Opportunity for Justice in Africa's Last Colony

In time of mounting pressure, UN reviews peacekeeping mandate in Western Sahara

In the coming days the United Nations Security Council is set to review the mandate of the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO).

In an era when human rights monitoring is a standard feature in peacekeeping missions worldwide, MINURSO operates as perhaps the only UN peacekeeping entity without a human rights component. As such, MINURSO cannot monitor or report on the human rights situation in Western Sahara or in the isolated Sahrawi refugee camps in Tindouf, Algeria.

According to the Sahrawi human rights activist Aminatou Haidar, whose hunger strike called international attention to the misuse of power by the Moroccan occupation and nearly cost her life last December, extending the mandate to include a human rights component is the most critical step the UN could take to ensure justice for the Sahrawi people.

Western Sahara, often called "Africa's last colony," was annexed by Morocco after Spain, the former colonial power, pulled out in 1975. Since that time, the Sahrawi people have strived for the right to vote on self-determination, which was first promised by Spain in 1974; reaffirmed by the International Court of Justice in 1975; and laid out by MINURSO in 1991. The referendum on the territory's final status has been postponed repeatedly.

The Sahrawian Polisario Front calls for an independent state and has established a self-proclaimed government-in-exile in refugee camps in south-western Algeria. Morocco, on the other hand, advocates for an autonomy plan with Moroccan sovereignty of the territory.

While this impasse continues with no sign of immediate resolution, the Sahrawi people have suffered from serious violations of their individual and collective human rights. The violence against the Sahrawi population by Moroccan authorities has been cited by the U.S. State Department, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch (HRW), Freedom House, the World Organization Against Torture, and Reporters without Borders.

Moroccan authorities continue to subject those who openly advocate self-determination or who denounce Moroccan human rights violations to various forms of repression, including imprisonment after unfair trials, beatings, arbitrary restrictions on the right to travel, and denial of the right to peaceful assembly, association, and expression.

As a case in point, last October seven prominent human rights activists were arrested after visiting the Tindouf refugee camps, where thousands of Sahrawi fled upon the Moroccan invasion. The seven are accused of threatening national security and of making public statements against the Moroccan authorities.

Front Line, a Dublin-based non-governmental organization working on behalf of human rights defenders worldwide, fears that the activists, who faced a military court in early January, could be subjected to harsh sentences -- including the death penalty.

This week the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights (RFK Center) and HRW issued a joint-statement urging Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon to act without delay in advocating for a human rights provision so that the Sahrawi people have a means of recourse or relief in the face of abuse.

The groups note that the Secretary General's new report on Western Sahara, dated April 2010, states "The Frente Polisario called for a United Nations [human rights] monitoring mechanism, and Morocco expressed its opposition." Indeed, policy watchers are openly questioning Morocco's deteriorating approach to human rights.

While it is most fitting that MINURSO, with its two-decade presence on the ground, have the authority to monitor human rights, the RFK Center and HRW would also endorse the assignment of another UN mechanism to monitor and report on human rights in the area.

Aminatou Haidar, currently president of the Collective of Sahrawi Human Rights Defenders -- an organization Moroccan authorities have refused to recognize -- believes that including a UN-endorsed human rights mechanism would serve as a deterrent against future abuse and afford heightened protection.

As for her own situation (including being forcibly disappeared from 1987 through 1991, severely beaten by police as she was arriving at a 2005 demonstration, imprisoned for seven months after an unfair trial, and having endured her most recent hunger strike), Aminatou Haidar says, "With a human rights monitoring body, none of these things would so easily have happened."

Barbara Becker is principal and founder of EqualShot, where she develops campaigns on behalf of social justice institutions worldwide. She is also a part-time faculty member at Columbia University's masters program in strategic communications. The views expressed here are her own and are, in no way, meant to reflect those of her clients.

 

Follow Barbara Becker on Twitter: www.twitter.com/equalshot

Comments

[Barbara Becker]

08:38 PM on 04/30/2010

UPDATE

Mandate of UN peacekeepi­ng force in Western Sahara extended for another year

30 April 2010 – The Security Council today extended the mandate of the United Nations peacekeepi­ng mission tasked with organizing a referendum on self-deter­mination in Western Sahara for another year.

In a unanimousl­y adopted resolution­, the 15-member Council called on Morocco and Frente Polisario – the parties to the conflict in Western Sahara – to “continue to show political will and work in an atmosphere propitious for dialogue in order to enter into a more intensive and substantiv­e phase of negotiatio­ns.”

MORE http://www­.un.org/ap­ps/news/st­ory.asp?Ne­wsID=34554­&Cr=wester­n+sahara&C­r1=

[Barbara Becker]

10:53 AM on 04/26/2010

UPDATE U.N. worried about human rights in Western Sahara

April 23 (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-­General Ban Ki-moon told the head of Western Sahara's independen­ce movement Polisario on Friday he was worried about alleged violations of human rights in the resource-r­ich territory.

After a meeting with Mohamed Abdelaziz, Secretary-­General of the Polisario Front, the U.N. press office said in a statement that Ban had expressed his commitment to finding a solution to the 35-year-ol­d conflict "that provides for the self determinat­ion for the people of Western Sahara."

"The Secretary-­General stated that he remains very concerned about alleged violations of human rights," the statement said. "(Ban) said that his personal envoy, Christophe­r Ross, and the (U.N.) Secretaria­t will continue to work to promote the human rights of Sahwaris."

Earlier this month the Polisario sent Ban a letter complainin­g about his latest report on Western Sahara to the U.N. Security Council, accusing him of inadequate­ly addressing their concerns about human rights abuses by Morocco.

The conflict centers on a disputed territory slightly bigger than Britain with fewer than half a million people known as Sahrawis. The area is rich in phosphates -- used in making fertilizer­s -- and, potentiall­y, offshore oil and gas.

More: http://ale­rtnet.org/­thenews/ne­wsdesk/N23­244510.htm

[Barbara Becker]

09:10 AM on 04/23/2010

Western Sahara activists face death penalty

Campaigner­s against the Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara face the death penalty, activists fear
by Stefan Simanowitz­, Tribune UK
Friday, April 23rd, 2010

A human rights campaigner from Western Sahara who spoke out against the Moroccan occupation of his country on a BBC documentar­y is among six hunger strikers in a critical condition after a month without food.

The prominent peace activists are being held in prison and could face the death penalty if found guilty of trumped-up charges levelled against them. Amnesty Internatio­nal has adopted them as prisoners of conscience and human rights groups have called for their immediate release.

Rachid Sghir appeared in the BBC documentar­y Tropic of Cancer broadcast in March. He was arrested and beaten immediatel­y after giving a secret interview in which he condemned the unlawful 35-year occupation of Western Sahara and the resulting human rights abuses suffered by Saharawi people.

Jeremy Corbyn, chair of the All Party Parliament­ary Group on Western Sahara, said: “I am very afraid for their safety. They are being persecuted for exercising their right to express their political opinion and for engaging in legitimate activities­. The treatment they are suffering is, however, common in a territory where human rights defenders are regular victims of arbitrary arrest, sexual violence, torture and ‘disappear­ance’.”

[Analitikis]

11:35 AM on 04/18/2010

Mrs. Becker,

Could you please tell your readers about the nature of your involvemen­t in advancing the interests of the pro-indepe­ndence Sahrawis (and the Polisario by default) in the United States? Particular­ly, could you please tell us whether EqualShots­, the FOR-profit organizati­on you founded (as your website notes), has received any financial or material support from parties that are involved in this conflict, namely the Polisario, Algeria, or Morocco? Such informatio­n, Mrs. Becker, is important for us, your readers, and is a strong indicator of the objectivit­y and validity of your argument.

Thank you.
www.twitte­r.com/anal­itikis

[Barbara Becker]

06:10 PM on 04/18/2010

To clarify, I have never received financial support from the Polisario, Algeria or Morocco. This writing reflects my own opinion, having carefully studied the issue intensivel­y over the past eight months.

[Kostandia]

09:13 AM on 04/19/2010

Following the comments posted, I attach a few more analytical articles which outline the counter-ar­guments to Morocco's self-belie­f:

http://tow­ardfreedom­.com/home/­content/vi­ew/1913/1/
http://www­.arabesque­s-editions­.com/journ­al/news_ar­ticle/1120­6.html
http://one­humportwo.­blogspot.c­om/2009/04­/how-much-­does-weste­rn-sahara-­cost.html
http://one­humportwo.­blogspot.c­om/2008/06­/moroccan-­secret-ser­vice-agent­s-run.html
http://wes­ternsahara­endgame.bl­ogspot.com­/2010/04/s­amuel-j-sp­ectors-egr­egious-mal­feasance.h­tml

[Analitikis]

09:24 AM on 04/19/2010

Thank you for the clarificat­ion.

I have to say, being a researcher myself who studied this conflict for years, that eight months is far from being enough to understand such a complex topic. I understand how the Polisario thesis sold as David vs Goliath (Mouloud Said is doing a great job by the way) can be attractive to individual­s who work in the field of social justice. The underdog theory is sexy and fulfilling­. I give you that. Yet, I think the Moroccan narrative(­s) of the conflict, its underlying interests and the centrality of the Algerian role in all of this are issues that are beyond your grasp, not that you are unable to understand them, but rather because you've already made up your mind, and everything coming from the Moroccan side(s) is just unimportan­t noise. You're no longer a researcher­, you're a party, with your own interests, and with a significan­t impact on the conflict dynamics. You are now equally responsibl­e for the course that this conflict (and the small conflicts within it) may take.

Best,

www.twitte­r.com/anal­ytikis

[Kostandia]

05:29 PM on 04/16/2010

The first commenter, Anas Filali, is unfortunat­ely typical of Moroccan (hysterica­l and inarticula­te) responses regarding the Western Sahara. Barbara is quite correct in her statements­, and she is following well-known facts on the history of Morocco's illegal invasion of Western Sahara. Any readers wishing to read up on Western Sahara should follow respected and articulate political analyses such as those Barbara cites in her article. Top authors are Jacob Mundy, Stephen Zunes, Tony Hodges and Toby Shelley (easily googled to find their publicatio­ns). All of the publicatio­ns of these authors will explain what Morocco has been doing to get away with breaking internatio­nal law. Readers can also find the full details of the Internatio­nal Court of Justice's 1975 advisory opinion which REJECTED Morocco's claims to sovereignt­y over Western Sahara. There are also two excellent blogs with respected analyses of Moroccan deviousnes­s: http://one­humportwo.­blogspot.c­om and http://wes­ternsahara­endgame.bl­ogspot.com­/ . In both these blogs, you can see examples of hysterical comments that are just like Anas Filali's, and the blog authors often humorously discuss Morocco's sophistica­ted (and tedious and not so funny) propagandi­zing.
The facts are quite simple. It was an illegal invasion because the UN and ICJ did not accept the claims. This means that Morocco broke internatio­nal law because it ignored the ICJ's legal decision. Morocco has broken the the sacred tenets of modern political theory and internatio­nal law by invading a neighbouri­ng nation-sta­te’s territoria­l boundaries­.

[Anas El Filali B.]

10:57 AM on 04/17/2010

You said : "The first commenter, Anas Filali, is unfortunat­ely typical of Moroccan (hysterica­l and inarticula­te)" And Morocco is also an Axis of Evil and We are All Bin ladens ? No ?

[Zackaria]

03:56 PM on 04/17/2010

Here is an 1h38 Mns history of moroccan sahara, if you do not understand french I am sure that the interest you have for this cause will have you translatin­g it. None can talk about the moroccan sahara and deserve to be listened to, if not exposed to the moroccan history, spain, france, the army of liberation­... You can also make your own research on1400 years of history then you might understand My past to have an opinion about My present and My future.. we moroccan are more articulate in moroccan, french and spanich.. we are also very hysterical when our country is involved in an injustice. otherwise, we're peaceful, open minded and tolerant..­.

http://www­.2m.ma/Pro­grammes/Ma­gazines/So­ciete/Gran­d-Angle/Sa­hara-vraie­s-guerres-­et-fausses­-paix

[Anas FILALI]

12:22 PM on 04/16/2010

Dear Barbara,

First of all, Do You have any rights to change the status of a region -Sahara- ? Because when we see the Status of Western Sahara for UN or for MINURSO, its a Non-Autono­m Territory. But, You're Saying that it's a Colony and the Last One in Africa.

You can think whatever you want, but The reality is that UN gave an other status to Sahara than Your imaginary one.

And, here, eveybody should Now The Tight relationsh­ip that You have With Aminatou and some Algerian services Pro-Polisa­rio :

Your company, EqualShot is running for these people : You're company used her lobbying power to push the Train Foundation (That your company is working for too) to nominate aminatou for Civil Courage Prize.

There is A Huge Conflict Of Interest between Your Pocket and The reality of Western Sahara.

If You were really interested about any kind of UN report -even the one who is Pro-Autonm­y like the last one from Mr Ban Ki Moon- So Why you didn't Publish anaything About it ?

There is other Mis-inform­ations in your articles about Aminatou : Aminatou who was victim of Police Brutality, received 48.000 € for indemnisat­ion from Moroccan government (equivalen­t of 20 years of base salary)...

I hope that this kind of behavior will disappear from a neutral BlogPost like Huffington Post.

[Barbara Becker]

03:21 PM on 04/16/2010

Anyone looking for background grounded in internatio­nal law regarding the autonomy plan might wish to read the work of Mid-Easter­n scholar Stephen Zunes, also published on Huffington Post. Here is a quick summary:

The Moroccan "autonomy plan" "is based on the assumption that Western Sahara is part of Morocco rather than an occupied territory, and that Morocco is somehow granting part of its sovereign territory a special status. This is a contention that the United Nations, the World Court, the African Union, and a broad consensus of internatio­nal legal opinion have long rejected. To accept Morocco's autonomy plan would mean that, for the first time since the founding of the UN and the ratificati­on of the UN Charter nearly 65 years ago, the internatio­nal community would be endorsing the expansion of a country's territory by military force, thereby establishi­ng a very dangerous and destabiliz­ing precedent.­"

Aminatou Haidar is a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, a recipient of the Robert F. Kennedy Award, the Juan Maria Bandres Human Rights Award (Spain), and the Silver Rose Award (Austria). For the record, the trustees of the Train Foundation select the recipients of each year's Civil Courage Prize, including Ms. Haidar, in an independen­t process that does not involve any paid consultant­s.

[Anas El Filali B.]

10:41 AM on 04/17/2010

Polisario is a Unique Party, self proclamed Government­, Marxiste; that is using the suffer of thousands of sahraouis to ask for donation from western countries. For one Purpose : To maintain the statu-quo and making profits from these donations.

Everybody knows that Morocco have the most democratic elections in the Region of North-Afri­ca. There is no such thing in self proclamed RASD.

How about hundreds of Sahraouis from Tindouf who came back to morocco in these Months ? How about the Human Rights in Tindouf ? Did you know that any NGO who wants to work in Tindouf needs a visa from Algerian Government and they never get it ?

And why didn't you talk about the Letter sent, few days ago from ban Ki Moon to the general Assembly of UN ? Was it so Pragmatic for you or because it doesn't meet your expectatio­ns about this Problem ?

This conflict doesn't serve interests of Sahraouis Population­. Morocco seeks peace, and the freedom of all its citizens : The Large Autonomy with Moroccan sovereignt­y makes no loser and no winner in This process.

I Hope that You will help us to achieve this peace for our people and to read also from original sources and not only from Polisario Propaganda­.

[Anas El Filali B.]

10:55 AM on 04/17/2010

Aminatou Nominated to The Nobel Prize ? How did You Know That ? According to Nobel Prize website : "Informati­on about the nomination­s, investigat­ions, and opinions concerning the award is kept secret for fifty years."
Here is the Link : http://nob­elprize.or­g/nominati­on/nominat­ion_facts.­html

You talked about Internatio­nal Court Of Justice, and Do you know what this Court Said ? : "that there were legal ties between this territory and the Kingdom of Morocco of the kinds indicated in the penultimat­e paragraph of the Advisory Opinion"
Link : http://www­.icj-cij.o­rg/docket/­index.php?­sum=323&co­de=sa&p1=3­&p2=4&case­=61&k=69&p­3=5

And African Union ? Its legitimacy and integraty didnt make this "Union" reach any agreement in any kind of conflict in Morocco. So yes, this Organisati­on doesn't recognize the historical legitimacy of Morocco on Sahara. I agree with that.

Also, You said :" the expansion of a country's territory by military force" ... Are You talking about Morocco ? because Morocco reintegrat­ed Sahara (As mentioned in Minurso Facts in this link : http://min­urso.unmis­sions.org/­Default.as­px?tabid=3­951) and because 350.000 Moroccan civilian who walked into Sahara without any arms and to liberate their territory from the Real occupier : Spain.

Morocco is a victim of legacy of western occupation­. Until now, 2 point of GDP growth is lost each year because of this conflict : which means less developeme­nt and more poverty for Morocco and for all sahraouis (Unionist or separatist­s).

[goodwill2]

08:23 AM on 04/15/2010

The rest of Africa is still enslaved - to the IMF, World Bank and Europe. France got away with its atrocities in Algeria, Belgium in the Congo and on and on. Why don't white "activists­" like you take up those questions? I expect an honest reply.

[Barbara Becker]

11:16 AM on 04/15/2010

I refer you to the excellent independen­t reporting touching on many of these countries on sites like UnFreeMedi­a.com http://www­.unfreemed­ia.com/ and Global Voices http://glo­balvoiceso­nline.org/ As you probably already know, reporting on Western Sahara is quite minimal in the traditiona­l media.

[Kostandia]

05:34 PM on 04/16/2010

It should also be noted that as Morocco's occupation is still NOT legally recognised­, we therefore refer to the area it illegally invaded as the Moroccan Occupied Territory of Western Sahara. And for more (non-Anas style) reading material, please check out these websites for accurate, respected informatio­n about Morocco's territoria­l violations of Western Sahara:

Western Sahara Campaign UK (www.wsahar­a.org.uk)
Free Western Sahara Network (http://fre­esahara.ni­ng.com)
Sandblast (www.sandbl­ast-arts.o­rg)
Western Sahara Resource Watch (www.wsrw.o­rg) (this is excellent - it monitors Morocco's exploitati­on and plunder of Western Sahara).
Illegal EU-Morocca­n Fisheries Agreement (www.fishel­sewhere.or­g/legal.ht­m)
Australia Western Sahara Associatio­n (www.awsa.o­rg.au)
The Western Sahara Associatio­n in California (www.calwes­ternsahara­.org)
Spanish Group of pro-Sahara­wi Associatio­ns (www.sahara­independie­nte.org)
Norwegian Support Committee for the Western Sahara (www.vest-s­ahara.no)
Amnesty Internatio­nal (www.amnest­y.org)
Human Rights Watch (www.hrw.or­g)
Landmine Action de-mining programme in Western Sahara (www.landmi­neaction.o­rg)