Category: Self Determination
Self-determination
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.
Africa’s Last Colony: Western Saharan Independence Movement Mourns Loss of Polisario Front Leader
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, by Stephen Zunes 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…
Congress and Its Colonialist Agenda
Truthout & Salem News (Oregon) July 15. 2011
Up until the mid-20th century, Western attitudes regarding national freedom essentially went like this: the independence of white Western nations (Great Britain, France, the United States etc.) was a given. Independence for nonwhite, non-Western nations (such as those in Africa, the Middle East and Asia), however, could only be under conditions granted by the occupying powers. The time at which these nations could be free, their specific boundaries and the conditions of their independence could only be reached through negotiations between the colonial occupiers and representatives
The Iranian Uprising is Home-Grown, and Must Stay That Way
Common Dreams June 19, 2009
The growing nonviolent insurrection in Iran against the efforts by the ruling clerics to return the ultra-conservative and increasingly autocratic incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinjead to power is growing. Whatever the outcome, it represents an exciting and massive outpouring of Iranian civil society for a more open and pluralistic society…
Telling the Lebanese How to Vote
Huffington Post, July 7, 2009, |Updated May 25, 2011:
In recent visits to Lebanon, both Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made clear that the United States would react negatively if the March 8th Alliance — a broad coalition of Islamist, Maronite, leftist, nationalist, and pan-Arabist parties — won the upcoming parliamentary elections. These not-so-subtle threats have led to charges of U.S. interference in Lebanon’s domestic affairs. What prompts U.S. concerns is that the largest member of this coalition is Hezbollah, the populist Shiite party which the United States considers to be a terrorist organization. [source]
Estonia’s Singing Revolution
Foreign Policy In Focus, June 4, 2008 [source]
In a remarkable new documentary, The Singing Revolution, filmmakers Maureen and Jim Tusty tell the little-known story of the Estonian people’s nonviolent struggle against decades of Soviet occupation, culminating in that country’s independence in 1991. The movement played an important role in the downfall of the entire Soviet Empire.
Nonviolent Action and Pro-Democracy Struggles
Foreign Policy In Focus, January 24, 2008 [source]
By John FefferStephen Zunes
The United States has done for the cause of democracy what the Soviet Union did for the cause of socialism. Not only has the Bush administration given democracy a bad name in much of the world, but its high-profile and highly suspect “democracy promotion” agenda has provided repressive regimes and their apologists an excuse to label any popular pro-democracy movement that challenges them as foreign agents, even when led by independent grassroots nonviolent activists…
Democracy and Double Standards: The Palestinian “Exception”
Foreign Policy In Focus, December 22, 2005
By John Gershman, Stephen Zunes [source]
At a time of year when Jews and Christians are celebrating the spirit of justice and peace inspired by events in the Holy Land many centuries ago, Congress has been working to ensure that the Holy Land of today experiences neither. Just prior to the Christmas recess, a bipartisan resolution in the House of Representatives and a letter signed by 73 of 100 Senators put Congress on record that the U.S. government, despite rhetoric to the contrary, does not take Middle Eastern democracy too seriously…
Lecture video: Occupation and the Attack on International Law
Talk by Prof. Stephen Zunes on “Occupation and the Attack on International Law” given December 9, 2005, in Seattle [57 mins.]
Noble Rhetoric Supports Democracy While Ignoble Policies Support Repression
Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies,
November 17, 2003, by Stephen Zunes [source]
President George W. Bush’s November 6 speech before the National Endowment for Democracy emphasizing the need for greater democracy and freedom in the Arab world, while containing a number of positive aspects, was nevertheless very misleading and all-too characteristic of the longstanding contradictory messages that have plagued U.S. policy in the Middle East. On the positive side, President Bush challenged the racist mythology that Islamic societies were somehow incapable of democracy and recognized that greater political pluralism need not follow a U.S. model…
The United States and Bolivia: The Taming of a Revolution, 1952-1957
The United States and Bolivia: The Taming of a Revolution, 1952-1957. Latin American Perspectives Vol. 28 No. 5 (September 1, 2001): 33-49. Also at SAGE Journals, JSTOR, ResearchGate.net, University of Saskatchewan, and FES.DE/bibliothek
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…