Polisario Front Archives - Jean-Jacques Cornish

European court ruling a blow for Morocco occupation of Western Sahara

Jean-Jacques Cornish — Thu, 22 Dec 2016 22:00:00 +0000

The European Court of Justice has ruled that EU agreements and treaties with Morocco cannot apply to Western Sahara.

This is a major blow to Rabat’s claims to legal rights over the territory.

Western Sahara has been occupied by Morocco since its 1975 invasion of the territory after Spanish colonial control ended.

It is the subject of one of the world’s longest-running conflicts, between the Moroccan state and the indigenous Sahrawi.

The ECJ ruling addressed a case filed by the Polisario Front, the de facto government of the Sahrawi people in the Western Sahara refugee camps in Tindouf, challenging the status of two trade deals between Morocco and the EU.

In its judgment, the court broke from its previous policy of avoiding ruling on the legal status of Western Sahara by recognising the separate and distinct status guaranteed to the territory of Western Sahara under the Charter of the United Nations.

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Concern that Western Sahara clashes will threaten regional peace

Jean-Jacques Cornish — Wed, 07 Sep 2016 22:00:00 +0000

There’s growing concern that renewed hostilities in the Western Sahara are posing a threat to regional peace and stability.

Morocco’s decision to build a road in the buffer zone with the area its occupies illegally has caused armed clashes with Saharawi fighters.

A ceasefire negotiated in 1991 between Morocco and the armed wing of the Saharawi people, the Polisario Front ended 17 years of fighting following Morocco’s invasion and occupation of the territory.

That truce has been monitored by a UN force known as MINURSO.

Morocco has several times reneged on promises to allow the Saharawi people to determine their future by way of a referendum.

Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic President Jatri Adduh has expressed his disquiet to the United Nations Security Council about Morocco’s failure to make any progress on this as ordered in a resolution by the UN powerhouse in April.

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Morocco joining the African Union will be messy

Jean-Jacques Cornish — Sun, 24 Jul 2016 22:00:00 +0000

It was such a bad tempered and bitter departure 32 years ago that it is hardly surprising the return, if it happens at all, will be messy.

Morocco surprised many at the African Union summit in Kigali earlier this week, saying it wants to join the African Union

The host, President Paul Kagame, was not among those taken aback.

He received Morocco’s King Mohammed VI as an honoured guest in his capital earlier this year and conferred Rwanda’s high civic honour on the man known as M6.

Neither, presumably, did Morocco’s intention come out of the blue for the 28 African states that have supported the Kingdom becoming a member of the Africa Union.

Senegal is foremost among these.

President Macky Sall refers euphemistically to Morocco’s “independence tussle “with Western Sahara.

He spells out that the Kingdom wants the African- Union- recognised Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) suspended from the African Union before it is admitted.

African powers like Algeria and South Africa find such a notion absolutely preposterous.

They take the conventional view that Morocco invaded the Western Sahara in 1976 and has been in illegal occupation of the country ever since.

The recognition of the SADR by the Organization of African Union in 1984 caused Morocco to walk out in a high dugeon.

The Kingdom has elected to be the only African country not to be a member of the continental body.

It continued this stance in 2002 when the African Union evolved out of the OAU.

The AU position is that the Western Sahara is the last colonial question in Africa.

So, Morocco has to end its occupation of the SADR is it wants to join the AU.

It would be impossible to come into the African fold as a colonial oppressor.

And it certainly cannot expect to be embraced by the continent do this at the expense of established AU member the SADR.

The United States would like to see Morocco join the AU. It regards this as a “very important” step of a “strategic partner” of the USA that would “benefit the whole continent”.

However Washington has steered clear of talking about Moroccoo’s illegal occupation of an AU member.

In a message to the Kigali summit , King Mohammed VI said “Morocco’s friends have long been asking the Kingdom to return among them so that Morocco may take its natural place within its institutional family. That time has now come”

The King said Morocco would join the AU with without precondition – leaving it to its supporters to specify the desire for the expulsion of a member state.

The United Nations Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon refers to Morocco’s presence in the Western Sahara as an occuption.

Saharawi’s have been driven into refugee camps in Algeria, resulting in a humanitarian crisis.

So angered was Morocco by the Secretary General’s language that it expelled UN peacekeepers from areas of the occupied country under its control.

The action was denounced by the African Union for setting a “dangerous precedent” and threatening regional peace with recklessness and disregard for the Sahrawi people’s right to self-determination,

The AU expects an apology from Morocco, adding that Morocco’s membership of the AU cannot come without pre-conditions.

At the very least, Morocco would have to keep its promise made when a delicate peace was brokered with the Saharawi guerrilla known as the Polisario Front in 1991to have a referendum in the SADR.

The Saharawi accept there may a case to be be made that no- one has a right to deny Morocco a seat in the African Union.

However, it is adamant that no one has a right to deny the SADR its sovereignty if that is what its people desire.

“Modern Africa cannot pretend to be blind to modern colonialism, violent and vile in nature. This situation should be fixed. Welcome back Morocco, but there is a lot of work to be done.”

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Western Sahara president dies

Jean-Jacques Cornish — Tue, 31 May 2016 22:00:00 +0000

Western Sahara’s President Mohamed Abdelaziz has died after a long illness. He was 68.

His death comes at a sensitive time for his country that’s been illegally occupied by Morocco for more than 40 years.

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The Saharawi Republic’s declared 40 days of mourning following the death of Mohamed Abdelaziz.

Algeria, which houses the administration in exile of that country, has declared a week of mourning.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon has expressed his sadness at Abdelaziz’s passing and called him a central figure in the search for a settlement of the Western Sahara dispute.

Ban’s infuriated Morocco by referring to its occupation of the territory.

It’s expelled part of a United Nations peace-keeping mission deployed in Western Sahara since a ceasefire in the war between Moroccan invaders and the Polisario Front in 1991.

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