THE SAHARAWI WOMEN TAKE PART IN THE SOCIALIST INTERNATIONAL WOMEN´S MEETING IN MONTENEGRO

A high-level saharawi women delegation, led by the Secretary General, Fatma El-Mehdi, has participated in the Socialist Internacional Women´s Council Meeting held in the capital of the Republic of Montenegro, Petrovac, 26 and 27 June 2009 which main point in the agenda has been the discussion of "The Impact of the Global Financial Crisis on Women".

When the saharawi woman leader took the floor, she reaffirmed the will of the people of the last colony in the african continent to strenghten the ties among all the women´s organizations for continuing to struggle for a more peaceful and just world and also ask the participants in these event to help the saharawi people that is still living in refugee camps from the dangerous consequences of the global finantial crisis special in the women´s refugge population.

Mrs. El Mehdi also in her intervention informed about the last developments of the legitimate struggle of the saharawi people for peace and justice ask the representatives from the diffferent continents to demand their governments to stop the flagrant violations of human rights in the occupied cities of Western Sahara.

The saharawi women delegation had a lot of meetings with other delegations from the different continents and took the opportunity to inform them about the last development of the legitimate struggle of the saharawi people for freedom and national independence and the important role that are playing the saharawi women in this struggle and also has held important meetings with the main leaders of this international women´s organization like Mrs. Pía Locatelli who is the President of the Socialist International Women´s from Italy and Member of the European Parliament and Mrs. Marlènne Haas, S.I.W.´s Secretary General.

The National Union of Saharawi Women has always participated in the meeting of this important women´s organization because our national movement, POLISARIO Front, is a Observer Member of The Socialist International.

The Socialist International Women is the international organisation of the women's organisations of the socialist, social democratic and labour parties affiliated to the Socialist International. There are currently 156 member organisations from all parts of the world.

The aims and objectives of the Socialist International Women are:
to increase the participation of women in politics
to promote knowledge and understanding of gender equality
to campaign against gender inequality and discrimination of women in society
to work for peace, security and human rights
to strengthen relations between the member organisations
to extend relations between member organisations and other women's organisations of similar beliefs and values
The Socialist International Women is a non-governmental organisation with consultative status at the United Nations Economic and Social Council.

UNITED NATIONS´S SPECIAL ENVOY IS VISITING THE REGION FOR PREPARING THE NEGOTIATING TALKS

The saharawi women wish to express to the United Nations Secretary General´s Special Envoy, Mr. Christopher Ross, a lot of success in his new tour in our region: north-west Africa for trying to resolver the problem of the last colony in the african continent: Western Sahara, ilegally occupied by morocco since more than three decades ago and we would like to underline that the only solution to this conflict which was created by morocco and that is why is considered a decolonization´s problem is stricly to respect the international resolutions mainly those that are calling for a free and fair referendum where the saharawi people can expree freely for their own future.

The UN Secretary General’s Personal Envoy is trying to help broker a political solution regarding the status Western Sahara is visiting these days Algeria, the Saharawi Refugee Camps where has been received by the main leaders from Western Saharan people, Mauritania and Morocco.
Christopher Ross was in Algeria from 23 to 25 June, during which he met with the President of the country, the Foreign Minister and the Secretary of State for African Affairs, and the POLISARIO Front leaders in the Saharawi Refugee Camps.

The Saharawi Prime Minister, Mr. Abdelkader Taleb Omar, affirmed the readiness of the Polisario Front to fully cooperate with the Personal Envoy of the SG of the UN for Western Sahara, to "move towards a peaceful solution to guarantee the right of the Saharawi people to self-determination and independence "."It is high time that the United Nations assume its responsibilities in the decolonization of Western Sahara through the implementation of resolutions of the General Assembly, Security Council of the United Nations and international legality," said, Abdelkader , to the national press after his meeting with Mr. Christopher Ross.The talks focused on violations of human rights by Morocco in the occupied territories of Western Sahara, and the "military escalation" in the territory that is under the UN supervision pending the decolonization.“Mr. Ross declared that he will "seriously" take the concerns expressed by the Sahrawi part, " the Prime Minister said.

"The talks covered all aspects of the conflict, we studied the way of advancing as soon as possible and I am optimistic for the possibility to take the first step towards the solution without delaying," Ross said at the end of the conversations that he had Thursday with the President of the Republic, Mohamed Abdelaziz, at the Presidency.The UN envoy had declared during his visit to Algiers that "the UN search for a solution to the Western Sahara conflict is on the right track”.
Morocco holds that its sovereignty over Western Sahara should be recognized, while the Frente Polisario’s position is that the Territory’s final status should be decided in a referendum that includes independence as an option.
Several rounds of UN-led talks held last year resulted in the parties agreeing to continue negotiations in good faith towards a solution to the issue.
The UN mission, known as MINURSO, tasked with organizing a referendum on self-determination in Western Sahara and monitoring the ceasefire between Morocco and the Frente Polisario has been in place since September 1991.

SAHARAWI WOMAN SAYS TO THE INTERNATIONAL PRESS IN SIDNEY " I AM NOT A SLAVE"

Saharawi woman refugee and preschool teacher Fetim Sellami is a central characterin the Australian documentary Stolen, a film set in the refugee camps insouth-west Algeria that have been home to 165,000 Saharawi refugees sincetheir country, Western Sahara, was invaded by Morocco in 1975.

*However, when she and her husband, Baba Hocine Mahfoud, attended its June11 premiere at the Sydney Film Festival, they did not receive red carpettreatment, despite the long distance they had travelled.The film alleges that slavery is widespread in the camps and that Sellamiand her family are slaves. She came to Australia to expose the film as afraud.“The film-makers were surprised, but not happy, to see me because they knewI’d tell the truth”, she told *Green Left Weekly.*She said she felt personally betrayed. “I believed the film-makers’ goodintentions and I treated them well … I opened my house and my heart to them… I felt very bad [that] my dignity was attacked with baseless allegations.”Moreover, she was concerned the film undermined the cause of the Saharawipeople’s struggle against the Moroccan occupation. “Morocco has takenadvantage of the film’s allegations [which are] the first time everallegations of slavery in the camps have been made.”She said that the film’s co-directors, Violetta Ayala and Dan Fallshaw, hadled her to believe they were making “a documentary on family separation, afilm about the story of my [UN-facilitated] reunion with my mother, whichwould help the cause of Western Sahara, highlighting the suffering caused bythe Moroccan occupation”.However, “on their second visit I began to realise they’d changed course.They started asking questions about slavery … I’m not sure whether they cameup with the idea themselves or had external influence”.She sent a signed statement to the filmmakers, withdrawing her consent to befeatured in the documentary. The film-makers ignored her wishes, claimingshe was being manipulated by the Saharawi independence movement, Polisario,which runs the camps.She then sent a video statement to Screen Australia, which funded the film a$300,000 public grant. But again her statement was ignored.

The true story of Sellami’s separation from her mother is typical of theSaharawi experience. She was three years old and at a neighbour’s house when the brutal Moroccaninvasion occurred. Her mother was out of town and the neighbour, a womancalled Deido, took Sellami with her when she fled the invaders, effectivelybecoming her foster mother. Deido left behind her own 3 year old daughter who happened to be withDeido’s mother at the time of the invasion.However, in a synopsis posted on the Documentary Australia Foundation’swebsite in September 2008, Ayala and Fallshaw claimed “it wasn’t the territorial conflict that separated Fetim from her mother. Fetim was born aslave.”They claimed black Saharawi are held as slaves by their lighter-skinnedcompatriots who “made the decision to flee to the refugee camps in Algeriataking their slaves with them, separating the black families once again”.Ayala and Fallshaw’s cinematographer, Carlos Gonzalez disputed theallegations. “During the three weeks I spent there with them I sawabsolutely no indication of slavery”, he told the *7.30 Report *on June 15. He returned to the camps by himself and spoke to members of Sellami’s familywho said they had been misquoted and mistranslated. Some black Saharawi mensaid the film makers had paid them to say they were slaves on camera.“No, we didn’t pay them any money”, Ayala told the *7.30 Report,* but thenconceded: “Like, we gave them money when they came to Mauritania, we gavethem money to go back to the camps.”She gave no explanation as to why slaves would want money to return to theircruel masters.She also denied dialogue in the film had been mistranslated.However, the *7.30 Report* had sequences of the film translated by AlJazeera television. In one scene, in which the film-makers’ subtitles showSellami’s mother and sister confirming that she is a slave, the Al Jazeeratranslation shows that they were in fact discussing the film-makers’misconceptions on the issue.How involved the Moroccan dictatorship was in making the film is unclear. However, Ayala and Fallshaw admit that some of the footage was transportedin Moroccan diplomatic bags. The film’s co-directors, and producer Tom Zubrycki, accused the film’scritics — including Sellami, Mahfoud and Gonzalez — of being manipulated byPolisario. They imply Polisario is complicit in slavery.*GLW* journalist Margarita Windisch visited the camps in 2008 as part of adelegation to the congress of the Saharawi trade union confederation,UGTSARIO. She told *GLW*: “I certainly saw no evidence of slavery. If theywanted to make a film about slavery perhaps they should have investigatedconditions of phosphate workers in the Moroccan-occupied zone. Australiancompanies are involved in this.”Sellami and Mahfoud’s real lives give credence to Polisario’s claim to havethe best-run refugee camps in the world. Mahfoud studied electronicengineering in Cuba and now works in Madrid.One of their four children has studied in Spain. The family spend theirholidays together, either in Spain or in the camps. Their level ofinternational travel should dispel any notion that they are slaves.When Sellami and Mahfoud confronted Ayala and Fallshaw during thequestion-and-answer session at the premiere, they were jeered and heckled bythe film-makers’ supporters.“This film is the worst thing that’s ever been made on Western Sahara, a biglie”, Sellami told *GLW*. “If the film-makers wanted fame or money theyshould have tried in an honourable way.”

THE MOROCCAN KING IS AMONG THE WEALTHIEST IN THE WORLD

While the moroccan women and the majority of the people of this neighbouring country are dieing of starvation, their king, Mohamed VI, is one of the reachest persons in the world.
In a special report in the famous american magazin, Forbes, published these days an interesting article on the Moroccan monarch’s income from the phopshate industry.

Under the tittle of "King of Rock", the american review writtes: King Mohamed’s wealth increased with 1 billion dollars in 2008, after sky-high global phosphate prices. Much of the industry is taking place in occupied Western Sahara. King Mohamed is one of the richest monarchs in the world.
Most royals may have to be a bit thriftier this year as fortunes plummet, but it’s not so for the King of Morocco, Mohammed VI, whose 12 palaces reportedly cost $1 million a day to operate. His net worth is up $1 billion this year to $2.5 billion, making him the only one of the world’s 15 richest royals to have added to his fortune in the past year.

His savior is his country’s near monopoly of the commodity Phosphate. A key component of fertilizer, phosphorous, mined in the form of phosphate rock, is essential to global food production. "You cannot survive without phosphate--every cell on your body depends on it," says Michael Lloyd, research director at the Florida Institute of Phosphate Research.

Morocco controls to nearly half the world’s phosphate deposits. Last year, the North African nation mined 28 million metric tons of phosphate rock, making it the third-largest producer in the world, behind China and the U.S. , and the single biggest supplier. Proceeds from phosphate mining make up roughly half the country’s revenues.

It is a profitable business. The state-owned phosphate monopoly, Office Cherifien des Phosphates (OCP) raked in an estimated $2.8 billion in net profit last year, a ninefold increase from the prior year, thanks to a surge in phosphate prices, which hit an all-time high of $500 per ton in July 2008, five times the 2007 average and more than 12 times the 2006 average.

The king himself rarely talks about phosphates, preferring instead to focus on socially progressive issues like women’s rights and standard of living. He created a new family law granting women more power and recently launched a $6 billion initiative to build housing for Morocco’s urban poor. But he does get a portion of the profits and almost certainly has a hand in the OCP’s business, particularly its admitted use of "dominance" in influencing phosphate’s price spike.

"That’s one thing you have to face: The Moroccan fertilizer industry is run by the government," says Lloyd. "In the 1970s you could get phosphate for $4. Then one day they just decided to raise the price to $20." Another analyst blamed last year’s high prices on the OCP’s manoeuvres, though soaring agricultural demand and tightening supplies were certainly factors as well.

So far this year, recessionary pressures have pushed prices back below $200, but still enough for the King Mohammed VI to move up one notch to No. 7 among the world’s richest royals. (See our full list of the top 15 here.)

The Moroccan monarch who took over from his late father Hassan II in 1999 and is only 45 years old could climb much higher in the ranks, thanks to the scarcity of his precious rocks.

Though phosphate occurs naturally in soil, the world’s growing, hungry population requires more than Mother Nature provides. The U.S. expects to exhaust its reserves within the next 40 years. Already, two of the leading U.S. fertilizer firms, Mississippi Phosphates and Agrifos Fertilizer, procure their phosphate rock from OCP. Morocco ‘s reserves, the most extensive in the world, will be tapped out within the next century.

There are also political threats. Although Morocco under King Mohammed VI is overall fairly peaceful and pro-Western, about one-sixth of its phosphate hails from the Western Sahara territory. Morocco annexed the 100,000-square- mile former Spanish colony in 1975 despite competing claims to the region by Mauritania and an Algerian-backed independence movement.

Ongoing guerrilla warfare between Moroccans and the pro-independence nationalists ended after a U.N.-brokered ceasefire in 1991, but the region is still considered an occupied territory. Morocco ‘s plan to expand phosphate production in the region has come under fire from human rights activists and prompted nationalists’ threats to breach the ceasefire.

And activists aren’t the only ones who should be concerned about turmoil in the resource-rich region: No more phosphate means no more fertilizer, a dire problem for global food production. But unlike oil, which has substitutes like biodiesel or propane, "there is no alternative to phosphorous," says David Vaccari, an engineering professor at Stevens Institute of Technology.

He calls the impending phosphate shortage "the sleeper issue of our time."

WESTERN SAHARA ISSUE REMAINS AS A PROBLEM OF DECOLONIZATION

Today, June 17th, is an important date in the struggle for peace and justice of the saharawi people. The saharawi women played an important role in preparing and organizing this protest against the coloniamis. We, as citizens of this country, conmemorate this event because it was one of the first peaceful demonstration against the spanish colonialism which took place in one of the main districts of the saharawi capital, El Aaiún, in the year 1.970. Unfortunatelly, this peaceful demonstration demanding freedom and independence for the people of Western Sahara was brutally repressed by the spanish colonialist army where a lot of saaharawi women and men were wounded and taken prisioners and the leader of the saharawi movement, Mr. Bassiri, dessapared..

Today also, by coincidence, United Nations has adopted an important resolution on the issue of decolonization of the last colony in the african continent: Western Sahara, ilegally occupied by the Kingdom of Morocco since october 1.975.

The UN Special Committee - also known as the Special Committee of 24 or formally as the Special Committee on the Situation with Regard to the Implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries - took up the question of Western Sahara. The United Nations POLISARIO Front Representative, Ahmed Boukhari, said in his intervenction that Morocco continued illegally to occupy the Territory and that United Nations efforts to finalize its decolonization had not been successful due to that country’s refusal to accept the Saharawi people’s right to self-determination and independence.
Mr. Boukhari recalled that in June 2007, the Frente Polisario and the Moroccan Government had entered into direct negotiations, as requested by the Security Council, the fourth round of which had been held in April 2008. Those talks had not progressed because Morocco had insisted on unacceptable pre-conditions. In reality, Morocco did not want to negotiate, but to impose its proposal for autonomy as the only possible solution, presenting it on a “take it or leave it” basis.
Morocco, he continued, did not wish to discuss the Frente Polisario proposal to allow the Saharawi people to exercise their right to self-determination through a referendum that would include all options recognized by the United Nations, including independence. Morocco had recognized that option in signing the 2003 settlement plans and the 1997 Houston Agreements. The proposal stated that, in the event that the Saharawi people opted for independence, the Frente Polisario would offer Morocco the chance to negotiate the basis for a strategic relationship in the economic, security, commercial and social spheres.
He went on to say that, following his appointment in August 2008, Christopher Ross, the Secretary-General’s new Personal Envoy, had not officially assumed his functions until January 2009 due to Morocco’s initial rejection of his appointment. In February, Mr. Ross had made his first official visit to the region, and reported to the Security Council in April. His mandate was to try to reactivate the negotiations begun in Manhasset. The Personal Envoy had proposed, as a preliminary step, that the two parties begin informal negotiations. The Frente Polisario had expressed its support for the Personal Envoy and did not know why those meetings had not yet taken place.
Western Sahara was occupied by an estimated 150,000 Moroccan soldiers and divided into two parts by a shameful wall protected by those forces and 5 million anti-personnel landmines, he said. Morocco had intensified its exploitation and commercialization of the Territory, awarding its best natural resources, notably phosphorous and fishing, to the highest bidder. It was also including foreign companies in prospecting for petroleum, in serious violation of international law governing a Territory in the process of decolonization. That violation was particularly serious when taking into account that in January 2002 Hans Corell, then Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs and United Nations Legal Counsel, had said that the Organization did not consider Morocco to be the sovereign or administering Power in Western Sahara.
Turning to human rights, he drew the Special Committee’s attention to the respective reports of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in October 2007, Human Rights Watch in December 2008 and the Ad Hoc Committee of the European Parliament in February 2009. All those reports stated that Morocco had violated human rights in Western Sahara on the basis of its refusal to respect the Territory’s right to self-determination, and agreed with the need for the United Nations, through the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO), to observe and protect human rights until the conflict was resolved.
All the Secretary-General’s reports since October 2006 stated his concern about the human rights situation in the Territory, he continued. Various non-permanent members of the Security Council had tried, in 2008 and 2009, to include in the Council’s resolution on the question of Western Sahara an expansion of MINURSO’s mandate to incorporate human rights. However, Morocco, with the support of France, had reduced that to a mere mention of a “human dimension” to the conflict. That had only served to consolidate the perception of double standards in the Council.
The fact that Western Sahara remained on the Special Committee’s agenda had made the Territory a living symbol of the failure by the United Nations to comply fully and effectively with its collective responsibility. During the recent Caribbean Regional Seminar on decolonization in Saint Kitts and Nevis, the Frente Polisario had reminded everyone that since 1969, Morocco had repeatedly and explicitly recognized before the Special Committee and the General Assembly the right of the Saharawi people to full independence. The Saharawi would not renounce full realization of that right, and the vast majority of United Nations Member States shared that view.
As members of the Special Committee took the floor, the representative of the United Republic of Tanzania said it was both unfortunate and unacceptable that Western Sahara remained the only unresolved case on the African continent. The Assembly had consistently recognized the inalienable right of the Saharawi people to self-determination and independence, repeatedly adopting resolutions and decisions on the matter that went unheeded. The Security Council had also consistently called for the self-determination of the Saharawi people.
Addressing the question of human rights, he said it remained a contested issue that could not be wished away and must, therefore, be handled with objective transparency. Such concerns would be handled in a credible manner if relevant United Nations organs like the Security Council and the Human Rights Council had a role in that regard. The United Republic of Tanzania also called attention to reported illegal exploitation of Western Sahara’s natural resources, which merited the Special Committee’s attention.r the saharawi people was brutally repressed by the spanish army.

BRISTISH MPs CONCERNED ON WESTERN SAHARA CONFLICT

The saharawi women would like to congratulate the group of british MPs and MEPs and other personalities from the United Kingdom for their wonderful iniciative carried out on last friday, june 12th, to deliver a letter to the british Primer Minister on the worrying situation in the occupied Western Sahara.
The high level Downing Street delegation has delivered a letter urging Gordon Brown take immediate steps to resolve the crisis in Western Sahara , now in its 33rd year.

The letter, from President Mohamed Abdelaziz, asked that Britain act immediately to help end the continuing occupation of Western Sahara by Morocco in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions and the judgement of the International Court of Justice.

The occupation has left 165,000 indigenous Saharawi refugees to languish in camps in the Algerian desert for over three decades.
The delegation has comprised MP's and MEPs, representatives of the Polisario Front, ( Western Sahara ’s legitimate government) and several Ambassadors including Her Excellency Lindiew Mabuza, South African High Commissioner.

This event has been followed by a meeting in the House of Commons to launch a major new awareness-raising campaign. The plight of Saharawi people is a forgotten struggle. Their collective failure to address Morocco’s ongoing violation of countless UN Resolutions, to stop the illegal plundering of Western Sahara’s natural resources and to allow human rights abuses to be committed with impunity diminishes Britain, it diminishes the United Nations and it is an affront to all those with a belief in justice. They called on Gordon Brown to take a principled stand and take urgent steps to ensure that the UK takes a lead within the UN Security Council to fulfil its obligation to ensure the referendum on self-determination that was agreed under the terms of the UN ceasefire agreement in 1991.
Jeremy Corbyn MP (Chair of the APPG on Western Sahara )
Her Excellency Lindiwe Mabuza (High Commissioner of South Africa )
Y.Lamine Baali (Polisario Front Chief-representative UK and Ireland )
Mohamed Liman Ali Ami (Polisario Front),
Mark Leutchford (President, Western Sahara Campaign UK )
Danielle Smith (Chair of Sandblast)
John Gurr ( Western Sahara Resource Watch)
Ken Ritchie (Western Sahara Campaign UK )
Stefan Simanowitz (Free Western Sahara Network)
Mark Thomas, comedian and human rights campaigner
Ruth Tanner (campaigns and policy director, War on Want)
Glyn Ford MEP (European Parliamentary Labour Party)
Malcolm and Pat Hawksworth (Peace for Stoke)
The british newapaperThe Guadian published last thursday the british MPs and MEP´s letter.

The famous saharawi human rights activist, Aminetou Haidar, has published recently an interesting article in an american review, Foreign Policy in Focus, under the tittle:
" Why the Maghreb Really Matters ".

The 2008 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award laureate has written in this article:
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 MaghrebFor 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

NEW SANDBLAST ACTIVITY

The saharawi women would like to congratulate the british NGO, Sandblast, for the excellent awareness work is doing in the United Kingdom informing the international public opinión and the official institution about the struggle for peace and justice of the saharawi people.
Next thursday, On June 12th, Sandblast holds a multimedia launch at London-based Caravanserai Acting Studios to begin recruiting over 100 people for the 10th Saharamarathon in February 2010. Not to be confused with the Marathon de Sables, this cultural evening will inform about the sporting event in the Algerian desert in support of the Saharawi refugees. The Saharawi situation will be introduced by a short documentary, “Deserted” (2007), and the UK premiere of selected preview scenes from the first British-Saharawi play, “The Other Side of the Wall”, directed by Caravanserai founder, Giles Foreman.
The international sporting event takes place in the Saharawi refugee camps in the Algerian Sahara near Tindouf. A full 42-km marathon as well as shorter races of 5km, 10km and a half marathon are organized. Participants live with individual refugee families during their weeklong stay in the camps. The camp-based Saharawi government-in-exile and international volunteers have organized and hosted the event since 2000, to show solidarity with the Saharawi people and raise money for projects to improve the lives of the long-term refugees.
Sandblast is the official UK recruiter for the Saharamarathon in cooperation with the Polisario representation of the UK and Ireland. We aim to fill an entire Air Algerie plane (sponsor in our efforts) with UK participants. The funds raised through your participation go to our long-term goal to set up a professional mobile recording studio and train Saharawis to use and run it in the camps.gdom.

AMINETOU HAIDAR´S TESTIMONY IS IN AN AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL´S EXPOSITION

It is a honour for the women from Western Sahara that a brave saharawi woman as Aminetou Haidar is among very famous human rights defenders.

Mrs. Haidar´s testimony is among the gallery published by Amnesty International in an exposition of thirty human rights defenders´s testimonies from all over the world.

Aminatou Haidar is the 2008 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award Laureate. Ms. Haidar is being recognized for her courageous campaign for self-determination of Western Sahara from its occupation by Morocco and against forced disappearances and abuses of prisoners of conscious.

Regularly referred to as the “Sahrawi Gandhi,” Ms. Haidar is one of Western Sahara’s most prominent human rights defenders.

“For me, as an individual, the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights award represents a great honor. As a Sahrawi human rights activist, I consider it recognition that the cause of the Sahrawi people is just and legitimate and that our non-violent resistance is noble and righteous, in spite of the risks and the intimidation of the Moroccan authorities,” said Aminatou Haidar. “The Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award will provide constructive support to the struggle of the Sahrawi people for liberty and human dignity.”"I congratulate Aminatou Haidar for receiving this honor. All who care about democracy, human rights, and the rule of law for the people of the Western Sahara are inspired by her extradorinary courage, dedication and skilled work on their behalf," said Senator Edward Kennedy. Senator Kennedy has been an outspoken champion of Western Sahara in the U.S. Senate for over two decades.Mrs. Robert F. Kennedy will present Ms. Haidar with the 2008 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights award in a public ceremony sponsored by Sen. Edward Kennedy the morning of November 13th, 2008 in the Russell Senate Office Building’s Caucus Room. Stay tuned to www.rfkmemorial.org for details.r the world.

SAHARAWI HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST IN EUROPE

The Human Rights activist from the occupied Western Sahara, Soukeina Djidahlu, is touring some european countries for raising the issue of the flagrant violations of human rights in her homeland:Western Sahara, which is considered all over the world as the last colony in the african continent.
Since the begining of this month, june 2009, is visiting some of the main spanish cities.

She has giving some lectures and press interviews in the spanish media where she has condemned the great violations of human rights perpetrated by the moroccan army agains the peaceful people of western sahara and also ask theeuropean governments and the international public opinion to stop the daily violations of the most elementary human rights in the occupied cities of Western Sahara.