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.
Category: Western Sahara/Morocco
Western Sahara/Morocco
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…
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
Nonviolent-Conflict.org, March 11, 2010:
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…
Haidar’s Struggle
Huffington Post October 9, 2008, by Stephen Zunes [source]
Aminatou Haidar, a nonviolent activist from Western Sahara and a key leader in her nation’s struggle against the 33-year-old U.S.-backed Moroccan occupation of her country, won this year’s Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award. This recognition of Haidar and her nonviolent freedom campaign is significant in that the Western Sahara struggle has often gone unnoticed, even among many human rights activists.
Western Sahara: Self-Determination and International Law
Middle East Institute, April 2, 2008 by Stephen Zunes [source]
The failure of the Kingdom of Morocco and the Polisario Front to agree on the modalities of the long-planned United Nations-sponsored referendum on the fate of Western Sahara, combined with a growing nonviolent resistance campaign within the territory against Morocco’s 31-year occupation, has led Morocco to propose granting the former Spanish colony special autonomous status within the kingdom. The plan has received the enthusiastic support of the American and French governments…
The Future of Western Sahara
Foreign Policy In Focus | July 21, 2007
By John Feffer, Stephen Zunes
Morocco’s ongoing refusal to allow for the long-planned UN-sponsored referendum on the fate of Western Sahara to move forward, combined with a growing nonviolent resistance campaign in the occupied territory against Moroccan occupation authorities, has led Morocco to propose granting the former Spanish colony special autonomous status within the kingdom. [source]
More harm than good
Open Democracy.net, July 18, 2007, by Stephen Zunes.
The failure of the Kingdom of Morocco and the Polisario Front [8] to agree on the modalities of the long-planned United Nations-sponsored referendum on the fate of Western Sahara, combined with a growing nonviolent resistance campaign in the occupied territory against Morocco’s 31-year occupation, has led Morocco to propose [9] granting the former Spanish colony special autonomous status within the kingdom…
Lecture: Western Sahara and International Law (video)
Launch of a new book including Stephen Zunes:
International Law and the Question of Western Sahara
(editors: Karin Arts, Pedro Pinto Leite). Watch Parts 1 and 2 below:
Part 2:
Western Sahara: The Other Occupation
Tikkun February 1, 2006, by Stephen Zunes
Imagine an Arab Muslim nation, most of whose people have lived in the squalor of refugee camps for decades in exile from their homeland. Most of the remaining population suffers under foreign military occupation, with a smaller number living as a minority within the legally-recognized territory of the occupier. The occupying power is in violation of a series of UN Security Council resolutions, has illegally brought in tens of thousands of settlers into the occupied territory, routinely violates international standards of human rights, has built a heavily-fortified separation barrier deep inside the occupied territory, and continues to defy a landmark decision of the International Court of Justice….
Self Determination Struggle in the Western Sahara Continues to Challenge the UN
Foreign Policy In Focus September 1, 2003
by Stephen Zunes & Ian Williams [source link’s no longer available]
After much wrangling from the French, the UN Security Council unanimously passed resolution 1495 right on the July 31st deadline for the rollover of the MINURSO peacekeeping operation in Western Sahara. In the best diplomatic tradition, the resolution affirmed the commitment to provide for the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara, even while it seriously compromised on it by supporting a peace plan that would allow the Moroccan settlers in the territory to vote on independence in five years. As with Israeli settlers on the West Bank, these Moroccan colonists are there in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits countries from transferring their civilian population onto territories seized by military force…
UN Betrayal of Western Sahara
Foreign Policy In Focus, June 1, by Stephen Zunes [Source & Global Policy Forum]
When a country violates fundamental principles of international law and when the UN Security Council demands that it cease its illegal behavior, one might expect that the world body would impose sanctions or other measures to foster compliance. This has been the case with Iraq, Libya, and other international outlaws in recent years. One would not expect for the United Nations to respond to such violations by passing a series of new and weaker resolutions that essentially allow for the transgressions to stand…
Western Sahara (Conflict Profile)
Selfdetermine.irc-online.org, June 1, 2001,
By Stephen Zunes [source is no longer available]
History: Traditionally inhabited by nomadic Arab tribes with a long history of resistance to outside domination, the area known as Spanish Sahara was occupied by Spain during much of the twentieth century and held for more than a decade after most African countries achieved their independence. The nationalist Polisario Front launched an armed independence struggle against Spain in 1973, and Madrid eventually promised to grant independence…
Morocco and Western Sahara
Foreign Policy In Focus, December 1, 1998
by Stephen Zunes [Source]
Key Points
* Morocco has occupied Western Sahara since 1975 in violation of resolutions by the UN Security Council and a decision by the International Court of Justice.
* The United States has provided military, economic, and diplomatic support for Morocco’s war effort.
* A ceasefire and proposed referendum bring promise for peace in the territory, but U.S. leadership is needed to insure its implementation…
US Should Reassess Policy in Western Sahara
Christian Science Monitor, Jan. 10, 1989, By Stephen Zunes
[Source] The incoming Bush administration has an opportunity to score an early diplomatic victory should it choose to actively throw its support behind United Nations sponsored negotiations for a peaceful settlement to the war in Western Sahara. To do so would be a departure from the Reagan administration which, despite diplomatic successes in Namibia and elsewhere, has chosen not to play a similarly constructive role in northwest Africa. Indeed, few Americans were even aware of this 14-year conflict until it was suddenly brought home in the tragic downing last month of an American aircraft that had been participating in locust spraying efforts in neighboring countries…