written November 7, 2008
If all goes as planned, for the next few weeks I'll be telling you a story that is thirty-three years in the making. It begins in the barren deserts of the Western Saharan and stretches into a protracted stalemate between the Saharwi people and Morocco. It involves a conflict of state-centric interests, human rights abuse, plunder of natural resources, refugees, a status quo, a fragmented independence movement, and a monarchy with a nationalist agenda. It involves people, some with extraordinary abilities to mobilize and continue a struggle against insurmountable odds. The likes of Aminatour Haidar, who next week will be awarded the 2008 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award figure among those.
Now I can go into detail and history of the Western Sahara conflict but I would do it no justice. Three decades of history cannot be so succinctly summarized in a few lines of text. For those interested, I recommend International Crisis Group reports. However, in very crude terms, it's a conflict that involves one people's right to self-determination as guaranteed by UN Resolution 1514 and a kingdom that claims the disputed territory as its own. No one wants to concede. Rooted in the status quo are the lives of some 160,000 Saharwi refugees who bake in the dry, isolated deserts of south western Algeria – which I wrote a short piece on last year.
Its another miserable attempt by the UN to broker a settlement where conflict of state-centric interests (notably Security Council members US and France) clash with international laws and the UN Charter's on decolonization. Neither the US nor France is willing to compromise its strategic partnerships with Morocco over the rights of a people who have no money and pose no immediate threat. It is also a story with its own set of unique superlatives in Africa – longest running land dispute, longest running UN mission. And some call it the continent´s last colony though that seems to disregard the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla. I should also like to mention that there are regional stakes invovled. Morocco opted out of the African Union way back in 1984 in protest of the union´s recognition of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR). SADR is the Saharwi government in exile fronted by the Polisario.
Today I attended the 34th annual EUCOCO conference(EU Conference for the Support of the Sahawri People) in sunny Valencia, Spain. Scheduled to start at 3pm, the conference finally got underway at five. The conference objective is to set out a road-map and a plan of action for 2009 through a series of seven workshops – political action, humanitarian aid, human rights and occupied territories, lawyers, trade unions, women, culture and art.
For the next several hours a crowd of around 500 people listened to a series of speeches espousing democracy, human rights, and a firm commitment to self-determination and support of the Saharwi people. Delegates from around the world took to the mike – including Mexico, South Africa, Mauritania, Mali, Chili, Uruguay, Senegal, Algeria, Peru, Angola, Spain, France, and Italy. A delegate from Russia was also present but didn't speak. There was no UN representative.
Algeria's delegate said his country was committed in its support of the Polisario and the right to self-determination. « We are clearly in favor of basic rights, of human rights, we are saying and still are saying that the realization of these rights has yet to be recognized. The Saharwi people are not asking anything from the international community but only its fundamental rights which we support, » he told the assembled followed by a round of applause.
I managed to corner the Algerian delegate in the lobby afterwards and asked him whether or not the conflict didn´t also involve his country's border dispute with Morocco. The delegate somewhat graciously declined to answer and explained he was not officially representing Algeria and could not make statements on its behalf. Algeria has no border dispute with Morocco he said before slipping away into the crowd.
The first day of EUCOCO conference addressed the issues of human rights and self-determination. While such topics are indeed worthwhile, the delegation failed to mention some of the inherent problems of the conflict – the UN and several of its Security Council members and a status quo that also implicates the Polisario.
Next blog entry will discuss human rights and the occupied territories.