Monthly Archives: March 2012

AWSA writes to Security Council about monitoring of human rights abuses in occupied WS

26 March 2012. AWSA President Lyn Allison on behalf of AWSA has written to the Secretary General of the United Nations, about monitoring of human rights in occupied WS.

The letter emphasises the fact that MINURSO – the UN mission in Western Sahara – is the only UN peacekeeping mission established since 1978 without a mandate to monitor human rights. This means that Morocco has been able, with impunity, to occupy Western Sahara and subject the Saharawis to arbitrary arrest, disappearances, false imprisonment, unfair trials, torture and the death penalty

26 March 2012 AWSA letter to Security Council >>

WS Crowdmap : Tracking and Monitoring Human Rights Violations in WS

A system has been set up to report human rights abuses in the occupied territory of Western Sahara.

Since the UN is failing to do this, it is important to publicise what has been recorded by a consortium of human rights organisations around the world, and within the Occupied Territory.

WESTERN SAHARA CROWDMAP >>

Western Sahara: Women’s Rights Flourish in Difficult Times

Mar 08, 2012
By Fernande van Tets, Giulia Zuzic and Sarah Clark

Part 4 in a 4 part series on Women’s Rights.

In honor of International Women’s Day, The InterDependent takes a look at the progress made in gender equality.

Read Part 4 – Western Sahara; women’s rights >>

Javier Bardem – From movie villain to real-life hero

The Independent, Friday 16 March 2012
by Kaleem Aftab

The 43-year-old actor was recently in attendance at the Berlin Film Festival as producer and presenter of Sons of the Clouds: The Last Colony, a documentary about the plight of the Sahrawi people in the former Spanish colony of Western Sahara.

Press statement by Mr Khatri Adduh, Head of the Delegation of F.Polisario

Press Statement
Manhasset March 13, 2012

The ninth round of negotiations between the Frente Polisario and the Kingdom of Morocco, took place from March 11 to 13, 2012 at Greentree (Manhasset) under the auspices of the Personal Envoy of UN Secretary General, Mr. Christopher Ross.During this round, the negotiations focused on the proposals of both parties and the ideas contained in paragraph 120 of the report of the Secretary General.
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Waiting for the Arab Spring in Western Sahara

Aljazeera Opinion, 14 March 2012

Article by Ambassador Akbar Ahmed, a former Pakistani high commissioner to the UK, exploring how a litany of volatile centre/periphery conflicts with deep historical roots were interpreted after 9/11 in the new global paradigm of anti-terrorism – with profound and often violent consequences.
Washington, DC – For 36 years, refugees from the Western Sahara have been waiting to return home. The fate of the Sahrawi nation of Western Sahara hangs in the balance this week. About 165,000 Sahrawi refugees in Algeria are eagerly watching the current UN-sponsored negotiations taking place outside of New York City on the status of their country.

Read Aljazeera Opinion article in full >>

Western Sahara: ‘No one will give us our freedom’

Green Left Weekly, Sunday, March 11, 2012

By Ryan Mallett-Outtrim & Laura Gilbie

After two decades of political deadlock, Africa’s oldest refugee population is losing faith in UN mandated peace negotiations.
“No one will give us our freedom — we must take it!,” Sahrawi journalist Embarka Elmehdi Said told Green Left Weekly.
Said sees little hope for a peaceful resolution to the crisis that has gripped Western Sahara since its independence from Spain in the 1970s.
A child when her family fled the Moroccan invasion of Western Sahara in 1975, Said has spent most of her life in the Polisario run refugee camps on the Western Sahar-Algeria

Read GLW article >>

New book exposes the absurd spending of King Mohamed VI of Morocco

£26m pocket money for Morocco’s Midas; New book exposes the absurd spending of a king who once flew his Aston Martin to Britain for a tune-up

Matthew Campbell, 11 March 2012, The Sunday Times

“HE LIKES his favourite toys to be in good repair. In fact King Mohamed VI of Morocco has been known to fly his Aston Martin on a Hercules transporter to the manufacturer in Britain just for a tune-up.

More than 5m of his subjects live on less than £1 a day. But “His Majesty”, as even close family members must call him, does not have to scrimp or save, for the people’s generosity is limitless. He gets £26m a year in public funds as “pocket money”, which he spends as he pleases, according to the authors of Le Roi Prédateur (The Predator King)….(continued…)

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Mariem Hassan on ABC Radio National

Listen to Part 1 of Mariem Hassan broadcast on ABC Radio National on Saturday 10 March 2012

Mariem Hassan: Saharawi journey and the music of exile, Part 1:

Listn to Part 2 broadcast on Saturday 17th March 2012 at 4pm

Mariem Hassan: Music Is My Weapon, Part 2:

Presentation by Cate Lewis and Kamal Fadel at 3rd Sustainable Phosphorous Summit

Phosphate from Western Sahara – the Back Story
A talk was given at the 3rd Sustainable Phosphorus Summit held in Sydney 29 February-2 March 2012 by Cate Lewis of the Australia Western Sahara Association and Kamal Fadel, representative of Western Sahara in Australia.

As Western Sahara is one of only a few countries holding considerable reserves of phosphate rock, the conference organisers, Dana Cordell and Professor Stuart White invited the participation of Cate and Kamal so that delegates could find out why there is a problem with importing from this country at the present time.

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