations call the changes “the Bolton effect."

At an event in Washington in mid-December, where the Trump Administration’s new Africa strategy was unveiled, Bolton told me that he was eager to end the conflict. “You have to think of the people of the Western Sahara, think of the Sahrawis, many of whom are still in refugee camps near Tindouf, in the Sahara desert, and we need to allow these people and their children to get back and have normal lives,” he said.

Bolton knows the conflict well. He worked on the U.N. peacekeeping mandate for the region in 1991, and, starting in the late nineties, he was part of a U.N. negotiation team, led by James Baker III, the former Secretary of State, which came close to brokering an agreement to hold an independence referendum in the Western Sahara. (The Polisario agreed to the proposal, but Morocco did not.) The conflict, Baker told me in an interview in Houston, “has not been handled well, and that’s why it continues to persist.”

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Since Bolton’s appointment, in March, there has been a flurry of activity regarding the Western Sahara conflict at the U.N. and in the State Department. “There are two Americans who really focus a lot on the Western Sahara: one’s Jim Baker, the other’s me,” Bolton told me. “I think there should be intense pressure on everybody involved to see if they can’t work it out.” This spring, at the insistence of the U.S. and to the chagrin of Moroccan and French diplomats, the U.N. peacekeeping mandate for the Western Sahara was extended by only six months rather than a year. (Bolton has long contended that the U.N. peacekeeping mission there has prolonged the conflict by detracting from efforts to resolve the underlying issues.) In October, the mandate was renewed for another six months. “After twenty-seven years, I don’t get impatient on a daily basis,” Bolton told me. “I just get impatient when I think about it.”

Bolton has repeatedly accused Morocco of engaging in delaying tactics to stymie negotiations. He wrote, in 2007, “Morocco is in possession of almost all of the Western Sahara, happy to keep it that way, and expecting that de facto control will morph into de jure control over time.”

Many Moroccan observers believe that Bolton is sympathetic to the Polisario. “John Bolton has distinguished himself by taking positions that are openly close to those of the separatists,” Tarik Qattab wrote in a story, this spring, for the Moroccan news outlet Le 360, which reflects the views of the government. Moroccan officials have also mounted a concerted effort to curry favor with Trump and Bolton. In May, Morocco cut off diplomatic relations with Iran, one of Trump’s most bitter enemies. Then, in September, the Moroccan foreign minister claimed in an interview with the conservative Web site Breitbart that the Polisario was being provided military training and weapons by Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy. (Morocco gave no proof of these claims, and analysts told me that such a connection was highly unlikely.)

Polisario officials, for their part, have welcomed the renewed U.S. engagement. Trump and other world leaders, they say, would create good will in the Arab world if they broker a peace settlement. European governments have also demonstrated interest in resolving the dispute; last year, Horst Köhler, a former German President, was appointed U.N. Special Envoy for the region. Köhler has long advocated solving internal problems in Africa in order to slow the flow of migrants northward. So far, he has been a forceful presence in the talks.

Initially, Morocco refused to meet with the Polisario, and the parties even fought over the shape of the bargaining table. But Köhler managed to hash out a format seen as a concession to all sides. Eventually, the participants—which included Morocco, Mauritania, Algeria, and the Polisario Front—met, in Geneva, on December 5th and 6th. Hilale, the Moroccan Ambassador to the U.N., was present. The talks, he told me, “took place in very respectful atmosphere and ambience.”

After the first day of the meeting, the delegates had a Swiss fondue dinner together. “The Europeans had to explain to the parties how that worked, and that worked to bring them together,” the official close to the talks told me, jokingly referring to the meal as “fondue diplomacy.” By the end, the Algerian foreign minister began to address the Moroccan foreign minister by his first name. However, when the Polisario suggested confidence-building measures, such as removing the mines along the Berm and releasing political prisoners, during the formal talks, they were rebuffed.

By the afternoon of the 6th, a communiqué was agreed upon that called for more talks in the coming months. “From our discussions, it is clear to me that nobody wins from maintaining the status quo,” Köhler said. The Polisario praised the renewed U.S. involvement in the talks and called for “a process of self-determination in Western Sahara.” But the Moroccan foreign minister rejected the idea of a plebiscite. “Self-determination, in Morocco’s view, is done by negotiation,” he said. “A referendum is not on the agenda.” A week later, at the event in Washington, Bolton appeared to back a referendum. “You know, being an American, I favor voting,” he said. “All we want to do is hold a referendum for seventy thousand voters. It’s twenty-seven years later—the status of the territory is still unresolved.”

Until now, the United States has largely backed Morocco in the conflict. During the Cold War, the Polisario was seen as pro-Soviet and received support from Muammar Qaddafi’s Libya, as well as Algeria and Cuba. The U.S., under both Republican and Democratic Administrations, sold hundreds of millions of dollars of weapons to the Moroccan armed forces. Baker remembers the conflict being portrayed in stark Cold War terms when he visited Morocco. “When I was Treasury Secretary, the Moroccans came to us and they wanted help in their war against Polisario,” Baker told me. “I gave them overhead intelligence.” The intelligence, and direct U.S. military support, were instrumental to the Moroccans as they built the Berm.

After the 9/11 attacks, the Moroccans tried to once again portray the Polisario as the enemy, arguing that an independent Western Sahara would become a haven for terrorists. Baker, in his capacity as the U.N. envoy, put forward two plans for the region. The first offered the Moroccans control over the Western Sahara but allowed the Sahrawis autonomy. The Polisario rejected the proposal, and it was never presented formally to the U.N. Security Council. Baker’s second plan called for an independence referendum by Sahrawis and Moroccans living in the territory after a period of autonomy under a Sahrawi government. In 2003, Baker’s second proposal was unanimously endorsed by the Security Council, but the Moroccans worried that they might lose the referendum. King Mohammed wrote to George W. Bush to scupper Baker’s plan, raising the threat of the “redeployment of terrorist groups in the region.” Elliott Abrams, then a key adviser to the National Security Council, argued that the Polisario was no friend to the United States. “I didn’t see any reason to think that it would turn into a democracy, or that it would be pro-Western,” Abrams told me, in an interview. Baker’s proposals were abandoned.

Today, the territory is caught in diplomatic limbo: the Polisario insists on a referendum, and Morocco insists that the region should be given a more limited autonomy, under the kingdom’s sovereignty. (Bolton has dismissed Morocco’s proposal in the past.) Baker told me he was still perturbed by the breakdown in negotiations. “I came up with a pretty damn good plan, I thought,” he said. The problem, he said, was that the international community and the U.N. Security Council didn’t support him. “You know, the U.N. can only be as effective as its member states,” he said. “The member states don’t want to solve this. They’re not willing to use political chips to solve it, so it ain’t going to get solved.”

The best-known among the Sahrawi protestors demonstrating against Moroccan rule in the Western Sahara is Aminatou Haidar, a slight, birdlike woman in her early fifties. She was nominated for the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize and has been called the “Sahrawi Gandhi.” A practitioner of nonviolent resistance, Haidar has been beaten, tortured, imprisoned, detained, and interrogated by the Moroccan security services for her protests against the kingdom’s rule in the Western Sahara. In 2009, after travelling abroad, she was barred from returning to the territory, and she went on a hunger strike that left her bones brittle and the vertebrae in her back warped.

I met Haidar last year, in the Canary Islands, in the lobby of a nondescript hotel. She wore a yellow-and-gray mulafa, a traditional veil worn in Northwest Africa, which drew the occasional glance from European holidaymakers walking nearby. She squinted at me through thick-framed glasses. Her eyesight was damaged, she said, when guards blindfolded her for long periods in a Moroccan jail. “I’ve lived the suffering in my own flesh,” she told me. On the day I met her, Sahrawi demonstrators in Laayoune, the capital of Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara, had been attacked by the police. “During the last six months, we have registered, I think, eighty-six demonstrations that were stopped or repressed,” she said.

In 1987, when she was twenty, Haidar organized a demonstration in advance of an official U.N. visit to the Western Sahara. Moroccan police came to her house the night before the U.N. team arrived. “I was arrested. They put me in a car, and they started to quickly drive around the street,” she said. The car circled the streets of Laayoune in order to give the impression that they had travelled farther than they actually had. She was worried that she had been taken to a secret jail inside Morocco, as some of her relatives had been, and that she would never return. In fact, she had been taken to a police barracks near her home.

For the next four years, she was imprisoned in various jails, and her family was not told of her whereabouts. For the first year, she lived in solitary confinement. “I contracted rheumatism, because I was thrown into a corridor where it was really cold. And in the summer it was boiling,” she told me. In the second year, Haidar was placed in a cell with other detainees. She said that some of her fellow-prisoners told her that they were bitten by dogs set on them by policemen.

Haidar was released in 1991, as the Moroccans and the Polisario signed a ceasefire. The two parties agreed that the U.N. would broker a vote on national self-determination. Disagreements over who would be allowed to vote delayed the referendum, which has still not taken place. Moroccan officials barred journalists and human-rights organizations from entering the territory and investigating police abuse. “We were totally isolated from the outside world,” Haidar said. Moroccan officials confiscated her passport in 1987 and declined to issue her a new one for nearly two decades.

Last year, I tried to visit Laayoune and make sense of two contradictory narratives that have emerged from Western Sahara. Haider and other independence supporters have told horror stories, yet tourists post enthusiastic reviews of the area’s resorts and beaches. I asked my brother, who is a photographer, to join me. Before leaving, I contacted local supporters of independence, including Haidar, and set up interviews with them in the city.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-des ... ng-its-end

malikos
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
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Re: Tout sur le Sahara Occidental

Message par malikos »

reading that article above that is also my impression, from the (younger) Saharawi perspective war is rather desired than feared.
And I have to say they have much more to win than to lose. I guess they will continue with some "provocative" actions. We will see...

malikos
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
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Re: Tout sur le Sahara Occidental

Message par malikos »

ah I like Amy Goodman...

www.democracynow.org/2019/1/1/four_days ... ern_sahara

www.democracynow.org/shows/2019/1/1?autostart=true
In this special rebroadcast of a Democracy Now! exclusive documentary, we break the media blockade and go to occupied Western Sahara in the northwest of Africa to document the decades-long Sahrawi struggle for freedom and Morocco’s violent crackdown. Morocco has occupied the territory since 1975 in defiance of the United Nations and the international community. Thousands have been tortured, imprisoned, killed and disappeared while resisting the Moroccan occupation. A 1,700-mile wall divides Sahrawis who remain under occupation from those who fled into exile. The international media has largely ignored the occupation—in part because Morocco has routinely blocked journalists from entering Western Sahara. But in late 2016 Democracy Now! managed to get into the Western Saharan city of Laayoune, becoming the first international news team to report from the occupied territory in years.

malikos
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
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Re: Tout sur le Sahara Occidental

Message par malikos »

The Polisario Front, facing the challenge of pluralism
Former senior officials promote an internal movement within the Sahrawi movement
Others22connectSend by e-mailTo print
MIGUEL GONZÁLEZ
Madrid 3 JAN 2019 - 17:43 CET
Hach Ahmed, leader of the Saharawi Initiative for Change (ISC).
Hach Ahmed, leader of the Saharawi Initiative for Change (ISC). LORENA RUIZ
When the Polisario Front was born , in the early seventies of the last century, Algeria, the country that today welcomes almost 200,000 Sahrawi refugees, had a single-party regime, the National Liberation Front (FLN) of the anti-colonial struggle . Today Algeria, like most Arab and African countries, has a multi-party system, although it leaves much to be desired from the democratic point of view.

MORE INFORMATION
The Polisario Front, facing the challenge of pluralism The dialogue between Morocco and the Polisario Front will continue in 2019
The Polisario Front, facing the challenge of pluralism The dialogue on the Sahara reopens six years later, what can we expect?
The Polisario Front, facing the challenge of pluralism Morocco imposes harsh prison sentences on 19 Saharawi activists
Saharawi Initiative for Change (ISC), the platform launched in November 2017 by a group of former senior officials and former members of the Polisario, does not aspire to become a party for now, but asks to be recognized as an "organized political current" within the Sahrawi movement. His face visible, Hach Ahmed, former Minister of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) and brother of the late Ahmed Bukhari, Polisario representative at the UN for 16 years, assures that its objective is "to enrich the internal debate and prevent it from being closed in false", denouncing what it describes as "abuses of power" and "erroneous strategies" of the current direction. In the manifesto approved in its first assembly, held last June in San Sebastian, ISC warns of the "lack of credible democratic mechanisms capable of channeling criticism" in the Polisario, "the deterioration of social services in the camps," the lack of expectations of young people (60% of the population) or "the growth of corruption and tribalism."

Ahmed assures that the Saharawi people must be removed from the "black hole" in which they find themselves half a century after the Spanish withdrawal, with a process of self-determination at the UN and a military tie that lasts indefinitely . Aware of stepping on slippery ground, he is cautious when venturing out: "The solution must be halfway between the possible and the desirable. The reasonable solution is one in which the interests of some [Moroccans] and the rights of others [Sahrawis] converge. " To get out of the blockade, he adds, "both parties should make gestures of good will and build a climate of trust." This requires, in his opinion, that Morocco release political prisoners . "It would be a good sign", he finishes.

From Spain he expects that he will "stop acting like Pontius Pilate" and "correct what he did wrong" in 1975, when he handed over the Sahara to Morocco and Mauritania. After having met with representatives of several parties (such as the Secretary of Organization of the PSOE, José Luis Ábalos), he says he is confident "in the new generation of Spanish politicians".

ISC avoids defining itself ideologically and presents itself as "moderate, reformist and renovating". Its objective, Ahmed insists, is to serve as a "point of inflection, promoting internal democracy in the Saharawi Movement and gathering, from the outside, support for a peaceful solution that ends half a century of suffering of our people."

The first general convention of the ISC has not yet a date, but it must be held "in the refugee camps or in the liberated territories". What is planned for 2019 is the ordinary Congress of the Polisario, in which the promoters of the initiative aspire to legalize the existence of internal flows. The letters that they have addressed to the SADR leadership, including its president, Brahim Gali, have not received a response so far.

Jalil Mohamed, responsible for press and communication of the Polisario in Spain, is very careful when referring to the ISC: admits that it is promoted by long-established Saharawis, that its proposal is "constructive" and does not present itself as an opposition to the Polisario It denies that reprisals have been taken against its members and assures that the Saharawi delegate in the Balearic Islands was dismissed for abandoning functions, not for joining the critics.

Of course, remember that most of its members live abroad and wonder why they did not make the changes they ask for when they held positions of responsibility. The Polisario, he says, has an ideological base broad enough so that different sensibilities can coexist in its bosom. But from there to legalize them goes a long way.

https://elpais.com/internacional/2019/0 ... 90341.html

malikos
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
Messages : 1488
Inscription : 01 avril 2012, 13:54

Re: Tout sur le Sahara Occidental

Message par malikos »

....a verifier, conflicting info:

Sahara Occidental : Le Polisario contrôle Guerguerat et l'accès vers l'Afrique de l'Ouest
Sidi Omar
@SidiOmarNY
The allegations of Moroccan officials and media about the presence of the Frente #POLISARIO in #Guerguerat buffer strip in #WesternSahara are false. Under pressure, Morocco is looking for an excuse to create another crisis in the area ahead of the upcoming #UN-sponsored talks.

20
11:08 - 6 ene. 2019

https://noteolvidesdelsaharaoccidental. ... guerguerat

malikos
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
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Inscription : 01 avril 2012, 13:54

Re: Tout sur le Sahara Occidental

Message par malikos »

that would be a nice move....from the democratic party?
Western Sahara: US House Adopts pro-Algeria-Polisario Spending Bill
POLITICS

By Rania On Jan 6, 2019

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Rabat – The US House of Representatives passed on Thursday its 2019 draft spending bill which excluded Western Sahara from aid funds to Morocco.

The unprecedented move lent tacit support to Algiers-backed narrative that the Western Sahara is not under “Morocco’s sovereignty.”

The move also stands in striking contrast with the 2018 Budget which lent- as used to be traditional US policy in the past four years- support to Morocco’s position. The draft bill has yet to be adopted by the Senate and then signed into law by President Donald Trump.

Seemingly siding with Algeria’s and the Polisario Front’s claims that the separatist movement should be the US’ legitimate intermediary when dealing with the Sahara question, the bill, which was obtained by Morocco World News, stipulated that aid allocated to Western Sahara be separated from those allocated to Morocco.

“Funds appropriated under title 21 III of this Act shall be made available for assistance for the Western Sahara,” read the part of the spending bill that spelled out the House of Representatives’ move referring to Western Sahara as a separate political entity from Morocco.

While a host of other recent developments can be said to explain the perceived sudden change in US priorities in the Sahara conflict, Algeria’s successful PR campaign stands out as most plausible.

A recent long New Yorker article quoted a group of US officials and “Sahrawis” who presented the perpetuation of the four-decades long conflict as stemming from Morocco’s “refusal” to hold a referendum.

Despite warning signals before the House of Representatives’ move, Morocco is still s upbeat about the depth of its strategic alliance with the US.

Omar Hilale, Morocco’s permanent representative at the UN, had told the New Yorker’s reporter that US-Morocco relations are “so strong” that no senior American politicians can threaten Morocco’s position.

While Hilale’s point seemed to highlight tangible diplomatic gains that Rabat has recently made, new developments seem to be suggesting that the other camps is winning the hearts and minds of US’ foreign policy establishment.

As Morocco’s position seems in tatters, it remains to be seen what Rabat will do next to neutralize Algiers’ aggressive lobbying campaign in Washington.
http://www.nextpost.gdn/bs-politics/wes ... ding-bill/

sepof

Re: Tout sur le Sahara Occidental

Message par sepof »


malikos
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
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Inscription : 01 avril 2012, 13:54

Re: Tout sur le Sahara Occidental

Message par malikos »

Western Sahara conflict
The Sahrawis are fed up with waiting
The dispute over Western Sahara has been smouldering for over 40 years. In the refugee camps in Algeria, resignation is spreading among many people who have been hoping for a solution by the United Nations for decades. By Hugo Flotat-Talon
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Omar is seated on a carpet in his father's tent. He was born here, the 21-year-old says – here in the refugee camp of Awserd in the Algerian part of the Sahara. All around there is only desert, no water and farming is impossible. "It's not easy to live here," says Omar. "There is no future here."

Awserd is one of five camps in Algeria where Western Sahara's refugees and their descendants live. The Algerian provincial capital of Tindouf is 40 kilometres away. Also nearby are the headquarters of the Polisario Front, which for decades has been fighting for the independence of Western Sahara. Morocco annexed the former Spanish colony in 1975 and bloody civil war ensued. A ceasefire has been in place since 1991, but the conflict remains unresolved.

Awserd alone houses some 50,000 people – in tents, mud shacks and brick houses. Omar lives with his parents and five siblings somewhere between the camp's areas two and three. He attended school until he turned 18 and went on to an Algerian university. But that did not last long. "I had problems because I'm the eldest in the family and the family needs me to earn money and much more. So I had to give up my studies. There is no hope. There is no hope."

Map of Western Sahara and the neighbouring North African states (sources: DW)
In Algeria and scattered around the world: many Sahrawi refugees do not want to resign themselves to living in exile until the affiliation of Western Sahara has been finally clarified within the framework of a UN solution. They have been waiting for decades for an end to the conflict. Morocco has controlled large parts of the sparsely populated area since the 1970s, but this is not internationally recognised. The liberation movement Polisario, supported by Algeria, wants independence for Western Sahara. Morocco only wants to grant autonomy to the region
People in the camps have tried to make the best out of their situation. They set up their own urban districts, communities and regions. Schooling, health care and the distribution of relief supplies has to be organised. The camp has been in existence since the outbreak of the civil war.

No light at the end of the tunnel

Now, after more than four decades of conflict, hopelessness is spreading, says the governor of Awserd, Mariem Salek Hamda. The food aid supply has declined, infant mortality is double that of Europe and water is limited to 10 litres per day.

"The young people are in despair because in this situation, in which we have been for more than 43 years, they see no light at the end of the tunnel," Hamda says. She points to the ceasefire of 1991. A United Nations mission has since been monitoring the zone adjacent to Morocco. It should actually be overseeing a referendum on independence for Western Sahara.

"But since 1991 the young people born here see no solution on the horizon. With this standby situation of 27 years – with no peace or war and doubt and mistrust of the UN – this situation arises in the occupied areas. One hears daily about a mother, sister or brother being kidnapped and abused. All this breeds dissatisfaction that can lead to anything," Hamda says.

Former German president and UN Personal Envoy for Western Sahara Horst Kohler visits the Tindouf refugee camp in Western Sahara (photo: Getty Images/AFP)
Still no political solution in sight: representatives of Morocco, Algeria, Mauritania and the independence movement Polisario discussed a political solution to the conflict for two days at the end of March 2019 under the leadership of the UN envoy for Western Sahara, former president of Germany Horst Kohler. According to diplomats, simply the agreed continuation of the talks is considered a success
Some people in the camps make no secret of where the dissatisfaction can lead. Among them is Addou al-Hadj who leads tours at the Museum of Resistance in the nearby Smara camp. "We are tired of waiting," he says. "We are fed up with the status quo. No one has made a move in 43 years; we have waited for more than 27 years for a resolution via the UN. We are peace-loving people, but when nothing is resolved, we are prepared to take up arms."

Independence or referendum

Many people of Western Sahara want independence for their homeland, or at least this long-promised referendum. Mohamed Salem Salek, the foreign minister of the government-in-exile, knows that. His office is half an hour's drive from Awserd, in Rabuni – the seat of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic.

Western Sahara is a member of the African Union but only few countries recognise it as independent. "How can one convince the Sahrawi people to hold out and accept that the UN is working on a referendum with which they can exercise their right to self-determination?" asks Salek. "The people say: 'No, they are just playing games with us."

As night falls in Awserd, Omar makes his way home from the little grocery business where he sells water, a little meat and tea to those who can afford it. His eyes wander to the starry heavens. "The most beautiful sky in the world," he says.

All the same, he sometimes dreams of going far away, to Europe. He has lived many years in difficult conditions, he says. His children should have a chance of living a normal life.

Hugo Flottat-Talon

© Deutsche Welle 2019 https://en.qantara.de/content/western-s ... th-waiting

malikos
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
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Re: Tout sur le Sahara Occidental

Message par malikos »

Deal entre Maroc et Israël, sur le dos des Sahraouis et des Palestiniens



Les activités diplomatiques entre le Maroc et Israël se sont fortement accélérées ces derniers temps, malgré le fait de que le Maroc ait rompu les relations avec Jérusalem il y a six ans. Des sources sahraouies affirment avoir des preuves montrant que le Maroc a offert le rétablissement des relations diplomatiques avec Israël en échange d’un fort lobbying israélien en faveur de la politique de Rabat sur le Sahara Occidental.
En effet, la presse israélienne a révélé cette semaine que les relations entre les deux pays sont en train de se dégeler. Avant le début de l’Intifada palestinienne il y a six ans, le Maroc était parmi les rares pays arabes à avoir des relations formelles et cordiales avec Jérusalem. De plus, le Maroc a été traditionnellement l’un des abris les plus sûrs pour les juifs dans le monde arabe. En solidarité avec les Palestiniens, le Maroc a pourtant fermé sa représentation officielle en Israël et rompu toute relation diplomatique.
Selon le quotidien israélien Maariv, la solidarité de Rabat n’était cependant que superficielle. Depuis 2003, il y a eu des contacts réguliers au plus haut niveau entre les deux pays. En septembre 2003, le roi Mohammed VI a même reçu l’alors Ministre israélien des Affaires étrangères, Sylvan Shalom, dans l’un de ses palais de vacances pour des conversations politiques.
Le quotidien affirme avoir des informations indiquant que le Maroc pourrait être maintenant « en train de rétablir ses relations avec l’Israël ». Il remarque certains voyages secrets à Jérusalem par de hauts responsables marocains, se réunissant discrètement avec des fonctionnaires du Ministère des Affaires étrangères. « Les Marocains signalent qu’ils sont prêts à dégeler le blocage politique avec l’Israël », a indiqué une importante source politique d’après Maariv.
Les mêmes sources ont aussi révélé le « prix » marocain pour le rétablissement des relations. Le maquignonnage comprend la garantie par le gouvernement israélien de « promouvoir les intérêts marocains » dans la communauté internationale. Les sources israéliennes n’ont pas donné plus de détails.
Mais d’autres sources, outre-Atlantique, affirment avoir vu les premiers résultats de ce maquignonnage israélo-marocain. À Washington, « Israël et les lobbyistes juifs » ont augmenté la pression sur le gouvernement US pour qu’il accepte le prétendu plan marocain d’autonomie pour le Sahara Occidental –l’ancienne colonie espagnole occupée par le Maroc depuis 1976 malgré de nombreuses protestations des Nations Unies. Le plan d’autonomie controversé s’oppose aux demandes des Nations Unies d’un referendum d’indépendance au Sahara Occidental et propose par contre faire du territoire disputé une province marocaine autonome.
D’après des sources des milieux du lobby pro-sahraoui aux USA, leurs efforts pour soulever la question du Sahara Occidental au Congrès et au Sénat US ont de plus en plus rencontré un « soutien américain juif et israélien aux initiatives marocaines concernant le Sahara Occidental » de plus en plus actif.
Rien que le mois dernier, avant que le Conseil de Sécurité des Nations Unies discute les diverses solutions au conflit du Sahara Occidental, le président US George W. Bush a reçu une lettre soutenant fermement les points de vue marocains, signée par presque 170 membres du Congrès. Les congressistes demandaient au président Bush d’adopter la proposition marocaine afin d’assurer que le Maroc pourrait continuer ses efforts pour combattre le terrorisme dans la volatile région du Nord de l’Afrique.
Il n’y a pas longtemps, la pression exercée sur la Maison Blanche par des politiciens du Sénat et le Congrès américains était dominée par les points de vue pro-sahraouis. Les congressistes Donald Payne et Joseph Pitts ont longtemps conduit avec succès la lutte pour convaincre à la Maison Blanche de rester sceptique envers une solution imposée par le Maroc. Mais ces derniers mois, les analystes politiques dans la capitale US estiment que « Washington s’est déplacé vers la position marocaine ».


d'un mur...

à l'autre...



Les sources pro-sahraouies à Washington ont aujourd’hui confirmé à afrol News ces observations. Les rumeurs dans la capitale US disent que « les Marocains se sont engagés à reconnaître officiellement Israël en échange du succès de leur ‘plan d’autonomie’ ». Ceci, toukours selon les mêmes rumeurs, expliquerait qu’« Israël est toujours le commun dénominateur du soutien au Maroc à Washington, non pas seulement dans le Congrès mais aussi dans les groupes de réflexion (think tanks), dont la plupart sont connectés au même lobby ».
Les fonctionnaires sahraouis contactés par afrol News n’ont pas voulu commenter la question, signalant que de larges parties de la communauté juive aux USA soutenaient et sympathisaient avec la cause sahraoui.
Cependant les activistes sont très inquiets devant les tentatives du Maroc pour rompre l’isolement diplomatique qu’il a connu jusqu’ici dans le conflit du Sahara Occidental. Mais d’après Ronny Hansen, président du Comité Norvégien de Soutien au Sahara Occidental, « ce ne devrait être une surprise pour personne de voir ces pays [Maroc et Israël] coopérer étroitement ».
« Tous les deux maintiennent des occupations illégales et brutales sur des pays voisins, avec le soutien de pays plus puissants tels que les USA et la France », a-t-il dit à afrol News. « Malgré toute l’expérience d’Israël pour ce qui est d’esquiver les lois internationales et les critiques de son occupation, le Maroc a probablement beaucoup à apprendre aux Israéliens : il est difficile d’égaler le régime marocain pour ce qui est de la tromperie, de la manipulation des faits et du double langage orwellien. C’est vraiment une alliance impie qui n’apportera que plus de malheur dans la région », a averti l’activiste.
La comparaison et les avertissements ne sont pas exagérés. Dans les années 1980, au moment où le Maroc a bâti son mur à travers le désert pour séparer ses troupes des combattants pour l’indépendance du Polisario, des ingénieurs et des experts israéliens ont joué un rôle central dans la planification et la cnstruction, comme l’ indique un nombre croissant de preuves.https://www.alterinfo.net/Deal-entre-Ma ... a8668.html

malikos
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
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Re: Tout sur le Sahara Occidental

Message par malikos »

Selon Sipri Algerie as furnie trois BTR-60
Transfers of major weapons: Deals with deliveries or orders made for 2010 to 2018
Note: The ‘No. delivered’ and the ‘Year(s) of deliveries’ columns refer to all deliveries since the beginning of the contract. The ‘Comments’ column includes publicly reported information on the value of the deal. Information on the sources and methods used in the collection of the data, and explanations of the conventions, abbreviations and acronyms, can be found at URL <http://www.sipri.org/contents/armstrad/ ... nd-methods>.
Source: SIPRI Arms Transfers Database
Information generated: 20 May 2019


Year(s)
Supplier/ No. Weapon Weapon Year of No.
recipient (R) ordered designation description of order delivery delivered Comments


Algeria
R: Western Sahara (3) BTR-60PB APC (2016) 2016 (3) Second-hand; aid

malikos
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
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Re: Tout sur le Sahara Occidental

Message par malikos »

John Dizard MAY 17, 2019 Print this page13
Polisario case reveals high stakes behind investors’ ESG enthusiasm
Legal action over disputed African territory affects EU links with Morocco


What the military calls asymmetric warfare — guerrillas fighting regular armies — has come to the compliance world.

Political movements with few financial assets, let alone military superiority, can win in court against corporate or government players.

Thanks to their ability to make use of their wins by influencing trillions of investors’ money, or sensitive sovereign wealth funds, they can generate a huge effect.

Take a case filed in the European Court of Justice on April 29 by the Polisario Front, a political group that demands full sovereignty for Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara. Its lawyers claim Brussels is violating EU human rights law by allowing, even encouraging, the import of natural resources from the territory.

If Polisario wins the first round of its case against the European Council, it and its allies around the world could file lawsuits against companies and institutions doing business with Morocco, which says it has sovereignty over Western Sahara.

On its own, Polisario may not be an impressive opponent. But what if it has the support of Norway’s sovereign fund, Swedish insurance companies and the $12tn of assets locked into financial products screened using environmental, social and governance criteria?

Morocco, for its part, is backed by the French and Spanish for both economic reasons, such as fishing rights and investments, and political reasons, including avoiding a Libya-like meltdown at the gates of Europe.

Discreet corporate or investor withdrawal will not work, since human rights groups such as the Western Sahara Resource Watch note every shipment of the territory’s phosphate and every European company that has fishing or overflight permission.

Corporate compliance people may have thought that ESG investors would just post proxy votes for annual meetings or accept anodyne slideshows about support for local football clubs and the odd contribution to health clinics. But no.

Stricter corporate governance rules in Europe and other developed markets are not only working to the benefit of activist investors, such as vulture hedge funds. They are also bringing pressure for explicit compliance with human rights laws and treaties. German companies such as HeidelbergCement and Continental are increasingly besieged by harsh questions from Polisario-aligned activist groups.

What would have been routine extensions of bank lines or bond underwriting groups are now complicated by questions about carbon content and the use of conflict minerals. ESG screening consultancies such as Sustainalytics in the Netherlands now consider phosphate rock, a key export from Western Sahara, as one of those conflict minerals.

Consider what happened to the financing of coal-fired generation. Once, that was strictly the business of whatever an energy company wanted to build. Now it is difficult, if not impossible, to get any bank support.

Polisario had already managed to persuade the court to declare in February last year that an EU fishing agreement with Morocco “was not applicable to Western Sahara and to its adjacent waters”.

The enraged Moroccans persuaded the European Council and European Parliament to cobble together a legal workaround, which was passed into law in January.

That was not the end of the story.

Polisario’s filing at the end of April calls for a tribunal to vacate the new economic agreement with Morocco, more or less for the same reasons the ECJ has affirmed in previous cases. People close to the court say it will take between six months and a year for the case to be accepted for a trial.

One cannot say how the tribunal will rule but a review of the record shows a deal of sympathy at the court for Polisario’s arguments. The EU, France and Spain, and Moroccan sympathisers probably think they are at serious risk of another defeat.

If Polisario has that initial victory in hand, it is likely to proceed against Morocco’s commercial and financial partners in other courts in Europe and elsewhere, My understanding is that it could ask for civil damages from companies that have imported phosphate, fish and farming products over the years.

Of course, the French and Spanish will show up in the same boardrooms as the compliance consultants and lawyers, and demand that the corporations, banks and investors continue to do business with a key geopolitical partner. Otherwise, they will hint, Morocco could allow more migrants to cross the Mediterranean.

So once a bank, corporation or asset manager has accepted the notion of ESG compliance, it could find itself in the middle of conflicts such as the one between Polisario and Morocco, not to mention the French and Spanish.

Yes, it is nice to have some little green-leaf-decorated certification from the sustainability consultants but that also means you have been dealt into games with high stakes

https://www.ft.com/content/f27754de-428 ... bd7440bbf4.
https://www.ft.com/content/f27754de-428 ... bd7440bbf4

malikos
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Re: Tout sur le Sahara Occidental

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Démission de Kohler: Le polisario accuse Paris d'avoir saboté le travail de l'émissaire onusien
HuffPost Algérie/APS
Démission de Kohler: Le polisario accuse Paris d'avoir saboté le travail de l'émissaire
L'ÉMISSAIRE DE L'ONU POUR LE SAHARA OCCIDENTAL HORST KOHLER LORS D'UNE CONFÉRENCE DE PRESSE À GENÈVE LE 22 MARS 2019|FABRICE COFFRINI
Pour M’hamed Kheddad, coordonnateur sahraoui auprès de la Mission des Nations Unies pour l’organisation d’un référendum au Sahara occidental (MINURSO) et membre du secrétariat national du Front Polisario, si l’émissaire de l’ONU au Sahara occidental, Horst Kohler, a démissionné pour des problèmes de santé, l’attitude de la France a également pesé dans sa décision de quitter son poste car Paris a “carrément saboté” son travail. “Effectivement, il y a les raisons de santé que M. Kohler a mentionné dans sa lettre d’adieu aux deux parties du conflit au Sahara occidental (le Maroc et le Front Polisario, ndlr) et à leurs voisins (l’Algérie et la Mauritanie, ndlr).

Cependant, il faut bien signaler que depuis sa nomination au poste d’envoyé spécial du secrétaire général de l’ONU beaucoup d’obstacles ont été érigés sur sa route”, a fait savoir le responsable sahraoui lors d’un entretien accordé à l’agence russe Sputnik.

Le coordinateur sahraoui auprès de la Minuso a pointé du doigt “la France qui a entravé et carrément saboté le travail” de l’émissaire Onusien, notamment aux Nations unies, soutenant que “Paris ne voulait pas que le mandat de la Mission des Nations unies pour l’organisation d’un référendum au Sahara occidental soit réduit à six mois”. “C’est la France qui a pesé de tout son poids” pour que l’Union européenne signe de nouveaux accords incluant le territoire du Sahara occidental (accord d’association UE-Maroc et l’accord d’agriculture et de pêche UE-Maroc, ndlr) en violation flagrante des décisions de la Cours de justice de l’Union européenne (CJUE) (les arrêtés de 2015, 2016 et 2018), soulignant que le Sahara occidental et les eaux qui lui sont adjacentes ne faisaient pas partie du territoire du Royaume du Maroc”, a accusé M Kheddad.

“A New York, M. Kohler a toujours cherché à ce qu’il y ait un consensus au Conseil de sécurité et que ses quinze membres apportent leur soutien en votant une résolution” a-t-il confié, regrettant encore une fois que “malheureusement, les efforts de l’envoyé spécial au Sahara occidental ont été sabotés par la France et les Etats-Unis, qui cette fois-ci n’ont pas cherché le consensus qu’a demandé M. Kohler au sein de cette institution internationale”.“Donc au bout du compte, M. Kohler s’est trouvé sans soutien unanime du conseil de sécurité, sans soutien de l’Union européenne, en plus du travail de sape méthodique mené par le Maroc pour empêcher que l’Union africaine joue son rôle dans le résolution de ce conflit qui n’a que trop duré”, a expliqué M. Kheddad.

https://www.huffpostmaghreb.com/entry/d ... al-algerie

malikos
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Re: Tout sur le Sahara Occidental

Message par malikos »

Polisario patrol hit by landmine after breach of buffer zone
0Headlines, Maghreb, MoroccoJune 4, 2019 A+A-EMAILPRINT
A Polisario militiaman was killed and two others were injured in a landmine explosion as a patrol of the separatist group came near the security wall in the demilitarized area.
http://northafricapost.com/31442-polisa ... -zone.html

malikos
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
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Re: Tout sur le Sahara Occidental

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Sahara occidental : soutien de la France au Maroc 0
BY FRÉDÉRIC POWELTON ON 11 JUIN 2019 POLITIQUE

Le ministre français des Affaires étrangères, Jean-Yves Le Drian, a réaffirmé le soutien de la France au plan d’autonomie proposé par le Maroc pour un règlement politique négocié du conflit du Sahara occidental, qualifiant cette proposition de «sérieuse et crédible».

« Vous connaissez déjà notre position sur le Sahara. Nous considérons le Plan d’autonomie comme une base sérieuse et crédible pour une solution négociée, cela était toujours notre position, Nasser Bourita la connaît », a déclaré le samedi à Rabat le chef de la diplomatie française lors d’un point de presse tenu conjointement avec son homologue marocain.

Interpellé sur la démission le mois de mai dernier, de Horst Köhler, l’ex-Envoyé personnel du SG de l’ONU pour le Sahara, Jean-Yves Le Drian a précisé que « cette question concerne l’ONU » ajoutant néanmoins, que la France apprécie le travail accompli par Horst Köhler et souhaite que le processus qu’il a initié dans ce dossier puisse se poursuivre pour trouver une solution définitive et négociée au différend sur le Sahara.

Le chef de la diplomatie marocaine qui effectue une visite de travail du 7 au 10 juin au Maroc a qualifié de « bonne chose » le fait que l’envoyé personnel du Secrétaire général de l’ONU ait entamé un processus qui soit négocié au sujet de la question du Sahara.

http://sahel-intelligence.com/15275-sah ... maroc.html
Maroc – Déplacement de Jean-Yves Le Drian (7–10 juin 2019)
Jean-Yves Le Drian, ministre de l’Europe et des affaires étrangères, s’est rendu au Maroc du 7 au 10 juin où il s’est entretenu avec son homologue marocain, Nasser Bourita. Les ministres ont évoqué les questions bilatérales et régionales dans le cadre de la concertation de haut niveau que nous entretenons avec le Maroc, partenaire stratégique, notamment en Afrique.

Dans la perspective de la "rencontre de haut niveau franco-marocaine " prévue à l’automne 2019, cette visite a permis de faire le point sur les nombreux domaines du partenariat d’exception avec le Maroc afin de poursuivre le développement des échanges économiques, approfondir la coopération éducative et culturelle, renforcer la lutte contre le terrorisme et la gestion des flux migratoires.

À l’occasion de ce déplacement et dans le cadre de notre coopération exceptionnelle avec le Maroc dans le domaine de l’éducation, le ministre a visité à Fès le groupe scolaire Jean-de-La-Fontaine et l’école de l’organisation non gouvernementale Shems’y, soutenue par l’ambassade de France au Maroc.

Le ministre a participé à une rencontre économique à l’université Euromed consacrée aux enjeux de la coopération technologique et reçu la communauté française. La France est le premier investisseur étranger au Maroc avec 900 filiales d’entreprises françaises au Maroc, son deuxième fournisseur (4,3 milliards d’euros d’exportations en 2016) et son deuxième client (4,2 milliards d’euros d’importations en 2016).
https://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/fr/dossi ... 7-10-06-19

malikos
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
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Re: Tout sur le Sahara Occidental

Message par malikos »

...fundamental disagreement of the issue of western sahara between the Morocco and Zambia but also other African countries.
(Particular is the speech from the Moroccan ambassador, claiming that they could not "negotiate" the Sahara to be included initially when they got indecency).

A "remarkable" understanding of statehood and nation and territories based on opportunism.

"Make the World Morocco" mentality. Uff... :sui:
Dernière modification par malikos le 12 juin 2019, 13:57, modifié 2 fois.
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