Conference in Paris on “EU and natural resources in Western Sahara”

A conference under the theme “The European Union and natural resources in Western Sahara: Human rights and geopolitics of the environment,” was organized at “Paris 5” university as part of a series of academic seminars organized by the French academic observatory on the issue of Western Sahara.

The conference was led by the Polisario Front’s lawyer to the European Court Gilles Devers, by Mary Verizon from the observatory of natural resources in Western Sahara and Sahrawi poet Ali Salem Isselmou, said Wednesday the Sahrawi news agency SPS.

Devers reviewed the issue of natural resources in the historical and legal context of the conflict in Western Sahara, giving a detailed presentation on “the decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union of 10 December 2015, the appeal process of some European countries and possible prospects in anticipation of the final decision which must be made public before the end of the year.”

For her part, Vierzon presented an exhaustive report on the illicit plundering of the Sahrawi natural resources by Morocco and some international partners, underlining that the recent floods in the occupied cities of Western Sahara, notably the occupied city al-Ayun “show the fragility of infrastructures and that the income from these resources has never been invested in Western Sahara.”

The conference was also marked by the participation of Professor Sebastian Polay of the French academic observatory on Western Sahara and members of the solidarity movement with the Sahrawi people in France, students, researchers and representatives of the Sahrawi community in France.

Comments

UK invites Libyan rebels to open office in London

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 .

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

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...

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

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...

AL-Mustaqilla

Search This Blog