Holding company run by King Mohammed VI extracts bribes and concessions from real estate developers, businesses complain

Ian Black, Middle East editor , guardian.co.uk, Monday 6 December 2010

Mohammed VI has worked to weed out corruption in the royal family but through their interests they retain a powerful grip on big business in the country, the WikiLeaks cables say. Photograph: Jalil Bounhar/AP

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Our friends in the desert, by David Keene – 12/06/10 

Americans like to imagine that most conflicts are waged by good guys against bad guys and respond to trigger words to decide who falls into which camp. Linking one’s opponents to terrorism, Osama bin Laden or Muslim extremism is a sure way to win the sympathy and support of many who remain unwilling or unable to look beyond the complexities of a high-school football game.

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In the early hours of Monday 8th November the Moroccan army and security forces attacked an estimated 20,000 Saharawi civilian protesters from the makeshift protest camp at Gadaym Izik near Laayoune. The forces killed unarmed men, women, the elderly and young children – reports suggest that about 30 people were killed.

The Saharawi people were protesting about their living conditions in the territory, occupied by Morocco since 1975……(cont.)

Read Senator Brown’s statement >>

Clashes in Morocco defy U.N. peacekeeping
By Stefan Simanowitz
The Washington Times  Friday, November 26, 2010
Last month, while on a tour of the region ahead of a new round of informal talks between the two sides in one of the world’s longest-running conflicts, United Nations Special Envoy for the Western Sahara Christopher Ross stressed that there was a “need to lessen tensions and avoid any incident that could worsen the situation or hamper discussions.”

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Letters were sent by the Australian Council of Trade Unions to the Australian Foreign Minister, The Moroccan Ambassador and United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Text of letters…..(cont.)
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Western Sahara and Morocco’s physical and symbolic violence
By Konstantina Isidoros

Morocco rejects probe into Western Sahara incident (AFP)

Western Sahara: MEPs for a UN independent investigation
                                                                                                                    
Text of European Parliament Resolution

African Union Communique

November 26, 2010
Tents burn after Moroccan security forces broke up the camp on the outskirts of Western Sahara’s capital, El-Ayoun, on November 8, 2010.

(New York) – Moroccan security forces repeatedly beat and abused people they detained following disturbances on November 8, 2010, in the Western Sahara capital city of El-Ayoun, Human Rights Watch said today. Security forces also directly attacked civilians, a Human Rights Watch investigation showed.

Human Rights Watch report >>

We must step up on Western Sahara
Cate Lewis, Australia Western Sahara Association; Dr Helen Hill, Australia-East Timor Association; John Dowd, International Commission of Jurists; Peter Jennings, Union Aid Abroad; Cam Walker, Friends of the Earth.

“ON NOVEMBER 8, as talks resumed at the UN between Morocco and Polisario [the Western Saharan independence movement], Moroccan security forces initiated a brutal attack on 20,000 Saharawis at a peaceful protest camp at Gdeim Izik, near El-Aaiun, the capital of occupied Western Sahara.
The catastrophe is similar to the Santa Cruz Cemetery massacre of 1991, when Indonesian soldiers opened fire on East Timorese students in Dili……(cont.)

Read letter published in The Age 23 November >>

Sand and Blast blog, November 18, 2010

“News that the UN Security Council “deplores” the recent violence in the Moroccan-occupied territories of Western Sahara will be small comfort to the Sahrawi who are suffering death, beatings and disappearances in the disputed territory. While some members of the Security Council have proposed sending a UN investigative team to Western Sahara to assess the situation and the claims and counter-claims,…..”

Read Nick Brook’s Sand and Blast blog post >>

Stephen Zunes, Professor of Politics and Chair of Mid-Eastern Studies at the University of San Francisco

…Morocco has been able to persist in flouting its international legal obligations toward Western Sahara largely because France and the United States have continued to arm Moroccan occupation forces and blocked the enforcement of resolutions in the UN Security Council demanding that Morocco allow for self-determination or even simply the stationing of unarmed human rights monitors in the occupied country.
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