Category: Western Sahara/Morocco
Western Sahara/Morocco
Stephen Zunes’ Testimony before the UN conference on decolonization
freedomsupport June 29, 2016: My interest in the dispute over Western Sahara is based not simply upon my belief in justice for that country’s people, but its implications in regard to international law and the principles upon which the United Nations organization is founded. These include the right of self-determination…
Morocco continues occupation of Western Sahara, in defiance of UN
National Catholic Reporter June 6, 2016: As Morocco continues to defy the UN, the International Court of Justice, and much of the international community in its continued occupation of Western Sahara, the United States continues supporting that autocratic government.
Reasons to oppose the proposed state anti-boycott bill
Santa Cruz Sentinel June 2, 2016: The California State Assembly is considering a bill entitled the “Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions of Recognized Sovereign Nations or Peoples Act” (AB 2844) that could lead to penalizing California businesses that boycott any country or any products from a particular country — even if the product is being made in a colony or occupied territory or if it is made under illegal, inhumane or environmentally deleterious conditions. It would also deny state or local government contracts to sole proprietorships who participate in such boycotts.
Africa’s Last Colony: Western Saharan Independence Movement Mourns Loss of Polisario Front Leader
Hillary Clinton, phosphates, and the Western Sahara
National Catholic Reporter May 12, 2015 [Also by the Huffington Post]
For more than a half-century, a series of UN resolutions and rulings by the International Court of Justice have underscored the rights of inhabitants of countries under colonial rule or foreign military occupation. Among these is the right to “freely dispose of their natural wealth and resources,” which “must be based on the principles of equality and of the right of peoples and nations to self-determination”…
Obama Ignores Morocco’s Illegal Occupation and Human Rights Abuses
Foreign Policy In Focus December 20, 2013
Late last month, President Barack Obama met with Morocco’s King Mohammed VI in Washington for their first face-to-face meeting. The result was a bitter disappointment for supporters of human rights and international law.
The Last Colony: Beyond Dominant Narratives on the Western Sahara Roundtable
Middle East Studies Pedagogy Initiative (MESPI) June 3, 2013
[Republished by Dagsavisen.no, Jadaliyya.com, JADMAG, and Transnational.org]
Western Sahara is a sparsely-populated territory about the size of Italy, on the Atlantic coast in northwestern Africa, just south of Morocco. Traditionally inhabited by nomadic Arab tribes, collectively known as Sahrawis and famous for their long history of resistance to outside domination, the territory was occupied by Spain from the late 1800s through the mid-1970s. With Spain holding onto the territory well over a decade after most African countries had achieved their freedom from European colonialism, the nationalist Polisario Front launched an armed independence struggle against Spain in 1973. This (along with pressure from the United Nations) eventually forced Madrid to promise the people of what was then still known as the Spanish Sahara a referendum on the fate of the territory by the end of 1975. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) heard irredentist claims by Morocco and Mauritania and ruled in October of 1975 that (despite pledges of fealty to the Moroccan sultan back in the nineteenth century by some tribal leaders bordering the territory, and close ethnic ties between some Sahrawi and Mauritanian tribes) the right of self-determination was paramount. A special visiting mission from the United Nations engaged in an investigation of the situation in the territory that same year and reported that the vast majority of Sahrawis supported independence under the leadership of the Polisario, not integration with Morocco or Mauritania.
Interview: Inside the Decades-Long Dispute over the Western Sahara (audio)
KBIA FM May 2, 2013: Panelists: Stephen Zunes, Professor of Politics and International Studies, University of San Francisco, and Luis de Vega, Reporter, ABC daily newspaper.
Western Sahara is nearly as big as its northern neighbor, Morocco, but in truth, this stretch of desert along the Atlantic Ocean may be Africa’s most overlooked territorial dispute…
Western Sahara is nearly as big as its northern neighbor, Morocco, but in truth, this stretch of desert along the Atlantic Ocean may be Africa’s most overlooked territorial dispute…
Interview: French Military Incursion in Mali (audio)
The Scott Horton Show January 18, 2013
Zunes discusses the French military incursion in Mali; the hostage disaster in Algeria; the cascading failure of interventions from Libya to Mali and Algeria; why the US favors the tyrannical government in Morocco instead of the pro-democracy protestors; and how a heavy-handed foreign policy bolsters the most radical opposition groups…
Interview: The Threat of Western Military Intervention in Mali (audio)
The Scott Horton Show January 11, 2013
In part 1, Zune discusses the threat of Western military intervention in Mali; the next generation of Islamic extremists motivated by Saudi-funded madrassas and the U.S. occupation of Iraq; and the non-governmental militias fighting for the spoils in Libya.
The Reality of Western Sahara
Global Post August 2, 2012
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..
Divesting from All Occupations
Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies July 25, 2012.
Republished by Transnational.org et al.
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… Still, the campaign has scored notable successes…
WikiLeaks Cables on Western Sahara Show Role of Ideology in State Department
Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies December 6, 2010; also in Huffington Post & Global Voices
Over the years, as part of my academic research, I have spent many hours at the National Archives poring over diplomatic cables of the kind recently released by WikiLeaks. The only difference is that rather than being released after a 30+ year waiting period — when the principals involved are presumably dead or in retirement and the countries in question have very different governments in power — the WikiLeaks are a lot more recent, more relevant and, in some cases, more embarrassing. However, those of us who have actually read such cables over the years find nothing in them particularly unusual or surprising.
Upsurge in repression challenges nonviolent resistance in Western Sahara
Open Democracy November 17, 2010
On November 8, Moroccan occupation forces attacked a tent city of as many as 12,000 Western Saharans just outside of Al Aioun, in the culminating act of a months-long protest of discrimination against the indigenous Sahrawi population and worsening economic conditions. Not only was the scale of the crackdown unprecedented, so was the popular reaction: In a dramatic departure from the almost exclusively nonviolent protests of recent years, the local population turned on their occupiers, engaging in widespread rioting and arson. As of this writing, the details of these events are unclear, but they underscore the urgent need for global civil society to support those who have been struggling nonviolently for their right of self-determination and to challenge western governments which back the regime responsible for the repression…
Interview: Zunes on Western Sahara
Democracy Now! November 15, 2010
Moroccan Forces Raid Protest Camp in Western Sahara, Thousands Demonstrate in Madrid Against Crackdown AMY GOODMAN: Thousands of people demonstrated in Madrid on Saturday against Morocco’s recent crackdown in Western Sahara. Moroccan security forces last week raided a camp where some 20,000 Sahrawis had been staging a massive protest against the Moroccan occupation. Morocco has announced that it will try in a military court more than 100 Sahrawi activists who helped organize the camp. We go to Laâyoune to speak with Peter Bouckaert of Human Rights Watch, and we are joined by University of San Francisco professor Stephen Zunes, author of Western Sahara: War, Nationalism, and Conflict Irresolution.
U.S. Lawmakers Support Illegal Annexation
Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies, April 5, 2010; also CommonDreams, Global Policy Forum, Huffington Post, Toward Freedom, Transcend International, ZNetwork & Baltimore Nonviolence Center blogIn yet another assault on fundamental principles of international law, a bipartisan majority of the Senate has gone on record calling on the United States to endorse Morocco’s illegal annexation of Western Sahara, the former Spanish colony invaded by Moroccan forces in 1975 on the verge of its independence. In doing so, the Senate is pressuring the Obama administration to go against a series of UN Security Council resolutions, a landmark decision of the International Court of Justice, and the position of the African Union and most of the United States’ closest European allies.
More disturbingly, this effort appears to have the support of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. [source]
The Other Occupation: Western Sahara and the Case of Aminatou Haidar
Alternet, December 5, 2009 Aminatou Haidar, a nonviolent activist from Western Sahara and a key leader in her nation’s struggle against the 34-year-old U.S.-backed Moroccan occupation of her country, has been forced into exile by Moroccan authorities. She was returning from the United States, where she had won the Civil Courage Award from the Train Foundation. Forcing residents of territories under belligerent occupation into exile is a direct violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, to which both the United States and Morocco are signatories. Her arrest and expulsion is part of a broader Moroccan crackdown that appears to have received the endorsement of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. [source lnk expired]
A Tale of Two Human Rights Awardees
Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies, December 2, 2009
The annual Robert F. Kennedy Award ceremony took place at the White House this year for the first time in its 28-year history… This year’s winner was the group Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA)… This show of support from President Obama is particularly important in light of the trial of the two WOZA activists, scheduled to begin next week… [source]
Presentation: Nonviolent Action in the Islamic World
Dr. Stephen Zunes, Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of San Francisco, discusses the long history of strategic nonviolent action throughout the Islamic world, in the Middle East and beyond. Based in part on the social contract implied in Islamic teachings which advocate the withdrawal of obedience from unjust authority, nonviolent civil insurrections have played a major role in the struggle for freedom and human rights for more than a century. Dr. Zunes, looks at case studies from Iran, Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon, Mali, Western Sahara, Indonesia, Pakistan, and others.