SAHARAWI WOMEN (Western Sahara)

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH CALLED ON MOROCCO FOR HUMAN RIGHTS´S VIOLATIONS

2012-01-25T01:47:00.000+01:00

Saharawi Women strongly support the Human Rights Watch´s World Report 2012 issued some days ago and express their agreement in the recommendations for the moroccan government to respect human rights in the Western Sahara´s occupied cities where the moroccan army daily use repression against the saharawi citizens organize peaceful demonstrations.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) called on the Moroccan authorities to respect the right of assembly and protest in the occupied territories of Western Sahara, its 2012 World Report that assesses progress on human rights during the past year in more than 90 countries.

The Organization indicated that Moroccan authorities “still continue to suppress the peaceful demonstrations organized by the Saharawi citizens in the occupied territories of Western Sahara that demand self-determination and independence,” asking Morocco to stop violating the legitimate right to demonstrate which is provided by all international covenants.

It also expressed its concern on the detention of twenty-three Sahrawi civilians for their alleged role in Gdeim Izik camp and taking them to a military court, in addition to the detention of another 120 Sahrawi human rights activists for political reasons.

HRW demanded that Moroccan security services be accountable for using the excessive force, when dispersing the Saharawi demonstrators.

“Moroccan regime still prevents the establishment of associations and organizations of human rights in Western Sahara,” added the report.

“The people driving the Arab Spring deserve strong international support to realize their rights and to build genuine democracies,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. “Loyalty to autocratic friends shouldn’t stand in the way of siding with democratic reformers. International influence is also needed to ensure that the new governments extend human rights and the rule of law to all, especially women and minorities.”

“Rights-respecting governments should support international justice regardless of political considerations. It’s misguided to believe that allowing countries to sweep past abuses under the rug will somehow avoid encouraging future atrocities,” Roth said.

EUROPEAN MPs VISIT THE SAHARAWI PEOPLE

2011-12-13T21:19:00.000+01:00

The Women from Western Sahara express their satisfaction that an important delegation sent by the European Parliament has just visited the Saharawi Refugee Camps and also the Saharawi Republic´s liberated areas.

A delegation of the European Parliament has just finished its working visit to the saharawi refugee camps and the liberated territories of Western Sahara to closely stop at the situation of the Saharawi refugees as to hold talks with SADR authorities.

The delegation composed of Mr. Ivo Vajgl, Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) and ex-Slovenian foreign minister, Mr. Pino Arlacchi, Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats and vice of the former UN secretary general, Ms. Isabella Lövin, Greens and reporter of the European Parliament’s Cooperation and Development Committee on the fisheries with Morocco, Mr. Mojca Kleva, Social Democrats, and Mr. Bernardo João Ferreir, United Left Party, informed source of the Saharawi Ministry in charge of European Affairs.

The three-day trip have featured a series of talks with leaders of the Saharawi state and Saharawi refugees and has visited Saharawi institutions and facilities.

Last year, Pino Arlacchi and Ivo Vajgl spoke out in favor of interrogations on the deteriorating situation in the occupied Western Sahara, asking the European Council to invite the Moroccan government to put an end to its policy of discrimination and violation of human rights against the Saharawi population, and to allow the population to self-determine its future with a free and fair referendum, as recommended by the UN Security Council resolutions.

SAHARAWI WOMEN CONDEMN AGGRESSION AGAINST A EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT MEMBER

2011-11-03T12:46:00.001+01:00

The Saharawi Women express their condemnation to the attitude of the moroccan police at the L´Aayoune´s Airport when the Member of the European Parliament, Mr. willy Meyer, was going to visit the occupied Western saharan capital.

The European Parliament Member was beaten and pushed by moroccan police last Sunday, October 31st, when they banished him from the airport in the Western Sahara´s capital, ilegally occupided by the Kingdom of Morocco since 36 year ago.

Mr. Meyer was on his way to Western Sahara to investigate the human rights situation in the capital El Aaiun and those of Morocco, the occupied territories of Western Sahara. Moroccan police met him on the stairs of the plane where they forbade him entrance into the country. In opposition, he sat down passively resisting their orders, where the police beat and push him.

Willy Meyer fell finally to the ground where he struck his neck and his wrists, reported the Spanish newspaper El Mundo Monday.

"I feel I have fallen off a horse. If this is what they do against an MP, imagine what they are doing to the Saharawi people," he told to the spanish newspaper El Mundo.

After the episode, Willy Meyer flew back to Gran Canaria where he came from. There he stated that he would lodge a complaint with the Spanish foreign ministry and try to get Morocco to a Spanish court for police violence at the airport.

Saharawi Women launch an urgent appeal to the international community to put pressure on the moroccan government to stop its policy of repressión against not only the peaceful saharawi people in the occupied cities but also the international visiters who investigates the great violations of human rights perpetrated by the moroccan army in Western Sahara.

WE CONDEMN ENERGETICALLY THE EUROPEAN´S KIDNAPING IN THE SAHARAWI REFUGEE CAMPS

2011-10-25T14:45:00.000+02:00

On behalf of the whole people of Western Sahara and particularly on their Women, we condemn energetically the week-end´s kidnaping of three european aid-workers in the peaceful refugee camps in sothern- algeria.

The Saharawi Women want to express their total solidarity with the families and friends of the aid workers kidnaped by the terrorists:Ms AINOA FERNADEZ DE RINCÓN, Spanish and member of the Association of Friends of the Sahrawi people in Extremadura, Spain, Mr. ENRIC GONYALONS, Spanish from the NGO, MUNDUBAT, Spain, and Ms. ROSSELLA URRU, Italian from the NGO, CISP, from Italy .

We underlines that such terrorist attack is not aiming to terrorize the hundreds of foreigners and aid workers but also for jeopardizing the international solidarity with the refugee people of Western sahara and their just struggle for peace and justice in the Africa´s last colony.

“Since the treacherous kidnapping carried out by a terrorist group on three European cooperators working in the humanitarian field in the Saharawi refugee camps on Saturday October 22, the government of the Saharawi Republic and Polisario Front quickly made intensive efforts and contacted with countries of the Region to coordination and cooperation,” indicated a new statement issued Monday by the Saharawi Ministry of Information.

“While the Sahrawi Government reaffirms its strong condemnation to the cowardly abduction, it calls on states of the region and the world to continue and intensify the coordination, cooperation and working together in order to end this tragedy, as soon as possible,” the statement wrote.

Saharawi women launch an urgent appeal to the UN and the European Government to put pressure on the moroccan regime to implement the international resolutions on the problem of decolonization of Western Sahara which call for a free and fair referendum in Western Sahara.

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SAHARAWI PEOPLE CELEBRATES THE NATIONAL UNITY DAY

2011-10-13T12:24:00.000+02:00

Saharawi Women express their deepest congratulations to the whole people of the Africa´s last colony for the celebration of the Saharawi National Day.

As every year, on October 12th, the whole people of Western Sahara has conmemorated yesterday one of his most important holidays: the National Unity Day.

The Saharawi people has celebrated Wednesday the double anniversaries 36th of the Declaration of National Unity in 1975 and first of the establishment of Gdeim Izik camp on 2010, in the presence of the President of the Republic, Mr. Mohamed Abdelaziz, along with members of the National Secretariat and SADR government, in addition to national and foreign delegations.

In his speech on the occasion, Mr. Babia Shia, minister of transport and chairman of the preparatory committee, stressed that the celebration of the National Unity Day “is an opportunity to evoke the sacrifices of the parents in order to close ranks and abort the colonial attempts to split the Saharawi society, as well as to meet the legitimate demands of our people for freedom and independence.”

The ceremony was marked by presenting testimonies of eyewitnesses who attended the historic meeting in Ein Bentili on October 12, 1975. These testimonies confirmed the importance of the event in formulating the unity and cohesion of the Saharawi people in face of the colonial attempts aiming to suppress the Saharawi identity, reaffirming adherence of the Saharawis to the Frente Polisario “as a sole and legitimate representative of the Saharawi people.”

The event, which was held Wednesday morning at the February 27th School (Saharawi refugee camps), was attended by foreign delegations participating in the annual International Encounter of Art in Western Sahara (acronym ARTIFARITI), delegation comprising 40 human rights activists from the occupied Western Sahara and representatives of national, Algerian and Spanish media. (SPS)

It is important to remember that on October 12, 1975, the national liberation movement, Polisario Front gathered a large number of Saharawi tribal elders in a conference in Ain Ben Tili to rally the tribes against impending Moroccan and Mauritanian invasion. The timing was intended to predate the October 16 Green March that staked Morocco's claim to what was then Spanish Sahara. The meeting resulted in a declaration of support from the tribes to Polisario, including by many from the pro-Spanish PUNS party and the Djema'a. As a result of the Ain Ben Tili gathering, a conference by the Djema'a was organized in Guelta Zemmur on November 28, where the Djema'a dissolved itself after declaring support to Polisario.

Since 1976, the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic celebrates October 12 as National Unity Day.

A delegation of 40 Sahrawi human rights activists representing the Sahrawi occupied territories, south of Morocco and university arrived Tuesday in the Saharawi refugee camps to take part in the festivities commemorating the double anniversary of National Unity Day and the establishment of Gdeim Izik camp .

“This anniversary is being held this year under exceptional circumstances on the light of regional and international developments, which reiterated the adherence of the Saharawi people to the national unity and to the Polisario Front as “a sole legitimate representative of the Saharawi people,” the human rights activist and former Saharawi political prisoner, Hamadi Nasiri, told SPS.

“Our presence here is to reaffirm commitment to our people and their struggle for national liberation and to abort the Moroccan attempts aiming to divide the Sahrawi people,” added Nasiri.

The Saharawi female activist, Ghalia Joumani, noted that coincidence of the anniversary of National Unity and Gdeim Izik camp “is a strong message to the international community that there are people still determined to recover their usurped rights.”

THREE WOMEN WIN THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE

2011-10-07T20:11:00.001+02:00

The Women from the Africa´s last colony: Western Sahara, express their warmest congratulations to the three women from developing countries for wining the Peace Nobel Prize 2011 and also would like to express their deepest gratitude to the tnternational jury for chossing these three prominent women from developing countries, Liberia and Yemen.

The Nobel Peace Prize for 2011 was awarded on Friday, ocotber 7th, to three women from Africa and the Arab world in acknowledgment of their non-violent role in promoting peace, democracy and gender equality. The winners were President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia — the first woman to be elected president in modern Africa — her compatriot, the peace activist Leymah Gbowee, and Tawakkol Karman of Yemen, a pro-democracy campaigner.

ELLEN JOHNSON SIRLEAF: -- Johnson-Sirleaf earned the nickname "Iron Lady" by challenging warlord Charles Taylor for the presidency in 1997 during Liberia's brutal civil war. She lost by a landslide, but that never shook her resolve.
-- She won the 2005 presidential runoff against soccer icon George Weah, who alleged fraud although the polls received a clean bill of health from observers. She was sworn in as Africa's first elected female head of state in January 2006.
-- Johnson-Sirleaf vowed to create a "government of inclusion" to heal the wounds of war and toured the streets to win over Liberia's poor youth, many of them former child soldiers who believe Weah was cheated.
-- In January 2010, she went back on her campaign promise to be president for only one term when she announced she would contest the 2011 presidential election, to be held on October 11.
-- She has won widespread international praise for her work rebuilding Liberia, but is still struggling to convince many in the country that change is coming fast enough.
-- Born Ellen Euphemia Johnson in October 1938, she grew up in Monrovia and attended Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government where she obtained a Master's Degree in Public Administration in 1971.
* LEYMAH GBOWEE:
-- Leymah Gbowee, 39, mobilized and organized women across ethnic and religious divides to help bring an end to the war in Liberia and to ensure women's participation in elections.
-- Following the 2003 peace treaty, her network mobilized women to vote and was instrumental in the victory of Johnson-Sirleaf.
-- Since 2004, Gbowee has served as a commissioner on Liberia's Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
-- Since 2006, Gbowee has been executive director of Women in Peace and Security Network - Africa, an organization that works with women in Liberia, the Ivory Coast, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone to promote peace, literacy, and electoral politics.
* TAWAKUL KARMAN:
-- Both before and during the "Arab Spring," Tawakul Karman, 32, has played a leading part in the struggle for women's rights and for democracy and peace in Yemen, the prize committee said.
-- Founder in 2005 and chairwoman of Women Journalists without Chains, Tawakul Karman is a Yemeni journalist and activist who has devoted herself to the fight for media freedom. She is also a member of the Islamist party Islah Was.
-- A thorn in the side of the government, she was briefly arrested early this year after leading protests against autocratic Arab rulers.
-- She vowed in February to galvanize a youth-led uprising against President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has ruled Yemen for 33 years.
-- "We started rallies before Tunisia's revolution and were demanding reforms and other rights. But after Tunisia, we realized the solution is for this regime to go," Karman said.
Sources: Reuters/
It is also very important to remember that the people of Western Sahara was the first arab and african people to begin the so-called now as the "Arab Spring", when more than 20.000 saharawis organized a peaceful camps near the Wesgtern Sahara´s capital, the occupied Laayoune (El-AAiun), for demanding their socual, economic and political rights and protesting against the illegal occupation of the moroccan troops in their country: Western sahara and they also ask to implement the United Nations´s resolution forWestern Sahara mainly demanding a free and fair referendum for the people of Western Sahara.

AFRICAN WOMEN EXPRESS THEIR SOLIDARITY WITH THE SAHARAWI WOMEN

2011-09-30T12:51:00.000+02:00

On behalf of the Saharawi Women´s Association in Spain (AMSE) we would like to express our deepest gratitude to the the organizers of the first International Conference of Solidarity with the struggle of the Saharawi Women which taken place in the capital of Nigeria, Abuja, from September 27th to 29th 2011.

This important event has been a golden opportunity for the participants that have arrived from different countries to express their total support and solidarity with the women of the Africa´s last colony whom still suffering injustice and lack of freedom due to the criminal occupation of the moroccan army since more than three decades ago.

One of the main nigerian newspaper online, NEWSDIARY, has published:

The 2011 International Conference on the Struggle of Saharawi Women for Freedom opened in Abuja Nigeria Tuesday September 27, with a yellow card to Moroccan authorities that their time is up in the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic, where the government of the North African Arab nation has continued to oppress, torture imprison and assassinate Saharawi people, especially the heroic women, veterans and survivors of the Polissario war spear-heading the dogged struggle to end domination of an African country by another.

The day before the opening of the confab, a mass of women from all walks of life and many African and non-African countries from the Civil Society, the professions and variegated groups, had converged in the city on a huge road show which culminated in a picketing of the Embassy of Morocco with placards asking for a stop to the atrocities in the Western Sahara, which have subsisted for 35 years unabated.

Addressing the opening of the confab which ends Wednesday September 28 with a Communiqué, WAELE/ARCELFA’s Founder/President and Chief Hostess of the event, Otunba (Dr.) Basirat Nahibi, recalled how the world pressurized Sudanese President Oumar Al Bashir to respect the January 9, 2005 Peace Agreement and hold a Referendum in Southern Sudan against all odds January 9, 2010, which led to the emergence of Southern Sudan as the 193^rd member of the United Nations, and wondered: “Why then is the case of Western Sahara different? Is it because they do not have oil as in the case of Southern Sudan?”

Underscoring the significance of this continent-wide and even global boost for the Saharawi Women’s struggle for freedom, being spear-headed this time around by women, Otunba Nahibi declared: “Gone are the days when African women (were) indifferent to the suffering of our Saharawi brothers and sisters in bondage. Let this conference be the catalyst that the international community needs to galvanize global action in heralding the death knell of the last colony (on) our beloved continent.”

The conference is being attended by no less than two prominent martyrs and leaders of the Sahrawi Women’s Struggle for Freedom, Mrs. Fatma Mehdi, Secretary-General of the Saharawi Women Union and Aminatou Haidar, Saharawi Human Rights Defender and Political Activist, who said she was ashamed to even state the manner of indignities to which Saharawi women were subjected by Morocco’s agents, while the Saharawi President was represented by Mohammed Khaddan.

The keynote address at the opening was given by no other than former Representative of the United Nations’ Secretary-General to the Western Sahara, American diplomat Ambassador Frank Ruddy, 50-year of diplomatic work in African and the one who conducted a Referendum on Western Sahara (he was also new envoy just posted to Malabo when Nigeria reared to act against reported slave labour by her citizens on the island!)

Apologetic on behalf of past Republican administrations in the US, Ruddy let drop the confession as to where his heart was, even as he conducted the referendum which was botched with the connivance of the UN (“what is the UN Charter among friends?”) and while the Moroccan King was a great friend of his (American) President!

Nigeria’s ASUU leader Prof. Ukachukwu Awuzie and NLC President Waheed Omar renewed their know support for the Saharawis, while in signature, unequivocal terms, immediate past WABA President, activist Lagos lawyer Femi Falana, announced that time was out for hypocritical statements and positions on the Saharawi issue, adding that his colleagues in the law were ready to collaborate with others, even as they are already preparing to appoint a Special Prosecutor “to file a case against all other criminals against humanity, as Morocco will be fought in and outside Abuja until the S.A.D.R people are free.” Re-echoing the Pan – Africanist late President Nkrumah of Ghana as did NLC President Omar earlier, Falana said Africa and indeed the world could not be said to be free if any part of it was still in bondage.

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WE CONDEMN THE BRUTAL INTERVENTION IN THE OCCUPIED CITY OF DAKHLA

2011-09-29T23:15:00.001+02:00

The Women and the whole people of Western Sahara express their deep condemnation to the brutal intervention of the moroccan army and settlers in the occupied city of Dakhla and also would like to express their condolence to the Mohamed-Lamin Lehbib´s family.

Last sunday, September 25th, a group of sahrawis organized a peaceful demonstration in the occupied saharawi city of Dakhla for protesting against the savage attack carried out by a moroccan settler on a sahrawi fan during a football match between a local team and a team coming from Morocco.
Saharawi Women strongly condemn this new brutal intervention of the moroccan oppressive forces and hundreds of settlers which has caused the death of the young sahrawi called: Maichan Ould Mohamed Lamine Ould Lehbib, while a lot of other saharawis were seriously injured and many Saharawi houses and properties were ransacked and vandalised.
Saharawi Women launch an urgent appeal to the European Union and the United Nations to put pressure on the moroccan government to stop the great violations of human rights in the occupied cities of Western Sahara and on the face of this new and repeated terrorising act, it is imperative that the United Nations proceeds immediately to the establishment of a UN mechanism to enable the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) to protect monitor and report on the human rights in the territory. The protection of civilians as an international obligation should not be subjected to double standards and discrimination in terms of what is happening in Western Sahara and in other parts of the world.

WESTERN SAHARA PEOPLE WAS THE FIRST ONE IN THE SO-CALLED "ARAB SPRING"

2011-09-22T13:58:00.001+02:00

There is no dout that the small and peaceful people of Western Sahara was the first one to begin with the peaceful demostrations that we have witnessed these great changings in the arab countries particularly in the northern part the african continent.

However and unfortunatelly, in the case of the Western Sahara People´s demands were brutally repressed and violently dismantled when the moroccan army fiercely intervened against the peaceful Camps in Gdeim Izik, 15 kilometers from El-AAiun.

The famous spanish newspaper has recently published an interesting article on the so-called "Arab Spring". The North-African expert journalist, Ignacio Cembrero has publishes a long interview with a well-known saharawi whom live in the occupided citties of Western Sahara.

On 4 November, 2010, Elabadila Chbihna Maaelaynine left his home in Casablanca to fly to Laâyoune, the capital of Western Sahara. Although he is well integrated into Moroccan society, with a well-paid job as a computer programmer, as a Sahrawi he says he felt he had to see the Agdaym Izik camp set up by some 12,000 refugees a month earlier in the outskirts of the city. Five days later, Moroccan police forcibly dismantled the camp, leaving at least 12 people dead, among them several police officers.

Just under three months later, on February 20, Maaelaynine was among the thousands attending a peaceful demonstration in the Moroccan capital of Rabat calling for constitutional and political reform in Morocco that would include a solution to the conflict in Western Sahara.

"Western Sahara was where the first Arab revolts took place, but unlike in Tunisia and Egypt, there has been no happy ending," says the 46-year-old, whose great-grandfather[A1] was Sheikh Maaelaynine, a local tribal leader who stood up to the French and Spanish colonizers a century ago, and who founded the former Spanish colony's religious capital Smara.

The Western Sahara conflict is both one of the world's oldest and one of its most neglected. More than 30 years after the war began, following Spain's hasty departure and Morocco's land grab, the displacement of large numbers of people and a ceasefire in 1991 that froze military positions, its end remains remote.

Maaelaynine has been campaigning discreetly for reform in Morocco for several years: in 2003, shortly before Rabat offered limited autonomy to Western Sahara, he published an article in the weekly Le Journal calling for greater political independence, along with a bigger share of the revenue from the region's vast mineral wealth. He is now one of the leaders of the February 20 movement, which continues to hold peaceful protests every Sunday in cities throughout Morocco. He blames the Moroccan authorities for the violence that ensued when the police raided the camp.

Mohammed Ghalous, the government representative for the Laâyoune region, said the gendarmerie and auxiliary forces had moved in "to end a situation which had exhausted all means of dialogue," by dismantling the camp.

The Polisario Front movement, which seeks independence for the Western Sahara, accused the security forces of injuring hundreds of people in the dawn raid on the camp. The security forces raided the camp by ground and air, using helicopters.

Maaelaynine condemns the violence, and says that the organizers of the protest camp were extremely careful not to provoke the Moroccan authorities, and imposed careful checks on who entered the camp, banning Polisario flags, for example. He says that those responsible for the deaths of the Moroccan police officers should be brought to justice. "But I have no respect for a regime that cracked down in this way on people who were staging a peaceful protest," he adds.

The unrest in November came ahead of yet another failed round of talks between Morocco and the Polisario Front. The latter wants a UN-organized self-determination referendum, with independence as one of the options. Morocco has so far rejected any proposal that goes beyond greater autonomy.

Saharawi Women launch an urgent appeal to the United Nations and the European Union and all the peace-loving countries and persons all over the world for puting presure on the government of Morocco to respetct the democratic demands of the saharawi people, to respect the human rights in the saharawi occupided cities and to implement the UN resolutions on the Africa´s last colony: Western Sahara.

MOROCCAN PROPAGANDA, AS USUALLY

2011-08-28T19:47:00.000+02:00

The Saharawi Women express their strongest condemnation to the continous moroccan propaganda against the just struggle for peace and justice of the people of Western Sahara.

The moroccan goverment is always trying to confuse the international public opinion about what the United Nations Organization has called as a problem of decolonization of Western sahara due to the continuous illegal occupation of the moroccan troops of Western Sahara.

Saharawi Women totally support the official statement made by the Saharawi Government related to the last propaganda launched by the moroccan regime agains the peaceful people of Western Sahara and its sole representative: POLISARIO Front . The statement was published by the Saharawi Press agency which says:

"The Sahrawi Government and the Polisario Front denied Friday categorically allegations that “about 556 mercenaries from the Polisario Front have been brought in to support Gaddafi troops, have been arrested by the guerrillas of the Transitional National Council,” as was reported Thursday by Moroccan news agency, in a statement issued by the Ministry of Information.

“The Government of the Sahrawi Republic and the Polisario Front deny categorically these lies, aimed at compromising the nobility of the cause of the Saharawi people and its just national struggle for freedom and self-determination, and confirm that the fighters of the brave Sahrawi People Liberation Army, did not and will not participate in any conflict outside the borders of the Sahrawi Republic and that their exclusive mission was and will remain the national sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Sahrawi Republic,” the statement said.

“The Kingdom of Morocco is seeking, through the dissemination of these lies, to distort the facts that are clearly known to the international public opinion and all governments that are closely following the developments of the conflict in Western Sahara and the situation in the Maghreb.”

“The whole world is aware that the Qaddafi regime has suspended all forms of support for the Saharawi people's struggle against Moroccan expansion since July 1982, and later signed with the Kingdom of Morocco the Convention of what is known as the Arab-African Unionin 1984.”

“The Rabat – Tripoli center engaged in the course of trading and bartering on the basis of multi-faceted Libyan support to Morocco with money and weapons in its expansionist war against the Sahrawi people. In contrast, the Kingdom of Morocco proceeded to hand over Libyan opponents refugees in Morocco, such as Colonel Mahiashi and his colleagues, track and follow up Libyan dissidents in Europeand the United States in addition to permanent efforts to puff Colonelin some capitals.”

“Since that date, Kingdom of Morocco and the Qaddafi regime did not spare of any effort to destroy the Sahrawi resistance militarily and diplomatically, especially on the African scene,” the statement added.

Finally the statement called for an urgent independent inquiry into these allegations which were reported by the Moroccan news agency.

It also invited the new Libyan authorities, represented by the Transitional National Council, to issue a denial urgently to the charges fabricated by the Moroccan occupier, for the benefit of the Libyan and Sahrawi peoples as well as all peoples of the region.

SAHARAWI WOMEN CONDEMN THE NORWAY´S CRIMINAL ATTACK

2011-07-24T19:44:00.001+02:00

The Women and the whole people from the Africa´s last colony: Western Sahara, want to express their total solidarity with the people of the peaceful Norway and reaffirm their strongest condemnation to the the acts of terrorism perpetrated against the peace loving people of Norway on the sadest Friday´s, July 22nd 2011.

Saharawi Women express their most deepest and sincere condolences for the great loss of innocent lives mainly young peolpe from this scandinavian country.

The Saharawi Women condemn vigorously the vicious deadly attacks that targeted the norwegian government buildings and the peaceful Youth Camp at Utoeya, and we would like to extend the most heartfelt condolences and sympathy with the families of the victims of these criminal attacts and express its total solidarity with the whole Norwagian Women´s organizations and and also with the government and people of the peaceful Norway.

Sahrawi Women say to you that our hearts go out to the people of Norway and reaffirm our will on continuing struggling agains all kind of terrorisms and all the acts of the religious extremism.

We, the saharawi women, are convinced that the peace loving people of Norway will quickly overpass this difficult and painful moment and that it will defeat violence and the sowing of fear and terror among the innocent, the rationality will overcome insanity and love will, inevitably, overcome hatred and that justice will eventually prevail.

We are sure that the whole people of Norway will not be intimated by this mean act of terrorism, and will continue its undeterred advocacy for peace, freedom and prosperity for all the peoples of the world and mainly in their example of a democratic and solidarity country.

MOROCCAN KING´S DANGEROUS INTENTIONS IN WESTERN SAHARA

2011-06-26T19:14:00.000+02:00

Saharawi Women also express their deep concern on the moroccan´s king dangerous intentions on what is known the Africa´s last colony: Western Sahara.

We, the Western Saharan women totally support the letter sent recently by the Saharawi President, Mr. Abdelaziz, to the United Nations Organization Secretary General, Mr. Ban Ki Moon.

Due to its importance, we publish the whole text of the Saharawi President´s letter:

"I would like to address to you this letter to draw your attention to the intentions of the Moroccan Government to implement some political decisions concerning the constitutional reforms in Morocco, in which it also intends to include Western Sahara that is under the illegal occupation of the Kingdom of Morocco.

Western Sahara is not a Moroccan territory, and it is listed by the United Nations as a Non-Self-Governing Territory pending decolonization. Its final legal status can be determined only by the Sahrawi people themselves through a free, fair and just referendum on self-determination conducted under the supervision of the United Nations.

It is the Moroccan occupation that has so far impeded the exercise by the Sahrawi people of this inalienable and internationally recognized right. As you have pointed out in your latest report to the Security Council, there can be no solution to the Sahrawi-Moroccan conflict without full respect for the will and sentiments of the Sahrawi people, and that any agreement or settlement that does not take this into account will only engender more tension and instability in the region.

Mr. Secretary-General,

By engaging in such provocative operation, the Kingdom of Morocco only persists in its policy of intransigence and obstruction to the efforts deployed by the United Nations with a view to bringing to conclusion the decolonization of Western Sahara.

The Frente POLISARIO, the sole and legitimate representative of the Sahrawi people and the partner in the peace process negotiations, which are conducted under the auspices of your Personal Envoy, Mr. Christopher Ross, renews its categorical rejection of the arbitrary and forced involvement of the occupied territories of Western Sahara in a Moroccan internal exercise that does not concern the Sahrawis at all.

It also condemns these unilateral political decisions taken by the Kingdom of Morocco, which cannot have any legal implications that may affect directly or indirectly the final status of Western Sahara.

The Frente POLISARIO therefore calls on the United Nations to take all necessary measures to urge the Kingdom of Morocco to desist from making such move that constitutes an infringement on the internationally recognised borders and a flagrant violation of the Charter and resolution of the United Nations and international law.

I would appreciate it if Your Excellency would bring the present letter to the attention of all members of the Security Council.

Please accept, Mr Secretary-General, the assurances of my highest consideration.

Mohamed Abdelaziz,

Secretary-General of the Frente POLISARIO.

AMNISTY INTERNATIONAL CONDEMNS VIOLATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN OCCCUPIDED WESTERN SAHARA

2011-05-16T13:30:00.001+02:00

Saharawi Women express their full support to the last Amnesty International´s Report in which once again has condemned the flagrant violations of human rights in the occupided cities of Western Sahara.

The Saharawi Women express their deeep concern on the constant violations of the most basics human rights of the saharawi populations in the occupided cities and towns of Western sahara, ilegally occupided by kingdom of Morocco since its military invasion at the end of the year 1.975.

Amnesty International (AI) has denounced, in its 2011 report on the state of human rights in the Middle East and North Africa, the repression practiced by the Moroccan forces in Western Sahara.

“The Freedom of expression, association and assembly has been restricted, especially on issues relating to political sensitivity, such as the question of Western Sahara,” the report asserted.

It noted that the Sahrawi human rights activists were harassed and persecuted for political reasons during 2011, adding “dozens of people suspected of security offenses were detained and some, held in communicate, reportedly been tortured or abused.”

“The arrests and collective expulsions of foreigners continued. Death sentences were imposed and no executions have taken place. No action has been taken to bring to justice the perpetrators of gross human rights violations committed in the past," the report said.

AI underlined the negotiations on the status of Western Sahara between the Polisario Front and Morocco “were still deadlocked”, adding the UN Security Council renewed the mandate of the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) on last April, without including “a mechanism to monitor the human rights situation.”

The report pointed that the Moroccan security forces dismantled on November 8, 2010 by using force a protest camp for the Saharawis in Gdeim Izik, near occupied city of El Aaiun, which settled to protest against marginalization policy as well as demand jobs and housing, confirming killings and injuries among the Saharawis.

WESTERN SAHARA´S INTERNATIONAL CINEMA FESTIVAL

2011-05-04T12:52:00.000+02:00

The Saharawi Women are very thankful for the hundreds of actors, Film-makers, actrisses, producers and persons in general who are trying to give awareness on the injustice that is facing the saharawi pwople for over 35 years due the illegal occupation of the kingdom of Morocco to Western Sahara.

The Saharawi Minister of Culture, Mrs.Khadija Hamdi, affiemed in a press conference that the eighth edition of International Film Festival of Western Sahara (FISAHARA) brings a new vision of solidarity with the Saharawi people for the recovery of its legitimate rights to self-determination and independence.

Mrs. Khadija Hamdi, who hosted Monday a press conference at the offices of the Ministryof Culture on the eve of the opening of Fisahara, declared that "the objectives of the festival were designed to expand the solidarity movement with the Sahrawi cause and support the international network of artists and intellectuals, known as "Together with Sahara."

"Our action aim at finding new forms of art to give to the cinema the humanitarian and political spirit through the projection of movies in refugee camps, to enable the Saharawi youth to discover the cinematographic art," she added.

The eighth edition of FISAHA which coincides with the regional festival of culture and folk art, is presenting long and short films from around the world, documentaries and a series of movies devoted specially to the theme of the Western Sahara, underlined the minister.

A wide numbers of artists and people from all over the world are these days in the Refugee Camp of Dakhla taking part in this new FISARA´s edition, the minister affirmed, adding that the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is the guest of honor at the eighth edition of the International Cinema Festival in the Saharawi Refugee Camps.

SAHARAWI WOMEN IN THEIR SIXTH NATIONAL CONFERENCE

2011-04-29T01:04:00.000+02:00

Hundreds of Women from Western Sahara have just finished the three days sessions of their Sixth National Conference (called also Congress) which was hold in the Saharawi Refugee Camps from 22 to 24 of April 2011. This important event for the Saharawi women is organized each four years. As in other ocassions, hundreds of Saharawi Women have taken part in this important gathering repressenting the females from the Refuggee Camps, and also from the occupided cities of Western Sahara and overseas and saharawi communities abroad.

The VI Congress of the National Union of Saharawi Women (NUSW) concluded on late hours of last sunday, April 24th, by renewing confidence in the ex-Secretary General, Ms. Fatma Almahdi, electing an Executive off of 8 members and delivering a number of messages and recommendations.

Once again, the saharawi women declared oppenly their support to the legitime struggle of the saharawi people for peace and justice and express their determination on continuing playing a vital role in the saharawi society and stressed the need of preparing our women in technical and professional skills.

In his concluding speech, the Saharawi Prime Minister, Ms. Abdelkader Taleb Omar, applauded degree of maturity and responsibility shown by the participants in the evaluation of work and chart the way for the orientations of the coming stage.

The final session marked by reading out messages, recommendations and programme of action, which the participants have been engaged to study during 3 days of deliberations.

The Congress, which started on April 22 in the Feb. 27 School, witnessed cultural, intellectual, science and sport workshops as well as workshops for educating elderly, voluntary work and human rights.

Foreign delegations from the African, american and european continents attended the important gathering of the saharawi women and express their solidarity and support to the saharawi women in their struggle for living in an independent and democratic country.

SOUTH-AFRICAN WOMEN REAFFIRM THEIR SUPPORT AND SOLIDARITY WITH THEIR SISTERS IN WESTERN SAHARA

2011-03-23T19:04:00.000+01:00

The National Union of Saharawi Women´s International Officer, Suelma Beiruk, has just been received in the South-African capital by the President of the ANC´s Women´s League who has reaffirmed their support and solidarity with the people and women óf the Africa´s last colony: Western Sahara.
The President of the ANC Women's League and Minister of the Basic Education, Ms. Angie Motshekga, renewed last friday the firm support of her country to the just cause of the Saharawi people, according to the Saharawi Embassy in South Africa.

During her meeting with a Saharawi delegation at headquarters of the SADR Embassy in Pretoria, Ms. Motshekga confirmed that the supporting position of her country “stayed in the past and will remain in the future”
She saluted struggle of the Saharawi women, considering it a “unique example of resistance in the world”
The president of the ANC Women's League welcomed her invitation to attend the Saharawi women´s conference which is scheduled next April 20th to 24th, adding that it will certainly be an “occasion to strengthen the close ties between the ANC women's league and UNSW”
Mrs. Suelma Beiruk briefed struggle of the Saharawi women in the refugee camps occupied territories of Western Sahara, as well as the next congress of Saharawi women.
The meeting also focused on the latest developments of the Saharawi cause and bilateral relations between the peoples and governments of both countries.

SAHARAWI WOMEN CONMEMORATE THE INTERNATIONAL WOMEN´S DAY

2011-03-11T23:52:00.000+01:00

The Saharawi Women as the majority female all over the world have conmemorated the International Women´s Day with different activities.

Western Saharan Women not only those that are living in the refugee camps but also those whom are ressisting the moroccan military occupation and those who are living abroad have celebrated this important day not only because this year is the centenary of the official declaration of the International Women´s Day but also because in an anniversary of the first saharawi martyr: Bachir Lehlawi.

This pictures were taken in a conmemoration of the International Women´s Day celebrated in the spanish capital, Madrid, where the saharawi human rights activist, Digdja Lachgare, has been invited by a spanish NGO. In such event, Mrs. Lachgare has given her personal experience of suffering due to her more that twelve years of imprisonment in the moroccan prisons and she has spoken about the flagrant violations of human rights in the occupided cities of Western Sahara and she launched an urgent appeal to the international opinion to put pressure on the moroccan government for stopping in its repressive policy and to respect the international resolutions and the human rights in the occupided cities of Western sahara and to release all the saharawi prisoners of conciousness.

The Saharawi Women as the majority female all over the world have conmemorated the International Women´s Day with different activities.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day. The day was commemorated for the first time on 19 March 1911 in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland, following its establishment during the Socialist International meeting the prior year. More than one million women and men attended rallies on that first commemoration.

Since then, International Women’s Day has been celebrated in many countries around the world. It is a day when women are recognized for their achievements without regard to divisions, whether national, ethnic, linguistic, cultural, economic or political. It is an occasion for looking back on past struggles and accomplishments, and more importantly, for looking ahead to the untapped potential and opportunities that await future generations of women.

Saharawi women are known by her example of emanipation and empowerment in the arab and muslim world and they wish to strenghthen the ties and relationship with all the women´s organizations and all the peace loving countries for struggling together for a just a peaceful world.

SAHARAWI WOMEN CONDEMN THE MOROCCAN BRUTAL REPRESSION IN OCCUPIDED DAKHLA

2011-03-01T00:12:00.000+01:00

The Association of Saharawi Women in Spain (AMSE) expresses its strongest condemnation of the acts of vandalism carried out by moroccan settlers against the Saharawi civilians in the occupied city of Dakhla. According to eyewitnesses who have been in telephone contact with AMSE, affirmed us that on the night of Saturday, February 26, thousands of Moroccan settlers, escorted by numerous Moroccan army vehicles have assaulted the neighborhoods where the Sahrawi population living mostly by burning private cars, burglarizing homes and businesses and creating a true chaos in the occupied city of Dakhla, generating a real situation of terror and forcing the helpless Saharawi population to leave the city, fleeing into the desert for protecting themselves against the brutal repression of the moroccan settlers.

While the Saharawi people was celebrating with joy and happiness the trirty-fith anniversary of the proclamation of the Saharawi State: the Saharawi Republic, the moroccan occupation authorities tried once again, undermines the cultural identity of Western Sahara and misrepresent the true social and political situation faced by Western Sahara. All this atrocity occurred while the Sahrawi people organized a festival in the city of Dakhla and at the end of the members of the Moroccan occupation launched this wave of settler violence against civilians Moroccan Sahara.

Saharawi Women take the opportunity to make an urgent appeal to all the peace loving countries and the whole international community, that under the new changes that are being generated against dictatorial regimes especially in North Africa, to put pressure on the Moroccan government to respect the international law and particularly human rights in occupied Western Sahara.

RFK CENTER REAFFIRMS GREAT VIOLATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS

2011-02-20T02:21:00.001+01:00

The Women from the Africa´s last colony, Western Sahara, express their satistaction for the recent report of the prestigous R.F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights where the american institution reaffirmed that in the occupied cities of Western sahara the moroccan authorities still comiting human rights abuses persist in wake of November unrest.

Based on dozens of interviews, this report documents human rights abuses inflicted by Moroccan government forces against civilians during the dismantlement of the Gdaim Izik protest camp in November 2010, and in its aftermath.

In January 2011, a delegation of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights traveled to Western Sahara to visit 2008 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award Laureate, Aminatou Haidar. Led by Haidar, the delegation examined human rights violations allegedly committed by Moroccan security forces against Sahrawis. The delegation met with more than two dozen victims of abuse, torture, and imprisonment and their families, in addition to Moroccan government officials and representatives of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO).

According to the findings of the report, torture, arbitrary arrest and detention, failure to follow criminal procedures, and repression of civilians by Moroccan government forces are all too common in Western Sahara. This context, in concert with the violence that broke out on November 8, 2010, when Moroccan security forces dismantled the Gdaim Izik camp set up by residents of Western Sahara to protest social and economic discrimination, reinforces the need for impartial international human rights monitoring of the situation.

EOROPEAN TRADE UNIONS CONDEMS GREAT VIOLATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS

2011-02-01T01:33:00.000+01:00

The Women from Western sahara express their total support to the report released these days of a mission of the European most representative trade unions where they have denounced the holding in the Moroccan prisons of hundreds of Saharawis have been arrested by the Moroccan occupying forces last November in Western Sahara.

Eight unions from different European countries, including Italy, who had stay in the capital city of Western Sahara, ilegally occupied by moroccan army, El-Aaiún, from 23 to 25 January, have published their report in which they denounce great abuses of human rights against the peaceful Saharawi population.

"The objectives of the mission were to show the international solidarity to Western Sahara workers and to the Sahrawi people, and be directly in touch with the current situation of the Sahrawi occupied territories by Morocco," the trade union´s report affirms in its joint communiqyé that have been published on monday, january 30th, in the italian capital, Rome.

Saharawi Women launch an urgent appeal to the international community and the European Union to put pressure on the moroccan government to respect the human rights in the occupied Western Sahara and the United Nations´s resolutions on this problem of decolonization.

MOROCCAN REGIME STILL VIOLATING HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE OCCUPIDED WESTERN SAHARA

2011-01-19T20:58:00.000+01:00

The Saharawi Women express their deep concern about the continuing violation of human rights in the occupided cities of Western sahara as are a lot of the NGOs and Human Rights organizations like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International´s reports are confirming the great vilations of human rights in the oc saharawi cities occupided by the Kingdom of Morocco for over thirty-five years ago.

Sahrawi defender of human rights Izzana Amidan, 31, confirmed, in an audio testimony after she was provisionally released some weeks ago, she was tortured and ill-treated.

She was subjected to severe beatings, insults, verbal abuse and practices degrading to human dignity. She was also interrogated by various Moroccan intelligence services at the so-called prosecutor s office in the center of gendarmerie in the occupation city of El Aaiun, on charges of participation in the camp of Gdeim Izik.

The human rights activist had been arbitrarily arrested Saturday by the police officers of the Moroccan occupation, before being released temporarily pending her appearance again in front of the so-called investigating judge February 28, with a view to her interrogation.

On the other hand, two Sahrawi activists, Kaltoum Lebsir and Mariam Bourhim, arrested Sunday at the airport in Casablanca (Morocco) on their return from South Africa, have also been provisionally released Wednesday until March 24.

WE FULLY SUPPORT THE NEW CAMPAIGN: "DON´T GO TO MOROCCO"

2010-12-08T23:58:00.001+01:00

The Saharawi Women fully support the new campaign on visiting and doing turism in a country like Morocco whom is daily violating the most basic human rights and is ilegally occupating Western sahara for over thirty-five years.

Following the Moroccan government’s announcement last Tuesday that it plans to double its tourism in the next 10 years activists today launched a new campaign aimed at highlighting human rights abuses in occupied Western Sahara and asking tourists to boycott holidaying in Morocco.

The new action dubbed "Don’t Go to Morocco" was launched in London today by the Western Sahara Campaign and the Free Western Sahara Network at a meeting in Piccadilly. A handful of dedicated campaigners then braved freezing temperatures outside Morocco’s main tourism office in Regents’ Street and the offices of Royal Air Maroc in Gosfield Street handing out leaflets detailing the discrimination, abuse and violence suffered by the native Saharawi population under Morocco’s 35 year occupation of their country.

Earlier this week Moroccan tourism minister Yassir Znagui unveiled a tourism development plan which would see the expansion of tourism over the next decade in eight regions including Western Sahara.

Morocco annexed Western Sahara after Spain pulled out of its former colony in 1976, and despite widespread international criticism and numerous United Nations resolutions requiring a referendum on self-determination the referendum has yet to be held.

Cities on Western Sahara’s Atlantic coastline such as Dakhla will be developed into thriving tourist destinations. This announcement comes just weeks after violent clashes in Western Sahara which resulted in several deaths, over one hundred injuries and many arrests.

A report from Human Rights Watch last Friday found that Saharawi detainees had been beaten and abused. The violence in El Aaiun has been condemned by the United Nations Security Council and last week the European Parliament passed a resolution calling for an independent UN investigation into the violence. This call has so far been rejected by Rabat.

“Western Sahara is a beautiful place but whilst the brutal occupation continues we do not feel it is an appropriate tourist destination", said Natalie Sharples of the Western Sahara Campaign.

"The Saharawi people face daily discrimination with those daring to challenge the occupation facing detention, abuse and torture. If holiday-makers knew about the situation in Western Sahara we are confident that many would chose to holiday elsewhere."

Cathy Jamieson, MP for Kilmarnock & Loudoun agreed. “Raising awareness of what has been happening over the years of Moroccan occupation is vital, particularly in light of recent events. Every effort must be made to get a fair and just solution for the Saharawi people and hopefully this campaign will show the real strength of feeling" she said.

Whilst Morocco will no doubt continue to be a popular tourist destination the campaigners hope that their slogan “sun, sea, sand and torture” may well put some people off holidaying in Western Sahara.

WE STRONGLY CONDEMN THE NEW MOROCCAN AGGRESSION AGAINST PEACEFUL SAHARAWIS

2010-11-09T01:01:00.000+01:00

The Women from the Africa´s last colony: Western Sahara express their strongtest condemnation to the brutal and criminal intervention of the moroccan army and settlers against the saharawi citizens in the Gdeim Izik Camps, situated from 18 kilometers from the saharawi capital, Laayoune.

At least one Sahrawi, Mahmoud Babi Gargar, was killed and hundreds were injured after a brutal intervention by Moroccan forces early this monday´s morning, november 8th, against defenseless Saharawis in the Gdim Izik camp (Camp Liberty).

Sources from the occupided saharawi capital affirmed that he forcible intervention committed earlier Monday by Moroccan forces against the Saharawis in the Gdim Izik camp left at least one Saharawi killed and hundreds were injured and moroccan army and settlers entered to saharai houses.

The Saharawi women and the whole poeple of Western Sahara warned that the situation was going to become became extremely serious several days ago in Laayoune and has erupted since today´s morning after the new escalation of the moroccan army and settlers where several international press agencies have reported that more than ten saharawis have died among them Mahmoud Babi Gargar, who was 26years old and killed by moroccan occupider forces.

This despicable and tragic assassination, is repeated by the occupation forces following the intervention of the units of the Moroccan army, gendarmerie and auxiliary forces against the Sahrawi population, who are since the beginning of last October, left their homes and camping in Gdim Izik (17 km east of the city of Laayoune) to demand their rights.

The Saharawi Women denounce strongly this criminal action of the moroccan army and settlers against the peaceful people of Western Sahara and, we launch an urgent appeal to the international public opinion and all world´s organizations for defending human rights and for intervening to put an end to the repressive campaign against the peaceful saharawi population in the occupided cities which are under moroccan occupation since thirty five years ago.

SAHARAWI WOMEN IN THE 36TH EUCCOCO

2010-11-01T18:24:00.000+01:00

As every year, an important delegation of Saharawi Women, from the occupided cities, also from the Refugee Camps and other parts, has partipated in the 36th European Coordianating Conference of Support to the Saharawi People which have just concluded its works in the french city of Le Mans.

This important event, the 36th European Coordinating Conference of Support to the Sahrawi People (EUCOCO) wrapped up Sunday by the adoption of a final resolution in which the participants renewed support to the right of Sahrawi people to self-determination.

The participants praised the "permanent effort" of the Algerian Committee for Support and Solidarity with Sahrawi People (CNASPS) for its support to the legitimate claims of Sahrawis, and also welcomed the setting-up of an international Latin-American conference of Support for Sahrawi people, and promised to help them achieve concrete results.

They also agreed on goals to be achieved to enhance and diversify solidarity operations and working methods to raise abilities of militants and their organizations to contribute to “ the implementation of the inalienable rights of the Saharawi people to self-determination and independence,”

The participants charged the working group of the EUCOCO to quickly find and deploy schedule and joint program coordinating on the international level.

The political, human rights and media issues took most time of the conference where the workshop of human rights decided to take many masseurs to develop its strategy of work to impose respecting human rights in Western Sahara.

Emergency program for the next two months has been adopted towards the occupied Saharawi territories especially “camps of independence” including visit of medical delegation and European parliamentarians and visits by representatives of several institutions, journalists, solidarity movement and civil society.

To support these decisions a creation of active “lobby” will begin towards UN, EU, France and Spain through letters, demonstrations and meetings

Lawyers have invited to join trails of Saharawi human rights defenders especially the trail of the Seven Saharawi political prisoners in Sale scheduled on November5.

It was also agreed on a program towards UN Human Rights Council and UN Security Council with need to find out a mechanism for monitoring and protecting human rights particularly the right of self-determination.

The participants began with group of jurists to study laws in favor of the Saharawi people to guarantee respect of human rights of Saharawi exodus toward “camps of independence”

Concern the media, the participants agreed to find ways to correct lies of Morocco and to promote media that could reflect the Saharawi reality

Regarding the natural resources of Western Sahara, the participants stressed on the need to demand EU to cancel its partnership agreement and fishing agreement with Morocco.

Finally the Participants decided to hold the 37th European Coordinating Conference of Support to the Saharawi People next year in Spanish Capital, Madrid.

SAHARAWI WOMEN IN THE 4TH INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON ISLAMIC FEMINISM

2010-10-27T11:45:00.000+02:00

Four women from Western Sahara have participated in the Fourth International Congress of Islamic Feminism which have just held in the spanish capital, Madrid, from October 21st to 24th.

The Saharawi Women´s delegation have activally taken part in all the different workshops and also could transmitted the message of peace and justice from what it is considered the last Africa´s colony people and specially in these days where the situation is very worried due to the brutal repression of the moroccan occupider army has brutally repressed the peaceful people in the main saharawi cities.

The Saharawi Women delegation in this important event was composed by Zahra Ramdán Ahmed, Soukeina N´Diaye (Gleiyilhum Buna), Zahra El-Hasnawi and Doctor Lehdia Dafa.

The International Congress on Islamic Feminism is an initiative of the Catalan Islamic Council (JIC). Through the conferences, the intent of the JIC has been to present Islamic Feminism (IF) as an emerging reality, with a strong intellectual development and a significant activism in pursuit of the rights of Muslim women. We have tried to maintain a balance between the theoretical and field experiences, including the development of a discourse generated in the academy, and ways to implement the propositions of IF in different contexts.

To date there have been three editions of the conference (Barcelona, 2005, 2006 and 2008), and the fourth is scheduled for 2010, in Madrid. More than 1300 participants have attended the conferences. The Congress has brought together some of the most prestigious and charismatic personalities of IF, as well as prominent organizations from the five continents. The media coverage of these conferences has helped to visualize IF as a emerging reality worldwide.

MRS. HAIDAR CANDIDATE FOR THE "SAKHAROV AWARD"

2010-09-25T16:50:00.000+02:00

The women from Western Sahara would like to congratulate our compatriot Aminatou Haidar for been candidate once again in one of the most important awards that the European Parliament gives to relevant personalities of human rights defenders from all over the world.

The Saharawi human rights activist, Aminatou Haidar, has nominated to the Sakharov Prize for human rights granted by the European Union for her commitment to defend human rights in Western Sahara, according to a source from the occupied city of El Aaiun.

The Saharawi activist was nominated within nine institutions and international figures for this Prize, to select one of them October 21 in a public meeting of the EU Parliament.

Aminatou Haidar won many awards in the field of human rights by international organizations, including Robert F. Kennedy Foundation of America, Juan Maria Bandres for Human Rights and Solidarity with the Refugees as well as Khobelano Prize of "resistance and freedom".

She also engaged in various indefinite hunger strikes which put her under the harassment and detained of the Moroccan authorities, where she adopted by many international organizations as a prisoner and political activist for defending the right of the Saharawi people to self-determination and independence.

It is note worthy that the Saharawi activist held November14, 2009 an indefinite hunger strike in the Spanish airport of Lanzarote for 32 days on the ground of her forcibly deportation by the Moroccan authorities from the occupied city of El Aaiun.

SAHARAWIS CELEBRATES THE INTERNATIONAL PEACE DAY

2010-09-21T13:30:00.000+02:00

Today, September 21th, The Saharawi people celebrates the International Peace Day. The Saharawi Women express their total support to the Saharawi Government´s decision on conmemorating every year the date: september 21th, as the International Peace Day , as an expressión of the whole people of western Sahara to their peaceful will of solving the conflict of what is considered as the Africa´s last colony due to the illegal occupation of the moroccan army to Western Sahara.

The Saharawi Press Agency (SPS) informs: The Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic has decided on Sunday to commemorate the International Day of Peace declared by the United Nations which falls Sept 21, in accordance with its obligations as a founder member of the African Union, according to a statement of the SADR Presidency.

The statement asked all the national bodies and institutions as well as citizens to exert maximum efforts in order to create the best conditions of cooperation, seriousness and commitment for implementing all the activities, in line with the SADR standing and responsibility within the AU to contribute for security and peace in Africa and the world.

The SADR decided to mark this Day by a number of activities and events, including hosting the AU flag besides SADR flag on the national institutions and observe a minute of silent for peace at 10:00 am GMT, 11 o’clock on the local time, visit the Saharawi victims of war in center of Shraif Martyr, developments works by members of the armed forces and multiple voluntary campaigns

According to the same source, the Day will also be known the organization of a football game under the slogan “one day and one goal”, in addition to teaching a lesson of peace in all SADR national schools, ensure complete coverage to all day’s activities by the national media as well as organize lectures and media platforms.

The International Day of Peace was ratified in the AU decision on the year of peace and security in Africa by the XIV Ordinary Session of the AU Conference held February 2010 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and the conference of “make peace happen” which adopted by the XV Ordinary Session of the AU Conference July 2010 in Kampala, Uganda.

OUR SUPPORT TO ALI-SALEM TAMEK´S GROUP

2010-09-13T19:00:00.000+02:00

The Women from western Sahara express their total supportt and solidarity with the so-called Ali-Salem Tamek´s Team who are a group of very well-known saharawi human rights activists who are in moroccan jails since nearly one yera ago.

We, the Saharawi Women support their just struggle and ask for their unconditioned release because we are sure that they haven´t committed any crime and they are accussed by the moroccan government only because they have visited their family and their people in the Saharawi Refugee Camps.

Today, septermber 13th, the have published the following statement:

We, three Saharawi human rights activists who’ve been in jail for over 11 months without being charged nor tried, have decided to start a 48 hour hunger strike on 15 September 2010. We demand a either a fair trial or their unconditional release.

On April 28, 2010, we suspended our open-ended hunger strike which lasted forty-one days, as a response to the commitment of the Moroccan authorities to put an end to our emprisonment (the temporary release of three of our comrades was part of that commitment), which we considered as a positive sign and a first step towards ending our arrest for expressing our opinion in peaceful ways.

However, the continuation of our arrest against the urgent demand of all the Moroccan and international human rights organisations and international public opinion, which call for our release without any condition embodies the Moroccan authorities blind revenge of our group because of our opinions and our human rights and civil activities.

In contradiction to the international law that guarrantees the right to fair trial in logic and acceptable periods of time, the Moroccan authorities have neither started the preparations for our trial despite the 11 month-period of our emprisonment nor have they yet decided to release us.

Thus, we call all the democracy advocators, the human rights organisations in the world to support us in order to exert pressure on the Moroccan state to release all the human rights defenders and political prisoners in different Moroccan prisons.

The three Sahrawi prisoners of conscience, human rights defenders,

- Ali Salem Tamek, prison number 50010

- Brahim Dahane, prison number 50014

- Hammadi Naciri, Prison number 50015

September 13, 2010

The Local Prison of SaléSalem Tamek´s Group who

OUR TOTAL SOLIDARITY WITH PHOS-BOUCRÁA´S SAHARAWI WORKERS

2010-09-07T14:12:00.000+02:00

Saharawi Women express their support and solidarity with PHOSBUCRÁA´s workers in their claims and peaceful demosntrations in the saharawi´s capital: L´Aayoune where these days have organized peaceceful demonstrations in front of MINURSO´s headquarters in the capital of Western Sahara.

The Saharawi Press Service (SPS) has published the following information:

Dozens of arrested and expelled Saharawis from FOS-Bukraa Company in the occupied city of El Aaiun have appealed to the UN mission in Western Sahara (MINURSO) to urgently intercede with the Moroccan Government for the actual settlement of their files.

In a statement on monday, september the 6th, the FOS-Bukraa Company workers denounced a violent repression of a protest that they organized in the occupied city of El Aaiun, holding the Moroccan administration responsible for the miserable situation which Saharawis live in the territory.

The Moroccan forces of occupation violently intervened to prevent the peaceful demonstration called for by Sahrawi Confederation for Saharawi Workers, which called on the UN Secretary General and the international community to urgently intervene to protect Saharawi workers and citizens and enable them to their confiscated rights.

The statement demanded the settlement of their seized rights according to the contract concluded between Saharawi workers and the Spanish company, involvement of the UN mission to facilitate settling the file and applying pressure on the Moroccan Government in this regard, and compelling Morocco to respect international treaties and conventions by the international community.

SAHARAWI WOMEN CONDEMN THE BRUTAL REPRESSION AGANIST THE 14 CANARIAN ACTIVISTS

2010-09-02T12:44:00.000+02:00

The Saharawi Women express their most forceful comdenation to the brutal repressión of the moroccan occupied police and settlers against fourteen spanish activists from the Canary Island (located in front of Western Sahara) when they were participating in a peaceful demostration in the capital of our country: L´Aayoune, las week-end.

Last tuesday, August 30th, the 14 Spanish activists attacked in El Aaiun made a press conference after their arrival to the Canary Islands and attested that the situation in the occupied territories of Western Sahara, under which the Saharawi people live, as a huge prison.

“Western Sahara is like a huge prison, where the people live under a climate of continued repression,” According to the testimony of one of the activists, Sara Mesa, upon arriving in Spain.

The activists arrived at the port of La Luz, where they were awaited by a group of 50 supporters with banners and posters for the Saharawi cause. The boat with 14 activists who were arrested and beaten by Moroccan police last Saturday arrived at the Port of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. The boat belongs to "Pro-Saharawi Sahara Acciones."

In the port waiting was a group of supporters who waved placards calling for the creation of a free and democratic referendum in what was the last colony of Spain in Africa and that has been occupied for more than 35 years by Morocco.

According to the testimony of Anselm Fariña "They attacked us without warning, individually administering straight punches to the kidneys and the face. They insulted us and spit on us without stopping. Some colleagues estimate that there were more than a hundred plainclothes police officers. Several of them followed us from our entry into the territory and even on the journey back."

"Nobody cared about what was happening in the occupied territories. Reports reached us that many Saharawi women and children were beaten and the result was many injuries and many faces bloodied. We wanted to denounce the repression suffered by the Saharawi people and we ended up surviving it in our own bodies," adds Anselmo Fariña, a professor from the island of Tenerife.

Members of the group announced their intention to denounce the brutal treatment by the Moroccan police in these incidents. The group of fifty militants who received them and the returning 14 activists shouted loudly: "Guilty Morocco, responsible Spain" and "Sahara Libre (free Sahara)."

SAHARAWI WOMEN CONDEMN THE REPRESSION AGAINST INTERNATIONAL OBSSERVERS

2010-08-28T02:47:00.000+02:00

The Executive-Board of the Saharawi Women´s Association in Spain (AMSE) has hold an important meeting these days in which has discussed about the NGO´s future activities and also the current situation in Western Sahara and has published a new press release in which expresses the following:

The Saharawi Women Association in Spain (SWAS) expresses its strongest condemnation for the abuses suffered at the hands of the moroccan police against the international observers: three spanish citizens: Elizabeth Terrace, Pilar Fortuño, Emma Pomar and his partner, a Mexican citizen, Antonio Velazquez, in the Aaiún, Western Sahara.

As indicated by various medios and testimonies, the international observers were as tourists who "were visiting friends", the home of the famous Saharawi human rights activist, Ali Hammad Hmad, who returned from an International Conference on Human Rights hold in the capital Algeria, Algiers, organized by the Summer University of Boumerdass. In the incident in the occupied capital of Western sahra, El-aaiún, were also injured the saharawi human rights activists: Hmad Ali Hammad, Soultana Kheya and Brahim Sabbar.

Also, as denounced by the Spanish citizens were mistreated "threw us on the ground and stomped and spat on us" not only physically but they remained in a sort of "house arrest."

According to statements made by the Mexican Antonio Velázquez to Europa Press, the group moved to the headquarters to the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) in the Aaiún to lodge a complaint about his treatment by the Moroccan Gendarmerie and the Army since 22 August.

The Saharawi Women want to express our unconditional solidarity with all human rights activists who are imprisoned under systematic torture, to be part of peaceful resistance to the illegal Moroccan occupation and denounce the violation of human rights.

Also, since SWAS has launched, once again, an urgent appeal to all democratic governments of the world, especially the spanish one and all the human rights organizations to deploy their good offices for the Kingdom of Morocco to respect scrupulously the Rights Human in the occupied cities of Western Sahara, as you can see this vicious assault, is not only against the Saharawi population in the occupied cities living under a system of repression but also against international observers.

SAHARAWI WOMEN CONDEMN THE BRUTAL REPRESSION

2010-07-20T01:54:00.000+02:00

Saharawi Women express their most vigorious condemnation to yesterday´s brutal repression perpetrated by the moroccan army against peaceful saharawi citizens whom were going to celebrate the returning of another group of Saharawi human rights activists who have just visited the Saharawi Refugee Camps (South-east Algeria).

Moroccan security services arrested Sunday and Monday in the occupied city of El aaiún dozens of Sahrawi citizens, while dozens others suffered injuries of varying degrees of severity, including four members of the delegation of human rights activists which was on a visit to the refugee camps.

The occupied city of Al Ayun is currently under a tightened security blockade, imposed by various Moroccan intelligence services and police to prevent Sahrawi population from meeting with the delegation of Independence Intifada, after their return to the city, according to identical human rights sources.

The same sources indicated banning at least 20 Sahrawi people from meeting with the delegation of Sahrawi activists and that some of them have been subjected to attacks, resulting in injuries of varying degrees of severity.

It should be recalled that the delegation of human rights activists had expressed, pendig to their visit to the Sahrawi refugee camps, their fear of reprisals by the security services of the Moroccan occupation, as they returned.

¡GOD BLESS OUR LEARDER: MR. MAHFOUD ALI-BEIBA!

2010-07-05T13:21:00.000+02:00

The Saharawi Women, the entire people of western Sahara and also their millions of friends all over the world express their deep condolences to the whole Ali-Beiba´s family and to the saharawi people for the death of the President of the saharawi parliament, Mr. Mahfoud Ali-Beiba who died last friday, July 2nd 2010 at his home in the saharawi refugee camps.

The funeral of the President of the Saharawi National Council, Mahfoudh Ali-Beiba, was held on sunday morning, july 4th, in the cemetery in the wilaya of Smara.

After the prayer of death, the deceased was buried in the presence of the President of the Saharawi Republic, Mohamed Abdelaziz, members of the National Secretariat of the Polisario Front, Members of Parliament, Government, Advisory Council, High Council of Justice and Sahrawi civil and military senior officials, who had come to pay their last tribute to the deceased.

Delegations from Algeria, MINURSO and international organizations and NGOs active in the Saharawi refugee camps, also attended the funeral of the deceased, along with members of his family.

Hundreds and hundreds of Sahrawi citizens also came to attend the funeral of President of the Saharawi National Council, Mahfoudh Ali Beiba.

Our dear brother Mr. Ali-Baiba Hammad Douweihi was born in the northern part of Western-Sahara: Saguia el Hamra in 1.953. He was married with our dear friend Mouina Cheikhatou and father of three beatifoul girls: Chaiaa, Fala and Mahfoudha.

In 1976 he had been appointed Secretary General of the Polisario Front, after the death of El-Ouali Mustapha Sayed, the founder of the Saharawi independence movement.

He had been replaced by Mohamed Abdelaziz, who still directs the liberation movement.

Mahfoud Ali Beiba was also Prime Minister of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic, (SADR)proclaimed by the Polisario, from 1982-1985, then 1995-1999.

Mahfoud Ali Beiba had chaired since 1997, all Saharawi delegations during the negotiations on the future of Western Sahara with Morocco conducted under the auspices of the United Nations and had been Chairman of the NSC since 2003.

The Saharawi Government has declared a week of mourning from last Saturday in honnour of one the most important leaders of POLISARIO Front movement and one of the historic leaders of the saharawi people who is still crying because of this great loss. Becasue Mahfoud Ali-Baiba is known by his strong loyalty to the national cause, a great defender of the legitimate right of self-determination and independence of the saharawi people. That is why we still crying for these huge loss in your third day´s death but we can assure you that we will continue in the struggle for what you have sacrificed your youth and your whole life.

¡God bless you!.

In-na lil-lahi wa in-na ileihi rayiúun.

WESTERN SAHARA´S CONFLICT IN THE MAIN U.N.´S AGENDA

2010-06-24T13:50:00.000+02:00

The women from the Africa´s last colony: Western Sahara, totally support the whole speech of the POLISARO Front United Nations´s Permanent Representative, Mr. ahmed, pronounced this week in

the Special Committee on Decolonization of western sahara hold in the UN´s main headquarters.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el-Hamra and Rio de Oro (Polisario Front), said 18 years had passed since the United Nations had endorsed, in 1991, the plan for a self-determination referendum in Western Sahara, which was still to be held. The process had been deterred by Morocco on the basis of friendships it had forged in the Security Council, particularly with France, which would provide it with impunity to continue its destructive efforts. Morocco still believed that it could involve the Council in gravely altering the Saharan people's fundamental basic right to self-determination. None of the endeavours carried out, from the 1997 Houston Agreement to the 2003 Baker Plan, to efforts by Christopher Ross, the Secretary-General's Personal Envoy, had managed to overcome the intransigence of the occupying Power, he said.

Morocco had incorporated new arguments and pretexts to create new alliances within the Council in exchange for hopes of realizing the final annexation of Western Sahara, he continued. That would signify the introduction of a new and curious doctrine that would enable all those participating in it to annex neighbouring territories, he warned. That pseudo-solution of "autonomy of Moroccan sovereignty", which Morocco had formulated in 2007 and set as a precondition for advancing the current negotiations, implied forcing the Saharan people to renounce the option of independence and integrate into the occupying Power. It would not be difficult for members of the Special Committee to consider that pseudo-solution as a grave rejection of the principle of self-determination, established by the United Nations in resolution 1514 (XV) and defined in resolution 1541 (XV).

Morocco continued to negate the 1991 United Nations decision, he said, adding that it also continued illegally to exploit Western Sahara's natural resources and to violate the Saharan people's human rights under the eyes and ears of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO). There was no indication that Morocco would change its position in the near future, he said, noting that the United Nations would fail to address the situation of the last African territory on the Special Committee's agenda. The Moroccan case could have represented success on decolonization, but instead, it had become a symbol of protracted failure. No one could resign themselves to a fait accompli predicated on false and territorial appetites, he stressed.

He said Morocco was continuing the expansionist policies of Mohamed Allal al‑Fassi, leader of the Istiqlal Party, who had sought, since independence in 1956, to forge a "Greater Morocco" extending into Senegal and swallowing up all of Western Sahara, Mauritania and parts of Algeria and Mali. The region had seen no peace since 1975, and had even moved further away from it due to Morocco's decision to base its demands on ancient history. Failure to follow the road to peace, as instructed by the United Nations, should not be permitted, he said, adding that the Special Committee could play a large role in replacing injury and violence with a complete process for the peaceful decolonization of the last African colony on its agenda.

More than ever, the Special Committee had the chance to find out for itself what was happening in the Territory, he said, recalling that its last visit to Western Sahara had taken place 35 years ago. There was no valid or convincing reason to object to a second visit until the question of decolonization was resolved. The Special Committee had a right to request and receive true and appropriate information about the situation in the Territory, but Morocco was refusing to provide it, claiming that it had no colonies, only "provinces". Sooner or later international law would prevail in Western Sahara, he said.

Calling for a pooling of efforts to convince Morocco to cooperate with the United Nations on ending the unsustainable colonial situation that had handicapped the future of the entire region, bringing instability and insecurity, he said all countries of the region had been subjected to European colonization, and had subsequently spent years building their own independent futures. "We cannot be an exception to the general rule," he emphasized, denouncing Morocco for trying to return to times of injury, violence and territorial bullying based on ancient history. The only way forward was through a democratic solution in which the Saharan people would be masters of their own destiny, he said.

When asked by the representative of Bolivia about a solution to the conflict, Mr. Boukhari ahmed said all the parties concerned had agreed on a solution "a long time". The consensus had been that the Saharan people could decide whether they preferred to remain part of Morocco or to become independent. However, there had been a deviation from that process towards attempts to legitimize an unacceptable situation, he said, noting that, during informal negotiations, Morocco had taken "a step back". In light of that, Mr. Ross hoped to consider a new negotiating round in efforts to move forward. The only solution was to apply the already agreed-upon principle of self-determination for Western Sahara, he said, noting that any other method could lead to "a dead end".

Responding to a question by the representative of Nicaragua about the Special Committee's role, he said that, as long as the decolonization process continued in the Territory, the Special Committee would remain involved and use all the means at its disposal. He said he did not understand the rationale behind objections to the Special Committee visiting Western Sahara in order for members to view the situation for themselves. It should visit, since preventing such a visit would not help to strengthen the competence of its work.

Asked by the representative of Venezuela about the difficulties of the decolonization process, he said the current situation in Western Sahara was the result of destruction that had begun in 2009. Considering the risk that a lack of action could become a shield for the status quo, he urged the United Nations to take another look at the situation in Western Sahara so as to avoid a tragedy that would take place in the Organization's name.

THE SAHARAWIS AND THE WORLD REFUGEE´S DAY

2010-06-20T23:49:00.000+02:00

On the occassion of the World Refugee´s Day, June 20th, the Saharawi Women would like to express their great concern about the plight of the more than fourty millions of refugee persons around the world among them the thousand of the saharawis whom were forced to scape their country: Western Sahara when Morocco invaded their country theirty-five years ago.

The Saharawi Women launched an urgent appeal to the international community to convince Morocco to implement the hundreds of United Nations´s resolutions on this problem of decolonization and to respect the human rights in the saharawi cities of Western Sahara, illegally occupied by the moroccan army.

The Saharawi Women are convinced that the hardships of the Saharawi refugees will continue as long as Morocco continues to illegally profit from the occupation of its neighbouring country and that is why we as women from this north-african country call on the international community to break the cash-flow from the occupied territories to the Moroccan treasury.

The humanitarian situation for the Saharawi grows ever more acute. The Saharawi people living in the refugee camps in Algeria suffer from donor fatigue and malnutrition. A study from 2008 establishes that 1 in every 5 Saharawi children is malnourished. It is unsettling to note that the annual multilateral aid to the refugee camps is only a small percentage of the massive profits Morocco makes by illegally exploiting the Saharawi resources.

Once again and on the World Refugee Day we, the Saharawi Women urge the international community to stop turning a blind eye to this persistent injustice. Choosing to look away is also a political choice, as it only strengthens the ongoing and untenable moroccanization of the territory.

Furthermore, it is an offense to the Saharawi refugees, who in the face of inhumane hardship have kept their end of the seize-fire bargain, doing exactly what the international community has asked them to do: wait. If the United Nations are truly committed to solving the last unresolved colonial conflict in Africa , breaking the cash-flow from the occupied territories to the occupying regime might be a good place to start.

NEW BOOK ON WESTERN SAHARA

2010-06-12T02:25:00.000+02:00

The Saharawi Women would like to express their congratulations to the authors of the last book that has just been published on the conflict of decolonization of Western Sahara: The two authors of this book are: the american university professors: Stephen Zunes and Jacob Mundy.

The tittle of the book is: War, Nationalism, and Conflict Irresolution and with a Foreword by George McGovern

"The Western Sahara is one of the world’s last vestiges of colonialism. In this thoughtful and impressive analysis, Stephen Zunes and Jacob Mundy provide valuable insights on the importance of enabling the people of the Western Sahara to determine their own future through a democratic referendum."

—the late Senator Edward Kennedy

"This book is a timely and scholarly synthesis presented with clarity and comprehension. Backed by their fieldwork, the authors consider Western Sahara’s irresolution as a consequence of not only competing nationalisms (and interfering actors), but also of conflicting imaginations of polity and society."

—Phillip Naylor, author of France and Algeria: A History of Decolonization and Transformation

Description:

The Western Sahara conflict has proven to be one of the most protracted and intractable struggles facing the international community. Pitting local nationalist determination against Moroccan territorial ambitions, the dispute is further complicated by regional tensions with Algeria and the geo-strategic concerns of major global players, including the United States, France, and the territory’s former colonial ruler, Spain. For over twenty years, the UN Security Council has failed to find a formula that will delicately balance these interests against Western Sahara’s long-denied right to a self-determination referendum as one of the last UN-recognized colonies.

In the first book-length treatment of the issue in over two decades, Zunes and Mundy examine the origins, evolution, and resilience of the Western Sahara conflict, deploying a diverse array of sources and firsthand knowledge of the region gained from multiple research visits. Shifting geographical frames—local, regional, and international—provide for a robust analysis of the stakes involved.

View other books in the Syracuse Studies on Peace and Conflict Resolution series

Authors:

Stephen Zunes is professor of politics and international studies at the University of San Francisco where he chairs the program in Middle Eastern Studies. He is the author of Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism. He was named Peace Scholar of the Year for 2002 by the Peace and Justice Studies Association.

Jacob Mundy is a doctoral candidate at the University of Exeter’s Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, and author of several book chapters and articles on North African politics. He is Amnesty USA’s Country Specialist for Morocco and Western Sahara, and served as a consulting external analyst for the International Crisis Group for the Western Sahara conflict.

WINNIE MANDELA REAFFIRMS HER COMMITMENT WITH THE SAHARAWI PEOPLE

2010-06-01T02:15:00.001+02:00

The historical anti-apartheid activsit,Winnie Mandela, has reaffirmed her commitment of supporting the the Saharawi people´s struggle for freedom and independence.

The symbol of the struggle of the all african women, Mrs. Winnie Mandela, has been invited by the main Vice-Chancellors of the seven Public Universities of Madrid for attending an interesting conference on Western Sahara which has been held in the spanish capital, Madrid, where a great number of experts in the issue of decolnization of Western sahara have taken part during the three days talks. They invited her to participate in the International Conference because since last month of March she was elected as the President of the International Platform of Solidarity with the Saharawi People.

Winnie Mandela called in her speech in Madrid for the decolonization of Western Sahara, "the last colony in Africa," and condemned the Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara, comparing it with "the fascist apartheid regime" in South Africa.

During the Public Universities Days on Western Sahara, opened on Wednesday, May 26th, in Madrid, Winnie Mandela stated that the "solution to the question of Western Sahara is clear, which is the self-determination and independence, based on the application of the UN legitimate resolutions and international recognized principles."

The ANC historic leader and nowadays South-African´s M.P. pointed out that "Western Sahara remains the last colony in Africa at a time when we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the UNGA resolution which is the cornerstone of the decolonization course under the auspices of the United Nations in the framework of international law and major independences in the African continent."

Winnie Mandela - President of the International Women's platform in support of the Sahrawi cause - also stated that the struggle of the Saharawi people for its inalienable right to self-determination is "a just and legitimate struggle for liberation led by a legitimate government."

She further stated "it is a struggle against colonialism and occupant and repressive state, indicating that Spain "has stolen the land and left it to other colonizer, namely Morocco, which continues to benefit from the support of Madrid as well as other Western powers exploiting the natural resources of the Saharawi people" She said in her speech.

WINNIE MANDELA: "I AM VERY SURE THAT THE SAHARAWI PEOPLE WILL BE FREE SOONER OR LATER"

2010-05-26T01:16:00.000+02:00

The historic South-African women´s leader, Winnie Mandela, is in the spanish capital, Madrid, responding to an invitation from the main Public universities of Comunidad de Madrid which have invited her as the President of the International Plattform of Solidarity with the Saharawi Women.

The fourth edition of the Madrid public universities meeting on Western Sahara helds from May 26th to 29th in the Spanish capital with the participation of many academics, experts in the colonial conflict, as well as several political personalities, including among many others Sahrawi Prime Minister Abdelkader Taleb Omar or the South African Winnie Mandela. The fourth-day, which is meant to be a public space for reflection and debate on the Sahrawi issue, will be held at the prestigious Fine Arts Circle in Madrid under the theme: "Western Sahara, an outstanding agenda, decolonization and human rights."

In a meeting hold today between the South-African Women´s leader and the President of the Spanish Plattform of Women´s Artist, cristina del Valle acompigned by the Sahrawi Women´s International Relations Officer, Suelam Beiruk, she said that is going to launch a huge international campaign of solidarity with the saharawi people and mainly with their women whom are an example of emancipation and empowerment in the arab and muslim world.

SAHARAWI WOMEN CONDEMN THE UNFURLING OF THE WORLD´S BIGGEST FLAG

2010-05-18T10:27:00.000+02:00

The Saharawi Women condemn the innitiative of the moroccan occupuders authorities to add a moroccan huge flag in the illegal occupied city of western Sahara, Dakhla, and we express our total support to the campainers who have dismissed the unfurling of the world’s biggest flag in occupied Western Sahara as a political stunt by Morocco and demanded that Guinness World Records strip them of the record which they were awarded on 9th May.

The giant 20 tonne, 60,000 metre Moroccan standard was laid out on 9 May in Dakhla, Western Sahara and Guinness World Records sent a judge to authenticate the record. But campaigners from Europe, America and Australasia have pointed out that Western Sahara is classified by the United Nations as a non-self-governing territory and that Moroccan claims to sovereignty over the territory have been dismissed by the International Court of Justice. Indeed not a single nation recognises Morocco’s occupation.

Campaigners last week contacted Guinness to point out that by authenticating the record they were legitimising the unlawful occupation of Western Sahara and requested that the record be rescinded. In response a spokesperson for Guinness responded stating that “our task is to measure, count, monitor all world records. We are not in a position to comment on the political nature of things - we simply document the world around us.” Stefan Simanowitz who chairs the global campaigning intiative the Free Western Sahara Network does not accept this. “Under international law, the situation of Western Sahara is unambiguous. Morocco’s invasion was a serious breach of the UN Charter and the UN has passed over a hundred Resolutions reaffirming the inalienable right of the Western Saharan people to self-determination” he argues. “By authenticating this record in occupied Western Sahara they are effectively legitimising an illegitmate occupation.”

The Free Western Sahara Network together with other campaigning groups around the world accuse Morocco of using the giant flag as a clumsy attempt to distract attention from a series of PR disasters surrounding Morocco’s 35 illegal occupation of neighbouring Western Sahara. The record attempt came just days after it emerged that the Moroccans had persuaded the French government to use their veto to prevent any mention of human rights being included in the latest UN Resolution on the disputed territory and just months after Morocco was forced to readmit hunger striking Nobel Peace Prize activist Aminatou Haidar after having her deported. Simanowitz believes that it is incumbent on Guinness to strip Morocco of their record. “If Saddam Hussein had unfurled a giant Iraqi flag in Kuwait in 1990 I am confident Guinness would not have flown out a judge to measure it” he argues. “By sending a judge to authenticate a record attempt that has clear political overtones, Guinness cannot claim to be non-political. We ask that this record be rescinded.”

NEW FILM ON WESTERN SAHARA: "SONS OF THE CLOUDS"

2010-05-17T01:30:00.000+02:00

The Saharawi Women would like to express their deepest thanks to the actor Javier Bardem and the other artists and professionals for their wonderful idea to make a film on the issue of Western Sahara for giving awareness on this unjustice that is facing the people and of the territory known as the Africa´s last colony.

Javier Bardem, who toplines Cannes competition player "Biutiful," will produce and narrate the Western Sahara-focused documentary feature "Oulad Lemzun" (Sons of the Clouds).

Bardem will produce through his Spanish label Pinguin Films. Wild Bunch will handle international rights outside Spain.

"Sons" reps the directorial debut of Alvaro Longoria, one of Spain's most internationally minded indie producers.

Based out of Madrid's Morena Films, which will co-produce "Sons," Longoria exec-produced Steven Soderbergh's "Che" and Oliver Stone's "Comandante." Both Bardem and Longoria will take producer credits. "Sons" has been pre-bought by Spain's main pay-TV operator, Canal Plus.

Now in pre-production, "Sons" will shoot in Western Sahara, Algeria, Mauritania, U.S., Spain and France.

"Sons" is an attempt, said Bardem, to analyze the "political and economic interests" behind a "geopolitical chess game" played by Morocco, Algeria, the U.S., Spain and France. This has left the Western Sahara as a colony -- the last in Africa, said Bardem -- and nearly 200,000 people living in refugee camps, largely in Algeria.

"Our objective is to illustrate, explain and expose this unknown story in a neutral way, telling all sides of the story and leaving the final judgement to the audience," Longoria told Variety.

Intended interviewees include French president Nicholas Sarkozy, Abdelaziz Butlefika of Algeria, Mohamed Abdelaziz of the Arab Saharaui Republic, former Ronald Reagan and George H.H. Bush chief of staff James Baker, former Spanish p.m. Jose Maria Aznar, Jacques Chirac, Felipe Gonzalez, former U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger and former U.S. president Bill Clinton.

Bardem and Longoria both attended the 5th Sahara Intl. Film Frstival in 2008, which is held in refugee camps in South-West Algeria.

"Essentially, the film aims to prove that under the current world system those 'too small to matter' are ignored and fall between the world's political cracks," Bardem said.All profits from the film will be given to an NGO to help Saharaui children, said Longoria.

"Sons of the Clouds" is the name the Saharauis give to themselves -- "Oulad Lemzun" in Hassania.

ANOTHER YEAR FOR MINURSO DOING NOTHING IN WESTERN SAHARA

2010-05-04T02:29:00.000+02:00

The Saharawi Women would like to express their disagreement and their concern on the recent UN Security Council´s resolution on Western Sahara aproved late this friday, April 30th 2010.

We express our concern and disaproval to this resolution because they have not included the need of protecting the human rights in Western Sahara due to the dangerous situation are facing our citizens in the occupied cities of what is known as the Africa´s last colony.

As usually, for almost nineteen years the United Nations has extented the mandate of the peacekeeping force in Western Sahara, illegally occupied by kingdom of Morroco.

The Women from this country and the entire saharawi people are deeply concerded on the issue of the great violation of human rights.

Mandate of UN peacekeeping force in Western Sahara extended for another year without approving any mandate of promoting human rights in the occupied cities of Western sahara, where the moroccan occupied authorities are violating daily the human rights like unjust prisons, detentions, turtures, etc..

We want to launch an urgent appeal to the international community to put pressure on the moroccan government to respect the international resolutions and to respect the human rights on Western Sahara.

UN Press release informed: "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.”

The resolution was adopted after Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in his latest report on the peacekeeping mission (known as MINURSO), recently welcomed both parties’ commitment to the process of negotiations and their willingness to engage in the preparatory informal format.

But he noted that two informal meetings under the auspices of his personal envoy Christopher Ross held in August 2009 and February this year produced no movement on the core substantive issues, and more work is needed before a fifth round can be held.

Mr. Ross’ efforts to promote a settlement have been “laborious,” the Secretary-General said. “Their pace and substance have been heavily affected by the parties’ reaction to events in the region and their unyielding attachment to mutually exclusive positions.”

The recent resolution called on the parties to continue the dialogue under the auspices of the Secretary-General without preconditions to achieve “a just, lasting and mutually acceptable political solution, which will provide for the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara.”

Last week, the Secretary-General expressed concern about alleged violations of human rights in the Western Sahara conflict and vowed to continue to promote the rights of Sahrawis after meeting with Mohamed Abdelaziz, Secretary-General of the Frente Polisario.

He reassured Mr. Abdelaziz of “the UN’s commitment to maintaining an active and balanced engagement in the search for a solution to the Western Sahara conflict that provides for the self-determination for the people of Western Sahara,” according to information released by Mr. Ban’s spokesperson.

“The Secretary-General stated that he remains very concerned about alleged violations of human rights. He said that his Personal Envoy, Christopher Ross, and the Secretariat will continue to work to promote the human rights of Sahrawis.”

RABAB AMAIDAN WRITTES AN OPEN LETTER TO HER BROTHER IN JAIL

2010-04-21T23:19:00.000+02:00

The Saharawi Women express our total solidarity with all the saharawis that are suffering in the moroccan prisons and condemn the flagrant violations of human rights and launch an appeal to the international community to assume its responsability for the life of the saharawis that are in hunger strike for more than thirty-four days as a protest of their inhuman situation.

Rabab Amaidan is a young human righta activists from our country who is now studying in a swedish university and she has recently sent the following open letter to her brother who is in jail:

Rabab writes: "I try to keep my sweet memories alive.. try to remember when we used to play on the roof of our grand parents’ big house, or playing with the neighbors’ kids, or sometimes we fight each others and he used always to win the fight..! When he used to call me the “cross-eyed” or the “big-nosed” to make me angry..

I remember our devil plans to steal sweets from the kitchen without my mother knowing..

Many funny things make me smile when it comes to my mind.. But, quickly, the sad and horrible memory comes to banish my sweet ones..!

I remember the police chasing him, remember him hiding, remember them storming our small house, remember the screaming, tears, beatings and torture... I remember how much I hate Morocco..

My little brother is now Hunger Striking.. with the Saharawi political prisoners and prisoners of conscience all over the Moroccan prisons, some of them have started the strike since the 18 of March.

My brother has been sent urgently to hospital today and once again earlier this week because of his weak health situation..

Being in prison for four years now, in neglect, malnutrition, bad treatment by the prison guards; Besides, the loneliness of being in a Moroccan prison, in an area where another language is spoken, not even the Moroccan accent that we are familiar with, the one is spoken by the settlers in our country..

Being far from home, it is hard for the family and friends to visit him often... Those harsh experiences make the mountain fall in ruin as we express in "Hassania..!

I wish I were the one in prison and that he would be free.. at least I am elder than him and have had some good times in my life, it would be ok for me to get in prison..

But, he is younger and has been imprisoned twice in his life, in addition to the several times he was detained and tortured..

He lost his education career, his sweet teenage life, his health, his natural and moral growth...

Oh! it is killing me to see how huge his suffering is and I can do nothing to change his situation!

Sadly, my brother is only one example of hundreds of Saharawis that are suffering in Moroccan prisons and secret jails..! " finnishs Rabab Amaidan´s open letter to her brother in jail.

TITTLE THOURA WRITES TO HER FATHER: ALI-SALEM TAMEK

2010-04-19T00:42:00.000+02:00

The saharawi Women express their strongest condemnations to all forms of reppression particularly the reppressive moroccan policy in the occupied cities of Western Sahara and also we want to express our solidarity with all the saharawi compatriots who are in prision only because they fight for their legitimate right of self-determination and independence. littleThaura is the daughter of one of the famous saharawi human rights activists, Ali-Salem Tamek, who is in hunger strike like all his group that where taken into prison only because they visited their families in the saharawi refugee camps and who are now in their thirty-second day of hunger strike for protesting against the illegal conditions.

Thawra says to her father in the following call:

I won’t stop calling you, Daddy!

I won’t get tired of repeating out loud, “Free my dad! Free my dad!”

My father that I love brought me up to be stubborn and named me “Thawra” (Revolution), so that the revolution would be the first word I hear and answer to. He wanted me to be a seed of a revolution that grows.. and resists.. and prevails. But my name doesn’t mean anything without my people, because my people are a revolution, and the revolution, to my eyes, is my people. Each one of them is tied to the other to provide love, compassion, security and peace, because in this case, the revolution is not only blood and fire; the revolution here is also life.

My Dad, to me you are a symbol! A source that provides me with the feeling of belonging to my people. You make me proud of both my people and you. For this I loudly call, now, tomorrow and anytime, on all the free men of the world to stand up to come to the rescue of noble people like you. People who bare similar names, revolutionary people like you, militants who preferred to fight for principles and to take the risks. They abandoned their personal comfort, their personal happiness, to dedicate the most precious thing they have for the sake of the cause of the Saharawi people, to register the struggle of this people amongst the revolutions of the rest of nations.

Revolutions never die, because they are made by the people, and the people never forget. The collective memories of the peoples keep the stories and legends of their honourable sons to immortalize their names. Remember that caravans of followers took the path shaped by Martyr El Wali Mustapha Sayed, and more are still taking it, and there will be more and more tomorrow, so never feel embarrassed, my Dad! Never hesitate, because since you made your decision to fight, I looked up to you to see in you such a brave fighter, strong and courageous, you were great in my eyes, a freedom fighter who never compromises, never tires out, never despairs. And most important, Dad, never give up or fall despite of the weakness and disease, despite of death itself. If death is to come, Dad, die standing up! Because you were born to die standing. You gave me the name of the revolution and its path, so be sure, Dad, that the sadism of the torturers and their arrogance have only made me even more determined to keep on the path you chose for me, though they abusively deprived me of growing up with my Saharawi mates and deprived me from my grandparents and my homeland. Despite of all this, I fully accept and welcome my fate and that of my people.

I love you, Dad! Unlike other kids who love their parents, because I can only live through you. When I heard the news of your arrest with your comrades and your presentation before the justice of the soldiers, I panicked, and I was afraid to the point that I hid in the corner to cry so as to ease my heart, to cry my loneliness and my homesickness. We are both deprived of our homeland, my Dad - I am living abroad living like a stranger, and you are living in the prison of the occupier. Your opinions and thoughts treated like strangers, but you never surrendered, and you overcame your thoughts and doubts to choose an open hunger strike, while I almost succumb to illusions and despair.

I am still firm, my Dad, my love of life takes me to you, and missing you every moment brings me closer to you. And I can say that it is so sad when the feelings of adults invade my childhood, when we the children start to worry about you. Am I worried about you my dad? If I am not now while you are hunger striking, when can I get worried? You and your comrades almost finished one month fighting at the limits of death in the continuous battle of the hunger strike.

Yes, I have to confess, I am scared. I am terribly scared, and I fear the tragedy and bad news, and for that I will cry, Dad! I will cry so as everybody can see my tears, and I promise I won’t stop crying until I can see you and your comrades free! Until you and your comrades give us back our smile. Give us, your kids, our smile that became a hope and an aspiration we lose thousands of times in every moment, in every day of your hunger strike.

I won’t tire, Dad, from crying out loud “Free my dad, and free all of my dad’s comrades,.. and leave to never come again. Oh, you who made our days so sad and dark! Oh, you who turned us to orphans, separated us, displaced us and imprisoned us! Aren’t you yet satisfied with all those crimes you have committed? Leave us alone and never come back, so as we can recuperate our smile, so as my dad can come back to me, so as the victims of forced disappearance can come back, and the prisoners and the refugees.”

Thawra Ali Salem Tamek

Daughter of Ali Salem Tamek, the prominent human rights defender.

"THE SAHARAWI PEOPLE MUST DECIDE FOR HIMSELF" SAID MRS. RAMDAN

2010-03-28T00:53:00.000+01:00

Madrid´s correspondent of Intermational Press Service (IPS) published these days an article about the situation in Western Sahara specially on occassion of the visit to the region of the United Nation Secretary General Special Representative, Christopher Ross.

and the journalist interviewed Mrs. Zahra Ramdán, Chair-person of the Association of Saharawi Women in Spain.

"The only solution for the conflict over Morocco's occupation of the Western Sahara is to do what the Saharawi people decide regarding their future" said Zahra Ramdan, President of the Association of Saharawi Women in Spain, told IPS.

Christopher Ross, United Nations envoy for the Western Sahara, expressed himself in similar terms this week after a tour that took him to Morocco, Algeria, Italy, France and Spain.

The aim of his visits, he said, was to reach a mutually accepted political solution that could lead to the holding of a referendum in the framework of the U.N. charter.

Western Sahara, a phosphate-rich disputed desert territory on the northwest coast of Africa bordered by Morocco, Algeria and Mauritania, was annexed by Morocco after Spain pulled out in 1975.

A political process aimed at determining the future of the territory has been at an impasse for many years. In 1991, the U.N. brokered a ceasefire to end the armed conflict between Morocco and the Polisario Front, the Algeria-based Sahrawi independence movement, which erupted in 1976.

But while a referendum on self-determination for Western Sahara, in which the Sahrawi people would choose between independence, autonomy and integration, was promised in the 1990s, Morocco has prevented the poll from taking place.

On Thursday, students grouped in the "university platform for support for the Sahara" organised a demonstration outside the foreign ministry in downtown Madrid, as part of a series of activities calling for the territory's self-determination that began Mar. 15.

The theme of the students' activities is "Camping for the Sahara: 35 years is enough; freedom for the Sahrawi people" - a reference to this year's anniversary of the withdrawal of Spanish troops from the Western Sahara and the occupation by Morocco.

Mrs. Ramdan pointed out to IPS that the Polisario Front has respected the ceasefire and sees the U.N.'s proposed solution as positive.

But, she added, "the problem still lies in Morocco, where the king is not in favour of allowing the Sahrawi people to decide by means of a referendum."

Ross, a U.S. diplomat who U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed as his personal envoy for Western Sahara in January 2009, said "the negotiations…have stalled and we are all called to think and find the best way out of this impasse."

But he also told reporters "I remain convinced that with good faith all will be reached soon to resolve this problem."

Ross met with Sahrawi president-in-exile Mohammed Abdelaziz at a Sahrawi refugee camp in Tindouf province, Algeria; Mauritania's President Mohammed Ould Abdel Aziz; Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika; and Morocco's King Mohammed VI.

Ramdan said that while the U.N. resolution for a referendum is positive, "Morocco has shown that it neither respects the U.N. nor complies with the Security Council resolutions."

She was referring to a 2003 resolution known as the Baker Plan II, which envisioned Sahrawi self-rule under a Western Sahara Authority for a period of five years, to be followed by a referendum on independence, and a later 2007 resolution.

The Sahrawi activist said it is indispensable for the U.N. to make Rabat live up to the Security Council resolutions on the Western Sahara, "especially given the fact that they are supported by all of the nations involved directly or indirectly, with the exception of Morocco."

Although the Western Sahara has rich phosphate deposits, fisheries and offshore oil reserves, it is an undeveloped, poverty-stricken territory.

Some 200,000 Sahrawi people live in the refugee camps in Tindouf province, Algeria, near the Moroccan border, where both jobs and water are scarce and summer temperatures soar to 50 degrees Celsius.

The refugee camps visited by Ross will receive another group of visitors between Mar. 28 and Apr. 3 - this time hundreds of mainly young activistsresponding to a call by two Spanish student groups, Voluntad y Determinación (Will and Determination) and Conciencia Saharaui (Sahrawi Conscience or Awareness).

The activists' trip to the camps, under the slogan "Column 2010: Let's knock down the wall and build freedom", is aimed at sending out the message that it is time to find a fair resolution to the conflict, to allow the Sahrawi people to return to their territory and live in freedom.

During the visit, the activists will march along part of the "Moroccan wall" or "wall of shame", a 2,500-km sand embankment built by Morocco in the 1980s, that separates the Moroccan-controlled areas and the Polisario-controlled section of Western Sahara.

INTERNATIOANL CONFERENCE OF SOLIDARITY WITH THE SAHARAWI WOMEN

2010-03-25T17:16:00.000+01:00

The Second International Conference of solidarity with Saharawi Women held under the motto of " Woman and Resistance" which has taken place in the Saharawi Refugee Camps from March 20th to 22nd where a huge number of foreign delegations have participated mainly from Africa, Europe and both Americas has adopted important decitions among them the need of strenghthening the relationship among the whole women´s organizations and to help the saharawi women in all the fields mainly in the international arena.

Winnie Mandela was one off the participants in this historical event of solidarity with the saharawi women. In her intervention in the symposium the historial southafrican woman leader said that she will led the international support and solidarity with the women from the last african colony: Western sahara, and will deploy a great campaign all over the world on the saharawi people´s struggle for peace and justice.

The participants sent the following letter to the president of the Commission of the African Union.

Mr. President

We, the women participating in the Second Annual International meeting of Solidarity with the struggle of the Sahrawi women for their right to self-determination and independence, which takes place in the Sahrawi refugee camps under the theme "Women and resistance," in the presence of women from different continents, while expressing our support for the struggle of the Sahrawi women and people, we call upon the African Union to intervene to complete the liberation of the African continent by decolonizing one of its full fledged members, a found of the African Union and last African colony through the organization of a free, democratic and fair referendum to enable the Sahrawi people to exercise its inalienable right to self-determination, granted him by the international conventions, especially the Charters of the United Nations and African Union.

Mr. President

The meeting is held under deep concern to Sahrawis about the human rights situation in the occupied territories of Western Sahara and southern Morocco, in particular the deteriorating situation of human rights activists on hanger strike in Sale prison to demand their release or a fair trial.

We urge you to urgently intercede with the Moroccan state to release all those detained Sahrawi political prisoners in Moroccan prisons and unveil the fate of hundreds of missing persons and prisoners of war still unaccounted for.

We urge you and the international community to exert pressure on the Moroccan regime to comply with the international legitimacy and stop its ongoing human rights violations against Sahrawis, documented by credible international organizations and bodies, through expanding the mandate of the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara to include the monitoring and reporting on the situation of human rights in the region. We also demand the immediate cessation of the illegal looting of natural resources of Western Sahara and dismantlement of the wall of shame and humiliation, which divides the Saharawi people and its land and contaminates the environment with millions of anti-personnel mines, thus constituting a crime against humanity and nature.

Mr. President

The independence, stability and progress of the African continent is above all a responsibility of Africa, a requirement that can only be achieved through the contribution to solve the question of Western Sahara by decolonizing it, via the organization of a free and democratic referendum, where the Sahrawi people can choose their own future and thus turn the last page of the history of colonialism in our continent and contribute to its growth and its women work side by side with their sisters in Africa to erase the vestiges of colonialism and lead their peoples to a better future.

SAHARAWI WOMEN AGAINST THE E.U.- MOROCCO TREATY

2010-02-28T11:17:00.000+01:00

The women from Western Sahara unite their voices to all those who are launching a great campaign against the European Union´s decition to give the Kingdom of Morocco an advantatus because signing this kind of agreeement with a country like whom is ilegally occuping another country, Western Sahara, and daily violating the human rights and all the resolutions of the international community, we can not accept it.

For that reason, we, the saharawi women are going to take part in all the activities organized by the european movement of solidarity with the sahara people is going to do these days before and during the Summit between European Union and Morocco which wil take place in the spanish city of Granada from 6 to 7 of march 2010.

Saharawi Women are going to participate in different events like talks, conferences, demonstrations etc. for protesting against the EU-Morocco Summit in Granada and also for giving awareness on the dangerous situation in the occupied cities of Western Sahara.
Fisheries Partnership Agreement between the European Community and the Kingdom of Morocco – Declaration by the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) of 21 January 2009 of jurisdiction over an Exclusive Economic Zone of 200 nautical miles off the Western Sahara- Catches taken by EU-flagged vessels fishing in the waters off the Western Sahara.
By letter dated 6 May 2009, received by the Legal Service on 7 May 2009, you requested a legal opinion on the legal consequences for the Fisheries Partnership (FPA) between the European Community and the Kingdom of Morocco of the declaration by the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) of 21 January 2009 of jurisdiction over an Exclusive Economic Zone of 200 nautical miles off the Western Sahara.
In light of the above, the Legal Service answers the two questions as follows:
“As for the declaration of jurisdiction over an EEZ of 200 nautical miles off the Western Sahara by SADR
The declaration of jurisdiction over an EEZ off Western Sahara by SADR does not produce legal consequences on the FPA with Morocco . Such declaration cannot produce legal effects for three different reasons :
- SADR does not enjoy the characteristics of statehood;

- it is not an cannot be a signatory party of UNCLOS;

- the territory which it claims not only is barely to a limited extent subject to its control, but is considered as a whole to be a Non Self-Governing Territory within the meaning of Article 73 of the United Nations Charter.

As for the catches taken by EU-flagged vessels fishing in the waters off the Western Sahara

Following a series of parliamentary questions to the Commission, it appears that EU-flagged vessels have fished in the waters off Western Sahara. Not only this can be deducted from the data provided by the Member States to the Commission pursuant to their obligations established by Community legislation on “control”, but also it has also been explicitly acknowledged in several Commission declarations.
In its previous legal opinion of 20 February 2006, the Legal Service noted that, failing a clear delimitation in the FPA of the fishing zones in which EU vessels were entitled to fish, it could not be excluded that Community vessels would operate in the waters off Western Sahara. The Legal Service considered however that it was not possible at that time to prejudge how the FPA would be implemented. The Legal Service observed that if it could not be said that the FPA is, as such, contrary to the principles of international law, the implementation of the FPA would determine if the principles of international law concerning the rights of the people of Western Sahara will or will not be complied with.
More than two years after the entry into force of the FPA (28 February 2007) a first assessment of the implementation of the FPA can now be done, especially with regard to the implementation of the sectoral fisheries policy referred to in Article 7(1)(b) of the Agreement and in Articles 6 and 7 of the Protocol. The matrix of objectives/results of the sectoral fisheries policy identifies both global and specific objectives and lists the actions programmed to attain those objectives over the period of application of the agreement.
One has to note from the outset that this matrix does not contain specific actions explicitly foreseen with a view to benefit the population of Western Sahara . It is true that some actions foreseen in the matrix target port towns situated in the territory of Western Sahara, such a Laayoune, Dakhla and Boujdour. However, it is not demonstrated that the EC financial contribution is used for the benefit of the people of Western Sahara. Yet, compliance with international law requires that economic activities related to the natural resources of a Non-Self-Governing Territory are carried out for the benefits of the people of such Territory, and in accordance with their wishes.
The actions mentioned in the matrix essentially aim at improving the infrastructure of the ports of Western Sahara . This is not necessarily equal to benefiting the people of Western Sahara insofar as they are not mentioned in the programming document and it is not known whether and to what extent they are able to take advantage of such improvements.
The Legal Service is not in a position to establish the facts on the ground and to conclude that the abovementioned actions targeting ports of Western Sahara actually benefit the population of Western Sahara . This assessment needs to be done in concrete terms on the basis of all relevant information, and the Joint Committee established in the FPA has a role to play in this context.
On the basis of the elements that are currently available (catches by EU flagged vessels in the waters of Western Sahara, lack of evidence in the annual and multiannual programming that the exploitation of fisheries resources in Western Sahara actually benefits the Saharawi people) it is strongly recommendable that the next annual meeting or a special meeting of the Joint Committee addresses these issues with a view to find an amicable settlement, fully respecting the rights of the Saharawi people under international law. If such an amicable settlement could not be found, the Community should envisage either the suspension of the agreement in conformity with its Article 15 and Article 9 of the Protocol, or to apply the agreement in such a way that EU flagged vessels are excluded from the exploitation of the waters of Western Sahara.
In the event that it could not be demonstrated that the FPA was implemented in conformity with the principles of international law concerning the rights of the Saharawi people over their natural resources, principles which the Community is bound to respect, the Community should refrain from allowing vessels to fish in the waters off Western Sahara by requesting fisheries licences only for fishing zones that are situated in the waters off Morocco”.
The Legal Service remains at your disposal for any further information you may require.
By delegation of the Jurisconsult
Johann SCHOO

WE SHOULD SAVE DIGJA LESHGAR´S LIFE AND HER SIX COLLEAGUES

2010-01-26T20:30:00.000+01:00

The Women from Western Sahara express their solidarity and total support to the seven saharawi human rights activist who are in moroccan prison of Salé since last october 8th when they were returning from a family visit to the saharawi refugee camps, these refugees are divided from their family for more than thirty years by the so-called "Wall of Shame" built by the moroccan occupider army.

The Sahrawi human rights activist, Dekja Lashgar, languishing at sale prison, have started, along with six of her colleagues, unlimited hunger strike since Monday, in protest of her arrest conditions.

Fatima Lashgar, sister of Dekja Lashgar, said her sister has abstained from eating since Monday, except for sugared water and is determined to carry on with her hanger strike to achieve her legitimate demands, the source added.

It should be recalled, Dekja Lashgar, had been arrested several times and detained in secret centers during the '80s on the grounds of her position on Western Sahara question, now suffering of mental disorders since her arrest in October

The international NGO: Human Rights Watch (HRW) has denounced, in its 2010 report, published on its website, Morocco's "repressive policy" and human rights violations against the Sahrawi people in the occupied territories of Western Sahara.

"The (Moroccan) government, aided by complaisant courts, used repressive legislation to punish and imprison peaceful opponents (Saharwis) because of their peaceful advocacy of self-determination of their country (Western Sahara)," said the New York-based organization

The report indicated that "Restrictions on rights are tight" particularly in Western Sahara, which Morocco claims sovereignty over" and "Numerous Sahrawis were charged or imprisoned because of their peaceful advocacy of self-determination for the Western Sahara,"

HRW denounced the arrest of" seven non-violent Sahrawi activists on October 8 upon their return from openly visiting the Polisario-run refugee camps near Tindouf," and referred them to a military court adding that " The referral of civilians to a military court, where the procedural rights of defendants are abridged, was a rare and ominous development,"

The report criticized Moroccan government for preventing Sahrawi activists from travelling abroad and confiscated their passports, giving examples like "On October 6, Moroccan authorities detained and turned back five well-known Sahrawi activists who were on their way to Mauritania via the land border crossing,"

Human Rights Watch finally condemned that Morocco declines to extend mandate of MINURSO" to include human rights observation and protection" ,appreciating "the Polisario says it supports it.

For all these reasons, the saharawi women launch an urgent appeal to the international community to put pressure on the moroccan government to respect the most elemantary human rights and also to save the life of Mrs. Leshgar and her six colleagues who are suffering the most basic human rights.

AMINATOU HAIDAR GRANTED WITH ITALIAN HONORARY CITIZENSHIP

2010-01-19T00:07:00.000+01:00

The Saharawi Women would like to express their deep gratitude for the italian municipality of Sesto Fiorentino in Toscana region, for granting the honorary citizenship to the Sahrawi human rights activist, Aminatou Haidar, and also we express our congratulations to Mrs. Haidar for this distinction which means a recognition to her peaceful struggle for freedom and justice in the last colony in the african continent: Western Sahara.

The Common Council of the Italian City of Sesto Fiorentino, unanimously decided to grant honorary citizenship to the human rights activist of the Saharawi people, Aminatou Haidar, indicated a statement issued 0n Thursday, January, 15tth.

According to the statement, the honour was a recognition and expression of the great solidarity of Sesto Fiorentino with the Sahrawi human rights activist, who is peacefully defending the right of her people to self-determination and freedom.

Already nominated for the European Parliament's Sakharov prize for her efforts as an ambassador of peace, Aminatou Haidar has been a victim of repression by the Moroccan government - repeatedly detained, imprisoned and tortured – and recently returned after a sensational hunger strike that lasted for more than a month, the statement added.

The statement considered Aminatou Haidar as a symbol of struggle of the saharawi people, which is divided for more than thirty years part of whom was forced to live in refugee camps and the other part is living in the under the illegal moroccan occupation where the saharawi people is facing every day flagrant violations of human rights which has been condemned several times by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch among others.

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2010

2010-01-01T23:09:00.000+01:00

THE SAHARAWI WOMEN WISH YOU A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR AND HOPE THAT 2010 WOULD BE THE YEAR OF PEACE AND JUSTICE FOR THE PEOPLE OF THE AFRICA´S LAST COLONY: WESTERN SAHARA.

For this historical occassion, the beggining of a new year and a new decade, we think that is important to publish the letter of the Saharawi human rights activist, Aminatou Haidar, sent a letter of “gratitude and thanks” to all individuals and organisations that supported her in her struggle to return home last November and December.

Here is the complete text of the letter translated from Arabic to English:

Letter of gratitude and thanks:

The battle has finally ended as we hoped it to end, and the triumphal ship of solidarity has anchored alongside the Saharawi homeland. During this journey, Aminatou was just a weak person calling for help, a victim who was stricken by betraying hands that implemented unjust decisions to throw her into the heart of the unknown, making of her a victim in an agitated ocean of ingratitude, traps and conspiracy, or to be more specific, a space where human feelings are blatantly trampled. A woman like myself, who is exhausted from the terrible sufferings in the Moroccan secret detention camps and from the sadism and cowardice of the torturers, had no other option but to gather what is left of her strength to say no. No to the persistence of repression against innocent people; No to the attacks against the Saharawi human rights defenders; No to their judgment charged with falsified accusation of intelligence by a Moroccan military court and their incarceration in a depressing isolation; No to the abandonment of Saharawi prisoners of conscience who are dying in silence in the Moroccan prisons because of dangerous and chronic diseases; No to more than 30 years of tragedy that turned the dreams of my people to nightmares separated by the Diaspora and the fate of hundreds of victims of disappearance.

It is true that the expression of my aching body may have reflected concerns, but it is my very love of life, while the plane was landing in the airport of Lanzarote, that pushed me to go for the path of dignity and firmness in my decision, out of faithfulness to all those who still remember moments we shared under torture, in prison cells or before courts, moments that overflow with the noble values of humanity that implanted in our hearts values of generosity, fellow-feeling and selflessness. It is these same moments, when I declared my decision to start the open hunger strike in the airport and when the platform for the support of Aminatou Haidar was formed to back my battle to return home, it is these same moments that repeat themselves with memories full of new meanings that affirm that no boundaries can stop the flood of noble and beautiful human feelings coming from all countries, crossing continents to honour Aminatou as a human being, to honour her motherhood and to honour in her the values and principles of the Saharawi people.

O! how powerful were those moments with all their strong symbolism, how warm they were, like the warmth of the affection of motherhood and fondness of the homeland, moments that express the most beautiful meanings life can have.

You gave me the means to resist, you who backed me in my refuge and embraced me in my ordeal, and you strengthened my hope to survive it. You never let me feel I was fighting alone and you opened before my eyes new horizons towards a vision of the values of humanity that transcends all forms of seclusion and fanaticism, a vision that doesn’t recognise the relevance of individuality unless it enriches the heritage of humanity, because cultures and religions with all their diversity can be used to serve tolerance, friendliness and coexistence between peoples. Anyone who followed the wide international mobilization that you initiated and maintained at a steady pace to support my unconditional return to my homeland, Western Sahara, will find out that the international response gives a proof, again, that the peoples who believe in the human being and who respect the values of justice and human rights are able to impose and implement their choices.

I would like to seize the opportunity of the New Year, 2010, to wish you success, health and peace

And I name, all the members of the Platform; Robert Kennedy Foundation; the associations of support to the Saharawi people in Europe, in the US, in Africa, in Australia, in Latin America and in Asia; The Nobel Prize laureates; the lawyers, doctors, artists, actors, filmmakers, writers, professors and university students; international human rights organisations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Front Line; International bodies such as the United Nations, the UN High Commission for Human Rights, the UN High Commission for Refugees, the European Parliament, the Spanish Parliament, the Portuguese Parliament; Women’s movements, trade unions, political parties, municipalities from Spain, Italy and elsewhere, Spanish and Algerian media and all free media world-wide that helped open a window of light in the darkness of the Moroccan propaganda; and to all the Saharawi communities especially in Lanzarote and the Spanish people of Lanzarote. To all these and to all those whom I may have forgotten to mention and I apologise, I send my congratulations for our collective success in this battle and for my triumphal return. I send to all of you thanks and gratitude in my name and on behalf of the Saharawi people who are now proud of the extension of the circle of their supporters and who hope that more pressure will be exercised on Morocco to release the 7 Saharawi activists imprisoned in the prison of Sale and all the Saharawi prisoners of conscience in the rest of the Moroccan prisons, and to find the truth about the fate of the victims of disappearance while waiting for the fulfilment of their demand to exercise their right to self-determination via a free, just and regular referendum.

Finally, I wish from all my heart that 2010 will be a year of peace, respect of human values and victory for international legality.

Aminatou Haidar,
Saharawi human rights defender

AMINETOU HAIDAR´S HOME IS SORROUNDED BY THE MOROCCAN OCCUPIDER´S ARMY

2009-12-25T02:01:00.000+01:00

The saharawi women express their condemnation to the repression of the moroccan army in the occupaded cities of Western Sahara.

Since that the famous saharawi human rights activist, Aminetou Haidar, returned to her home in the capital of Western Sahara, El- Aaiún, two weeks ago, she has declared several times to the international media that she has been like been in a prison due to the great deployment of the moroccan occupider army in every street.
Mrs. Haidar has made very recently the following interview via telephone:
Q: would you please describe the situation around you?

A: The Moroccan troops are still holding sway on the streets and other paths that lead to my house and stiffened security all around impeaching my neighbors to come to see me. They are forced to show their identity cards to prove that they live nearby my house.

Q: What about media, did they succeed to approach you?

A: Journalists are not allowed to talk to me except those who were present on my arrival Friday early morning, but when declarations, concerning my denial of the allegations that I have officially apologized to the king and that I recognized my Moroccan nationality leaked, the Moroccan authorities ordered their security forces to tighten the rope. Journalist couldn’t get in touch with me except through phone calls.

Q: What’s the link between your return to Al Ayoun and the apology to the Moroccan King?

A: I have denied these allegations; I didn’t accept any conditions since there aren’t any and no apology to any party whatsoever.

Q: Did you think of death while going on hunger strike?

A: we are doomed to die one day or another, but one cannot live without dignity. I have given my youth and life to my people and this part of my struggle.

Q: Is it true that the French president Nicholas Sarkozy was behind your return?

A: I cannot assert that Sarkozy’s intervention weighed in the balance, but what is certain is that the American and European pressure on Morocco and even France has forced the Moroccan side to yield and accept my return.

AMINETOU HAIDAR RETURNED TO HER HOME

2009-12-19T23:10:00.000+01:00

The saharawi women would like to express their joy for the Aminatou Haidar´s return to her house in the occupied El-Aaiun, capital of Western sahara. The famous saharawi human rights activist is today with her children thanks to her strong determination in defending the dignity and the freedom of the saharawi people. She has spent thirty two days on hunger strike due to her forced depportation by the moroccan occupiders authorities on november 14th.

Mrs. Haidar´s return to her home is a triumph of justice and the respect of human rights´s principles and the a victory of the saharawi cause.
The govenment of the United States, France and UN and EU put pressure on the moroccan government to return the saharawi R.F. Kennedy awarded.
Mr.Jeremy Corbyn, British Labour Party Member of Parliament and Vice Chair of the Parliamentary Human Rights Group and Mr.Stefan Simanowitz, journalist and Chair of the Free Western Sahara Network have written the following:
Yesterday human rights activist Aminatou Haidar called off her 32 day hunger strike and was allowed to fly home to Western Sahara without making any concessions to the Moroccan authorities who had deported her to Lanzarote. Her homecoming represents a significant victory for the Saharawi people whose last taste of real political success came over three decades ago when the Spanish colonizers agreed to leave Western Sahara. That victory proved to be hollow when, in 1976, the Moroccan’s unlawfully occupied most of the territory.

The month-long standoff that had been playing out on the volcanic Canarian Island of Lanzarote between the Moroccan government and Haidar, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, reached its dramatic denouement late on Thursday night. A day that had started with Haidar’s hospitalisation ended with the 42-year old mother of two being flown home on a special Spanish military plane equipped with medical equipment. Her return followed intense diplomatic pressure involving the UN and the governments of several nations including Spain, France and the US. It also represents a significant victory for the Saharawi people whose last taste of real political success came over three decades ago when the Spanish colonizers agreed to leave Western Sahara. That victory proved to be hollow when, in 1976, the Moroccan’s unlawfully occupied most of the territory.

Aminatou Haidar has been campaigning for Western Saharan self-determination for over two decades. Her hunger-strike had been staged very publicly in Lanzarote airport terminal in protest at her unlawful deportation by Moroccan authorities after she had refused to write her nationality as Moroccan on a landing card when returning from a trip abroad. The Moroccans were insisting that before she could be readmitted, Haidar recognise the sovereignty of Morocco and apologise for having questioned it. This she refused to do.

In the early hours of Thursday morning Haidar had asked to go to the hospital following a bout of severe abdominal pain and vomiting blood. Doctors who examined her said she was severely dehydrated and expressed fears that she could be nearing an irreversible deterioration that could result in her death even if she were to abandon the hunger strike. However, as the day progressed, concerns about her health turned to excitement as whispers about a resolution to the crisis began to circulate.

At around 10pm local time, Haidar was stretched to a waiting ambulance and driven from the hospital to the airport. She boarded the aircraft with her sister, Laila Haidar, and doctor Domingo de Guzman Perez Hernandez, director of Lanzarote Hospital who has been caring for her from the start. The aircraft took off at 10.30pm and landed at Hassan I airport in Laayoune, Western Sahara’s largest town, just after midnight. Her passport was returned to her by a customs officer and according to a Moroccan Interior Ministry statement, Haidar completed the usual customs and police formalities.

At the airport she was met by relatives including her children and was driven with them back to her home where Haidar, who had continued to fast on the the plane, tasted her first food for over a month. Dozens of her supporters congregated around the house until the early hours of the morning. An earlier larger gathering was dispersed by Moroccan police.

With international concern for Haidar building the Moroccan’s had been under increasing pressure to readmit Ms Haidar. Over the past week alone, statements were made by UN General Secretary Ban ki Moon, and on Monday Hilary Clinton flew to Madrid to discuss the matter with the Spanish Foreign Minster, Miguel Ángel Moratinos. Ironically it was Clinton’s visit to Morocco in November during which she appeared to implicitly endorse Morocco’s “autonomy” proposal that might have encouraged the Moroccans to crack down on Saharawi activists including Haidar. After her visit, the King Mohammed VI gave a speech in which he branded as "traitors" anyone who questioned Moroccan sovereignty over her "Saharan provinces" and days later Haidar was deported. The quiet diplomacy by the Obama administration to resolve the crisis might well be a way of avoiding what might otherwise have been seen as a foreign policy embarrassment.

Ultimately a combination of diplomatic pressure, mass mobilisation of civil society groups around the world and negative coverage in the media would appear to have persuaded the Moroccan’s to allow Haidar to return home without having to any concessions. "She is returning without conditions having been placed and without apologising," said Carmelo Ramirez, president of FEDISSAH a Spanish Western Saharan solidarity organisation.

Whilst Haidar’s return is a significant victory, the dust will have to settle before independence campaigners can assess whether this debacle has taken them any closer to the long-awaited referendum for self-determination in Western Sahara. Whilst the level of international awareness of the situation will undoubtedly push the matter up the international agenda, the bitterness of the dispute will not have done anything to create the atmosphere of trust and mutual respect that UN Special Envoy to Western Sahara, Christopher Ross, had hoped to foster when he met the parties for talks about talks in August.

In addition the personal safety of Aminatou Haidar is far from guaranteed. As well as concern about any permanent damage inflicted to her health by the hunger strike there are also fears that the Moroccan authorities might mete out some form of punishment now that Haidar is back under their control. Haidar has endured over four years of imprisonment and torture in the past and her situation and that of other human rights defenders such as the seven awaiting trial by military tribunal in Rabat, remains precarious. Haidar however was upbeat as she boarded the plane in Lanzarote. "This is a triumph, a victory for international rights, for human rights and for international justice" she said, her face breaking into a smile for the first time in many weeks.

The Moroccan decision to let her return to her family owes a great deal both to international diplomacy, particularly that of the Obama administration, and to the mass mobilisation of civil society groups around the world that made politicians sit up and take notice. It is now incumbent on politicians and civil society to use the momentum generated over the past weeks to ensure that Western Sahara is granted the referendum on self-determination that has been unlawfully obstructed for so long.

CONMEMORATION OF UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS

2009-12-11T01:09:00.000+01:00

On the occasion of the conmemoration of another anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, December 10th, the saharawi women would like to launch an urgent appeal to all the peace-loving people to continue to support the saharawi human rights activist, Aminatou Haidar, who is on a hunger strike since she was depported for more than three weeks ago by the moroccan occupiders authorities and also for condemning this unhuman and unjust situation that is suffering the Saharawi Gandhi, as she is world-known due to her peaceful struggle for justice and respect of human rights in her country: Western Sahara.

On this accasion, the R.F. Kennedy 2008 Human Rights Award, Aminatou Haidar, has published the following letter:
Today is the 10th of December, International Day of Human Rights. During this day, when such a sacred day for Humanity is commemorated, a day for ideals and principles which guarantee basic rights; I, who have always been a human rights defender, am on the 25th day of my hunger strike because of injustice and lack of respect for Human Rights.

Today, after being thrown out illegally from my country by the Moroccan Authorities, after being illegally retained at this airport in Lanzarote by the Spanish Government and being separated from my children against my will, I feel more than ever the pain of those Saharawi families separated for more than 35 years by a wall more than 2.600km long.

Today, as each day, I suffer thinking about my colleagues in jail, I suffer thinking about those seven human rights activists that are going to be judged by a military court and who are threatened by death penalty because of an arbitrary decision by the Moroccan Government. I think about the Sahrawi people, oppressed daily by the Moroccan police in the Western Sahara. And I think about their future.

On this International Human Rights Day I congratulate all those free people around the world who defend basic rights, and who sacrifice themselves to achieve peace around the world, and at the same time I make them an urgent call to protect the rights of my people, the Saharawi people. Today is also an important day for hope, and I want to take advantage of this to ask the whole world and especially all the mothers around the world to support my reclaim, which is to return to the Western Sahara.My wish is to hug my children, to live with them and with my mother, but to live in dignity.

Today I want to thank the civil society for its solidarity and its continuous defence of the legitimate rights of the Saharawi people, and also its solidarity with me during these difficult days.

Aminatou Haidar, Lanzarote Airport, December 10th, 2009

A BRAVE SAHARAWI WOMAN: SYMBOL OF A PEACEFUL PEOPLE

2009-12-09T00:07:00.000+01:00

Voices from all over the world are expressing their worry about the health of The Saharawi Human Rights activist, Aminatou Haidar, who is on hunger strike for three weeks because was expelled by the moroccan occupider authorities after a trip to New York where was awarded by the 2009 Courage Prize given by the Train Foundation. From the highest international organizations to the regionals and national ones and also some of the european political parties expressed their concerns about the unhuman situation of the " Saharawi Gandhi" as Mrs. Haidar is internationally known.

For example, United Nations Secretary General Office said in a statement:

United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, remains concerned about the condition of Western Sahara activist Aminarou Haidar who has been on a three-week-old hunger strike at a Spanish airport, his spokesman said Monday.

The secretary general reiterated the appeal made last week by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees for Spain and Morocco "to consider any measure that could facilitate a resolution of the issue and end the current impasse," spokesman Martin Nesirky told a press briefing.

"The UN is looking for ways it can help to resolve Ms. Haidar's situation," he added.

Haidar has been consuming only sugared water since November 16, days after Moroccan authorities denied her entry to her native Western Sahara, a disputed territory annexed by Morocco in 1975, allegedly confiscated her passport, and sent her back to Spain's Canary Islands.

"I will continue with my hunger strike until there is a solution," the award-winning activist, who campaigns for the Western Sahara's independence from Morocco, told AFP in an interview at the airport on the Spanish Canary island of Lanzarote.

Spain had offered to give the 42-year-old mother-of-two refugee status or Spanish citizenship so she could be allowed to return home but she rejected both options on the grounds that she did not want to become "a foreigner in her own home."

Morocco annexed the Western Sahara following the withdrawal of colonial power Spain, sparking a war with the Polisario Front independence movement. The two sides agreed a ceasefire in 1991, but UN-sponsored talks on its future have since made no headway

AMINATOU HAIDAR: SYMBOL OF THE SAHARAWI PEOPLE´S DIGNITY

2009-12-07T00:15:00.000+01:00

The women from the Africa´s last colony, Western Sahara, express once again their unconditional support and solidarity with the Saharawi Human Rights activist, Aminatou Haidar, who is today on her twenty-first day of hunger strike.
Mrs. Haidar, is still undertaking an unlimited hunger strike in Lanzarote airport, defending her legitimate right to go back to her town city: the occupaied El Aaiún where she lives with her family.

Last Friday the Spanish government put under her disposition a special plane that was supposed to take her back to the capital of Western Sahara, El Aaiun, accompanied by officials from the Spanish Ministry of Foreign affairs.

In the last minute, the flight was canceled. Morocco says his authorities never agreed to give the permission to the flight, while the Spanish officials said they received Rabat’s agreement on Friday before it was canceled again.

This misunderstanding, between the two governments, according to many observers may be the prelude to a new crisis between Madrid and Rabat, especially that all Spanish political parties are now criticizing the Spanish government’s weak attitude before the humiliations inflicted to Spain by Morocco.

In fact, many voices raised asking the Spanish government to put pressures on Morocco to resolve Aminatou Haidar’s issue before it is too late, knowing that her doctors have openly declared that her physical conditions entered a very crucial state.

In her 21 day of hunger strike, the activist suffers from many diseases, doctors in Lanzarote airport said. She is weak, she can hardly speak, she fainted many times since last Wednesday, but they also said she is completely determined to continue the protest.

International organizations joined the campaign of support to Aminatou. the UN high commission for human rights, the UN commission for Refugees, the African Union Commission, the UN Secretary General, and many others expressed concerns about her state, and called on Spain and Morocco to find a quick solution to this embarrassing case.

The issue, is getting bigger than just a case of an activist who is fighting for her legitimate rights. For many medias and organizations, it became an opportunity to raise the question of human rights in the whole territory of Western Sahara, and most of them start asking the UN to deploy additional efforts to resolve the problem of the last colony in Africa, and to monitor human rights situation in the region.

In her latest reaction to her failed return to Western Sahara, Aminatou Haidar said yesterday in a press release, that Spain and Morocco are both responsible of any tragic outcome of her hunger strike.

She said that she is not negotiating with Morocco or Spain on her situation, she is rather just fighting for a basic right, the right to travel freely to and from her occupied country. This determination owes her an international respect, recognition and solidarity. And everyone hopes this situation be resolved before a tragedy happens, because the activist said she is willing to die struggling for her dignity and freedom and will never give up or compromise.

GREAT SUPPORT AND SOLIDARITY WITH AMINETOU HAIDAR

2009-11-29T00:37:00.000+01:00

The women from Western Sahara reaffirm their thanks to all persons and organzations from all over the world who have expressed their support and solidarity with the saharawi human rights activist, Aminatou Haidar, who is today in her 13th day on hunger strike due that was expelled by the moroccan occupied authorities on november 14th when was trying to return to her homeland from a tryp to the USA where she was awared in New York city another Prize in recognition of her peaceful struggle for defending human rights and justice in the occupied Western Sahara.

The Saharawi Activist has received a lot of support from all the corners of the world, demonstrations, musical concerts, and also campaigns for her return to El-Aaiún with her children among them the the RF Kennedy- Center For Justice and Human Rights who have released this communique:

Aminatou Haidar, the RFK Center's 2008 Human Rights Laureate, has begun a hunger strike following her forced removal from her homeland of Western Sahara.

Upon her arrival at the Laayoune airport in Western Sahara, she declared Western Sahara -- not Morocco -- as her homeland on her immigration entry form. Moroccan authorities then confiscated her passport, interrogated her overnight, declared that she had renounced her citizenship, and put her on a plane to the Canary Islands.

Join us today and call on United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navanethem Pillay to immediately conduct an investigation into the circumstances of Aminatou's forced removal from Western Sahara and to establish a mechanism for the protection of human rights of the Saharawi people.

To: United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navanethem Pillay
Aminatou Haidar, known as the "Saharawi Ghandi" of Western Sahara for her peaceful resistance to violence, and the 2008 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Laureate, went on hunger strike November 16th in protest of her forced removal from Western Sahara. Ms. Haidar's health is in a precarious condition, bringing an added urgency to this situation. Her removal from Western Sahara also raises concerns about her being stateless.

Ms. Haidar was put on board a plane destined for Lanzarote in the Canary Islands against her will by Moroccan authorities on November 14th, 2009, after she attempted to return to Western Sahara on November 13th 2009, following her visit to the U.S.

Ms. Haidar, who is fighting for the right to self-determination for the Saharawi people of Western Sahara, declared Western Sahara and not Morocco as her country on the immigration entry form she completed prior to disembarkation at the airport in Laayoune, as she had done in the past. Moroccan authorities confiscated her Moroccan passport and kept her overnight at the airport where they interrogated her. According to Moroccan authorities, Haidar renounced her Moroccan citizenship at the airport in Laayoune. Ms. Haidar has remained in the Canary Islands and cannot leave as Spanish authorities have prevented her from leaving without a passport or travel documents.

Since the eruption of the Western Sahara conflict in 1975, when Morocco first asserted its sovereignty over the territory, there have been consistent reports of human rights violations by Morocco against the Saharawi people of Western Sahara.

In 2006, your office identified the human rights situation in the region as a "serious concern" and called for the creation of a mechanism for ensuring adequate and continuous monitoring in both occupied territories and in refugee camps in Tindouf, Algeria. Ms. Haidar's situation highlights the importance and the urgent need for establishing such a human rights monitoring system in the region.

We urge you to immediately conduct an investigation into the circumstances of Ms. Haidar's forced removal from Western Sahara and to establish a mechanism for the protection of the human rights of the Saharawi people in Western Sahara.

IMPORTANT LETTER ON MRS. HAIDAR´S CASE

2009-11-27T01:14:00.000+01:00

The Saharawi Women highly appreciate the important letter that the President of the New York Association, Mrs. Patricia M. Hynes, has sent these days to leaders in Spain, Morocco, Uropean Union and Amnesty International among others. She says:

I write on behalf of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York (“the Association”) to express our concern about the situation of Ms. Aminatou Haidar, Chairwoman of the Collectif des Défenseurs Sahraouis des Droits de l’Homme – CODESA (Collective of Sahrawi Human Rights Defenders) and a prominent human rights defender in Western Sahara. The Association is concerned about her safety and about the legality of her expulsion to Lanzarote (Spain). Given the serious nature of this matter, the Association respectfully urges you to take all necessary measures to ensure that Ms. Haidar can promptly return to Laayoune (Western Sahara) and rejoin her family.

The Association is an independent non-governmental organization with more than 23,000 members in over 50 countries. Founded in 1870, the Association has a long history of dedication to human rights, notably through its Committee on International Human Rights, which investigates and reports on human rights conditions around the world. The Association also follows legal and policy developments in Africa through its Committee on African Affairs. Similarly, the Association’s United Nations Committee follows key international developments throughout the world. All three of these Committees have identified Ms. Haidar’s situation as an urgent matter.

Since the eruption of the Western Sahara conflict in 1975, when Morocco first asserted its sovereignty over the territory, there have been consistent reports of human rights violations by Morocco against the Saharawi people of Western Sahara. In 2006, the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights identified the human rights situation in the region as a « serious concern » and called for the creation of a mechanism for ensuring adequate and continuous monitoring in both occupied territories and in refugee camps in Tindouf, Algeria. While the Association is not taking a position on the issue of Western Sahara’s sovereignty, the Association does feel strongly that human rights in the region be respected.

Ms. Haidar is a prominent human rights defender in Western Sahara. She was awarded the 2006 Juan Maria Bandres Human Rights Award (Spain), the 2007 Silver Rose Award (Austria), the 2008 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award, and the aforementioned 2009 Civil Courage Prize. She was also nominated for the European Parliament Sakharov Prize in 2005, for the Amnesty International USA’s Ginetta Sagan Fund Award, and for the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize. The Association is concerned that Ms. Haidar was detained, expelled, and denied return to Western Sahara for her human rights work in Western Sahara.

According to news reports, Ms. Haidar was arrested on November 13, 2009 by Moroccan authorities upon her arrival at the airport of Laayoune (Western Sahara) together with two Spanish journalists, Mr. Pedro Barbadillo and Mr. Pedro Guillén. The company was travelling through Las Palmas from the United States, where Ms. Haidar recently was awarded the Civil Courage Prize by the Train Foundation for her peaceful advocacy for human rights of the Sahrawi people. It was further reported that, while the two Spanish journalists were released after several hours, Ms. Haidar was expelled from the country to Lanzarote (Spain) after her passport was confiscated by the Moroccan authorities. According to reports, Ms. Haidar declared Western Sahara and not Morocco as her country on the immigration entry form she completed prior to disembarkation at the airport in Laayoune, which she had done in the past, and the Moroccan authorities deemed it a renunciation of her Moroccan citizenship. Ms. Haidar started a hunger strike at the airport of Lanzarote after Spanish authorities refused to allow her return to Laayoune because she was unable to produce her passport. It is further reported that Spanish authorities forcefully intervened to end her hunger strike because of serious concerns about her health.

The Association is concerned that the forced expulsion of Ms. Haidar by the Moroccan authorities was illegal. According to Article 12 (4) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (“ICCPR”), which Morocco ratified on May 3, 1979, no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his own country. The confiscation of Ms. Haidar’s passport constitutes a clear and severe restriction on her ability to leave Spain and to return to her country of citizenship, and consequently amounts to a breach of Morocco’s international law obligations.

With regard to Spain, we are concerned that the denial by the Spanish authorities of Ms. Haidar’s return to Western Sahara is illegal. Article 12 (2) of the ICCPR, which Spain ratified on April 27, 1977, stipulates that everyone shall be free to leave any country. Spain’s obstruction to let Ms. Haidar leave Lanzarote therefore constitutes a breach of this provision. In addition, Spain seems to have violated its own Spanish law on Foreigners (Ley Orgánica 4/2000 of January 11, 2000, also known as Ley de Extranjería de España (“Law”)). According to Article 25 (1) of the Law, foreigners need a valid passport or travel document to be able to enter the country. At the time Ms. Haidar arrived at Lanzarote, her passport had already been confiscated and thus she was no longer in possession of a valid travel document. Nevertheless, as news reports state, Spain let her enter its territory because Ms. Haidar has a resident’s permit to obtain medical treatment there. If this document was sufficient for the Spanish authorities to allow Ms. Haidar to enter Spanish territory, it can be argued that this document should equally be sufficient to leave the territory in order for her to return to Western Sahara. In addition, Article 28 (2) of the Law states that only in exceptional circumstances of national security or public health can the Minister of Interior Affairs prohibit the departure of a foreigner out of Spanish territory. To the Association’s knowledge, no official reason has been given to prohibit Ms. Haidar’s departure out of Spain, therefore making the prohibition of Ms. Haidar’s departure from Spain illegal.

We believe that Ms. Haidar’s expulsion and denial to return to Western Sahara violates international and national law. Accordingly, we respectfully request that Your Excellencies take all necessary measures to ensure the immediate return of Ms. Haidar to Laayoune.

Respectfully submitted,
Patricia M. Hynes

THE INTERNACIONAL DAY FOR THE ELIMINATION OF VIOLENCE AGAINS WOMEN

2009-11-26T01:14:00.000+01:00

The Women from the last Africa´s colony, Western sahara, conmemorated today, november 25th, the tenth anniversary of the United Nations Declaration of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. In this important date for all the world women´s movement, the saharawi women would like to express their total solidarity with all the women from all over the world who are victims of violence and condemn all kind of acts capable of causing physical, sexual orpsyshological harm, whether in public or private life.

In our society, we do not have such a shameful problem, we have never heared about that a saharawi man has or had assassinated his wife or his girl-friend, but the great problem that the Saharawi Women face in the foreing occupation due the invasion and occupation of the moroccan army since 34 years ago.

The Saharawi Women still suffering the violations of the most basic and fundamental rights in the occupated cities of Western Sahara, such El-Aaiún, Dakhla, Smara, Boudjdour etc. We demand the international community to implement the UN resolution and to solve this problem of decolonization,

We also want to express our total solidarity with the saharawi human rights activist, Aminetu Haidar, who is waging a hunger strike since ten days ago because she has been expelled by the occupider moroccan authorities on november 14th when she tried to return to her country and she was deported to canary island agains her will. We invite our friend to sign the petition in the international campaign launched by several organization for the releasse of the the saharawi human rights activists who are in moroccan prisons only because they peacefully fight for peace and justice in Western Sahara.

AMINATOU HAIDAR ON HER 8TH DAY OF HUNGER STRIKE IN CANARY ISLAND

2009-11-23T22:58:00.000+01:00

The saharawi women express their total support and solidarity with the one of the most internationally recognized saharawi human rights activist, Aminatou Haidar, who is today in her eight day of hunger strike due to the moroccan occupied authorities didn´t permit her to enter the capital of Western Sahara, El-Aaiún, where she lives with her children.

The Awarded Saharawi human rights defender, Aminatou Haidar (recipient of the 2008 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Prize and the 2009 Train Foundation Civil Courage Prize, among others), was arrested following her arrival on 13 November at La’ayoune airport, Western Sahara. Ms. Haidar’s passport was confiscated, and she was subsequently expelled to Lanzarote in the Canary Islands. She has not yet been allowed to return to her home and family in Western Sahara and decided to go on hunger strike.

These developments represent a serious intensification of systemic human rights abuses perpetrated by Moroccan authorities against the Saharawi civilian population in Western Sahara, which constitute a blatant violation of international human rights norms.

Moreover, these actions appear to be part of a coordinated effort to undermine any possibility of political progress in the negotiations over Western Sahara. In a speech on 6 November 2009, King Mohammed VI of Morocco foreshadowed a crackdown on those speaking out in favour of a process of self-determination in Western Sahara.

The King called on government authorities to “deal vigorously with any infringement of the nation’s sovereignty, security, stability and public order”, and once again sought to limit Morocco’s engagement in the UN-led process to negotiations “on the basis of the autonomy proposal, and within the framework of the Kingdom’s sovereignty, national unity and territorial integrity.” These words are completely inconsistent with the call by the Security Council to the parties to engage in negotiations without preconditions and in good faith. Says a letter to the UN Secretary general, Ban Ki Moon, signed by the Saharawi Permanent representative at the United Nations.

YOUNG SAHARAWI SINGER NOMINATED FOR 2009 FREEDOM TO CREATE PRIZE

2009-11-11T19:37:00.000+01:00

The saharawi Women feel very happy and would like to invite every person from all over the world to vote and support the nomination of the young saharawi singer, Aaziza Brahim, for winning the 2009 Freedom to Create Prize.

Western Saharan singer and musician, Aaziza Brahim, who recently performed al WOMEX in the Dutch capiatal, Copenhagen and this year´s Lovebook Weekender in United Kingdom, is shortlisted for the 2009 Freedom to Create Prize, in the Main Prize category.

The young saharawi artist will perform at the awards ceremony at the Victoria & Albert Museum in the british capital on wednesday 25 november 2009, when the winners for the Main, Youth and Imprisoned Artist Prize categories will be unveilled.

Freedom to Create is an iniciative that seeks to improve lives by addressing society´s ability to support and sustain creativity. The iniciativefocuses on those societies in greatest need.

Aziza Brahim, whose songs evoke justice, the right for freedom, exile, and the respect of human rights of her people in the occupied cities of Western sahara, was in exile before she was even born, when her her heavily pregnant mother fled her homeland due to the moroccan military invasion and lived in the saharawi refugee camps in 1976.

Nominated for her album, Mi Canto, Aziza Brahim mixes saharawi music with rock, blues and African percussion, renovating the saharawi rhythms to make saharawi muc¡sic accessible to the whole world.

MRS. HAIDAR SAYS: "THE EUROPEAN UNION´S FISHERIES IN WESTERN SAHARA MUST BE STOPPED"

2009-11-06T17:18:00.000+01:00

Western Sahara Human Rights Activist, Aminetou Haidar, has made today important staments at the occassion of the international campaign for stopping the European Fisheries in the occupied cities of Western Sahara by Morocco.

The Sahrawi people does not benefit from this agreement, signed between Morocco and the European Union. Regrettably, the agreement instead intensifies the Moroccan repression against the Sahrawi people”, Aminatou Haidar told Western Sahara Resource Watch in an interview.

The EU has since 2006 been paying Morocco to fish offshore Western Sahara. The territory of Western Sahara, which is treated as a colony by the UN, has been under Moroccan occupation since 1975. Simultaneously Morocco is profiting from their control over the territory by selling fishing licences to the EU.

Haidar stated that the Sahrawi living in the occupied territories have never been consulted as to whether they would like such an agreement, and that the EU-Moroccan partnership therefore must be in violation of international law.

She praised Sweden for taking the position that the EU fisheries is illegal, and commended the international solidarity movement for campaigning the issue of the international plunder of the natural resources of the territory.

“Your campaign against the plundering of natural resources is very important. You should accelerate the campaign so that it contributes to stop the EU fisheries agreement”, Haidar commented to WSRW.

The statements were given as she visited the US recently, upon receiving the Civil Courage Prize by the Train Foundation. Haidar was last year also awarded with the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award.

You can support the Sahrawi’s call to stop the EU plundering of Western Sahara by signing a protest letter to the European Commission.

Sign the protest letter on the pages of the FishElsewhere campaign.

Western Sahara Resource Watch (WSRW) is behind the campaign to stop the fisheries agreement between the EU and Morocco. WSRW is a network organisation represented in 35 countries internationally.

THE SWEDISH SOCIALIST PARTY RECOGNIZE THE SAHARAWI REPUBLIC

2009-11-05T12:23:00.000+01:00

The Saharawi Women express their joys for the decison taken by the Swedish Social-Democratic Party at the end of its Congress demanding their government to stablish diplomatic relations with the Saharawi Republic, which is a state member of the continental organization: the African Union.
This is not new for us because the swedish women´s organizations have always supported the jst struggle of the saharawi people and also had strenghthen the relationship and the ties with the women of Western Sahara whom are, as they say, an example of emancipation in the arab and muslim world.
At the Party Congress of the Social Democratic Party in Sweden, there were a number of motions pleading for strong Party action to support the struggle for self-determination of the people of Western Sahara.
The party ended up demanding a Swedish recognition of Western Sahara shoud the party win the coming 2010 elections.The Party Executive had recommended Congress accept some of the demands for stronger actions, including an extended mandate for MINURSO to monitor the human rights situation in the territory, but was hesitant to exclude Western Sahara from all EU-Morocco agreements, and said no to demands for recognition.After a tough debate late Thursday 29th, however, the Congress accepted most demands in the motions, including that the Party, if they are elected to Government, will recognize the SADR, and work for a recognition within the EU.- Today's decision is historic, said Jytte Guteland, chairperson of SSU, the Youth League of the Social Democratic Party. It is a first step towards a Swedish recognition of Western Sahara, which for long has been an issue between us and the Party.- This is something we have worked for within all sections of the Party, said Johan Buser, International Leader of the SSU. Now we have to win the elections. If so,Sweden will be the first member state of the EU to recognize Western Sahara. It shows that SSU's commitment to an issue can be decisiveSSU is one of 26 member organisations of the Swedish Western Sahara Action.

SAHARAWI WOMEN CONDEMN THE MOROCCAN HYSTERIA AGAINS THE HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISTS

2009-10-11T23:06:00.000+02:00

The Saharawi Women express their strongest condemnation to the daily flagrant violations of human rights in the moroccan occupied cities of Western Sahara and specially these days when the moroccan colonial authorities have detained and jailed a lot of the main saharawi human rights activists.

The International ONG,Front Line, published very recently a communique where they condemn these violations of human rights and said it is "gravely concerned" about the arrest on Thursday in Casablanca of seven Sahrawi human rights defenders and called for their "unconditional release", said a release of organization on Friday.

The international organization, based in Dublin, launched an urgent appeal for their "immediate and unconditional release" and asked to open an immediate investigation on their case.

It also noted that the defenders of human rights in the occupied territories of Western Sahara "can not carry out their legitimate human rights activism without fear of reprisal," and "are not free of all restrictions including judicial harassment.Front Line was founded in Dublin in 2001 with the aim of protecting human rights defenders at risk, that is to say, people who act in a non violent way to be respected as one or several rights guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as it is defined on its website.

Another flagrant example has been the detention of Soultana Kheya. The Moroccan colonial authorities prevented the Saharawi human rights activist, Sultana Khaya, Friday at the airport of El Aaiun, from travelling to Spain. The Saharawi activist was going to the European country to have some medical examinations. She was arrested at the airport, ill-treated by police during three hours interrogation by police and held on the spot held five hours in police custody before she was released very late at 01 o’clock a.m.Moroccan police agents and secret service ( DST) asked the young Saharawi activist about her relations and contacts with other Saharawi human rights defenders, about her political opinion and position on the question of Western Sahara and her relationship with the Group of the Seven activists of Human Rights abducted last Thursday in Casablanca (Morocco).Sultana Khaya, a student at the University of Marrakech was bashed by police during a peaceful demonstration in the university on May 2007, the young lady lost her right eye, and was further beaten in the ambulance that was taking her to hospital. Moroccan colonial authorities started lately a new campaign of arrest, harassment and intimidation against Saharawi human rights activists. 7 activists were detained upon their return from a visit to the Saharawi refugee camps.

AMINATOU HAIDAR IS IN A WORKING VISIT IN NIGERIA

2009-10-05T20:49:00.000+02:00

The Saharawi Human Rights Activists, Aminatou Haidar is these days in a working visit in the sister Federal Republic of Nigeria. "The Saharawi Ghandi" as is internationally called, and and also 2009 FK Kenedy Human Rights Award is having a lot of meetings and talks with several offitial institutions and also NGO in the capital of Nigeria, Abuja and in Lagos for informing them about the warning situation in the occupied cities of Western Sahara.

The President of the Saharawi Collective of Human Rights Defenders (CODESA), Ms. Aminatou Haidar, met on Saturday morning with the President of the Nigerian movement of solidarity with the Saharawi people, Ms. Lady Ilia, in the Saharawi Embassy in Abuja. The meeting discussed the program of the week of solidarity with the Saharawi people that will be organised this week in Abuja, and which will be marked by the constitution of the first Nigerian movement of solidarity with the Saharawi people. During the meeting, Ms. Lady Ili, who is also the Deputy President of the Nigerian Labour Council (NLC/ the Nigerian Umbrella trade union), expressed her admiration and respect of the Saharawi people’s courage and legitimate struggle for independence. She recalled her visit to the Saharawi refugee camps last year and the positive impression this visit had on her as well as on the Nigerian delegation accompanying her, which was chaired by the President of the NLC, Mr. Abdulwahid Omar.

Ms. Lady Ili reiterated the principled position adopted by the Nigerian trade union, which is firmly supporting the Saharawi people’s right to self-determination and independence. On her side, the Saharawi human rights activist and ex-prisoner of conscience, Aminatou Haidar, thanked the Nigerian movement of solidarity, recalling that Nigeria was a fervent defender of all African liberation movement, including the struggle of the historic South African people against the Apartheid.The meeting was also attended from the Saharawi side, by the Saharawi Ambassador to Nigeria, Oubi Bouchraya Bachir, and the Secretary General of the Saharawi Journalists and Writers Union, Malainin Lakhal, in addition to the Nigerian Coordinator of the movement of solidarity in Nigeria, Mr. Nuhu Toro.Aminatou Haidar with the President of the Nigerian movement of solidarity

UN HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR REFUGEES HONORS KENNEDY´S EFFORTS FOR REFUGEES AMONG THEM THE SAHARAWI PEOPLE

2009-09-15T22:02:00.000+02:00

The Saharawi Women as well as the whole people of Western Sahara are very pleased to see that the United Nations´s High Commissioner for Refugees, Mr. Antonio Guterres, has recognized the Senator Kennedy´s great efforts to help the refugees all over the world and specially the Saharawi refugees that are still living in refuggee camps due to the moroccan invasion and illegal occupation to the main cities of Western sahara.

Ted Kennedy was a steadfast defender of the Saharawi people’s right to determine its own future, in line with UN resolutions and international law. We are very pleased that the UN High Commissioner honors Kennedy’s effort for refugees around the world", said Ronny Hansen in The Norwegian Support Committee for Western Sahara.

Some of Kennedy's Western Sahara statements "Due to serious violations of the peace plan by the Government of Morocco, the [MINURSO] observers have been prevented from fostering an atmosphere of confidence and stability conducive to holding a free and fair referendum"Statement before the Senate Foreign Relations Africa Subcommittee, 1 Oct 1992."The ongoing crisis in the Western Sahara raises serious questions regarding the Government of Morocco's willingness to honor its international commitment to a free and fair referendum in the Western Sahara."Statement, January 1994"The International Court of Justice, the Organization of African Unity, the United States, and many nations throughout the world have not recognized Morocco's claim to the Western Sahara, but the Moroccan occupation continues."Statement, June 1999"Morocco gained the respect of the international community when it agreed in 1991 and again in 1997 to allow a referendum on the future of the Western Sahara. These actions demonstrated an impressive commitment to the right of self-determination for the people of the Western Sahara. The referendum is an important part of the peace process, and I hope that it will take place as soon as possible."Press release after meeting between Kennedy and King Mohammed VI, 22 June 2002.See also statement from 2000, in which Kennedy demands that US Secretary of State submits report to the Senate on progress of referendum.Time and again over several decades, Edward Kennedy championed the Western Sahara cause in the US Senate and the White House. He repeatedly criticized the US for not doing enough to pressure Morocco and strengthen the UN effort.

In 2000 he debated the issue directly with the Moroccan King, Mohammed VI. “The referendum is an important part of the peace process, and I hope that it will take place as soon as possible”, Kennedy said in a statement after the meeting. In announcing the 2009 Nansen award, UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres said: "Senator Kennedy stood out as a forceful advocate for those who suddenly found themselves with no voice and no rights. Year after year, conflict after conflict, he put the plight of refugees on the agenda and drove through policies that saved and shaped countless lives.

"The Nansen Refugee Award is given annually to an individual or organization for outstanding work on behalf of refugees. Funded by Norway and Switzerland it was created in 1954 in honor of Fridtjof Nansen, the legendary Norwegian polar explorer and scientist, and the first High Commissioner for Refugees. In this role, he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1922.

Kennedy made an enormous effort to put the Western Sahara issue on the political agenda. In 2008 he helped award the Saharawi human rights activist Aminatou Haidar the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award. "We have lost a loud and clear voice for the Saharawi people, but rejoice today in celebration of his life and service", said Hansen.

SINGER AAZIZA BRAHIM IN THE LONDON AFRICAN MUSICAL FESTIVAL

2009-09-14T15:14:00.000+02:00

The Saharawi women express their warmest congratulation for the saharawi singer Aziza Brahim for her wonderful participation this past week-end and for the first time at the London African Music Festival
The young Saharawi singer has given a great concert in the Queen Elizabeth Hall in the framework of the London african Musical Festival in the british capital, London.

The Saharwi singer sings about the plight of her people, and dedicates all her songs to their struggle. Her songs titles say a lot about her engagement, when she sang for “Peace”; “sons of the clouds”; “the battle of Guelta”; “memory of the tanks”; and the song “return” to her people resisting for their right of self-determination and independence and above all the Saharawi people leaving the occupied territories of Western Sahara.

Commenting on this widely appreciated concert, Mr. Y. Lamine Baali, estimated that “this performance of the Saharawi raising star, Azizza Brahim, will undoubtedly contribute in making sure that the Saharawi culture is gradually taking its right place among other African cultures, music in particular, on the international level”.

In the backstage, the Saharawi singer meet with many MPs, diplomats, journalists and representatives of NGOs and activists of the UK Western Sahara campaign, in addition to students organizations and gave an interview to the BBC .

Since 2003 the London African Music Festival has been at the forefront of new African music and this year is no exception, with the festival featuring true legends – Oliver Mtukudzi, Lord Eric Sugumugu, the leader of the mighty Master Drummers of Africa, who premiers his new acoustic group, and maverick jazz organist Ed Bentley who leads his new high energy group that fuses hi-life with funk and jazz solos. As always the festival features women leaders with this year’s stars including The Yoruba Women Choir, Uganda’s diva Rachel Magoola, contemporary jazz saxophonist YolanDa Brown and Hilary Mwelwa leads her remarkable group, Hil St Soul. Tanzanian Fayyaz Virji’s trombone sound has been heard with everyone from Ray Charles to Jools Holland to The African Jazz Allstastars N’Faly Kouyate,Ba Cissoko and Prince Diabate Kora Trio.Guitarist Kunle Olasoju .El- Andaluz features the elite team of Yazid Fentazi,Karim Dellali, Frank Biddulphm hamid Bouri Anna Mudeka whom been considered as a brilliant singer of immense power will show her best at this event.

Lord Eric Sugumugu Acoustic Soul, the leader of the might Master Drummers of Africa will bring his new acoustic project to the UK for the first time. The Cameroonian bassist Sam Djengue Deep is one of the key musicians in African music in Europe .

And from Uganda Rachel Magoola will contribute in putting Ugandan music on the international map with her breathtaking mix African cross rhythms and deep funk grooves. And the Africa’s finest soul singer Hilary Mwelwa and her band Hil St Soul fuse R&B Soul, Western pop and African rhythms to create a unique sound that shines brightly in five studio albums.

Once again, we would like to congratulate this brave young saharawi singer for their efforts to "spread the word" about the just struggle for peace and justice in the Africa´s last colony: Western Sahara and the great role that are playing the saharawi women in this cause.

SAHARAWI MOTHER AND HER DAUGHTER VICTIMS OF A MURDER

2009-09-08T23:11:00.000+02:00

The Saharawi Women very forceful condemn the murder of a saharawi woman and her daughter in saharawi occupied city of Dakhla, southern part of Western Sahara.

A Moroccan settler named Brahim Sayeh, who worked for the family of Hamma Menni as pastor, murdered Saturday morning the mother of the family, Salma mint Abdallah (80 years) and her daughter Demba Hamma, while they were asleep, reported a source of the Ministry of Occupied Territories and Saharawi Community Abroad.

The offender committed his crimes around 4 o’clock am, throwing a large stone on the head of the mother of the family who died on the scene before he went to her daughter, raped her and cut her throat stabbing her in the back and subsequently escaping, leaving behind the victims in a deplorable situation, the same source regretted.

The criminal took advantage of the absence of the son of the family moving to the locality of Toaulat, located 60 kilometres northeast of Dakhla, where his family used to go bring their needs, according to the same source.

The victims were discovered about 14 hours after the assassination, by a passers-by who was appalled by these "criminal" actions and hurried to the town to call for rescue, the source added.At least, nine Sahrawi citizens had died in similar circumstances, including three old people knocked by a Moroccan military who drove a truck in the streets of the occupied city of Dakhla, in December 2005.

The victims are: Laamor Sidi Brahim, Taleb Oul Ali Menna and Mohamed Lehsan Sidi Brahim. Since the outbreak of the intifada in May 2005, the Moroccan troops in Western Sahara and Southern Morocco also had committed other crimes after the death of Hamdi Lembarki under torture October 30, 2005 and Likhlifi Abba Cheikh, assassinated by a military near his home December 3, 2005.

In September 2007, young Saharawi Sidha Lehbib Ould Abdelaziz, died in a car that carried him to a psychiatrist at the centre of the city of Agadir (Southern Morocco), because of the "savage torture" that ‘he suffered during the journey, by the Moroccan forces of repression.The last victim was in December 2008 when two Sahrawi students: Houssein Abdessadik Alkteyif and Khaya Baba Abdelaziz died after being driven on by a Moroccan driving a bus at Agadir bus station, the same source recalled.

"TALK TOGETHER" CONDEMNS THE GREAT VIOLATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE OCCUPIED WESTERN SAHARA

2009-09-08T01:09:00.000+02:00

Voices from all over the world are expressing their strongest condemnation to the continous repression against the peaceful people of Western Sahara in the occupied territories by morocco and also condemn the great violations of human rights in the occupied cities of the Africa´s last colony.
The British organisation, Talk Together, expressed deep concerns about the abduction and torture of two Saharawi young students, El Haouasi Nguia, a 19-year-old and Choummad Razouk, in a press release issued Sunday.The organisation, which runs programmes that bring together different sides of a conflict, to discuss their differences, said it is “deeply concerned by reports that a second member of its group of Layounne participants has been abducted and beaten by police”, reffering to the 20 years old student, Razouk Choummad, and El Haouasi Nguia, a 19-year-old young woman.Choummad, as it was well reported, was abducted by police on September 2, “blind folded, undressed, tortured for 5 hours, and covered in a liquid which he was told was petrol”.

The case of Choummad comes a week after his fellow participant, El Haouasi Nguia, a 19-year-old woman, was abducted, stripped, beaten and threatened with rape. She was also told by her Moroccan torturers “that the footage of the attack would be posted on the internet if she failed to renounce her political opinions and activities. Both students were reportedly quizzed about their planned attendance at the Talk Together programme”, Talk Together’s press release writes. The two young student were due to travel to the UK last month “to take part in the Talk Together conflict resolution course focussing on Western Sahara. A group of six young people from Layounne were prevented from boarding their plane at Agadir airport in Morocco, and subsequently detained and allegedly beaten by the authorities.

A second group of seven Moroccan students, plus their group leader, was also prevented from travelling from Casablanca”.“Talk Together is concerned for the well-being of both groups of young people and has sought advice from Amnesty International regarding their situation. Talk Together has written to the Moroccan authorities asking for clarification on the interventions which prevented the two groups from travelling to Oxford.
It is also requesting that the Layounne and Moroccan groups are reassured they will not be subjected to further attention from the authorities”, the press release further says.

Due to the absence of the Saharawi group from the occupied zones, and the Moroccan group because of the Moroccan authorities, only twenty two participants from the Saharawi refugee camps, and students from seven nationalities participated to a two week course about conflict resolution in Oxford.

These participants, Talk Together says “are now working on their projects to improve the situation”.

SAHARAWI TEENAGER HAIR-RAISING´S TESTIMONY IN YOU TOUBE

2009-09-05T12:41:00.000+02:00

The Saharawi Women´s Human Rights Department express their strongest condemnation to the great violations of human rights perpetrated by the moroccan authorities in the occupied cities of Western Sahara.

The young Saharawi student, Nguia El Houasi, appears in a video on You Tube, telling the story of her abduction and torture by Moroccan police last August 27.

The video is in Hassaniya Arabic, you can watch it below with an English translation of what she says:

My name is Nguia El HaouasiI was arrested several times, and the latest abduction was conducted on August 27th, 2009.

Last Thursday, I was on a visit to Hasanna Aliya, saharawi activist, who was tortured by Moroccan police in the city of Tantan. After I left the house along with my friends Hayat Rguibi and Sadani Aliya. After getting out of the house, a police car stopped nearby and was a Landrover model 110.T the officer on-board was Aziz Anouch and his colleague officer Khalid Barakat forced me into the car, and then drove me to the bank river of Sakia El Hamra near the middle school Allal ben abdalla. They handed me over to other police officers in plain clothes who joined us soon after my abduction. They blindfolded my eyes, and began to beat me brutally while using verbal abusive, cursing. Many other police agents joined the existing police gang namely agents belonging to DAG, DST Moroccan secret services. I did not see them, but I distinguished their voices and they asked my many questions such as: What are the dialogues that take place amongst the Saharawis on the return of the saharawi Ould Suelem From the refugee camps?I told him I was not in the city of Laayoune at this time. I was in the city of Agadir.Then they asked me: What do you think regarding this subject of defectors, such as Ould Suelem?I told them that the Polisario was very democratic, and they do not know any form of dictatorship, and that Polisario gives everyone the right to go wherever they like and not like you Moroccans who prevented us from travelling to Britain, and kept us at the airport in el Masira in Agadir. We were going to join the program Talk Together on behalf of the young Sahrawi generations in the occupied Territory, and you the Moroccans, you showed the world that you are dictators. You did not let us travel, and travelling is a human right. After I told them these Answers, they went mad..They said that the Saharawi human rights activists who incites us to engage in peaceful demonstrations, and they are the ones who support us and who give us national flags to raise during the demonstrations.I replied that nobody does incites us, and we do all this only for the defence of our cause and our right and we simply express our views and that it is spontaneous. Then they asked me about the peaceful demonstrations that I supposedly organized in the neighbourhood of Matallah district in Laayoune and who was in it. The officers beat me more in an attempt to make me tell them the names of persons involved. I told them that all the Saharawi people take part in the uprisings, and I do not know any one of them. There are young people, children and women and I was there to express my opinion and I had my flag Like all the Sahrawis. He told me now we will record a video, and we need you to say that it is the Sahrawi human rights activists who incite you to participate and organise these demonstrations and that they are just a group of separatists.After refusing to say these lies, I was asked to strip off my clothes and I refused. They took me down from the car and torn down my clothes leaving me naked in front of their ferocious eyes. All this was done while they were video-taping everything. They beat me in every part of my body. Under the psychological and physical torture and agreed to what I was asked to say.They only gave me my malhfa (Sahrawi women cloth), and blindfoldedme again and more torture followed.When they were filming me, there was a man who asked me all these questions while hiding his face, and they called him by his alias name so that I could not identify him, I am sure he was a VIP government servant. They say that they were filming me to show the world that they maintain security. They threatened me to publish it on the net and expose my body to all the world to scandalize me.I call upon international organizations to intervene to stop violations that occur daily in the occupied territories of Western Sahara, where the Moroccan authorities have also a former political prisoner Loumadi Abd Salam, Who was arrested just two days before me plus what they did to Hayat Rguibi and Hasanna Aliya just recently, and Naama Asfari. Morocco has violated human rights in many ways, where the Moroccan forces filmed sessions of Sahrawi citizens under torture and pressure. We do not bear all this and we are being watched in every place and our houses are besieged and controlled. We can not tolerate this situation anymore. The Minurso are there but they are doing nothing at all to help us. They do nothing to stop the ongoing violations of human rights, and we urge the United Nations to intervene to stop the torture exerted on our people. We need international monitoring and protection. The International community is doing nothing so far to stop this drama. We ask all civil societies in the world and all defenders of human rights to help us and to stop the mass violations committed by the Moroccan occupation forces towards the people of Western Sahara.

SAHARAWI WOMEN´S REPRENTATIVE IN AN IMPORTANT EVENT IN ITALY

2009-09-02T21:39:00.000+02:00

At the request of an invitation of the Italian Committee of Solidarity with the Saharawi Peple in Sesto Fiorentino (Florence Provence), Zahra Ramdán, Member of the Executive Board of the National Union of Saharawi Women, has attended yesterday, September 1st, an important event that took place in the mentioned italian town in commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the signing of the Twin-City Agreement between the italian city of Sesto Fiorentino and the saharawi town of Mahbes.The event was chaired by the Vice-President of the Toscana Region, Mr. Federico Gelli, the President of the Province of Florence, Mr. Andrea Barducci, the Mair of Sesto Fiorentino, Mr. Gianni Gianassi, the Reprentative of the Saharawi People in the italian rerion of Toscana, Mr. Dan Hedi and other regional and local authorities.

The Mair of Sesto Fiorentino and the Saharawi Women´s Representative have inaugurated a commerative plaque in occassion of this historical event. The Mair has said among other things: "We have adopted this inniciative of hanging this commerative plaque in the entrance of our institution for expressing our total solidarity and friendship with the saharawi people and for reaffirming our conviction in our principles of respect of human rights and freedom and justice".

When the Saharawi Women´s Reprentative took the floor, she said: "On behalf of the Saharawi People I would like to express our deepest thanks for the continous support to the just struggle of the people of Western Sahara and the great actions of solidarity and friendship made by the Municipality and the people of Sesto Fiorentino with my people whom never can forget the support and solidarity from the beginning of the struggle for self-determination and independence. We express our deep gratitude and reaffirm to you our strong determination in continuing struggling for the respect of our legitimate rights for freedom and independence".

Mrs. Ramdan also said that the saharawi women play an important role in the struggle of the saharawi people for selfdetermination, for the right to decide on the future of their home country. Women played a vital role in the saharawi refugee camps and also in the occupied zones of Western Sahara. They have broken with the western stereotypes about the arab and muslim women. Sahara Women are really an example of emancipation and the struggle for equal rights between women and men. With this symbolic event we reaffirm to the world that they must support the struggle of the saharawi people for peace and justice.

WE CONDEMN THE GREAT VIOLATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE OCCUPIED CITIES OF WESTERN SAHARA

2009-08-29T14:17:00.000+02:00

The Saharawi Women want to express their fourceful condemnation to the continous violations of human rights perpetrated by the moroccan army in the occupied cities of Western Sahra. The moroccan police abducts torture and leave a sahrawi minor naked in the outskirts of the occupied city of El Aaiun. This young saharawi girl is Enguía El Hawassi.

Sources from the occupied capital of Western Sahara, El Aaiun, indicated to UPES that the Moroccan police abducted, tortured and left the Saharawi girl, Nguia El Haouassi, in the outskirts of the city.The 19 years old girl, it should be recalled was one of the six Saharawi students who were supposed to participate to a students encounter organised last August 5 to 18 by the British organisation Talk Together in Oxford.

The young girl told human rights defenders that she was stopped by Moroccan police, headed by the famous Moroccan torturer, Aziz Anouch, around 9 o’clock in the evening, while she was walking in the street in Matallah especially that in the nights of Ramadan citizens stay late in the streets.The policemen forced her in their car and blindfolded her.

They drove her to an unknown place outside the city, naked her and started beating her and insulting her, threatening her of rape if she doesn’t cooperate.According to her testimony, her torturers were asking about the reasons behind her attention to participate to the Oxford youth encounter organised by Talk Together, her relation with Saharawi human rights activists and her political opinion about the Moroccan occupation and the independence of Western Sahara.She also confirmed that all the interrogatory was filmed, and that an officer told her that he will make sure that the film is put on the internet, and that next time he will himself make sure to kill her with his own hands if she doesn’t give up her political opinions and her activities as a student in secondary schools against the Moroccan occupation.

After five hours torture, the torturers left Nguia alone in the dark at about 2 o’clock in the morning, completely naked. She had to walk and fortunately found a Saharawi family to help her and take her to El Aaiun to her family house.

It should be recalled that this is not the first time Nguia is arrested and tortured, she had many bad experiences with the Moroccan police since she was 14, but she had always refused to submit to the colonisers will, and is always heading demonstrations and confrontations with the Moroccan authorities in the occupied city of El Aaiun.

Last August, Nguia El Haouassi was prevented along with five other Saharawi youth from travelling to Oxford, London, where they were expected to participate to a youth debate about the conflict in Western Sahara.The six Saharawi students were then arrested, beaten and forcibly deported in police cars from the airport of Agadir to El Aaiun.

Amnesty International registered the case then, but no further action was undertaken by international organisations to protect these young students who had been threatened and intimidated by the Moroccan police, who will certainly take revenge of them later, Saharawi human rights defenders estimate.

THE INTERNATIONAL CIVIL COURAGE PRIZE FOR AMINETOU HAIDAR

2009-08-25T13:31:00.000+02:00

The Saharawi Women would like to express to Mrs. Haidar their deepest congratulations for the prize that an american organization is going to award her in recognition of her peaceful struggle for peace and justice in the Africa´s last colony: Western Sahara.
Former Saharawi political prisoner and human rights defender, Aminatou Haidar, will be rewarded a 2009 Civil Courage Prize, as the champion of non-violent resistance in Western Sahara, in an Award Ceremony that will be held in New York City on October 20, 2009, Train Foundation announced Monday.

According to a statement released by the Organization, Ms. Haidar is a courageous campaigner for self-determination of Western Sahara, as well as against forced "disappearances" and abuses of prisoners of conscience.

Regularly referred to as the "Saharawi Gandhi," Ms. Haidar is one of Western Sahara’s most prominent human rights defenders.Her peaceful efforts have been met with increased police aggression and brutality. In 1987, at the age of 21, Ms. Haidar was one of 700 peaceful protestors arrested for participating in a rally in support of a referendum. Later she was "disappeared" without charge or trial and held in secret detention centres for four years, where she and 17 other Saharawi women were tortured.

In 2005, the Moroccan police detained and beaten her after another peaceful demonstration. She was released after 7 months, thanks to international pressure form groups like Amnesty International and European Parliament.Since then, Ms. Haidar has travelled the globe to expose the Moroccan military’s heavy-handed approach and to plead for the Saharawi People’s right to self-determination.

Her efforts helped change the Moroccan government’s violent tactics for dispersing pro-independence demonstrations. Unfortunately, the torture and harassment of Saharawi human rights defenders continues.Ms. Haidar was born in 1967 in El Aaiun, Western Sahara. She is the mother of two children and holds a baccalaureate in Modern Literature.

She has been awarded the 2008 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award, the 2007 Silver Rose Award (Austria), and the 2006 Juan Maria Bandres Human Rights Award (Spain). She was nominated by the European Parliament to the Andrei Sakarov Human Rights Award. Amnesty International (USA Branch) nominated her for the Ginetta Sagan Fund Award. She was also nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, the statement added.

The international Civil Courage Prize, has been sponsored, Since 2000, by the Train Foundation (formerly the Northcote Parkinson Fund), established by the Hon. John Train in 1987, honours extraordinary individuals whose acts, undertaken deliberately, over time, have demonstrated "steadfast resistance to evil at great personal risk." The Train Foundation will continue this initiative in cooperation with like-minded organizations world-wide.

SOULTANA KHEYA RETURNS TO HER HOMELAND

2009-08-20T00:09:00.000+02:00

The saharawi Women would like to express their great happiness for the young saharawi human rights activist´s return, Soultana Kheya, to her homeland after two long year of medical treatment overseas.

Yesterday, tuesday, August 18th, took and airplane and landed in the occupied El Aaiún´s Airport where she was received as a hero by great number of colleagues, friends and family.

Soultana Kheya is considered an example of brave woman because because since her chidhood she was always struggling for justice and peace for the saharawi people.

She was seriously injuried in a peaceful demonstration organized by the saharawi university student in the moroccan city of Marrakech and where the moroccan army brutally repressed the demonstration and Soultana Kheya lost her right-eye.

Althought that the moroccan authorities tried to block the entrance to some saharawis in the Aaiún´s Airport, a lot of saharawi women and gentlemen received her at the terminal and she put her saharawi national flag in her neck as always she does.

The moroccan soldiers continued to controlled all their movements and sorrounded the Bugaga´s family´s house in El-Aaiún´s downtown, where a great number of saharawi human rights activists organized a great popular welcoming to these heroic daughter of the saharawi people who sacrificed her life for the freedom and justice of her people.

SAHARAWI WOMEN´S REPRESENTATIVE VISITS AUSTRALIA

2009-08-15T11:17:00.000+02:00

Fatma Mahfoud, known also as Fatimel-lu, whom is Member of the International Relations Commission of the our women´s organizationa: National Union of Saharawi Women, visited Australia, August, to tell the story of the Western Sahara conflict from a Saharawi woman’s point of view.

During her visit to Melbourne Fatma met with members of the Victorian Parliamentary Amnesty Group, with members of the Upper House of Victorian State Parliament, with councillors from the municipality of the Yarra and with a group of NGOs based in Melbourne. She also participated in a public meeting and a screening of a documentary held at Kino Cinema.

During her visit to Sydney Fatima Mahfoudh participated along with the Saharawi representative to Australia in a seminar held at Macquarie University on Western Sahara. The seminar was attended by many students and lecturers of the university.The Saharawi women representative spoke during a round table organised at Toxteth in Sydney on Western Sahara. Among other speakers during the meeting were the former President of NSW Legislative Council, Dr. Meredith Burgmann and the Polisario Representative to Australia.

In her speech during the meeting Fatima Mahfoud explained that Saharawi women are respected and acknowledged as playing significant leadership roles in Saharawi society. In particular they are crucial to the effective functioning of the refugee camps.

There are women ministers and many women in senior positions within the structures of the government who have power and authority. She also under that literacy rates in the Saharawi refugee camps are amongst the highest in Africa.

THE SAHARAWI WOMEN HAVE A LOT OF HOPE IN THE RECENT PEACE-TALKS

2009-08-12T13:12:00.000+02:00

The Saharawi Women and the great majority of the people of Western Sahara have a lot of hope in the very Peace-Talks that has taken place in the Austrian city of Duernstein between the two belligerant in the conflict of the last colony in the african continent: Morocco and POLISARO Front (liberation movement recognized all over the world as thesole representative of the people of Western Sahara).
Polisario Front and Morocco have agreed to the publication of statement, read to the press by Christopher Ross concluding the meeting between the two parties in the Austrian town of Duernstein, on August 10 and 11, that the Polisario Front and Morocco have renewed their determination to continue negotiations as soon as possible.The discussions took place only between the delegations of Polisario Front and Morocco and covered the assessment of rounds of negotiations in Manhasset, how to implement resolution 1871 of the Security Council and confidence measures, which are fundamental issue of human rights.

These discussions took place in "an atmosphere of sincere commitment, openness and mutual respect", according to the statement.
Both parties in conflict, the Polisario Front and Morocco reiterated their determination to continue negotiations as soon as possible, and the personal Envoy will fix the date and venue of the next meeting in consultation with the parties, the same source added.

Delegations of neighbouring countries, Algeria and Mauritania, were also present at the opening and closing sessions and were consulted separately during the talks.

Following these meetings, the United Nations Secretary General Personal Envoy, Mr. Christopher Ross and delegations would like to thank the Government of the Republic of Austria for its generous hospitality.

The british newspaper "The Guardian" has just published a very interesting article written by the Saharawi Leader, Emhamed Khaddad. Under the tittle of "We seek no revenge – only Peace" the also Saharawi Coordinator with MINURSO says in his article:
The people of Western Sahara stand prepared to engage with Morocco and to enter open discussions about our joint future.A new round of talks between the kingdom of Morocco and the Polisario Front of Western Sahara are under way in Vienna, Austria. These talks, characterised as informal by the personal envoy of the UN secretary general, Christopher Ross, are the latest attempt to bring peace and security to Western Sahara and to the wider Maghreb region.

We enter them with an unwavering and genuine commitment to finding a just, mutually acceptable and democratic solution. Will our Moroccan counterparts adopt the same approach?In every circumstance, peace comes at a cost. Somehow, somewhere, there must be a compromise and someone, generally everyone, must be prepared to search for common ground and to yield to the higher ideals found there. For the people of Western Sahara, the price of peace is high. We have been occupied for over three decades, following an illegal annexation by the Moroccan kingdom. We have seen our natural resources become unethical trade boons to the Moroccan economy while our people languish in refugee camps, unable, or too afraid, to return home.Yet, rather than seek to exercise a sense of revenge or frustration, we stand prepared to engage with Morocco and to enter open discussions about our joint future. This is long-established policy. In our statement to the UN security council in 2007, we stated we would guarantee "the rights and obligations of the Moroccan population in Western Sahara". We also put on the public record that our readiness "to participate with Morocco and the countries of the region in the maintenance of peace, stability and security for the whole region.

"The people of Western Sahara remain committed to the self-determination process initiated by the UN nearly 50 years ago, and have backed ever since via various resolutions and statements. For instance, we recall the security council resolved in 2002 to express "its readiness to consider any approach which provides for self-determination". It is not clear how or where Morocco’s proposal for autonomy within the Moroccan state fits in with this basic agenda.

A unilateral solution to a three-decade-long conflict, as is proposed by Morocco, is not only farcical, it is an option the community of democratic nations cannot countenance.The people of Western Sahara have been clear that we are willing to work with the Moroccan monarchy and will act without recrimination in relation to Moroccans now living in Western Sahara. We are aware we do not choose our neighbours and so we are destined to share a border. This is a form of realpolitik that makes sense at all levels. We do not seek any victories over Morocco, we only seek parity. We aim to co-operate in economic and security matters, as any decent neighbour would be expected to do.For Morocco, the benefits of good relations with a free and democratic Western Sahara are immense.

The massive costs of its military occupation have been estimated at 3% of Morocco’s GDP. Analysts suggest the military costs in keeping some 150,000 troops in the occupied territories alone is over $153bn (£92.3bn) since 1975, or around $12m (£7.2m) for every day it has occupied Western Sahara. As a result of this extraordinary outlay, Morocco has the world’s fifth highest proportional spend on its military. Moreover, the long-touted Maghreb union, which has faltered for decades on the back of the Western Saharan dispute, would at last be free of this considerable obstacle to better relations.

Quite apart from the damaging moral position Morocco maintains in Western Sahara, ending this money drain must surely be a priority for Rabat and its often impoverished people, as must the prospect of awakening the sleeping giant of North African economic unity. The UN’s way is the only way forward. A referendum on self-determination, a fundamental mechanism for all UN-mandated colonies – as Western Sahara is – is the only viable means of engendering anything like a sustainable common ground. The future of the Sahrawi people must be in their own hands, not in any institution and it is certainly not the right of an invading power, maintaining an illegal and unjust regime.

As we enter these talks we favour the open-palm approach of US president Barack Obama. We are willing to pay the price of peace as an investment in our future. That is our stated agenda going into the Vienna talks. The people of Western Sahara deserve nothing less from us, for it is peace and freedom we crave most of all.

INTERESTING CONFERENCE VIA SATELITE ON THE ROOTS OF THE WESTERN SAHARA CONFLICT

2009-08-12T01:44:00.000+02:00

Via an Internet connection from California, US, Dr. Sidi Mohamed Omar, Sahrawi researcher and specialist in peace studies and conflict resolution, presented today a paper at the conflict resolution course organised by the UK-based organisation, Talk Together, in Oxford. Students from different countries participated in the session.

Entitled “Mapping of the Conflict in Western Sahara”, the paper presents a roadmap of the conflict in Western Sahara by analysing its history and context, primary parties, core issues and the positions and interests of the parties involved as well as the conflict dynamics.

In determining the nature of the conflict, Dr. Sidi Mohamed made it clear that the “conflict in Western Sahara is not a societal, communal, ethnic, religious or class conflict. Rather, it is an international conflict of a political nature, and a decolonisation issue that has been on the list of the United Nations since the 60s”.
In his analysis of the root causes of the conflict, Dr. Sidi Mohamed underlined that the direct, structural cause that underlies the ongoing conflict in Western Sahara between the Kingdom of Morocco and the Frente POLISARIO, the sole and legitimate representative of the Sahrawi people, is Morocco’s military invasion and annexation of the territory in 1975.

The origins of this action, however, lie in the expansionist ideology of the “Greater Morocco” and the subsequent territorial claims that the Moroccan regime has laid on its neighbours. In conclusion, Dr. Sidi Mohamed made it very clear that a peaceful, just and lasting solution to the conflict in Western Sahara necessarily entails the exercise by the Sahrawi people of their internationally recognised right to self-determination through a negotiated, democratic and free process in keeping with international law and practice.

“In this process, they could decide their political future, either to be independent, integrate into Morocco or settle for another arrangement. In any case, the final word should be theirs”, he added. He also argued that the success of the UN-led negotiation process would depend not only on achieving a mutually acceptable solution in line with international legality, but also on the ability of the two parties to think seriously about their relations in the post-conflict context.

This process of cooperative thinking will imply, among other things, determining the mutual guarantees in all vital areas, which each party will be willing to grant to the other with a view to achieving not only a win-win solution, but also one that will address the core issues around which the conflict has developed. “The proposal presented by the Frente POLISARIO to the UN in April 2007 contains key elements to be considered in this regard”, concluded Dr. Sidi Mohamed. Despite significant resistance, an innovative conflict resolution course has launched in Oxford last Thursday 6. Students from nine different countries embarked on the intensive immersion course, without two groups of students who were prevented from travelling from Morocco on Wednesday. Students from the disputed territory of Western Sahara were stopped at Agadir airport in Morocco on Wednesday. They stayed there to protest at the block on their journey and embarked on a hunger strike. On Thursday around 18.00 local time they were forcibly removed from the airport and transported in a convoy of police cars, passing through to Gulmin 200km south at 20:30, and on to El Aaiun where they were taken to a police station, interrogated and intimidated.

Their mobile phones had previously been removed, and they were questioned about their contacts and messages. They were also asked about their involvement in Talk Together, and motivation for taking part.The students chose to go to the family home of Rabab Amidane, winner of Norway Students’ Peace Prize earlier this year.

Their supporters met them with slogans, to which the police objected. The latest information is that the students are in the house, which is surrounded by police. Another group of students, from Morocco itself, has also been unable to travel. According to the Moroccan embassy in London, the group of seven students suddenly all developed “family problems” immediately prior to boarding the flight, which prevented them from travelling to Oxford.

AMNESTY INTENTIONAL CONDEMNS THE MOROCCAN ATTITUDE AGAINST SIX YOUNG SAHARAWIS

2009-08-09T02:34:00.000+02:00

Amnesty International issued a press release about the six young Saharawis recently prevented from travelling to London, assaulted by police and forcibly removed in cars to the occupied capital of Western Sahara, El Aaiun.Campaigners supporting the six Saharawi youn women and men chose to name them "the Oxford-Six", and are willing to continue putting pressures on Morocco to allow them to participate to a youth dialogue organsied by UK organisation, Talk Together, that will tackle the problem of Western Sahara in London.Here is the complete text of Amnesty International’s press release:

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC STATEMENT
Date: 7 August 2009 Morocco/ Western Sahara:

Sahrawis prevented from travelling and punished for their stance Amnesty International is concerned by reports that Moroccan security officials forcibly removed six young Sahrawis from Agadir’s Al Massira airport on 6 August 2009 and then assaulted them, after refusing them permission to travel to the United Kingdom (UK) on 5 August.

The organization is calling on the authorities to launch an immediate investigation into the beatings and forced removal of the six, who include three young women, and to explain why they were refused permission to travel to the UK to participate in a programme intended to foster reconciliation between young people from different backgrounds.

The six are reported to have been assaulted by officials at three different locations - outside Agadir’s Al Massira airport, at a border police station near Laayoune, and again at the Laayoune home of one of the six. Amnesty International wrote to Interior Minister Chakib Benmoussa on 6 August to express concern that the six Sahrawis from Western Sahara and another group of young people from Morocco had both been prevented from travelling for what appear to be politically-motivated reasons.
In its letter, Amnesty International drew attention to Morocco’s obligation, under Article 12 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to respect the right of individuals to leave a country, including their own, and called on the government to lift the ban and allow the two groups to travel to the UK immediately and without further impediment.

The six Sahrawis - named as Mimouna Amidan, Mohamed Da’noun, Nguia ElHaouasi, Mohamed Fadel El’asri, Choummad Razouk and Hayat Rguibi, whose ages range between 17 and 24 years - are reported to have been forcibly removed from Al Massira airport shortly after 5 pm on 6 August. They were scheduled to travel to London on 5 August to take part in the Youths Talk Together about Western Sahara, a programme organized by Talk Together, a UK-based non-profit initiative. The programme aimed to bring together young people from Morocco and Western Sahara, the Tindouf camps in Algeria, Norway and the UK for a period of two weeks (5-19 August 2009) to discuss issues affecting their daily lives and political concerns. The six young Sahrawis were scheduled to take Royal Air Maroc flight AT422 from Agadir to Casablanca at 11:30 am on 5 August in order to travel on to London later that afternoon. However, when they arrived at the departures hall of Agadir Al Massira airport, they were informed by plain-clothed security officials that they were not permitted to travel.

The moroccan officials did not disclose the reason or legal basis for this prohibition, stating simply that they were acting "under instructions from above", but castigated the students as "separatists and members of the Polisario". The six students were all in possession of valid travel documents and visas for the UK. The six Sahrawis remained at the airport and went on hunger strike to protest the authorities’ action but after about 30 hours were forcibly removed by a combined force of security officials said to have included members of the police, the Royal Gendarmerie and the Auxiliary Forces. After being escorted from the airport, the students were beaten, had their belongings including their mobile phones temporarily confiscated, and were forced into a vehicle and driven to Laayoune, about 350 kilometres south of Agadir.

The vehicle was reportedly accompanied by cars containing members of the Moroccan Royale Gendarmerie. On the way, the six were taken to a border police station and questioned, including about the Youths Talk Together about Western Sahara programme and their contacts with international organizations, and are said to have been beaten and insulted. They were then beaten again by security officials when they arrived at the home of Mimouna Amidan at about 3:30 am on 7 August, where they were greeted by family members who carried flags of the Polisario Front and chanted slogans in favour of the independence of Western Sahara. Some of their relatives are also reported to have been assaulted. Mohamed Fadel El’asri and others sustained minor injuries as a result and security officials are now reported to be staking out the home of Mimouna Amidan. Background Seven young Moroccans and their group leader, who were due to attend the same programme in the UK, were prevented by Moroccan security authorities from taking the August 5 Air Arabia flight 3O491 from Casablanca to Stansted, UK, also without being informed of the reason or legal grounds for the authorities’ action.Amnesty International is concerned that the Moroccan authorities’ refusal to allow these two groups of young people from travelling abroad to take part in the Youths Talk Together about Western Sahara programme is part of a wider pattern of curbs imposed by the Moroccan authorities on the legitimate exercise of freedom of expression concerning issues that they deem politically-sensitive, such as the role and status of the monarchy, national security and the status of Western Sahara. Human rights defenders, journalists, lawyers and others continue to face intimidation and even prosecution when they transcend certain "red lines", which include expressing views in favour of the independence of Western Sahara.

On numerous occasions, Amnesty International has called on the Moroccan authorities to uphold their obligations under Article 9 of the Moroccan Constitution and Article 19 of ICCPR, which guarantee the right to freedom of expression. Working to protect human rights worldwide

BRITISH NGO´S WORRIED ABOUT THE FATE OF SIX YOUNG SAHARAWIS WHOM WERE GOING TO TRAVEL TO LONDON FOR ATTENDING AN EVENT

2009-08-06T17:38:00.000+02:00

The Saharawi Women would like to express their solidarity with the six young saharawis whom were invited by British institutions to attend an importent event in the british capital and condemn the action taken by the moroccan police agains these six young saharawis.
Western Sahara Campaign UK and Free Western Sahara network jointly issued a press release to express concern about the Moroccan authorities prevention of six Saharawi young people from boarding their flight to London, where they were to participate to a peaceful dialogue on the conflict of Western Sahara.

Here is the press release: 6/8/09 Western Saharan hunger-strike students “risk everything” to get to Oxford Campaigners today expressed concern about the fate of six Saharawi students who were due to fly to London yesterday, August 4th, but were prevented from boarding their plane by Moroccan police.

The students from the disputed territory of Western Sahara were enroute to England as part of an EU / British Council sponsored initiative to increase understanding between Moroccans and Western Saharans but were marched off the plane and across the runway at Agadir airport.

The students have been given no reason for being detained and have gone on hunger-strike in the airport terminal in protest despite growing fears for their safety.

The students aged between 17 and 24 are from occupied Western Sahara and were travelling together with students from Morocco where they were all due to attend a two week residential course in Oxford exploring ways of resolving a conflict that has gone on for over 34 years.

The Moroccan students pulled out from travelling to England yesterday, all of them citing family problems for their sudden withdrawal.

The course run by the British-based organisation, Talk Together, aims to take young people from either side of an ongoing conflict and challenge them to generate new ways forward. Organiser Andrew Brown said today:“It would be a huge disappointment if participants were to be blocked from attending a project that aims to confront prejudice, foster understanding, and find new solutions”. As well as being a disappointment for all those involved in the two years of organising the project the situation also represents a genuine danger for the students.

Last year reports by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International expressed concerns about human rights violations by the Moroccan state against Saharawis who take part in non-violent protests.

These have regularly been violently broken up by Moroccan forces and numerous people have been arrested, tortured or ‘disappeared’.

One of the hunger-strikers, Amaidane Maimouna, 17, understands the risk they are taking but says that they are determined to continue with their protest for as long as it takes. “Either we will go to the UK or we will go to hospital” she says, “There is no third way”.

Jeremy Corbyn MP, Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Western Sahara said:“With representatives of Morocco and the Polisario Front meeting next week in Vienna to discuss the resumption of negotiations it would be a cruel irony if these young people from both sides of this terrible conflict were to miss out on an opportunity to share ideas and develop greater understanding.”

A FAMOUS BRITISH HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST WRITTES ON THE STRUGGLE OF SAHARAWI PEOPLE

2009-08-06T10:36:00.000+02:00

The saharawi women would like to express their deepest thanks to our dear friend Stefan Simanowitz for his continous actions of solidarity with our people and we congrratulate him for his article that was published by several british media. Under the tittle of: "Sahara: Film Screenings in the Devil´s Garden" the author says:

Nineteen-year-old Ibrahim Hussein Leibeit shifts his weight in obvious discomfort. The stump of his leg, blown off below the knee by a landmine on 10 April, just three weeks ago, is yet to heal. ‘The pain is horrible,’ he tells me. ‘But today it is possible for me to think about other things.’ Leibeit is a refugee. He was born and raised in the isolated camps in south western Algeria, where an estimated 165,000 Saharawi people who fled their native Western Sahara have lived for over three decades. Western Sahara, ‘Africa’s last colony’, was divided between Morocco and Mauritania by the Spanish when they withdrew in 1976 following the mass mobilization by the Moroccans known as ‘the Green March’. The preceding year the International Court of Justice had rejected Moroccan and Mauritanian claims to sovereignty over the territory, effectively recognizing the Saharawis’ right to independence.

In February 1976, the Saharawi independence movement, the Polisario Front, declared the creation of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic. A 16-year war ensued between the Moroccans and the Polisario Front, the Mauritanians having withdrawn in 1979. In 1991, the fighting came to end and under the terms of a 1991 UN ceasefire agreement, a referendum for self-determination was promised. However, this has been continually blocked by Morocco, leaving the Saharawi to live in four large camps in the inhospitable Algerian desert.

The remotest of camps Home to nearly 30,000 refugees, Dakhla, named after the beautiful coastal city in Western Sahara, is the most remote of the camps, located 175 kilometers away from the nearest city, Tindouf. It has no paved roads and is entirely dependent on outside supplies of food and water. In the summer months, temperatures on the hammada desert plain regularly top 120 degrees. With sandstorms, little vegetation and no sources of food or water, it is little wonder that the area is known locally as ‘The Devil’s Garden’. And yet, incredibly, for a week each May, this desolate refugee camp plays host to the Sahara International Film Festival, a gala of screenings, workshops and concerts attended by an array of internationally acclaimed actors and film-makers.

Now in its sixth year, the festival was set up by award-winning Peruvian documentary film-maker, Javier Corcuera, and aims to both entertain and educate the refugees as well as raising awareness internationally of the plight of the Saharawi people. There are over 500 international participants in attendance, mainly Spaniards, who flew into Tindouf in two charter planes and travelled to the sprawling ochre-coloured camp in a convoy of vehicles. Dakhla itself is clean and well organized, with wide sandy streets lined with houses and tents forming neat family compounds. The festival site is in a spacious area in the centre of the camp and includes a multiplex-sized outdoor screen attached to the side of an articulated lorry.

The central screen is surrounded by tents for workshops, exhibitions and indoor screenings as well as numerous stalls. The programme includes over 40 films from around the world. The themes mainly explore diverse experiences of struggle and hope, but there is some lighter entertainment and even an animated film which holds enraptured the capacity crowd of refugee children. Audiovisual workshops run by the London-based charity Sandblast, provide Saharawi refugees with an opportunity to learn about all aspects of film-making as well as create their own video messages, which are put online and can be seen by their extended families in Western Sahara, from whom they have been separated for over 33 years. The festival is gaining renown, helped by the support of luminaries such as Penelope Cruz and Pedro Almodovar.

This year a number of well-known people from the entertainment industry were there, including actors Helena Anaya (Sex and Lucia), Eduardo Noriega (Vantage Point) and Oscar-nominated film director, Javier Fesser. Rumours, however, that Benicio del Toro and football legend Diego Maradona might turn up, prove to be untrue. ‘We are mainly B and C-listers,’ Noriega laughs. ‘Last year we had a proper A-lister in Javier Bardem.’ Bardem’s visit helped the festival garner publicity, which ensured that the festival even secured a half-page spread in OK! magazine and helped campaigners in Spain to gather 250,000 signatories (to date) petitioning the Spanish Government to act to support the Saharawris’ demand for self-determination.Real change The celebrities, like all visitors to the festival, stay with Saharawi families, sharing their homes and their food. Living alongside the refugees gives visitors an indelible insight into the conditions under which the refugees live and motivates many participants to get involved in the campaign to lobby their respective governments to put political pressure on the Morocco over the situation in Western Sahara. The campaign in Spain is growing steadily, boosted by a sense of betrayal felt towards Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero’s new socialist government, which failed to reverse the long-held Spanish policy toward Morocco. However, campaigners recognize that to affect real change the focus of attention cannot just be on the Spanish Government. With Morocco recently named by the US as a major non-NATO ally, and with many Western governments and companies involved in lucrative trade deals with the Moroccans, action has not been high on the international political agenda. Large reserves of phosphate, vast fishing grounds and potential offshore reserves of oil and gas mean that the Western Sahara is not a possession that the Moroccans will relinquish lightly.Privately, a Polisario representative admits concern about the rising level of militancy among some young Saharawis. After waiting with patient rage while countless UN resolutions have been passed and ignored, many are losing faith in the diplomatic process. Indeed, Ibrahim Hussein Leibeit is one such young man. He had been taking part in a march to the 1553 mile-long fortified barrier known as ‘the wall’ built by the Moroccans to stop the Saharawis from returning to their land.

In a symbolic gesture, Ibrahim was attempting to get close enough to the wall to throw a pebble to the other side when he trod on the landmine. He is rapidly becoming something of a hero to the Saharawi cause, a symbol of their defiance. Ibrahim has no regrets. ‘I would gladly lose my other leg if it would mean my country could be free,’ he says with earnest.Emotionally charged At a dusty red carpet ceremony on the final day, the decision of the popular jury is announced and the White Camel award for best picture is picked up by producer Albert Noriega for the 2008 Steven Soderbergh film, Che, Guerilla.

The atmosphere is emotionally charged as participants and organizers, some waving flags of the Saharawi nation, take to the stage in a final act of solidarity with the refugees. After the obligatory photo-calls, the international participants board the waiting fleet of Landcruisers in buoyant mood. But as our convoy heads back across the expanse of empty desert the mood starts to change and thoughts turn to those we have left behind. The further we drive, the more apparent it becomes just how isolated and abandoned the refugees are. During the 16-year war, captured Moroccan prisoners would not be held behind walls or barbed-wire fences. Instead they would be corralled into open compounds in the desert.

Prisoners were free to leave at anytime. But in the Sahara there is nowhere to go. Although conditions in the refugee camps are by no means wretched, with all basic needs taken care of by international aid agencies, Dakhla is essentially a desert prison. Despite a tangible undercurrent of anger and frustration, the camp has not become a slough of despond. Indeed, Y. Lamine Baali, Polisario’s UK representative, tells me that what fuels Saharawri determination to carry on is a strong sense of injustice. A word I hear a lot in Dakhla is ‘karama’. I ask Baali what it means. It is an Arabic word for strength and dignity, he explains. ‘Karama is the essence of our existence,’ he tells me. ‘The illegal occupation of our homeland is a terrible affront to our karama. When you hurt people in this way you threaten their whole existence.’Postscript: Return to action I touch down in London, dusty and somewhat dazed, but with a rare clarity of purpose.

The next day at work I take my boss aside and hand her my letter of resignation. Whilst staying in refugee camp in Dakhla, I realized that the lack of international awareness of the Saharawis’ struggle makes their desperate situation feel even more hopeless than it already is. And so I have resolved to give up my day job and work with the Free Western Sahara Campaign to help move the story of the Saharawi refugees off the culture pages of a few magazines reporting on the film festival and on to the international pages of all newspapers, where it belongs.

Next year, it is hoped that there will be direct flights to Tindouf from London, Paris and LA filled with actors, film-makers and musicians as well as ordinary people wanting to be part of the festival and show their solidarity with the Saharawi.

In this way the festival will become even more of an international event, putting pressure on political decision-makers at the highest level and reminding the world of an otherwise forgotten conflict.

Stefan Simanowitz is a journalist, broadcaster and human rights campaigner.

If you would like to help the Saharawi people or get involved in next year’s film festival visit www.freesahara.ning.com or email freesaharacampaign@gmail.com

The campaign has been officially launched in the Houses of Parliament at midday on 12 June, and had been preceded by a delegation to No.10 Downing Street.

This article was previously published in The New Internationalist.

OBAMA´S ADMINISTRATION DIFFERENT POLICY IN THE WESTERN SAHARA CONFLICT´S SOLUTION

2009-07-30T01:15:00.001+02:00

The Saharawi Women and the whole people of Western Sahara have a lot of hope in the President Obama´s Administration to impose a just, democratic and lasting solution to the problem of decolonization of Western Sahara according to the United Nations resolutions.
President Obama’s nominee to be U.S. ambassador to Morocco seemed to confirm a U.S. policy shift on the Western Sahara in testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

In addition, Samuel Kaplan said Morocco faces a growing threat from the Al Qaida Organization in the Islamic Maghreb.Kaplan, a career attorney and businessman said Al Qaida Islamic Maggreb has managed to recruit operatives from the slums of Moroccan cities, despite increased counter-insurgency cooperation.

"While the Moroccan government has been successful in finding, arresting and prosecuting terrorist cells over the years, the specter of transnational terrorism has grown significantly in the region," Kaplan said.Kaplan said the key impediment to Moroccan cooperation with its neighbors has been the dispute over Western Sahara.

In his nomination hearing, Kaplan did not cite Morocco’s autonomy plan for Western Sahara or support by Congress and the former Bush administration.

Diplomatic sources said President Barack Obama has withdrawn U.S. support for Morocco’s autonomy plan. The sources said Obama has not ruled out a United Nations-arranged effort that would grant the Algerian-backed Polisario control over the entire region.

"One of the major impediments to improved cooperation among North African countries has been the issue of Western Sahara," Kaplan said. "If I am confirmed as ambassador to Morocco, I will fully support the efforts of the UN secretary-general’s personal envoy to work with Morocco and other parties in the region toward a just, lasting and mutually-acceptable political solution."In testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Kaplan, a career attorney and businessman, reviewed the U.S. assessment of the security situation in Morocco.

He said the North African kingdom must reduce AQIM’s capability by accelerating development, democracy and regional cooperation."If confirmed, I will continue our efforts to promote partnership, expand U.S. exports, promote human rights, counter extremism, reinforce military cooperation and peacekeeping, and of course, to protect Americans living abroad," Kaplan said on July 22.In 2008, the United States launched a project to supply Morocco, deemed a major non-NATO ally, with 24 F-16 Block 52+ multi-role fighters. Morocco has been the first North African to order the advanced F-16.

AMERICANS SEND A LETTER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA ON THE SITUATION IN WESTERN SAHARA

2009-07-29T19:38:00.000+02:00

The Saharawi women would like to express their deepest thanks to this distinguished friends of the people of Western Sahara for their great inniciative for sending a letter to their President, Mr. Obama.

A diverse group of concerned American citizens and non-governmental organizations including Seoul Peace Prize Laureate Suzanne Scholte, Robert F. Kennedy Center Director Monika Kalra Varma, Former Reagan Ambassador Frank Ruddy, and Professor Stephen Zunes of the University of San Francisco sent a letter today to President Barack Obama urging him to resolve the long-standing conflict over Western Sahara by supporting a referendum on self-determination and protecting the Sahrawis from the violence perpetrated against them by the Moroccan authorities in the occupied territory.

"As Africa’s only remaining colony, the fate of Western Sahara has been uncertain since Morocco began its occupation over 30 years ago," stated the letter. "In light of the historic friendship between the governments of the United States and the Kingdom of Morocco, as President of the United States, you have the ability to help resolve this long-standing conflict and ensure that the Sahrawi people’s human rights, including the inalienable right to self-determination, are protected.

" The letter included Americans who had served with MINURSO and seen the conflict first-hand including attorney Katlyn Thomas and Mara Hanna, and Christian leaders supportive of the Sahrawi cause including Janet Lenz of Christ the Rock Church, Cheryl Banda of Not Forgotten International and Pastor Dan Stanley of RockFish Church as well as a diverse group of NGO leaders including Shaazka Beerle of the International Center for Nonviolent Conflict, Nina May of the Renaissance Foundation and Emira Woods of the Institute of Policy Studies. Recording Artist Cynthia Basinet of California and Sahara Marathon Founder JEB Carney of Virginia were also signatories on the letter.

"The signers of this letter come from very different backgrounds and in many cases totally opposite political views, " said Scholte, "but we all agree and are united in this appeal to President Obama: the Sahrawi people of Western deserve the inalienable right to self-determination and the abuse against them by the Moroccan authorities must stop.

A complete text of the letter follows below:

The Honorable Barack Obama

President of the United States

The White House

Washington D.C.

20500 U.S.A.

Dear Mr. President:

We are writing as a diverse group of concerned citizens—Democrats, Republicans and Independents, and representatives of non-governmental organizations—to pledge our strong support for the human rights of the Sahrawi people of Western Sahara.

As Africa’s only remaining colony, the fate of Western Sahara has been uncertain since Morocco began its occupation over 30 years ago. In light of the historic friendship between the governments of the United States and the Kingdom of Morocco, as President of the United States, you have the ability to help resolve this long-standing conflict and ensure that the Sahrawi people’s human rights, including the inalienable right to self-determination, are protected.

The Sahrawi people welcome your outreach to the Muslim world and consider it an important opportunity for dialogue. The Sahrawi are a people who have demonstrated a commitment to the rule of law, democracy, human rights, equal rights for women, and religious tolerance.

In exercising their rights to freedom of assembly and expression, the Sahrawi people in Western Sahara have been subjected to arbitrary arrests and detention, forced disappearances, abuse, torture and sexual assault.

The violence against the Sahrawis by agents of the government of Morocco has been well-documented in reports by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Freedom House, the World Organization Against Torture, Reporters without Borders and the United States Department of State.

Western Sahara represents a clear case of a peoples’ unfulfilled right to self-determination, a right not only embedded in the United Nations Charter, but the very principle on which our own nation was founded.

The Moroccan government, rather than facilitating the realization of the long-promised United Nation-backed referendum on self-determination, has worked aggressively to thwart the efforts of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) to implement its mandate.

Therefore, in support of the human rights of the Sahrawi people, we respectfully request that your administration:

1. Calls upon Morocco to end the ongoing repression and human rights abuses against the Sahrawi population in the territory of Western Sahara;

2. Supports a resolution of the conflict over Western Sahara through the long-promised free, fair and transparent referendum administered by MINURSO; and,

3. Organize a meeting with representatives of the undersigned to discuss this issue further. The conflict in Western Sahara is often forgotten, along with the plight of the Sahrawi people. However, we must not allow the misinformation perpetuated by political interests to seal an uncertain fate for an entire people and obstruct the realization of their fundamental human rights.

As a group of concerned citizens and NGOs, we seek to shed light on and present a balanced analysis of the conflict. Thank you in advance for your consideration of our requests.

We appreciate the opportunity for continued dialogue on this important human rights concern. Please do not hesitate to contact the undersigned individuals or representatives of the NGOs, at 703-534-4313 with any questions, concerns or further inquiries.

Sincerely,

Letter was signed by 41 USA NGO representatives and American citizens.