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Western Sahara’s moment in the sun – IRIN News

Western Sahara’s moment in the sun
How the UN chief waded into a forgotten conflict with no end in sight
By Annie Slemrod, Middle East Editor
JERUSALEM, 14 April 2016
http://www.irinnews.org/analysis/2016/04/14/western-sahara%E2%80%99s-moment-sun

Of all of the world’s forgotten conflicts (and there are plenty), that of Western Sahara, with its refugees tucked away in a remote desert, ranks as one of the most consigned to oblivion.

But last month, the world’s top diplomat, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, brought the issue to temporary attention with a rather undiplomatic move. After visiting part of the disputed territory, which is claimed by both Morocco and the Algeria-backed Polisario Front, he called Morocco’s presence there an “occupation.”

What counts as chaos in the land of diplomacy ensued: Morocco angrily ordered civilian members of a UN peacekeeping force out; there were meetings in the UN Security Council that amounted to little and no joint expression of support for the secretary-general; and finally a spokesman tried to walk back Ban’s comments, saying it had all been a “misunderstanding” born of his “spontaneous, personal reaction” to the situation of the Sahrawi refugees.

“Without meaning to do so, Ban has awoken a sleeping dog,” Marina Ottoway, senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center think tank, said of the secretary-general’s actions.

But does that mean there could finally be progress in resolving one of the world’s most intractable conflicts, one that has rumbled on largely unnoticed for more than 40 years?

Here’s a look at the long-neglected Western Sahara dispute and the Sahrawi refugees stuck in the middle.
What is Western Sahara?

Western Sahara’s 266,000 square kilometres formed a Spanish colony from the late 19th century until the mid-1970s. Morocco claims the territory as its own, but no country officially recognises its sovereignty and it is countered by the Polisario Front, which has a government-in-exile in Algeria and the backing of many of the indigenous Sahrawi people.

When Spain washed its hands of the area in 1975, a war between Morocco and the Polisarios ensued. In the 1980s, Morocco built a 1,500-kilometre long wall through the territory, placing 82 percent on its side and separating many families.

By the time a 1991 UN-brokered ceasefire brought quiet as well as peacekeepers in the form of MINURSO, tens of thousands of Sahrawis had been displaced by the fighting. Most live in five Polisario Front-administered camps in Tindouf, Algeria, on the edge of the 18 percent of the territory that the Polisario Front considers “liberated”, and the international community tends to call a no-man’s land.

There’s no official count of how many Sahrawi refugees live in the camps – the Polisario Front and Algeria put it at 165,000 and the UN tends to base its needs assessments on an estimate of around 90,000.

Some live in tents, others in mud brick homes. They are extremely vulnerable to inclement weather – in October 2015 more than 17,000 homes were destroyed or severely damaged in flooding that affected both sides of the wall.

There are almost no employment opportunities for the Sahrawis in Tindouf, and almost all rely on aid to survive, although conditions are said to be significantly better on the Moroccan side because of the country’s investment in development there.

Human rights groups regularly report on Morocco’s heavy-handed way of dealing with Sahrawi dissidents, and there is concern that the Polisario Front does not tolerate dissent particularly well either.

What do the parties want?

The 1991 ceasefire was meant to be followed by an independence referendum, and MINURSO set about compiling a voter roll in the 1990s. But deciding who had the right to vote on the territory’s fate became a Sisyphean task, as throughout the 1990s Morocco had moved many new residents into the area and both sides objected to various counts.

By the time MINURSO came up with a list– reportedly kept in Geneva for safekeeping – the possibility of a referendum actually taking place had become remote. A new plan by former UN special envoy James Baker, which included independence as one option in a vote that would take place after a period of autonomy, was rejected by Morocco and he resigned in 2004 out of frustration with, among other issues, the Security Council’s refusal to implement a plan it had approved.

The Polisario Front still wants some sort of vote on independence, but most experts see this as an unlikely prospect.

“You will never be able to determine who is entitled to vote in that referendum,” explained Ottoway.

Morocco is fine with that, as their current proposal is that Western Sahara has some form of local governance akin to that of any other region, as part of a larger decentralisation plan. This would give the territory no special status.
What next?

Both groups have proved intransigent in negotiations, and the UN has utterly failed at moving the process forward.

Part of the problem is that it’s an easy place for major powers to ignore. “Looked at from Washington, Morocco and Algeria fighting over the Western Sahara is like two bald men fighting over a comb,” said Ottoway.

It’s true that the conflict is usually low in intensity. But there are occasional flare-ups: at least five people were killed in 2010 when Moroccan security forces broke up a Saharawi protest camp.

From another perspective, Western Sahara is left on the sidelines not because it is small and remote, but because it has in fact become a pawn in global politics.

As Jacob Mundy, an assistant professor at Colgate University and an expert on the conflict pointed out, Morocco has positioned itself as a key ally of Saudi Arabia and the West in North Africa, sharing intelligence with the United States and even playing host to at least one of the CIA’s controversial black sites. This brings the US closely into line with France, already staunchly on Morocco’s in the dispute.

“Anytime Morocco is feeling the pressure on Western Sahara, they probably find ways of making themselves very useful to the United States,” Mundy explained.

On Algeria’s side, three current UN Security Council members have officially recognised the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, the Polisario Front’s government-in-exile: Angola, Uruguay and Venezuela.

“The real issue is whether or not any country on the Security Council is going to expend political chips on the issue of Western Sahara,” Baker said, shortly after his resignation back in 2004. “That’s what makes this so difficult; because the profile of the issue is so very low and they’re not going to want to risk alienating either Morocco, on the one hand, or Algeria, on the other, by taking a firm position. And they’re not willing to ask either or one or both of the parties to do something they don’t want to do.”

Anna Theofilopoulou, an independent political analyst who was part Baker’s team, believes diplomacy over Western Sahara does need some shaking up but that Ban’s move was the wrong one.

Reportedly denied the right to land in Morocco, the UN chief only met with Sahrawi refugees, the Polisario Front, and Algeria. Then he used the word occupation.

“You don’t use the big guns unless you know that you are going to get good results,” Theofilopoulou told IRIN. “That’s one basic rule of diplomacy.”

While we shouldn’t have any illusions about whether Ban’s move will change a conflict that has been stubbornly unmoving for decades, there is a slim chance of an opening ahead.

MINURSO’s mandate is up for its yearly renewal at the end of April, and while that will likely be a rubber stamp, this might be a good occasion for Ban to point out that the Security Council’s refusal or inability to force meaningful action has had serious consequences, not least in the form of a generation of refugees who have been born and grew up in tents.

“I think maybe this is time for the secretariat to play hardball,” Theofilopoulou said, suggesting that Ban should apply pressure on the Security Council.

Mundy is of a similar mind. “It would be interesting if the secretariat just dropped it in the Security Council’s lap and said, ‘you guys refuse to take a firm position and also expect the mediators to work. What do you expect?’”

But with France and the United States permanent members of the Security Council, it’s unlikely we’ll see any significant shift any time soon. And there is also no guarantee that stepping up international involvement would bring any greater peace or lead to a durable solution.

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El Watan (Algiers) : « Le Maroc est la cause de l’impasse actuelle »

«Le Maroc est la cause de l’impasse actuelle»
A la une International
Jacob Mundy. Spécialiste des conflits et enseignant à l’université Colgate (Etats-Unis)

le 14.04.16

Inscrit depuis 1966 sur la liste des territoires non autonomes — et donc éligible à l’application de la résolution 1514 de l’Assemblée générale de l’ONU portant déclaration sur l’octroi de l’indépendance aux pays et peuples coloniaux —, le Sahara occidental est la dernière colonie en Afrique, occupé depuis 1975 par le Maroc qui est soutenu par la France. Jacob Mundy, enseignant à l’université Colgate de New York, explique les raisons des récentes attaques dirigées par le Maroc contre le secrétaire général de l’ONU.

– Les relations entre le Maroc et les Nations unies se sont considérablement détériorées depuis la visite, en mars, de Ban Ki-moon dans les camps de réfugiés sahraouis. Vous attendiez-vous à une telle situation ?

J’ai été surpris de voir le secrétaire général de l’ONU afficher ouvertement une pareille hostilité à l’égard du Maroc. La source de cette hostilité est bien connue. Durant des années, le Maroc a refusé de travailler avec son envoyé personnel pour le Sahara occidental, l’ambassadeur Christopher Ross. Dans le passé, le secrétariat a montré certains signes de frustration, mais cela est resté discret et gardé sous silence.

Quand le Maroc a décidé de bloquer la visite de Ban Ki-moon dans les territoires (cela inclut aussi le refus d’accorder à son avion l’autorisation d’atterrir à El Ayoun), ce fut la goutte de trop… le coup final. En affichant sa frustration publiquement, le secrétaire général de l’ONU a créé un précédent. De Waldheim à Annan, les secrétaires généraux de l’ONU ont généralement été plus favorables au Maroc qu’au Front Polisario.

– Que pensez-vous des raisons invoquées par le Maroc pour essayer de disqualifier Ban Ki-moon et l’approche de l’ONU du conflit ?

Les Marocains n’aiment pas entendre la vérité à propos du Sahara occidental. La vérité est que le Sahara occidental est le dernier territoire non autonome d’Afrique. De plus : selon les documents de l’ONU, l’Espagne est officiellement la puissance administrante. Donc, si l’Espagne est la puissance administrante et que le Sahara occidental est non autonome, alors quel est le statut légal du Maroc dans ce territoire ? Cela ne peut être autre chose qu’une occupation.

Ban Ki-moon a dit la vérité quand il a défini la situation comme une occupation. L’Assemblée générale de l’ONU a aussi qualifié la situation d’occupation. L’avis légal émis en 2002 par les Nations unies sur la question est aussi clair. En fait, quand Ban Ki-moon a qualifié le Sahara occidental de «territoire occupé», il a parlé simplement d’un fait reconnu comme tel par la loi internationale.

– Comment décryptez-vous la décision du Maroc d’expulser les membres de la composante politique de la Minurso ? Quel message le roi Mohammed VI a-t-il voulu délivrer ?

Le Maroc a toujours eu une relation inconfortable avec la Minurso. Tout d’abord, le nom de la mission onusienne reconnaît que sa vocation est d’organiser un référendum d’autodétermination. Le cessez-le-feu n’était pas le but principal de cette mission. Il ne s’agissait là que d’une étape dans le processus devant mener à l’organisation d’un référendum sur l’indépendance.

Le Maroc s’en est quand même accommodé. Le cessez-le-feu et les observateurs militaires onusiens le long de la berme sont devenus très utiles pour Rabat. Le Maroc sait que beaucoup de Sahraouis veulent que le Polisario reprenne la guerre. Rabat utilise donc les forces de maintien de la paix de la Minurso pour garder un œil sur le Polisario et dissuader les Sahraouis de se lancer dans une nouvelle lutte armée.

Cependant, l’administration civile de la Minurso est un problème pour le Maroc vu la pression internationale grandissante en faveur de la surveillance des droits de l’homme dans les territoires occupés, surtout que la demande est soutenue par les gouvernements américain et britannique.

Si la Minurso est mandatée pour surveiller les droits de l’homme, ce sera forcément ses administrateurs civils qui se chargeront d’accomplir la mission. A certains égards, la Minurso a déjà surveillé les droits de l’homme de façon informelle. Le Maroc a donc fait une action préventive destinée à empêcher la Minurso de surveiller les droits de l’homme.

– Le Conseil de paix et de sécurité (CPS) de l’Union africaine (UA) vient de se dire «inquiet» au sujet de la situation dans la région. Pour l’UA, la décision du Maroc d’expulser les membres de la composante politique de la Minurso «menace la sécurité régionale». Partagez-vous la même inquiétude ? Pensez-vous que la situation pourrait un jour dégénérer si rien n’est fait pour résoudre ce vieux conflit ?

Je partage les préoccupations de l’UA. Les tensions ne cessent d’augmenter au Sahara occidental. Néanmoins, il est peu probable que le Front Polisario se lance, dans un avenir proche, dans une guerre et cela par respect pour l’Algérie qui se débat avec la question de l’«après-Bouteflika». Le Maroc, quant à lui, attend tout simplement l’élection d’un nouveau président aux Etats-Unis. Il espère une deuxième Administration Clinton qui signifiera probablement le soutien total des Etats-Unis pour «l’autonomie».

Mais si le Maroc et le Conseil de sécurité des Nations unies continuent à fermer toutes les issues qui conduisent concrètement vers un référendum, il est difficile d’imaginer qu’il n’y aura pas de manifestations du conflit. Cela sous une forme ou une autre. Après, AQMI et Daech pourraient tirer profit d’une telle situation, comme ils l’ont déjà fait au Mali.

– Pourquoi le Conseil de sécurité n’a pas condamné l’attitude agressive du Maroc envers le secrétaire général de l’ONU, comme cela a été demandé par Ban Ki-moon lui-même ? Comment le Maroc peut-il se permettre de défier ainsi la communauté internationale ?

La réponse est simple : c’est la France. Le gouvernement français a toujours soutenu le Maroc au sein du Conseil de sécurité de l’ONU. La France est au Maroc ce que les Etats-Unis sont à Israël. Quand il y avait un consensus total sur le plan Baker en 2003 — qui aurait pu résoudre ce conflit en 2010 —, la France avait sonné la charge et s’y était opposée. Depuis lors, le Maroc ne cesse de se sentir conforté et renforcé dans son attitude. Ban Ki-moon est également sur le point de terminer son mandat. En France et aux Etats-Unis, le Maroc est plus important qu’un secrétaire général sortant.

– Qu’est-ce qui empêche concrètement le règlement du conflit du Sahara occidental, conformément aux résolutions pertinentes des Nations unies ?

Les résolutions du Conseil de sécurité de l’ONU appellent actuellement une solution politique négociée qui permettra un référendum d’autodétermination au Sahara occidental. Le Polisario est prêt à discuter de l’autonomie dans le contexte d’une solution politique qui équivaudrait au final au vote d’un statut définitif. Cependant, le Maroc estime que sa proposition d’autonomie avancée en 2007 est la solution optimale, même si elle ne prévoit pas de référendum d’autodétermination.

C’est le Maroc qui a généré l’impasse. Mais le Conseil de sécurité ne veut pas mettre de pression sur le Maroc. Et cela, même pas au plan du discours. Comme nous l’avons vu durant les derniers événements, le Maroc est prêt à tout pour parvenir à ses fins, y compris exploiter comme il l’a fait un événement sans conséquence (visite de Ban Ki-moon) ou créer une crise régionale.

– A votre avis, que devons-nous attendre de la prochaine réunion du Conseil de sécurité sur le conflit du Sahara occidental ?

Le rapport du secrétaire général de l’ONU a été retardé. Il semble donc qu’il y ait actuellement des tractations et un intense travail de coulisses. Il n’en sortira probablement pas grand-chose. La dernière fois que nous avons assisté à une levée de boucliers du Maroc concernant la surveillance des droits de l’homme dans les territoires sahraouis occupés, le Conseil de sécurité de l’ONU avait fini par trouver le moyen de le calmer. Un processus similaire est probablement en cours.

Bio express

Spécialiste du Maghreb, Jacob Mundy anime actuellement un cours sur la paix et les conflits à l’université Colgate de New York. Il a particulièrement travaillé sur les conflits armés et les interventions humanitaires en Afrique du Nord, une région où il a séjourné de nombreuses fois.

Jacob Mundy a publié des articles très fouillés sur le conflit sahraoui dans plusieurs revues spécialisées. Le dernier remonte à 2014 et est intitulé «Sahara occidental : La résistance non violente comme dernier recours». Il a été coécrit avec Stephen Zune. Jacob Mundy est diplômé des universités d’Exeter et de Seattle.

Zine Cherfaoui

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Vice News : Morocco Boots UN Diplomats Over Western Sahara Spat

Morocco Boots UN Diplomats Over Western Sahara Spat
Kayla Ruble
March 18, 2016
https://news.vice.com/article/morocco-boots-un-diplomats-over-western-sahara-spat

Morocco’s government and the Polisario Front liberation movement have been locked in a territorial dispute over Western Sahara for decades. Progress toward a solution has stagnated in recent years as the international community attempts to balance between the two sides, but controversial comments from the United Nations’ top official have sparked an unusually tense diplomatic spat.

The controversy kicked off last week when UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon visited refugee camps in Algeria where more than 100,000 indigenous Sahrawi people reside, many of whom fled Western Sahara decades ago. These camps are the base for the Polisario and the wider independence movement for Western Sahara, which has long pushed for Morocco to give up control of the territory that lies along Africa’s northwestern Atlantic coast and abuts Mauritania and Algeria.

Ban, however, did not meet with Moroccan authorities during the visit, as is typically expected by diplomats in order to appease both sides. Following the visit, Ban said the UN would work toward achieving a solution in the conflict. The UN chief referred to the Moroccan presence in Western Sahara, which Morocco took control of after Western Sahara gained independence from Spain in 1975, as an “occupation.”

This set off a series of condemnations by Morocco, with the government taking a strong stance as a result of the comments. Morocco said Ban’s statement’s indicated that he had abandoned his neutral position in the dispute and sided with the Polisario. While the UN confirmed that Ban did use the word occupation, they said the meaning was misinterpreted and that it was said in the context of the UN chief’s reaction to the situation in the camps.

A demonstration in the Moroccan capital Rabat on Sunday saw thousands gather in the streets to protest the secretary general. As the situation escalated this week, the country initially said it would cut down on staff at the UN mission in Western Sahara (formally called the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara, or MINURSO), while also threatening recall its troops participating in peacekeeping operations around the world.

“Following the unacceptable declarations and inadmissible actions from the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon during his recent visit to the region, the royal government of Morocco has decided on immediate measures,” the statement from the government said.

As the situation deteriorated, Ban cancelled a planned trip to Morocco. Eventually officials in Rabat backed down on Thursday, saying they would no longer move to withdraw its troops from global UN missions. But on Thursday, Morocco gave a three-day warning to 84 international UN civilian staff members to get out of Western Sahara, including three from the African Union. According to a UN secretariat spokesman, these actions “would seriously impede the functioning of MINURSO and negatively impact on its ability to deliver its mandate.”

After 16 years of fighting between Morocco and the Polisario Front, which has continuously sought to gain independence, the situation peaked in 1991 when the two sides finally signed a UN-brokered ceasefire and the peacekeeping mission known as MINURSO was established.

The most optimistic point in the conflict came in the early 2000s when former US Secretary of State James Baker, the UN’s personal envoy to Western Sahara at the time, attempted to push through a peace plan that included the option for self-determination by the Sahrawi people. Morocco ultimately rejected this plan in 2004, largely due to the option for independence. Just months later Baker resigned.

Since then the situation has been stuck in a stalemate. Popular uprisings took hold in 2011 as the Arab Spring protest movements spread through North Africa and the Middle East, but failed to incite any major changes. Moroccan authorities are routinely accused of human rights abuses against the Sahrawi in Western Sahara, including arbitrary arrest, torture, and restrictions on freedom of speech. Tensions heightened during the past two years after Morocco refused to accept the appointment of a new UN personal envoy to Western Sahara.

For the secretary-general, these tensions appear to have helped fuel continued frustration towards Morocco and the visit may have been an attempt to show Western Sahara that the international body has not forgotten about the issue, according to Jacob Mundy, a political science professor and North Africa expert at Colgate University. As Mundy noted, the visit was unusual in the fact that Ban only met with one side.

“It’s kind of unprecedented, just on its face, only going to meet with one side of the conflict,” he said. “The secretariat has never visibly shown this much frustration before and if it was… it never would have made its frustration public.”

As Mundy noted, even when the Baker plan was rejected, the secretary general did not express this kind of outward displeasure or frustration. While it’s difficult to say what the threats from Morocco mean, Mundy said he expects efforts to be made to try to repair the relationship before the annual referendum vote at the end of April to reaffirm the UN mission’s mandate.

Anna Theofilopoulou, a political analyst and former UN staffer who assisted Baker during the peace plan proposal process, questioned the decision to not sit down with Moroccan authorities during the visit. Theofilopoulou wondered why the UN chief felt the need to travel to Western Sahara given the relative impasse in recent years.

“In my whole career in the United Nations I just never witnessed such an ill-advised movement, quite bluntly,” she said. “I don’t know what [they] advised him and what were they thinking… did anybody look to the background of this conflict?”

While addressing the issue of the refugees living in Algeria is important, Theofilopoulou said that by making the visit the the secretary general was essentially walking into a pit of vipers — referring to Moroccan officials. As she explained, the situation in general is a tense one for the country, but furthermore Morocco is known for having the ability to overreact to these kind of diplomatic developments or when something doesn’t go their way.

Earlier this year, Morocco pushed back against the European Union after a court for the governing body blocked a farm trade deal with Morocco, ruling that goods from the occupied territories of Western Sahara should not be included in the agriculture trade agreement. Morocco subsequently cut communications with the EU, which later pushed the court to reverse its decision. Just this week, Morocco decided to warm up to Europe again after a visit from the bloc’s foreign policy chief helped to smooth things over.

“Morocco does respond to pressure if they realize there’s no way out,” she said. “It’s gone from bad to worse and I don’t know what on earth they’re thinking in the UN. How do they think this is going to end?”

Theofilopoulou speculated that Morocco will not work effectively with the UN until Ban’s term is up this year. Both she and Mundy also said that the kingdom is likely waiting for the results in the US presidential election this fall to make any significant moves. The US is one of Morocco’s key allies — along with France — with ties to former secretary of state and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation.

Regardless, with the peacekeeping mission in the spotlight, Mundy said it will be important to watch whether the UN seriously considers rethinking MINURSO’s role in the Western Sahara dispute and the peace process as a whole.”Since Baker resigned in 2004. It’s really been negotiations for the sake of negotiations [with] very little momentum [and] backwards progress from the kind of advancements made in late 1990s and early 2000s,” he explained. “One of the few tools the international community has left is the silent treatment really.”

Topics: africa, northern africa, western sahara, ban ki-moon, united nations, war & conflict, sahrawi, polisario front, algeria, morocco, occupation, peacekeeping mission, minurso

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Stephen Zunes remembers George McGovern, author of the foreword to Western Sahara: War, Nationalism, and Conflict Resolution

McGovern’s Progressive Leadership on Middle East Policy
By Stephen Zunes
October 22, 2012

Though a supporter of Israel’s right to exist, George McGovern also became an outspoken opponent of its human rights abuses.

Though former senator and 1972 Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern, who died Sunday at age 90, was best known for his opposition to the Vietnam War and his efforts in fighting world hunger, he also made a mark regarding U.S. Middle East policy.

Like many liberals of his generation, he had a strong attachment to Israel as the national homeland for the Jewish people returning to the lands of their forefathers to escape centuries of oppression. It was only later in his Senate career, in 1975, when asked by Foreign Relationship chairman J. William Fulbright to chair the Middle East subcommittee, did he learn about the plight of the Palestinians. He became a strong supporter of a two-state solution at a time when the Democratic Party was on record opposing Palestinian statehood and emerged as an outspoken opponent of Israeli human rights abuses and other violations of international law while maintaining his steadfast support for Israel’s right to exist in peace and security.

He emphasized that, as a friend of Israel, he was obliged to do what a real friend must do when they see someone behaving in ways that are both immoral and threaten their own self-interest: tell them to stop.

His support for international law and self-determination was rooted in his taking part in the war on fascism. In his foreword to my most recent book, which analyzes the Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara, he noted how that experience helped teach him that the right of self-determination “is one of the most fundamental rights of all” and that “no government should get away with denying that right by invading, occupying and annexing another national and oppressing its people.” He faulted successive administrations of both parties for failing to uphold such fundamental principles of international law.

His interest in Middle Eastern affairs led him to become president of the Middle East Policy Council in 1991, a non-profit group based in Washington addressing political, economic and security issues in the region impacting the United States. In a 1993 interview I did with him for The Progressive magazine which took place while we were both visiting Damascus, he observed, “What I’m picking up now in my travels is a feeling that… a new form of imperialism is now operating in the Middle East. We may not have any colonies as did previous Western powers, but there is a belief that many of the ruling regimes are somehow tied in to the West in a way that does not enhance the well-being of the ordinary citizen. I think we’re headed for trouble if that perception prevails, particularly since there is a lot of truth behind it.”

He presciently added, “These Arab regimes are going to have to become more sensitive to the problems of their own people. This is what this Muslim extremism is all about: It’s a kind of desperate move by people who do not know how to get the attention of the ruling regimes any other way but to shake them up with extremist, radical, and sometimes violent methods.”

McGovern later became an outspoken critic of the Iraq War, comparing it to the tragedy of Vietnam. In 2006, he wrote Out of Iraq: A Practical Plan for Withdrawal Now, which helped a number of Democrats who had been too timid to speak out against the war previously to become bolder. In a Washington Post op-ed in January 2008, McGovern – arguing that “Nixon was bad [but] these guys are worse” – called for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice-president Cheney over their violations of the U.S. constitution and of national and international law, and their repeated lies to the American people. Speaker of the House and Democratic Congressional leader Nancy Pelosi, however, dismissed such calls for impeachment as “off the table.”

McGovern also expressed concern about the bipartisan threats of war against Iran and the hypocrisy in U.S. nonproliferation policy. In 2006, George and I wrote an op-ed for the San Jose Mercury News criticizing the Bush administration for signing a nuclear cooperation agreement with India. We argued, “How can we have any credibility in trying to block Iran’s nuclear program, which is still many years away from weapons capability, when we are supporting the nuclear program of a neighboring country which has already developed a dangerous nuclear arsenal? Maintaining such flagrant double-standards regarding nuclear proliferation is simply not worthy of a country which asserts the right to global leadership.”

It is disappointing to see so many of today’s otherwise liberal Democrats taking belligerent stances towards Iran and allying with Israel’s right-wing government by defending its occupation policies and other violations of international humanitarian law.

It is important to realize that McGovern – despite representing an under-populated state in the Great Plains – became such a prominent voice in foreign policy not just because of his many qualities, but because there were movements that magnified that voice. Ultimately, then, it is up to us to make possible the emergence of political leaders who will challenge both the Republicans and the Democratic establishment on the Middle East, as McGovern did on Southeast Asia.

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The Reality of Western Sahara : A rebuttal on accusations concerning the Polisario and Moroccan occupation

SAN FRANCISCO — Earlier this year, Global Post ran an article by Jordan Paul, executive director of the Moroccan American Center for Policy, a registered foreign agent for the Moroccan government, which funds, supervises, and coordinates the group’s activities. The article contained a series of demonstrably false claims attempting to rationalize for Morocco’s illegal occupation of its southern neighbor, the country of Western Sahara.

In 1975, the kingdom of Morocco conquered Western Sahara on the eve of its anticipated independence from Spain in defiance of a series of UN Security Council resolutions and a landmark 1975 decision by the International Court of Justice upholding the right of the country’s inhabitants to self-determination. With threats of a French and American veto at the UN preventing decisive action by the international community to stop the Moroccan invasion, the nationalist Polisario Front launched an armed struggle against the occupiers. The majority of the indigenous population, known as Sahrawis, went into exile, primarily in Polisario-run refugee camps in Algeria.

Thanks to U.S. and French military support for the conquering Moroccan forces, Morocco was able to hold on to most of Western Sahara. Yet the Polisario achieved a series of diplomatic victories that generated widespread international support for self-determination and opposition to the Moroccan takeover. In 1991, the Polisario agreed to a ceasefire in return for a Moroccan promise to allow for an internationally supervised referendum on the fate of the territory. Morocco, however, recognizing they would almost certainly lose such a plebiscite, refused to allow the scheduled vote to move forward.

French and American support for the Moroccan government blocked the UN Security Council from providing the necessary diplomatic pressure to force Morocco to allow the promised referendum to take place. The Polisario, meanwhile, recognizing its inability to defeat the Moroccans by military means, decided against resuming the armed struggle. As a result, the struggle for self-determination shifted to within the Moroccan-occupied territory, where the Sahrawi population has launched a nonviolent resistance campaign against the occupation, which – despite widespread Moroccan repression – has sporadically continued.

In an effort to justify their ongoing defiance of the international community for their illegal occupation, the autocratic Moroccan monarchy has redoubled its efforts to discredit their opponents, such hiring people like Paul to write articles like those that appeared in the Global Post in March.

Among Paul’s more bizarre claims is that the Polisario Front has links to Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb (AQIM.)

In reality, though Sahrawis are virtually all Muslims, they historically practice a decidedly liberal interpretation of the faith. The Polisario has since its founding been a secular organization, based on the belief that religious faith is between the individual and God, not a government or other temporal organization. Women have taken prominent positions in leadership. Meanwhile, radical Islamists in Algeria have condemned them for their secular ideology and even attacked Polisario offices.

Even during the twenty years of armed struggle, the Polisario never engaged in terrorism or any kind of deliberate attacks against civilian targets. And there has been none since.

Furthermore, the autocratic Algerian regime controls security around the refugee camps, which are located in the heavily-militarized region of Tindouf. After surviving a bloody decade-long civil war against Islamist extremists, the idea that the Algerian government would allow any group collaborating the AQIM to operate in such a sensitive area is pure fantasy.

While there are some legitimate concerns regarding some of the practices of the Polisario leadership in the camps, no credible independent analysts have documented Paul’s claims that the Polisario has been involved in “arms and drug trafficking, armed incursions into Mali, fighting as Gaddafi mercenaries in Libya, and kidnappings for AQIM in the Sahel.”

Contrary to Paul’s claim, the Polisario Front is not a “separatist” group. It is the ruling party of the nation of Western Sahara – known officially as the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic – which has been recognized by over 80 countries and is a full member state of the African Union. Western Sahara is recognized by the United Nations and virtually the entire international community as a non-self-governing country under foreign belligerent occupation.

And, contrary to Paul, the Polisario does not “force” the refugees to live in the camps. As someone who has visited both the camps and Moroccan-occupied parts of Western Sahara, it is clear that they are there to escape Moroccan repression in their occupied homeland, repression that has been well-documented by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and other reputable human rights groups.

As with Indonesia’s occupation of East Timor, Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, and Iraq’s short-lived occupation of Kuwait, there are those who will try to justify illegitimate foreign occupations by making up such bizarre stories. However, it doesn’t mean they should be taken seriously.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/news/regions/africa/morocco/the-reality-western-sahara

Stephen Zunes is a professor of Politics and chair or Middle Eastern Studies at the University of San Francisco. He is author, along with Jacob Mundy, of Western Sahara: War, Nationalism, and Conflict Irresolution (Syracuse University Press, 2010)

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Divesting from All Occupations

In response to ongoing violations of international law and basic human rights by the rightist Israeli government of Benyamin Netanyahu in the occupied West Bank and elsewhere, there has been a growing call for divestment of stocks in corporations supporting the occupation.

Modeled after the largely successful divestment campaign in the 1980s against corporations doing business in apartheid South Africa, the movement targets companies that support the Israeli occupation by providing weapons or other instruments of repression to Israeli occupation forces, investing in or trading with enterprises in illegal Israeli settlements, and in other ways. Although human rights activists recognize such tactics as a legitimate form of nonviolent international solidarity with an oppressed people, right-wing groups supporting the occupation as well as some more moderate organizations concerned about the strident anti-Israel tone of some divestment supporters have denounced the movement.

Still, the campaign has scored notable successes. One target of the campaign has been the Caterpillar company, which has provided Israeli occupation forces with bulldozers that have illegally demolished thousands of Palestinian homes. In recent months, TIAA/CREF— the leading provider of retirement benefits for those in the academic, research, medical, and cultural fields—has removed Caterpillar from its Social Choice Fund. The influential Morgan Stanley Capital International has delisted Caterpillar from its World Socially Responsible Index, and the Quaker Friends Fiduciary Corporation has joined a growing list of groups which have divested stockholdings in the company. At the recent General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church USA, a resolution to divest from Caterpillar, along with Motorola and Hewlett Packard, for their complicity in the occupation was defeated by the narrowest of margins.
Opposing Occupation Everywhere

At the Presbyterian gathering and elsewhere, many opponents of the divestment resolution acknowledged that the Israeli government is engaged in serious human rights abuses in the occupied territories, but expressed concerned that the divestment resolution unfairly “singles out Israel.” Indeed, there are a number of governments in the world that engage in worse human rightsabuses than Israel, and violations of human rights should be opposed regardless if they take place within a country’s internationally-recognized borders or in an illegally occupied territory. Given that Israel is the world’s only Jewish state, there is understandably particular sensitivity if Israel alone is seen as being targeted, however serious the government’s transgressions.

However, there is a much stronger legal case for opposing human rights abuses in territories recognized as under foreign belligerent occupation. International law prohibits under most circumstances foreign companies from exploiting natural resources within such territories. Similarly, there are a host of legal issues regarding the export of weapons and other military resources to country’s that utilize them in suppressing the rights of those under occupation.

Indeed, these very issues were subjected to international debate during South Africa’s occupation of Namibia, Iraq’s occupation of Kuwait, and Indonesia’s occupation of East Timor.

Today, there are only three countries that are engaged in what the United Nations and the international community recognize as a foreign belligerent occupation: Israel, Morocco, and Armenia. (Although a moral case can be made for the independence of Tibet, Chechnya, and West Papua (as well as a number of other territories that aspire to become independent), the international community deems them as being within the internationally recognized borders of China, Russia and Indonesia respectively, and are therefore not recognized as occupied territories.)

Virtually no major international companies support Armenia’s current occupation of the small strip of Azerbaijan territory it controls. However, a number of companies support Morocco’s ongoing illegal occupation of the nation of Western Sahara.

U.S.-based Kosmos Energy is the only oil company in the world licensed for offshore oil exploration in the territorial waters of occupied Western Sahara. In 2002, a UN legal analysis determined that proceeding with such exploration activities would be in violation of international law. Similarly, two U.S. fertilizer companies – PCS and Mosaic – are major customers of Morocco’s illegal phosphate production in occupied Western Sahara. And, as is the case of the Israeli-occupied territories, U.S.-based arms manufacturers have supplied Moroccan occupation forces engaged in what independent human rights groups have described as gross and systematic human rights violations, including manufacturers of the teargas that has been used to break up peaceful demonstrations calling for the right of self-determination.
Expanding the Boycott

The Palestinian solidarity struggle would be considerably strengthened if, instead of calling for divestment specifically from companies supporting the Israeli occupation, the call was for divestment from companies supporting all foreign belligerent occupations.

Since it would effectively mean just one additional country and only a small number of companies, it would not take much attention away from the Israeli occupation and Western companies supporting the occupation. More importantly, it would help move the debate away from a divisive pro-Israel vs. anti-Israel dichotomy, where people often end up just talking past each other, to where the debate belongs: human rights and international law.

Morocco is a predominantly Arab Muslim country. By including Western Sahara along with Palestine, the movement would avoid the accusation that it is unfairly singling out Israel. After all, it would be targeting all illegal occupations, not just one.

Morocco, like Israel, is in violation of a series of United Nations Security Council resolutions and a landmark decision of the International Court of Justice regarding their occupation. Morocco, like Israel, has illegally moved tens of thousands of settlers into the occupied territory. Morocco, like Israel, engages in gross and systematic human rights abuses in the occupied territories. Morocco, like Israel, has illegally built a separation wall through the occupied territories. Morocco, like Israel, relies on the United States and other Western support to maintain the occupation by rendering the UN powerless to enforce international law. Morocco, like Israel, is able to maintain the occupation in part through the support of multinational corporations.

And just as Palestine is recognized by scores of countries and is a full member of the Arab League, Western Sahara is recognized by scores of countries and is a full member of the African Union, thereby insuring international support.

Not only would including all occupations in the divestment campaign help protect the movement from spurious charges of “anti-Semitism” and broaden its appeal, it would help bring attention to the little-known but important self-determination struggle of the Sahrawi people against the illegal and oppressive Moroccan occupation of their country, which was invaded by the U.S.-backed kingdom in 1975, eight years after the Israeli conquest of the West Bank and other Arab territories. (For a summary of the Western Sahara struggle and its implications, see Western Sahara: The Other Occupation)

Given the intense polarization, harsh polemics, and suspicions regarding Israel and Palestine, a campaign based more on universal legal and moral principles against occupation, rather than targeting a particular country that has a strong and influential domestic constituency, would be far more effective. Given the suffering of the Palestinian (and Sahrawi) peoples and the complicity of the U.S. government and U.S. corporations in their oppression, they deserve nothing less.

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Obama’s Middle East speech elides over Moroccan aggression in Western Sahara

Obama’s claim that the United States “will not tolerate aggression across borders” continues to be somewhat selective given ongoing US support for the Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara and support for Israel’s continued occupation of the Palestinian territories. Read the rest at the Huffington Post

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East Timor and Western Sahara: A Comparative Analysis on Prospects for Self-Determination

Book chapter in International Law and the Question of Western Sahara edited by in Karin Arts and Pedro Pinto Leite (International Platform of Jurists 2007).

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Performing the nation, pre-figuring the state: the Western Saharan refugees, thirty years later

Recent social, economic and political changes in the Western Saharan refugee camps in southwest Algeria have import not only for the project of Western Saharan nationalism, but also for the ongoing peace process. These are examined through a background to the Western Sahara conflict, and an appraisal of the camps’ internal processes of elite politics, self-management and recent post-war socio-economic change.

in The Journal of Modern African Studies (2007), 45(2): 275-297
Cambridge University Press
doi:10.1017/S0022278X07002546

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Western Sahara: The Other Occupation

Imagine an Arab Muslim nation, most of whose people have lived in the squalor of refugee camps for decades in exile from their homeland. Most of the remaining population suffers under foreign military occupation, with a smaller number living as a minority within the legally-recognized territory of the occupier. The occupying power is in violation of a series of UN Security Council resolutions, has illegally brought in tens of thousands of settlers into the occupied territory, routinely violates international standards of human rights, has built a heavily-fortified separation barrier deep inside the occupied territory, and continues to defy a landmark decision of the International Court of Justice. Furthermore, and despite all this, the occupying power is considered to be a close ally of the United States and receives substantial American military, economic, and diplomatic support to maintain its occupation and colonization of the territory. This certainly describes the situation regarding Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian West Bank (including greater East Jerusalem) and Syria’s Golan region, as well as its quasi-occupation of the Gaza Strip. But it also describes the thirty-year occupation of Western Sahara by the Kingdom of Morocco.