Significantly the EU’s top court acknowledges that the government of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR)  is the internationally recognized authority over Western Sahara and thus controls the agriculture and fishing in the territory under Moroccan occupation.

This is a legal victory for the POLISARIO, the ruling party in the SADR who challenges the European Council that acts on behalf of the 27 EU member-states.

It finds the EU did not secure the consent of the Saharawi people before entering into agreement with Morocco.

Polisario representative to theEU Oubi Bashir hailed “a great victory for the desert cause”.

In early 2018 the European Court of Justice ruled that  a fisheries agreement between the EU and Morocco cannot include the waters of the Western Sahara.

This dealt a multi-million euro blow to the cash-strapped Kingdom that relies largely on  exports are dagga and oranges. 

Normally, Rabat acts petulantly against challenges to its occupation of the Western Sahara.

It quit the then Organisation of African Unity when the continental body accepted the membership of the SADR.

When Spain treated SADR President Brahim Ghali for COVID earlier this year, Morocco withdrew its guards from the two Spanish enclaves on the African continent.

This allowed Moroccans fleeing human rights violations and economic constraints in their home country to pour into Ceuta and Melila seeking a better life in Europe.

The latest European Court decision is certainly a blow to EU-Morocco relations.

In this matter,  the kingdom is forced to  be circumspect in demonstrating its anger.

The EU is far and away the largest trading partner with Morocco and the largest foreign investor in the kingdom.

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The mendacious Mediterranean kingdom sought to take advantage of the continental talkshop’s leadership paralysis.

Using PAP official stationery, a certain Roger Nkodo attacks the European Parliament for criticizing Morocco’s cynical use of refugees in a spat with Spain.

Nkodo purports to be a past president of the PAP and a goodwill ambassador of the African body.

Through its clerk, the PAP fired back: “Nkodo is is not a goodwill ambassador or a past president of the PAP and does not hold any position in PAP that entitles him to speak on behalf of PAP.

“His statement did not originate in PAP. It is his own personal statement without reference to or authority of the PAP.” 

Morocco is well used to being slapped down by European countries for playing fast and loose with the truth.

In recent months Germany reminded the kingdom that it holds no legal authority of Western Sahara.

A Spanish court summarily dismissed a glaringly fake legal bid by Morocco to have the Saharawi President Brahim Ghali tried for human rights abuses.

Madrid rejected Moroccan criticism for allowing Ghali to receive treatment for COVID in a Spanish hospital.

Morocco responded angrily to this by removing its guards around the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, allowing thousands of Moroccan refugees to stream onto Spanish territory.

The European Parliament rapped this action by Morocco.

Morocco has  recently return to the African family, decades after storming out of the OAU when it recognized the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic which has been illegally occupied by Morocco since 1975.

It is seeking to establish stronger ties with African countries, using its revenue as the largest importer of dagga into Europe.

It has skin in the game of the PAP leadership imbroglio, providing finance and private jet for the Malian candidate Haidra Aichata Cisse.

Undercover payments are not uncommon in African politics where they are euphemistically known as pot au vin or matabiche.

It remains to be seen how long African leaders will tolerate their new member’s bare faced lies.

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The statement from Pretoria calls on Morocco and the Saharawi liberation movement POLISARIO to observe the ceasefire called by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres during the pandemic.

The hard-hitting South African statement calls Western Sahara Africa’s last case of colonialism.

It points out that the International Court of Justice has ruled that Morocco is an illegal occupying force in the territory abandoned by Spain.

The South African position, says the statement, is driven by its opposition to the occupation, its determination to see decolonisation and its concern for human rights 

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The U.S. has recorded 2 489 COVID19 death and passed both China and Italy with the number of infections.

US infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci says the US could have between 100 and 200 000 coronavirus deaths.

This as the world wide death toll exceeds 30 000.

Spain had a record 838 deaths in the past 24 house and Italy  registered 756 new deaths in a day.

Britain, where infected Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned that things would get worse before they got better, recorded 209 deaths.

Australia has added restrictions to movement to stop the spread of the pandemic.

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The drama’s provoked a call by medical charity Doctors Without Borders for governments to put lives ahead of politics.

ends intro

MSF denounces Italy’s closure of its ports to stop rescued people from disembarking and European governments’ choice of political point-scoring over saving lives at sea.

The charity’s head of emergencies Karline Kleijer says the men, women, and children on board the Aquarius have fled conflict and poverty, and have survived horrific abuse in Libya. They have been shipped from one boat to another like cargo and endured the elements on an unnecessarily long journey at sea.

She says MSF is grateful to Spain for stepping in, even as Italian and other European governments have shamefully failed in their humanitarian responsibilities and placed politics over the lives of vulnerable people.

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The drugs from Latin America were packed in boxes labelled halal meat.

The Liberian-registered Vega Mercury  was carrying frozen meat from Brazil and had previously docked in Valencia, Spain.

It was due to offload in Algeria’s western port of Oran but suspicions were raised when the captain refused to dock for three days.

Acting on a tip-off from Spanish authorities , the Algerian coastguard forced the boat into port.

Algeria has identified drug trafficking as a top national security threat linked to militancy in the region and put its powerful army in charge of fighting it.

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There were 25 338 migrants that made this journey in the first 19 weeks of this year.

628 died attempting it.

Italy,  with 41% of the traffic, once again took in the lion’s share of African migrants.

This was followed by Greece with 38%, leaving Spain with 21%. 

This year’s number is less than half the number who landed in the same period last last and about 13% of the number of migrants in 2016.

The International Organisation For Migration says the largest number of migrants coming to Europe from North Africa are Tunisians, followed by Eritreans, Nigerians, Sudanese, Pakistanis, Malians, Guineans and Senegalese.

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A summit hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron brought seven countries to ink a short term playoff action recognizing that migration poses a challenge for both continents.

Meeting in Paris, the leaders of France, Germany, Italy and Spain agree to help Chad and Niger with border control to stem the flow of migrants through Libya and across the Mediterranean.

French president, Emmanuel Macron, says the issue’s a problem that concerns us all that cannot be solved without us all.

He  adds that the migration crisis needs to be approached with solidarity, humanity and efficiency.

The seven agree as a matter of urgency to deal with people-smugglers who have turned the Mediterranean into a cemetery.

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More than 2 000 people have died crossing the Mediterranean this year on the perilous sea journey taken by more than 100 000 people from Libya to Italy.

French President Emmanuel Macron is telling leaders from Chad, Niger and Libya – who’ve been joined by their counterparts from Germany Italy and Spain – that asylum requests must be handled in Africa.

He proposes setting up hotspots in Chad,  Niger and Libya to do this.

The  number of crossing has halved since June – probably because Italy has tightened cooperation with Libyan security forces.

Insecurity in that North African country remains a major problem in curbing the migrant flow.

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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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