BY Malainin Lakhal
cc M E In
introducing this second special issue on the occupied Western Sahara in
Pambazuka News, Malainin Lakhal argues that it is ‘a subject that
should concern all Africans, and all actors who know that Africa can
never rise up as a Union or as a future power unless it jointly
struggles for its freedom from poverty, ignorance, re-colonisation,
foreign exploitation, internal rivalry, and lack of communication
between all its peoples and elite.’
The conflict in Western Sahara seems to gain more and more visibility
and importance in the regional and international geopolitics this last
decade, despite the great lack of media coverage and academic analysis
of its different facts, aspects, possible consequences and perspectives.
It is thanks to some brilliant academics, jurists, human rights
defenders, activists and journalists, both foreign and Saharawi that the
question of Western Sahara has remained impossible to ignore whenever
the debate tackles the future of North Africa, the Maghreb Union, the
North-South and South-South interrelations and influence.
This clear-cut and easily identified conflict is about decolonisation in
terms of international law. It is brought to the spotlight by the
contributors in this Pambazuka special issue on Western Sahara. They
have proven each in his or her own way how the Western Sahara conflict
is made complicated by the opposite positions held by the two parties to
the conflict, Polisario and Morocco. The former wants decolonisation
and self-determination, the latter wants territorial expansion by
military means. But also by the conflicting geo-political agendas of the
regional actors and the super power nations who have their own agendas
and strategic goals, not only regarding their position on Western
Sahara, but also their vision of the future of all North Africa, African
Union and the Middle East.
THE LAST COLONY OF AFRICA MUST BE FREE
The objective of this second special issue on the conflict of Western
Sahara is not the result of a simple opportunity to cover one of the
hottest conflicts on the modern political arena. It is rather a well
thought-out and carefully discussed step towards communicating to
readers some of the international legal facts, political theory debates,
and on-the-ground realities relating to the last colony in Africa. It
is thus a subject that should concern all Africans, and all actors who
know that Africa can never rise up as a Union or as a future power
unless it jointly struggles for its freedom from poverty, ignorance,
re-colonisation, foreign exploitation, internal rivalry, and lack of
communication between all its peoples and elite. Africa needs to build
its model for the future on the basis of a conscious awareness about the
huge potential it has, and above all its human resources.
This second special issue presents some new aspects and discussions of
the conflict in Western Sahara. It cannot of course cover everything,
but it offers a lot of interesting questions, ideas and facts to those
who would like to know better what is at stake in the region. What is at
stake is that the international legal order seems to be so easily
violated and purposely manipulated by certain international actors,
especially Morocco. Morocco could not continue its illegal occupation of
Western Sahara and defy more than 100 United Nations resolutions unless
it had a mysterious green light from Uncle Paris, and an even more
mysterious complicity from other countries such as the US. But above all
a criminal and immoral support from multinationals and international
trade that does not care about the violation of the Saharawi people's
right over their own natural resources. Readers can read this history of
the Western Sahara conflict in the article submitted by Aluat Hamudi, a
Saharawi Master’s student.
EXAMINING COMPLEX ISSUES
So what is at stake is momentous. Are Africans aware of it? This is
another question. But what is certain is that the persistence of the
occupation of Western Sahara, the violations of Saharawi people's
political, economic, social and cultural Rights, the exploitative
plundering of their natural resources and the persistent pressures
exercised directly or indirectly over them during the last 40 years is
only maintaining a very dangerous situation that can explode at any
time, especially in a region that is far from stable. Dr Jacob Mundy
contributes again by writing about the security issues across the
Sahara-Sahel region, as part of a wider debate about Morocco’s
annexation of Western Sahara also a factor of regional instability. Dr
Sidi Omar, a Saharawi colleague writes of the involvement of the African
Union in the Western Sahara story, and of the factors that should
rather convince the parties to reach a peaceful and fair solution so as
to make this region one of the main assets of the Maghreb and African
Union.
The articles collected in this edition cover many issues but our main
theme focuses on the legal issues of the conflict and the status of
Morocco in Western Sahara. The article by Pedro Pinto Leite and Jeffrey
J. Smith offers a new insight in their detailed examination that
questions technical legal theory on self-determination processes and the
United Nations. Katlyn Thomas has provided us with her October 2012
Testimony to the Special Political and Decolonisation Committee of the
United Nations General Assembly, alongside which we also provide the web
link to the United Nations Committee of the Association of the Bar of
the City of New York June 2012 full report on the legal issues involved
and the principle of self-determination.
Western Sahara Resource Watch provides an update on an imminent vote in
the European Union regarding the importance of protecting Western
Sahara’s natural resources, another key issue in the persistence of
illegal occupation. It was thus impossible to prepare this second issue
without a special focus on this key topic of the Moroccan and European
illegal exploitation of the natural resources of this territory, but
also a chance to listen to the stories that Saharawi activists and
fishermen on the ground, such as Khalil Asmar and Mohammed El Baykam,
sent us.
The Saharawi women and the unique experience of the Saharawi refugees in
the process of the efforts of nation-state building is another aspect
that is seldom discussed. The few studies on this subject were almost
all done by wonderful women from many countries who were able to visit
these camps and see first-hand how they function, such as Dr Alice
Wilson’s introduction to the Saharawi direct democracy experiment based
on her PhD research, and Sonia Rossetti’s PhD research on Saharawi
women’s involvement in state building.
Joining them are four Saharawi women, Fatimetu, Senia, Asria and Agaila,
all students and who illuminate the thoughts and experiences of being
refugee youth caught up in exile from their homeland. We hope this
serves to show how the Saharawi woman is a pillar in the building of the
modern experience of Saharawi society.
VIOLATING THE RIGHTS OF A PEOPLE
The phenomenon of the massive and systematic violations of human rights
in Western Sahara is another major aspect treated in this issue. It is a
phenomenon because it is strikingly obvious that the Moroccan
authorities of occupation are blatantly violating all internationally
recognized rights, freedoms and liberties in this colony, while the
international community seems to be wilfully turning a blind eye on this
fact. All international human rights organizations, without a single
exception, including the UN High Office of Human rights in addition to
governments, parliaments, political parties, trade unions and civil
society actors, have been denouncing the many human rights violations
committed against Saharawi civilians in the occupied zones of Western
Sahara. Konstantina Isidoros has provided a summary about the 17
February 2013 news of the Moroccan military tribunal of 25 Saharawi
human rights activists and provides readers with links to the world-wide
campaign groups who have spoken against the military sentencing of
civilians.
Yet in the 40 years since Morocco’s illegal invasion of Western Sahara,
the UN Security Council seems to be unable to adopt a simple resolution
to mandate the UN peacekeeping mission (MINURSO) in the territory to
monitor and protect Saharawi civilians from the Moroccan oppression and
humiliation. MINURSO is in fact the only UN peacekeeping mission in the
world without a Human Rights component and this is ‘thanks’ to the
French refusal in the UN Security Council to allow such a decision to be
taken. Both the UK based Western Sahara Campaign and Vivian Solana
(also a PhD researcher) share their updates with us on this imminent
renewal of the MINURSO mandate, and Salah Mohammed provides an insight
of what happened when Christopher Ross, the UN special envoy, came for
the first time to El Aaiun in Western Sahara in early November 2012.
THE CULTURAL DIMENSION TO STRUGGLE
Another astonishing factor that can help readers, as Africans, to link
with the Saharawi people and self-determination struggle is the history
of Saharawi culture, which is ethnically a mixture of Arabs, Berbers and
Africans. So too is Saharawi music deeply rooted in both African and
Arab-Berber traditions. We are grateful to Danielle Smith and Violeta
Ruano from the UK based arts and human rights charity, Sandblast, for
providing us with the visual colour, culture and music of the Saharawi,
which we weave through this very international law-themed second issue.
Danielle’s article illuminates how Sandblast has set up a music project
in the refugee camps and Violeta shares her PhD research on Saharawi
music’s role in our independence struggle. In contrast, Saharawi
journalist and activist, Said Zeroual and RuGaibi Abdullah Mohammed
Sheikh, have written how Saharawi under Moroccan military occupation
feel about the theft of their culture and history, which is another
important issue about our cultural heritage.
Finally, this Pambazuka second issue on Western Sahara offers valuable
information about new books and films on our as yet un-decolonised
African nation. Anthony Pazzanita, a long-time Western Sahara observer
and current editor of the ‘Historical Dictionary of Western Sahara’,
joins us again by sharing his forthcoming book review of ‘Western
Sahara: The Refugee Nation’ by Pablo San Martín, another academic
researcher who lived in the refugee camps. Throughout the special
issue, we have posted links to the a range of films and documentaries
from which readers can further discover how the Saharawi are trying to
use the tools of non-violent protests and freedom of speech to continue
to resist the occupier, despite facing enormous pressures, oppression
and violence.
* BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS
* Malainin Lakhal, in the Saharawi refugee camps, is Secretary General of the Saharawi Journalists and Writers Union
http://www.upes.org
