Yearly Archives: 2008

Hans Corell addresses Pretoria conference and provides new impetus to the resources campaign

The International conference on multilateralism and international law, with Western Sahara as a case study, was held in  Pretoria, South Africa, on 4 and 5 December 2008.  The new clarifications by Hans Corell in his paper to the conference may give fresh impetus to the resources campaign. See press release below from the WS Resource Watch network. Corell’s paper can be downloaded in pdf form.

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426 organisations demand exclusion of Western Sahara from EU-Moroccan cooperation

PRESS RELEASE

Western Sahara Resource Watch (www.wsrw.org )

Melbourne, Brussels, Madrid,

December 5th 2008No less than 426 organisations signed a petition letter, demanding from the EU Commission that occupied Western Sahara be kept clearly outside of the so- called Advanced Status cooperation that Morocco currently is being granted. The petition was sent to the EU Commission this morning.

The larger part of Western Sahara has been illegally occupied by Morocco since 1975. Morocco tries to integrate the occupied country into its own economy, and through the new “EU membership light”, the EU risks lending further legitimacy to that process.

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Press Release 4 Dec: AWSA outraged by killing of two Saharawi students.

AWSA outraged by killing of two Saharawi students
Press Release:  4th December 2008 –  Australia Western Sahara Association
Members of AWSA (Vic) meeting during their ordinary Annual General Meeting (AGM) on Wednesday 3rd of December are saddened and shocked by the outrageous killing of two young Saharawi students in Agadir (Morocco).
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Western Sahara’s struggle for self-determination

29 November 2008
In October, a three-member delegation of Australian unionists visited the Western Saharawi refugee camps in the Hamada desert, South West Algeria. Western Sahara has been illegally occupied by Morocco since 1975.
Green Left Weekly’s Margarita Windisch spoke with Sid’Ahmed Tayeb, the minister of public health for the exiled Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic, in 27 February refugee camp.

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ACTU calls on Australian government to play “an active and positive” role

The Australian Council of the Trade Unions (ACTU) called on the Australian Federal government to play “an active and positive role” on the issue of Western Sahara at the UN, in a letter it sent to the Australian Minister of Foreign Affairs last June.

ACTU recalled Minister Stephen Smith of the position adopted by the Labour Party in its last three national conferences, and indicated that Australian Trade Unions are paying a growing attention and concerns to the situation in Western Sahara.
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Melbourne plays host to African Studies conference

29/11/2008- AWSA
By: Cate Lewis
Many scholars from around Australia and abroad attended the “31st annual conference of the African Studies Association of Australasia and the Pacific” (AFSAAP) hosted by Monash University. It was held in the centre of Melbourne at the State Library of Victoria’s conference centre 26-28 December 2008, and entitled Building a common future, Africa and Australasia, see http://www.meetings.com.au/africa/
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Inaugural launch of the Australian Parliamentary Friendship Group with Western Sahara

27/11/2008

The Australian “Parliamentary Friends of Western Sahara Group” was officially launched Wednesday night (26 November 2008), during a dinner held at Parliament House in Canberra.  The inaugural dinner was attended by many members of Parliament from all parties, members of the Diplomatic Corps, representatives of NGOs and trade unions as well as members of the Australian Western Sahara Association (AWSA).
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