Category Archives: Political issues

BBC interview, Business Daily: The conflict mineral that feeds the world

Morocco dominates phosphate fertilisers thanks to its disputed control of Western Sahara
Matt Davies, BBC Sounds podcast: Business Daily.  31 Dec 2019

Matt Davies travels to Morocco to speak to Nada Elmajdoub, an executive at the national phosphate company OCP. He also hears from Mohamed Kamal Fadel, a spokesperson for the Polisario Front, which is bringing legal challenges against Morocco’s phosphate exports in its bid to win independence for Western Sahara; Professor Stuart White of the University of Technology Sydney questions the sustainability of the planet’s usage of mined phosphates to boost crop yields, plus Stephen Zunes, a professor of Middle East politics at the University of San Francisco, explains the history of the Western Sahara conflict and how Morocco gained the upper hand.

BBC Business Daily podcast

Tecber Ahmed Saleh’s tour of New Zealand October 2019

Tecber Ahmed Saleh in Auckland

New Zealand Press coverage, October 2019

Tecber Ahmed Saleh spoke at events in Auckland, Hamilton , Christchurch, Dunedin, Lower Hutt, and Wellington

Western Sahara delegate urges halt on phosphate imports, by Emma Hatton, RNZ, 16 October 2019

Western Sahara refugees in NZ to urge Government to ban imported phosphate, NZTV, 14 October 2019

Western Saharan activist aims to end phosphate trade, Gerard Hutching, Stuff, Oct 15 2019

24/10/19: ACFID Members Support Call for Independence of Western Sahara

Press release: ACFID Members Support Call for Independence of Western Sahara
24 Oct, 2019
Members of the Australian Council for International Development (ACFID) have backed a resolution at the Annual General Meeting to support the right of the Saharawi people to self-determination and independence.
ACFID’s members, Union Aid Abroad – APHEDA and ActionAid Australia, put forward the resolution at the AGM which was held during the ACFID National Conference in Sydney and received the support of the ACFID membership.

Press release
Text of resolution

An exiled nation; Saharawi advocates call on the world to support self-determination for Western Sahara

Tecber Ahmed Saleh, a health worker in the Western Sahara Ministry of Health, speaks to an audience of trade unionists at Unions NSW, Sydney, Australia. Photo by Timothy Ginty, used with permission.

Journalist Tim Ginty reports on an exiled nation, Western Sahara in the online publication Global Voices, dated 4 October 2019

“For 40 years, the Saharawi people have been exiled from their homeland, cast out into what is known as the “desert of deserts”, where they live in hope of one day experiencing a long-awaited return to their promised land: their homeland of Western Sahara.

Their wait has been so long that entire generations have lived and died hoping for a return. One young Saharawi woman, Tecber Ahmed Saleh, tells me: “My grandmother, she died holding the radio, thinking that tomorrow they would call a referendum.”

Global Voices article

Highly successful Australian tour by WS human rights advocate Tecber Ahmed Saleh!

Balmain fundraiser lunch Tecber Ahmed Saleh and Kamal Fadel. Photo courtesy of Michael Hanna

Tecber Ahmed Saleh’s tour of Australia has been a great success. Thank you to all those who attended the public events in Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne.

The New Zealand tour is currently underway from 5-16 October – NZ events

Below is a summary of the main press coverage in Australia

Print and online media
Interview with Tony Iltis in Green Left Weekly on 13 September 2019:

Jacqueline Maley: Lunch with activist Tecber Ahmed Saleh Saturday 14 September 2019

Ben Doherty : Foreign interference fears after Sydney University cancels Western Sahara Speaker 22 September 2019
[The event was transferred to the University of Technology of Sydney on the same day and time as previously planned.]

Tim Ginty: An exiled nation; Saharawi advocates call on the world to support self-determination for Western Sahara, Global Voices 4 October 2019

Radio
Jon Faine : Conversation Hour with Damien Kingsbury and Tecber Ahmed Saleh 11 September 2019

Philip Adams Late Night Live Monday 2 September

Jan Bartlett Radio 3CR, on Tuesday 10 September. Tecber’s interview is about 40 minutes in:

Talking Point: Stop New Zealand’s role in controversial phosphate trade

Amoy Dream is scheduled to land in Napier today.

Hawkes Bay Today
New Zealand Herald, Opinion, 26 August 2019
By: Kamal Fadel

A vessel named Amoy Dream carrying about 55,000 tonnes of phosphate rock from Western Sahara is expected to arrive at Napier Port today.
Seventy per cent of all New Zealand’s phosphate comes from Western Sahara, occupied by Morocco since 1975. It has, since then, been a shameful blot on the landscape of global justice and human rights.
Legal opinion is mounting that Morocco’s exploitation of Sahrawi resources, and the subsequent import of those resources, is illegal. (cont.)

NZ Herald article

Africa’s Last Colony; Morocco continues to stonewall…John Bolton unwilling to ignore any longer

Africa’s Last Colony; Morocco continues to stonewall on the human disaster it has created in Western Sahara, and John Bolton is not the only U.S. official unwilling to ignore the problem any longer.
by David Keene
The American Spectator, August 10, 2019

David Keene writes “If Americans knew more about what Jim Baker, John Bolton, and elected officials like Senator Inhofe have learned about the ongoing human disaster in the Western Sahara, all of Rabat’s lobbyists and diplomats would lose their ability to keep the U.S. from stepping up the pressure to force their country to live up to its promises.”  Read more at link below…
http://Africa’s last colony, by David Keene

RSF Report: Western Sahara, A News Blackhole

Reporters without Borders, 11 June 2019
In its report on press freedoms in Western Sahara, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) sheds light on a territory cut off from the rest of the world, a veritable news black hole that has become a no-go zone for journalists.
“Western Sahara, a desert for journalists,” is the first-ever work of research into press freedoms in this non-autonomous territory,

Press release and link to report

Western Sahara comes to Melbourne – Journalism in a no-go area

Melbourne Filmoteca and Australia Western Sahara Association
Press Release 14 June 2019
Ms Nazha Al Khalidi, a Saharawi journalist, and her colleagues in Equipe Media can be seen at work in a documentary, Rifles or Graffiti, being screened on
Tuesday 18 June at 6.30pm at ACMI in the Treasury Theatre, Lower Plaza,  1 Macarthur Place.
Press Release-14june19 Rifles or Graffiti

Ms Nazha Al Khalidi, a Saharawi journalist faces trial on 24 June for her work to expose human rights abuses in Western Sahara when she live-streamed footage of police beating peaceful protesters. Her case is described in detail by a group of Canadian lawyers, in a letter dated 6 June sent to the Moroccan minister of Justice.

Exciting conference takes place in South Africa in solidarity with Saharawi people

Tshwane, South Africa, March 25 and 26, 2019

The conference has been organised by the South African Development Community (SADC) and hosted by South Africa. It has been attended by many heads of states and foreign ministers:
SADC ministers converged on the Department of International Relations in Pretoria on Monday for the first ever Solidarity Conference with the Saharawi people.
This is an unprecedented occasion in that we have no recollection of any intergovernmental body ever hosting a conference of this nature,” Minister Lindiwe Sisulu told a packed conference hall.

Watch the speech from the South Africa’s President Ramaphosa: