Skip to main content

Saharawis protest Moroccan land grab in front of digging machines

By موضوع
has received footage of Saharawis protesting in front of digging machines, supposedly owned by the Moroccan state owned phosphate company OCP. The Saharawis claim that Morocco is confiscating their land to allow more foreign investments in the occupied territory.
Today's protest took place just south of Western Sahara's capital city El Aaiun. The protesters were mainly elderly Saharawis, whose families are said to have owned the land for a long time. Photos of today's protest are included below. 
Sources on the ground say that the Moroccan government is confiscating land that belongs to Saharawis. Morocco would want to increase the number of foreign investors in the part of Western Sahara that it occupies in violation of international law. Offering land up to the potential investors would be a first step in that process.
The same sources state that about seven weeks ago, an unknown foreign delegation visited the area that is now being cleared by the digging machines. Some time before that, the Chair of the Crans Montana Forum is also said to have visited the area, during a trip in which he also visited Boujdour and Dakhla - two other cities in occupied Western Sahara. Though widely condemned, Crans Montana organised a Forum for politicians and businessmen in occupied Western Sahara earlier this year. Several governments and international institutions, including the United Nations, called upon their personnel not to attend the Forum. The African Union strongly condemned the Forum taking place in Africa's last colony.
Just five days ago, several Saharawi families gathered in protest of the land grab in the same place. Scroll further down for photos of that protest. 
16 October 2015, it was 40 years since the International Court of Justice found no ties of sovereignty between Morocco and Western Sahara. More than 100 UN resolutions call for the right to self-determination of Western Sahara, dealt with by the UN as the last colonial issue in Africa.
WSRW is trying to identify the people directly involved, and will come back with further information later if succeeding.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

UK invites Libyan rebels to open office in London

By موضوع
London (AMIPS) - The British Prime Minister, David Cameron, invited Thursday Libya's dissident Transitional National Council to open an office in London during talks with rebel leader Mustafa Abdul Jalil. "The government is today inviting the council to establish a formal office here in London," Cameron said after the talks in Downing Street, his first face-to-face discussions with Mr. Jalil. The Chief of the Rebel National Transitional Council, Mustafa Abdul Jalil, urged allies to send the rebels more weapons so they could drive the Libyan leader from power. NATO airstrikes on Kadhafi's compound on Thursday killed three people, hours after Libyan state television showed the first footage of Kadhafi since another attack on April 30 that the regime said had targeted him .
Post a Comment
Read more

“Only independence will restore us”: A Sahrawi refugee recalls Western Sahara’s invasion

By موضوع
40 years ago, thousands of Sahrawi were driven from their homes. Akhdaja Salak, who was 22 and pregnant at the time, describes the experience. It’s early September 1975 and Akhdaja Salak, 22, is sitting in her home in Ajdiri, Western Sahara. She is seven months pregnant and still undecided about what to do to next: whether to take the risk of staying at home or leave and endure the pains of travelling while heavily pregnant. Akhdaja’s fears started when she first received the news that Morocco was preparing an armed invasion to occupy Western Sahara. In 1973, the Saharawi Liberation Movement (the Polisario Front) was founded to fight for independence from Spanish colonisation. Two years of Polisario attacks forced the Spanish to retreat from Western Sahara’s interior to the coastal cities and reluctantly accept negotiations. The two sides agreed that the Polisario would stop its military attacks and release Spanish prisoners of war, and that in return Spain would withdraw from the regi...
Post a Comment
Read more

40 years of hurt: The never-ending scandal of the Western Sahara

By موضوع
For Africa, the UN and the powers in the Security Council, the ongoing occupation of the Western Sahara is an embarrassment. For Saharwis, it’s a profound injustice. Forty years ago tomorrow (6 November), Morocco invaded Western Sahara, a former Spanish colonial possession – mostly made up of desert – in West Africa. As Spain walked away, Morocco claimed the territory as part of its ancient empire. The UN had declared that it was up to the people of the territory to decide their own future, but before they could do so, King Hassan II of Morocco organised the “Green March” in which hundreds of Moroccans were bussed to the border and – in front of the international press – pushed into Western Sahara waving Moroccan flags. Meanwhile, many miles away from the media, columns of tanks, armoured cars and truck-loads of Moroccan soldiers swept into the territory. So too did troops from neighbouring Mauritania which also claimed swathes of ground. These foreign troops were met by indigenous fi...
Post a Comment
Read more