Freedom's Voice

Western Sahara

2011-09-18T21:52:00.000-07:00

Western Sahara has been on the United Nations list of non-self-governing territories since 1963, when it was a Spanish colony. The Western Sahara boasts phosphate-rich fishing water and is believed to have offshore oil deposits. Morocco has controlled most of the territory since 1975, but this has been controversial. Western Sahara fell under Spanish rule in 1884. When the Spanish left, both Western Sahara’s neighbors claimed the territory – Morocco from the north and Mauritania from the south. On the one hand, Morocco claims Western Sahara as part of its sovereign territory, which had been unjustly severed by Franco- Spanish colonialism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

On the other hand, Western Saharan nationalists, led by the Polisario, claim the right to independence through self-determination, which has been the dominant UN framework on the issue since the 1960s. Indeed a landmark opinion of the International Court of Justice in 1975 upheld Western Sahara’s right to a referendum on self-determination. The Hague’s opinion, however, had the effect of prompting a Moroccan invasion before Spain could organize a vote. Madrid eventually gave in to Morocco, an act that prompted Algeria to throw its weight behind the Polisario. At the regional level. The Western Sahara dispute then became one side of an interlocking conflict between Morocco and Algeria.

The same year as the ICJ ruling, King Hassan II of Morocco ordered a “Green March” of over 300,000 Moroccans into the territory. Spain backed down and negotiated a settlement with Morocco and Mauritania, known as the Madrid Agreement. Signed on 14 November 1975, the deal partitioned the region. Morocco acquired two-thirds in the north and Mauritania the remaining third in the south. Spain also agreed to end colonial rule.

An estimated 200,000 Saharawi refugees who fled during the Green March are still housed in desolate refugee camps in the Algerian desert. While Algeria maintains no territorial claim on Western Sahara, it has consistently supported Polisario’s drive for self-determination diplomatically, militarily, financially and morally. With only slight aberrations in its Western Sahara policy, Algeria’s positions in the Western Sahara conflict will likely to continue to hold the same general shape it has had for over thirty years.

Despite aid from the United Nations, conditions in the camps are abject with widespread health problems including hepatitis B, anemia and meningitis. A 2008 survey by the World Health Organization suggested that one in five children in the camps suffers from acute malnutrition. Within occupied Western Sahara, the Saharawi population claim that they face discrimination and human rights abuses. International organizations, including the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights have raised serious concerns over violations of human rights in the territory and a 2008 report by Human Rights Watch found that Morocco had violated the rights of expression, association, and assembly in Western Sahara

In April 1991 the UN established Minurso, the United Nations Mission for a Referendum in Western Sahara. The program was to implement a peace plan outlined in a 1990 Security Council resolution. In September 1991, however, a UN-brokered ceasefire was declared. While the ceasefire held, the mission was never fully deployed and the proposed referendum in 1992 never held. In May 1996 the UN suspended the identification process and recalled most Minurso civilian staff.

A second round of informal talks between Moroccan government and the POLISARIO, conducted under UN auspices and in the presence of Algeria and Mauritania, was held on 10-11 February 2010. Announced as a preliminary, informal meeting, these discussions followed four sessions of direct talks, which began in June 2007. However, no tangible results were produced after the series of talks.

The Western Sahara conflict is approaching its 35th year. The question has poisoned relations between Algeria, the main sponsor of Western Saharan self-determination, and Morocco, which claims the territory. The land border between Algeria and Morocco has been closed since August 1994. This has seriously affected economic life and trade in the region, which in turn has had a significant impact on the development of the region. Economic exchange between the Maghreb states represents only 1.3% of their trade, the lowest regional trade in the world. The dispute has also had international effects as relations between France and Algeria, Spain and Morocco, Spain and Algeria, and the U.S. and France have all been affected.

Agaila Abba Hemeida

Summer 2011 Maghreb Center Intern

References

BBC . BBC, 9 Nov. Web. 12 July 2011. .

Mundy, Jacob. “Algeria and the Western Sahara Dispute.” The Maghreb Center Journal 1 (2010): 1-14. Print.

Simanowitz, Stefan, and Ken Loach. Independent. Independent, 17 Oct. 2010. Web. 12 July 2011. .

Zoubir, Yahia. Concerned Africa Scholars. Concerned African Scholars, June 2010. Web. 12 July 2011. .

Zunes,Stephen and Jacob Mundy. Western Sahara: War, Nationalism, and Conflict Irresolution. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2010.

2009-01-29T17:03:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-20T14:41:00.000-08:00

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.

My Struggle to Get a Good Education

2008-04-27T13:31:00.000-07:00

I asked myself: “What has impacted me the most as a person?” The answer is my journey to get a good education. This journey has made me sacrifice the most precious things in my life: my family, friends and culture. However, it has made me a young woman of dignity by giving me a purpose in life and by opening the doors of unexpected opportunities.
I was born in one of the biggest refugee camps in the world. It is located in the Southwestern Algerian desert, where the temperature can reach 130 degrees Fahrenheit. It was there where my family and I, as victims of a three-decade-long dispute between Western Sahara and Morocco, took shelter. It was there where knowledge about the outside world was lacking, but where there was a hunger for learning and the determination to improve the rate of illiteracy was found. Growing up, all I knew were the hardships of the desert, mud-brick houses, and the tents made of thick, green canvas material. Nevertheless, things took a turn in another direction when I was selected for a special program that takes children who lost their fathers in the war to spend the summer with a Spanish host-family away from the hardship and the heat of the refugee camps.
It was at the age of ten when I made the decision to stay in Spain to begin my education. It was not an easy decision to make after having to leave behind my most beloved ones for twelve years. This decision made me miss the births and the most important stages in the life of my four younger sisters. Not only has this decision made me sacrifice my family, but also my culture, language and values. However, this sacrifice has taught me the most important principles which have helped me to learn how to live in different cultures and to respect their peoples. In addition to that, I built my character and strengthened my beliefs as an independent young woman.
These principles have helped me to be the young women of dignity that I am today by giving me a purpose that has given me a sense of understanding of my own hunger to get a good education. This hunger is the root of my passion and the dream of being one of the first female ambassadors of my nation to help my people in their fight for freedom. This purpose has given me a sense of belonging that makes me appreciate my own ethnicity, culture and language despite the fact that I have not lived with my people for a long time. It has also helped me maintain my language and culture throughout these years
My determination has opened the doors of unexpected opportunities, making the impossible a reality: first, going to Spain to study and later, being one of the first Saharawi to ever come to the USA and graduate from an American high school. This summer, I had the opportunity to read one of my poems in the presence of dozens of congressmen and senators in a reception on Capitol Hill. Similarly, in October of this year, I spoke as a petitioner before the UN’s Fourth Committee as an advocate for my people making me one of the first Saharawi women to do such a thing. Not only have these opportunities allowed me to meet many ambassadors and representatives from around the world, but also allowed me to have a Saharawi diplomatic-traditional tea and make connections with the Saharawi ambassador to the UN. Moreover, I received lectures by the Saharawi Minister of Foreign Affairs. In fact, when I asked him at the end: “What advice would you give to a young woman like me?” he simply said: “Study, study and study very hard, and be a good diplomat for our nation.”
Having analyzed the impact of education on my journey in life, I ask myself yet again: “Do I regret the sacrifice of being away from my beloved ones?” The answer is: No, I do not regret the sacrifice of being away from my family, or any other sacrifice because those sacrifices are what have given me a purpose to pursue my dreams and the opportunity to live an extraordinary life that leaves me with a unique story to tell. Moreover, my journey and the determination to get a good education will have an impact on my people in the refugee camps as well as others of different nations.

Leaving My Country

2008-02-21T17:56:00.000-08:00

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Me when I was 8 years old.

With my friend from Columbia.

With my friend from Japan and the USA.

“Learn everything you can, anytime you can, from anyone you can - there will always come a time when you will be grateful you did.” Sarah Caldwell
I was 9 years old when I first left my country for the first time to learn and to pursue my dreams to study. Leaving my family and missing the most important stages of my little sister’s lives such as their births and their birthdays was the hardest thing I had to go through in life so far. But my aim isn’t to talk about those hardships that I have experienced by leaving my family, and my country. My aim is to talk about what those hardships have taught me, and how they have helped me to become the dignified young women I am today.

Leaving my country was hard at first because I was young, and I moved to live with a host family that didn’t speak the same language, or hold the same values, and beliefs as my biological family. I missed my family terribly, but as time passed, and I got used to the new culture, and the new host family. I started to learn the Spanish language and costumes. The same thing happened when I moved to the States it was hard at first, but again as time passed I started to learn English, and the American culture. Moving away from my family and country has given me the opportunity to learn new languages such as Spanish, English, and French. Also it has allowed me to meet people from different countries, and become good friends with them. Even so I miss my family daily; I have to say being away from my family has taught me how to be independent, strong and responsible. These kinds of principles a person can only learn them through hardships and sacrifices, and because of these principles I am grateful of the hardships, and sacrifices of leaving my family, and country to teach me the most fundamental principles that are helping me and also will help me in the near future.

Not only has leaving my family and country has taught me how to be strong, independent, and responsible, but it also has taught me other important fundamental principles such as honesty, trust and respect for people and their cultures. Having learned these principles they have opened so many doors with some extraordinary opportunities such as going to the UN to speak, meeting diplomatic and politicians from around the world. Also building relationships with people from different cultures and backgrounds than mine. It is because of these principles that I have learned how to build a strong friendship based in trust, love and respect. Through these principles, I have become the young dignified women I am today.

Even leaving my country and family has caused me to miss the most important stages of my sister’s lives, and my family. Also not having daily contact with someone from my country it has weakened the ability of speaking my own language, but I’m still grateful for that day when I left my country to pursue my dream of getting a good education. A dream that has taught me principles that I will not only use for today, but for the upcoming tomorrow, and for that I will always be grateful.

2008-01-08T11:27:00.001-08:00

Who I admire the most and Why?

“When a nation gives birth to a man who is able to produce a great thought, another is born who is able to understand and admire it”,
Joseph Joubert. Have you ever thought of the person who you admire the most, and have you thought of the reasons why you admire that person? I asked those same questions to myself. Who do I admire, and why?” I realized that the person I admire the most is my Grandfather. I admire him because he’s the foundation of my life. I also admire him for being a freedom fighter and for being the best teacher I ever had.

When I was growing up my mother left to visit my father’s side of our family in a different city. The visit lasted for six months. While she was gone I was under the care of my grandfather. He was the one who made sure I didn’t need anything and he also made sure I was going to school everyday as well as doing my homework. My grandfather had a large part of raising me because I was with him in this important stage of my life. He was with me when I needed a person to be my father, mother, and my teacher. He was all this and more, not only for these six months, but for all of my life. I call him the foundation of my life because he have built my life on the principles that he taught me and for this I am so very thankful to him and I admire him dearly.

He wasn’t only the foundation of my life, but also he was a freedom fighter for my country. In 1976 he fought in the war between the Western Sahara, and Morocco. He left his family and his new bride when he went to war. This war cost him his sight, his legs, and his health. He made this sacrifice because of his belief in freedom for my nation, and for my people. He also fought for the rights of women in our society as well as in my family. He instructed the elderly men of our family and tribe to release the young women from arranged marriages, and encouraged the women to pursue their dreams and to study no matter if it was in the refugee camps or abroad. He’s the reason why I am here today, and why I have such determination to pursue my dreams of an education, and to build a future for myself, my family and my nation. He was the one who believed and fought for the principle of freedom and through that he became my inspiration to do the same. For this I admire him greatly.

Along with being the Foundation, and Freedom fighter he was also my teacher. A teacher that taught me the most important principles of life, respect for others, integrity and character. Those principles have become my best friend in everyday life. Not only did he teach me those principles, but he also taught them to every single member in my family. Because of his gifts my family, tribal members and our leaders rely on his intelligence, wisdom, and his knowledge of the history of our nation, tribe, and the customs of my culture. While I was growing up I have always saw my grandfather’s tent full of people, young and old, listening to his lectures. I also saw many elderly people from my tribe coming and asking him for advice and his blessing on important occasions like a child’s birth, wedding or resolution to a conflict between tribes. He was always trusted with such things. Because of this I have come to love him, and respect him very much.

I have come to admire my grandfather because he has shaped my life and given me my core values. He gave me the strength and courage to face the difficult situations that I encounter. He has shown me the importance of helping other people and sacrificing for others. He has been my guide and inspiration. For these reasons I admire my grandfather. So as Joseph Joubert said “one person is born who is able to introduce great thoughts, and another is born to understand, and admire them.” Let us be the ones who understand the thoughts of the people who we admire the most, and through this understanding and admiration grow into the person that they would be proud of.