Western Sahara

Both Morocco and the Polisario Front of Western Sahara suffered reverses on 13 September. An EU legal official declared in an advisory opinion that the waters and lands of Western Sahara are not part of Morocco (after 41 years of illegal occupation), and therefore could not be covered by any EU-Morocco trade agreements.

However, advocate general Melchior Wathelet also ruled that the Polisario Front (Western Sahara’s national liberation movement/government-in-exile) was not the…

A huge investment fund has divested from two oil companies because of their role in the illegal exploitation of the oil resources of Western Sahara (illegally occupied by Morocco since 1975).

Norway’s $835bn sovereign wealth fund dropped Cairn Energy (based in Edinburgh, Scotland) and Kosmos Energy (from Dallas, Texas, USA), after a report from an independent council of ethics.

There was an authoritative legal opinion on this in 2002, given by ambassador Hans Corell,…

There should be no oil drilling in the waters of Western Sahara ‘until the Saharawis have had the chance to exercise their right to self-determination and have freely and fairly decided the political status of their homeland’. So went a joint letter to the UN security council from 243 organisations from around the world, sent on 15 April.

Scottish oil company Cairn Energy is involved in oil exploration off Western Sahara, under licence from Morocco, which has illegally occupied…

Western Sahara is part of Morocco. That’s what Edinburgh-based oil and gas exploration company Cairn Energy said in its latest annual report, released on 27 March. Cairn was recently involved in drilling a test well in the Boujdour oilfield, which it describes in its report as a ‘well in Morocco, offshore Western Sahara’.

In fact, Western Sahara has been illegally occupied by Morocco since 1975, and the oil exploration Cairn is involved in is criminal.

That’s the view…

On 19 December, Kosmos Energy of the US and Cairn Energy of Scotland became the first companies ever to drill for oil in Western Sahara, a territory illegally occupied by Morocco since 1975.

‘I have seen that they [Kosmos executives] think their actions are in conformity with my legal opinion, and my determined opinion is that they are not’, ambassador Hans Corell, author of a crucial 2002 UN legal opinion, told MEED weekly on 8 January.

Corell was head of the…

Things may be about to heat up over Western Sahara, illegally occupied by Morocco since 1975. Later this year, a drillship will begin to search for oil off Western Sahara’s coast under a licence granted by Morocco to Edinburgh-based Cairn Energy and others.

According to a UN legal ruling in 2002, it is illegal to exploit Sahrawi resources ‘in disregard of the interests and wishes of the people of Western Sahara’.

Morocco refuses to negotiate with the government of…

On 5 July, thousands thronged in the Spanish city of Seville for the annual ‘March for Peace in Western Sahara’. Among those calling for independence for the territory were Sahrawi children, spending their summer holidays hosted by families in the city.

Western Sahara has been illegally occupied by Morocco since 1975.

At the beginning of July, four Danish municipalities, Gladsaxe, Herlev, Rudersdal and Gentofte, announced that they would not use road salt imported from…

At the beginning of October, the Western Sahara Campaign urged British shoppers to seek out and report tomatoes grown in Western Sahara but labelled as ‘produce of Morocco’. Western Sahara has been illegally occupied by Morocco since 1975, and the tomato industry benefits the king of Morocco himself or French-Moroccan transnationals, rather than local people.

In late October, Moroccan police attacked dozens of pro-independence demonstrators in the Western Sahara cities of…

Western Sahara Resources Watch issued a report at the end of August warning that Morocco plans to build over 1000 megawatts of renewable energy plants in Western Sahara, and has been unloading construction material for this purpose this summer.

Western Sahara has been illegally occupied by Morocco since 1975, and the consent of the original inhabitants is legally required for this kind of development.

On 14 September, the Robert F. Kennedy Centre for Justice and Human…

Last time we checked in on Western Sahara, occupied illegally by Morocco since 1975, demonstrations were taking place to protest against the decision by the UN security council, at the end of April, not to give a human rights role to MINURSO, the UN monitoring group for the territory.

The US had initially proposed enabling MINURSO to monitor human rights (like every other UN mission around the world), but withdrew after strong Moroccan protests.

In May, Western Sahara saw over…

Al Hadra, Sahrawi poet Photo: Emma Brown

Across the other side of Algeria from where the Amenas gas installation was hijacked by militia (armed from former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s liberated weapon stores), a very different Islamic resistance movement has been lodged for 35 years.

Largely unnoticed in Western consciousness, their culture draws on moderate Islam, Bedouin traditions and 1960s African socialism. One of their weapons of choice is poetry…

On 1 February, Morocco was due to finally put on trial 23 Sahrawis arrested when Moroccan security forces destroyed the Gadaym Izik protest camp (the forerunner to the more celebrated Arab Spring uprisings) in November 2010. 

The 23 Sahrawis have carried out four hunger strikes to bring attention to the brutal treatment they have received in prison, and to the fact that despite being civilians they are facing trial in a military court.

Western Sahara has been illegally…

In early November, the Moroccan government deported 25 European solidarity activists (21 Spaniards and four Norwegians) from Laayoune in Western Sahara, which has been illegally occupied by Morocco since 1975.

The solidarity visit was timed to mark the second anniversary of a Moroccan assault on Gadaym Izik, a massive Sahrawi tent city that sprang up as a protest against the occupation and the conditions of life it has created (PN 2528-2529). Gadaym Izik, in November 2010, was later…

In late September, Spanish solidarity activists persuaded Spanish canning company Jealsa to stop using sardines from the waters of Western Sahara, which has been illegally occupied by Morocco since 1975.
Jealsa was profiting from the occupation by operating a sardine cannery in Laayoune.

After years of protests at outlets of the Spanish Mercadona supermarket chain and at the company itself, Jealsa has moved the cannery to A Coruña in…

An international delegation from the Robert F Kennedy (RFK) Centre for Justice and Human Rights witnessed police brutality in Western Sahara during a fact-finding mission at the end of August. Four Moroccan state agents…