Rabab Amidane receives the Student Peace Prize 2009

Rguibi was raped by Moroccan police

Will Obama’s Hope Lead to a breakthrough in Western Sahara Deadlock?

And so to all the other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more.”

Barack Obama

After the longest and the most expensive presidential campaign in the American history, Barack Hussein Obama won the race to the White House by defeating the Republican nominee Senator John McCain.

I was very fortunate to witness America make history once again. When I first listened to Obama speaking, I realized that this man is a man of hope, dreams and inspiration. Reading his book The Audacity of Hope made me admire him even more.

I believe that what he achieved in his life should be a perfect model for everyone willing to make a difference in their life and in the world. Nevertheless, while I was watching his Inauguration Speech three questions came to my mind: Will Obama continue to inspire me after he has been the 44th president of the United States for a while? Are we going to see a change in American foreign policy? And most importantly will he bring a just solution to the Western Sahara stalemate?

Millions of oppressed people around the globe are expecting a better American leadership under the new administration led by Barack Hussein Obama. And among those people are the people of Western Sahara, Africa’s last colony.

Western Sahara and Obama’s Hope:

There is no doubt in my mind that the image of American leadership under Barack Obama will improve overseas. Many people around the world were inspired by his victory to the White House. He has already pointed out that he is willing to renew American diplomacy by solving international disputes through negotiations and diplomacy, an approach which is certainly welcomed abroad.

Historically, The United States has been involved in the conflict of Western Sahara. Unfortunately, this involvement has always been in favor of Morocco due to strategic and geopolitical reasons: Morocco is a major ally in the Maghreb region.

According to experts on this matter, the U.S’s role in this conflict started when it broke out in 1975.

The Ford, Carter, and Reagan administrations had provided financial and military support for Morocco’s invasion and occupation of Western Sahara from 1975 to 1991. The first Bush and Clinton administrations maintained a silent position on UN referendum process from 1992 to 1996. However, the highest level of U.S. connection was presented in the former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker as the United Nations personal envoy to Western Sahara from 1997 to 2003.

Even so, James Baker resigned after seven years without any major progress. Since 2003, the U.S government’s view towards the conflict has been to leave it to the parties to reach a mutual solution while maintaining undeclared support for the Moroccan Autonomy Plan: local self-rule for the Sahrawi people under the Moroccan sovereignty.

Nonetheless, will this role change under the current administration of Barack Obama?

A quick look at the happenings around the world and the American domestic politics gives the hint that the Western Sahara is not going to be the priority of Barack Obama’s foreign agenda any time soon.

I do not want to sound pessimistic but history teaches us that American foreign policy regarding the North African region has always been based on geo-strategic interests and that the Western Sahara has been the victim of this approach.

Western Sahara is not going to be one of Obama’s foreign policy concerns due to domestic and international reasons. I will briefly highlight those reasons.

First, the Western Sahara conflict is barely known among the American public. There is no international media coverage of the conflict. Most of the key political players in the U.S have either not heard of it or deliberately ignored it for political reasons. Perhaps this situation of neither war nor peace does not pose a direct threat to the American interests in the region.

Sadly though, the first people who are paying the price are the hundred of thousands of refugees living in the desert of Algeria for over three decades now.

Secondly, Obama is faced with an internal economical crisis which means that his main concern will be to get America’s economy back on track.

Internationally, Obama’s main concerns are the wars in Iraq and in Afghanistan, the Iranian Nuclear Weapons program, Israeli –Palestinian conflict, tensions between India and Pakistan and restoring America’s credibility and reputation in the world.

All these indicators demonstrate that the question of Western Sahara is hardly going to be the priority of Obama’s administration foreign schema at least in the first two years of his presidency.

In conclusion, I strongly believe that President Obama is an inspiration for me and for many Sahrawis on a personal level but I do not think that he will be a political hope for the Western Sahara due to the facts that I mentioned.

Despite my firm conviction that the U.S can easily bring a just and peaceful solution to the table, I do not see that under the current circumstances, Obama’s leadership will lead to a breakthrough in this forgotten conflict. This means that the Western Saharan people are left alone again and this might lead to the breakout of war again in the region, a war which the majority of the Saharawi people have already started to consider seriously.

However, the Western Saharan people may not find their hope for gaining their independence and freedom in Obama’s leadership, but they will never despair. They will continue to fight for their right of self-determination despite all the odds. And as the saying goes, “When the world says, "Give up," hope whispers, "Try it one more time”

A Brief Background of the Western Sahara Conflict:

Historically, Western Sahara was a Spanish colony until 1975, when the Spanish government divided the territories between the newly independent countries at that time, Mauritania and Morocco, under the provisions of a secret agreement known as Madrid Accord. The agreement was signed and ratified without the consent of the indigenous people of the concerned territories known as the Saharawi People.

Consequently, a bloody war broke out in the region between the Polisario Front, a nationalist liberation movement that had begun fighting Spain in 1973, against Morocco North and Mauritania South.

In 1978, Mauritania renounced its territorial claims but Morocco then took control over the entire territory. Polisario continued to fight against the Moroccan army until 1991, when the United Nations supervised a ceasefire and charted a settlement plan, calling for the right of the Western Saharan people to self-determination through a free, democratic and fair referendum.

The UN also established MINURSO, the United Nations Mission for a Referendum in Western Sahara, to monitor and implement the proposed plan.

Even though both Morocco and the Polisario Front accepted the plan, the referendum never took place due to the disagreement between the two conflicting parties as well as due to the lack of seriousness of the UN, particularly the Security Council to enforce a just solution.

Western Sahara and The international Law:

The United Nations’ involvement in the Western Sahara issue began on December 16, 1965, when the General Assembly adopted its first resolution on what then was called Spanish Sahara. The resolution requested Spain to take all necessary measures to decolonize the territory by organizing a referendum that would allow the right to self determination for the Sahrawi people where they could choose between integration with Spain or independence. The Spanish government promised to organize a referendum, but she never kept her promise.

In the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United Nations states that everyone has the right to a national identity and that no one should be arbitrarily deprived of that right or denied the right to change nationality. Self-determination is viewed as right of people who have a territory to decide their own political status.

For this reason, on December 13, 1974, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution (No. 3292) requesting the International Court of Justice to give an advisory opinion at an early date on the following questions:

Was the Western Sahara (Saguia El-Hamra y Rio de Oro) at the time of colonization by Spain a territory belonging to no one (terra nullius)?
If the answer to the first question is negative,

What were the legal ties between this territory and the Kingdom of Morocco and the Mauritanian entity?"

However, the court found no evidence of any legal ties of territorial sovereignty between Western Sahara and Morocco. From 1975 until the present the UN has passed more than a hundred resolutions to solve this conflict. Yet the UN and the international law failed to achieve an accepted and just political solution.

The question that should be asked is why the international legality has failed to solve this issue.

In my view, the international legality has failed in the Western Sahara because of two main reasons. First, the weakness of the international law itself: There is no mechanism to enforce its resolutions and even if there were it cannot be applied in the case of the Western Sahara because this conflict is included under the act of the Security Council’s Chapter VI (pacific settlement of disputes) which implies that the Security Council cannot use force to advance a solution on the conflicting parties.

Second, because France and the United States’ continuously political support for Morocco in the Security Council and their threatening veto powers. Morocco remains occupying the disputed territories illegally.

Despite the 16 years of neither war nor peace the two conflicting parties still insist on resolving the problem within the framework of international law and international legality.

Note: Alaut is a young scholar of Politic and International relation.

Picture by Benjamin Braff

Article from org.org

Why the Maghreb Really Matters

By: Aminatou Haidar
Editor: John Feffer

The Maghreb is again a major talking point in the United States. In the perceived interests of fighting terrorism and promoting trade, a group of politicians and pundits are urging the Obama administration to side with Morocco and against self-determination for the Sahrawis of Western Sahara. They also urge a regional union for the Maghreb. Yet reaching for a quick fix that supports Morocco’s campaigns in any of these areas would set such a Maghreb Union back years.

Those who see the Sahrawi’s decades-long reach for freedom as an obstacle to the perceived bigger picture often have high profiles. Among them are a wrong-headed group of U.S. members of Congress who wrote to President Obama in April. Their letter suggested that the president should set in stone an extraordinarily flawed solution promoted by Western Sahara’s illegal occupiers — Morocco — to entrap the Sahrawi in an autonomous structure rather than offering self-determination, which is their just and legal right.

This group of legislators took their lead and some of their language from a new report Why the Maghreb Matters from the Potomac Institute and the Conflict Management Program at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). The report presents the long-stalled union in the Maghreb region as posing both significant threats and opportunities for U.S. interests. In seeking to over-promote both scenarios, the report highlights a common reaction of those looking to find an end-game solution in the region at whatever cost: over-simplification.

The cost in this case, should the U.S. government and the international community continue such realpolitik analysis, is the welfare of more than 200,000 people in the occupied territories of Western Sahara, Africa’s last colony.

Why the Maghreb?

The Maghreb — generally including Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Mauritania, and Western Sahara — is significant for many reasons. According to the Potomac/SAIS report, "the U.S. government should have a profound interest in North Africa because developments in the region impact significantly on our national interests." These developments relate first of all to trade and investment. Countries within the region have tended to under-perform economically. So, the argument goes, a regional union based on free and fair trade is likely to benefit everyone, including the United States.

Few would dispute the importance of promoting economic development in the region. But when the discussion turns to the Maghreb’s significance in terms of threats, disagreements arise. The Potomac/SAIS report focuses on the threat of terrorism and highlights a five-fold increase in terrorist attacks in the region since 2001. That these figures indicate a serious problem for civilians in the region is undeniable.

Yet, identifying their source, both geographical and ideological, has become a blame game with the highest possible stakes. The United States and others are in danger of not only getting it all terribly wrong by allying with Rabat in the efforts to stamp out terrorism in the region but of casting a massive injustice upon the Sahrawis.

Documented cases of human rights violations abound. In a report late in 2008, Human Rights Watch "found that Moroccan authorities repress this right [of self-determination] through laws penalizing affronts to Morocco’s ‘territorial integrity,’ through arbitrary arrests, unfair trials, restrictions on associations and assemblies, and through police violence and harassment that goes unpunished."

Why then have key analysts and policymakers in the Untied States ignored these factors and viewed the Moroccan perpetrators of these acts as the solution to the problem?

The Real Problem in the Maghreb

For the last three decades, Morocco has denied Western Sahara the basic human right to self-determination, one of the tenets of the United Nations. An International Court of Justice ruling in 1975 confirmed Morocco’s invasion as illegal. Numerous UN resolutions established the mechanism for a referendum on self-determination in Western Sahara. And there has been a long-running UN mission in the region designed to move the populace toward self-determination. Still, the forced occupation of Western Sahara continues.

In Western Sahara, 160,000 Moroccan military and para-military personnel are aided by one of the world’s largest minefields and by a 2,700 km security wall that runs right through communities and extended families. We Sahrawi sought the inclusion of a human rights monitor in the UN mission. But the proposal met with resistance from a slick and expensive lobbying effort run by Morroco’s foreign public relations representatives (all nine of them) and by a recalcitrant and counter-intuitive France, which used its veto to block the proposal.

So, the reality, as opposed to the realpolitik, makes a compelling case against Morocco’s tainted "autonomy" proposal (in actuality, a "non-independence" proposal). Generalizations about terrorism and threats to U.S. interests should not detract attention from the real problem at the center of the Maghreb: the denial of basic human rights to those who live in Africa’s last colony, Western Sahara.



Aminatou Haidar is a Sahrawi human-rights defender, the 2008 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award laureate, and a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus.

Article from upes.org

Zamur, Tierra Olvidad

My African Beauty



People see the day light sun as beautiful.
Other say, the shooting star is beautiful.
The world love the moon as beautiful.
What then is beauty?

The green vegetation and its cover is colourful.
Mountains are beautiful up high.
Ocean and the sea is colourful with innocent blue.
What is beauty?

Africa with all the creations in it, is admirable.
I can only see one thing as beautiful.
That is you.
My African beauty.

You are my African Beauty.
Oh, yes no doubt that you are,
My African beauty.

Peter Ampofo

The sacred and the profane

Morocco

Jan 8th 2009 | RABAT
From The Economist print edition

It remains a crime to criticise the king, who still has the final say


DRIVE into Morocco’s countryside and you are likely to come across neat piles of white stones stacked on hillsides, forming giant Arabic letters that spell out the country’s motto, “Allah, al-Watan, al-Malik” (God, the Nation, the King). These words are officially sacred: any challenge to what they represent is punishable by law. King Muhammad VI’s Morocco has made much progress towards freedom of speech, but his regime still enforces the three-word motto with alacrity.

McDonald’s, America’s fast-food giant, recently discovered the limits of that tolerance when it was forced to apologise after distributing a map of its restaurants in Morocco without including the disputed Western Sahara as part of the kingdom. Despite calls for a boycott in the nationalist press, the chain’s swift self-abasement sufficed to quell the row, perhaps because it had already proved its commitment to national integrity by marketing a “McSahara” hamburger.

But other offenders have got off less lightly. In recent years, as the result of a spate of libel suits, journalists have had to pay ever-bigger fines which, press watchdogs say, are aimed at muzzling the independent press. Rachid Niny, editor of the bestselling populist daily al-Massae, was fined 600,000 dirhams (about $70,000), only a month after a court had told him to pay a record fine of 6m dirhams in another case. Mr Niny says that the growing size of the fines is meant to shut down his newspaper.

Two of Morocco’s most outspoken journalists have had to go into exile. Ali Lamrabet was banned from practising his profession, and Aboubakr Jamai fled to escape a massive fine. Other cases against leading journalists are pending; one has been charged with “prejudice to the person of the monarch”. The regime’s political opponents face similar sanctions. Nadia Yassine, daughter of the leader of Morocco’s largest Islamist group, al-Adl wa al-Ihsan (Justice and Benevolence), has had a trial for lèse-majesté pending for three years, since she claimed in a casual remark to a journalist that she was not averse to having a republic.

Justice and Benevolence is an unusual Islamist movement. It combines Sufi mysticism, modern political language and the personality cult of its leader, Sheikh Abdesalem Yassine. It is also the country’s sole remaining serious political force that has not been brought into the official fold. Most other dissidents, on left and right, made their peace with the regime more than a decade ago, when King Hassan II, who died in 1999, was paving the way for his son. But followers of Justice and Benevolence refuse to take part until two of the constitution’s articles are revised: the 19th, which gives a lot of power to the king, recognising him as Commander of the Faithful, thus heir to the Prophet Muhammad and rightful leader of Morocco’s Muslims; and the 23rd, which states that “the person of the king is sacred and inviolate”. As a result, Justice and Benevolence faces steady repression. It is not certain that it will still refuse to compromise once Sheikh Yassine, now a fragile 80-year-old, has gone. But the rewards for joining mainstream politics look less tempting than before.

Abdelilah Benkirane, leader of Morocco’s other big Islamist group, the Justice and Development Party, the largest opposition force in parliament, accepts that his movement’s transition from secrecy to full integration has come at a price; it is kept in check by electoral shenanigans and other means. “The public is deeply dissatisfied with political parties, which operate under severe restrictions,” he says, pointing to a record low turnout in a general election in 2007, when his party came second rather than winning handsomely, as expected.

Mr Benkirane is no revolutionary. “I am deeply committed to this state, to the role of the king as holder of the balance between different parts of our national identity,” he says. “But there are only two ways to get out of this impasse. Either, against all odds, we remove the administration’s tight control of politics or we show we can make an impact by taking part in government.” But so far the regime seems bent on continuing to exclude Justice and Development from a governing coalition, which coalesced on an anti-Islamist platform.

Many secular-minded politicians agree that the regime controls politics too tightly. The biggest parties are hamstrung by their deference to the old establishment and by a phenomenon that some Moroccans call “transhumance”: the way politicians connected to the palace change their affiliation according to the calculations of the day. “We were right to integrate our parties into the system after wasting too many years fighting or boycotting it,” says a former minister from a left-wing party. “But we must keep up the pressure.”

Yet whereas Morocco’s monarchy has nimbly managed the transition from Hassan II to Muhammad VI and has steadied politics by opening it up to former dissidents, most political parties have not quite adapted to the new system, nor have they shown much sign of democracy within themselves. So people see little point in politics, reckoning that “all real decisions”, as they tend to put it, are still made in the palace or the interior ministry.

Nice enough when he’s home
As a result, the king has come under greater scrutiny by his people. He is said to be both reclusive and thin-skinned, occasionally losing his temper with his advisers. He spends a lot of time outside the country; at one point last year, the cabinet found itself constitutionally unable to enact new laws because he had been away for several months. When he comes home, he catches up on lost time by criss-crossing his country, opening new public facilities and dispensing largesse as ministers and governors trot along behind.

In September a court in the southern town of Agadir sentenced a blogger, Muhammad Erraji, to two years in prison plus a fine. Mr Erraji had criticised the king’s habit of doling out gifts on his trips, arguing that it encouraged a “culture of dependency”. Though the verdict was overturned, it showed that the taboo against directly criticising the king is still fiercely upheld. Later that month another young man, Yassine Bellasal, was sentenced to a year in prison (suspended) and a fine for offending the king. Mr Bellasal’s crime was to spray a spoof graffito of the national moto—“God, the Nation, the Barça”—replacing the monarch with his favourite football club, FC Barcelona. An appeals court recently upheld the verdict, suggesting that, even in football-mad Morocco, some things are still considered more sacred than the beautiful game.

Dulzura Saharawi

No se como llegaste a mi vida
ni se como la charla empezó
pero cuando llegaste , me encontraste
llena, de soledad, nostalgia , tristeza por mi tierra y un vaso de te

Dulzura Saharawi

Cuando viniste con tu dulzura saharawi , me hiciste que te abriera
las puertas de mi jaima,
tu dulzura me hico saborear cada vaso de te
haciendo que el margo sea alegre
el dulce mas suave
y el suave memorable

Dulzura Saharawi

No se cuando nos conocimos
ni se cuando nuestra amistad empezó
crecer pero si se que me enseñaste a querer la vida y los demás

Dulzura Saharawi

dulzura de mi país quédate un rato para contarme cosas y ensañarme el secreto
de la amistad para que mi cariño por ti crezca mas...

Dedicada a mi amiga Maty..Gracias por todo siguimos la lucha...

Happy New Year

Happy New year to all the Saharawi around the world

Ms. Kerry Kennedy speaking in behalf of the Saharawi

John F. Kennedy Awards 2008

Aminatu Haidar was the first Saharawi women to ever receive the John F. Kennedy Awards 2008 the ceremony took place in the Senate house
25th Annual Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award, November 13th, 2008
Russell Senate Office Building, Washington, DC

UN IV Committee 2008

UN IV Committee 2008

United Nations Hearing on the Western Sahara
Special Political and Decolonization IV Committee
October 7-8, 2008

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee
It is a great honor to be here today as an advocate for the Saharawi people. My name is Agaila Abba. As a Saharawi person born and raised half of my life in the refugee camps located in southwestern Algeria, I saw not only my loved ones, but also all my people suffer the hardship of living in one of the most inhabitable places in the world, where the temperature can reach 130 degrees, and where people are dependent on humanitarian aid. They have been waiting for three decades for a chance to have their voices heard in a fair and just referendum. It is heart breaking to witness my people suffering. One of these people is my beloved grandfather (Lakhal Lebbib) who once honorably fought for the freedom of the Saharawi people in the war between Western Sahara and Morocco during the 1970s. The last time I saw him in June 2007, I realized that he is slowly losing his sight and the ability to walk. However he has still not lost the hope that one day, he will have the chance to get a glimpse of his beloved Western Sahara.
Along with my grandfather, there are about 200,000 Saharawi people, old and young, women and children, powerlessly waiting for a broken promise, a promise that gave them so much hope and strength that someday they too would see their loved ones. Three decades have passed and the Saharawi people are yet to hear news about their right to self-determination. This right would allow them to vote on whether they wish to be independent, or integrate with Morocco.
Not only the Saharawis in the camps are waiting endlessly for a broken promise to be fulfilled, but also the Saharawis living in the Occupied Territories, who are suffering far worse, as they endure all forms of violations of basic human rights by the Moroccan authorities; they are tortured, raped, and beaten because they simply asked to have a voice and the right to fight for a “Free Western Sahara.”
Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee
While the Saharawis in both the camps and the Occupied Territories are merely asking for the opportunity to raise their voices and speak of their rights, Morocco has laid out an autonomy plan which states that the Saharawi people can have their land back, but that the sovereignty of their state will be under the administration of the Moroccan government. This means that the Saharawis’ provinces, schools and hospitals will be run by the Moroccan government and that each Saharawi will be holding a Moroccan citizenship. In addition, the Saharawis will be forced into integration with Morocco, and through this integration, their rights as a nation and their identity as Saharawis will be eradicated, only to be forced to bow down to a monarchy to which they do not belong to.
Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee
Seeing the suffering and devastation that every Saharawi father, mother, brother, sister and young child experiences, I ask myself: How long does this long, dark nightmare have to last?
Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee
I ask you the same question:
How much longer is the Saharawi people’s three decades of waiting going to last?
How long will the Saharawi people continue to be oppressed and tortured?
How long will the Saharawi people be forgotten?
How long will the Saharawi voice be ignored?
How long will the Saharawi people’s dreams of freedom continue to be crushed?
How long will the Saharawi students around the world continue to be victims of the Moroccan propaganda that they have been kidnapped and taken to countries such as Algeria, Cuba and Mexico? As a Saharawi student who previously studied in the refugee camps, Spain and currently in the USA, I am honored to have the opportunity to have access to a higher education which may someday enable me to help my people, a dream shared by many Saharawi students around the world. Therefore as a Saharawi I say:
No to the endless waiting and suffering
No to the ongoing human rights violations in the Occupied Territories of Western Sahara
No to the Moroccan autonomy and propaganda,
But yes to the referendum and the right to self-determination of the Saharawi people
Thank you very much for your attention.

Western Sahara isn't for Sale

These are pictures from my homeland Western Sahara that I never seen..Someday it will be free than my people and I can walk peacefully on it.