Western Sahara : New resolution of the Security Council
Written by Abdelhak Fadli   
Tuesday, 09 June 2009
ImageBased upon the last report of the UN Secretary General, the Security Council has prolonged, Thursday April 30, 2009, with a year, the mandate of the United Nations Mission organizing a referendum in the Western Sahara (Minurso), in charge mainly of organizing a self-determination referendum and monitoring the cease fire between Morocco and the Polisario Front.
In this unanimously adopted resolution, the Council calls once more the involved parties “to continue to show a political will and to work within a favorable dialogue atmosphere in order to start more intense and more substantial negotiations.” It considers that “realism and compromise spirit” should motivate negotiations to reach a final settlement for the Western Sahara issue. For its part and while reaffirming that its sovereignty over the Western Sahara should be recognized, Morocco is ready to dialogue with the other party, based upon the internal autonomy plan it has presented and which has been welcomed by the international community, while the Polisario Front persists in opting for a final status of the territory that has to be decided during a hypothetical referendum including independence as an option.
This irredentist and unrealistic position, head on supported by Algeria, is not based on any historical or legal basis, as the self-determination principle is not exclusive to the unique right of peoples to decide by their own, beyond the obligation of the nations’ territory integrity, recognized by the international community.
Last Updated ( Tuesday, 09 June 2009 )
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Maghreb : Who really restrains the AMU development?
Written by Abdelhak Fadli   
Thursday, 21 May 2009
ImageIn an interview with the Spanish daily « El Pais » in March 2007, when asked about the Sahara conflict and its consequences on the future between Algeria and Morocco, the President of the Algerian Republic Abdelaziz Boutaflika stated : « I have said on several occasions that the Western Sahara issue would in no way be at the origin of a « casus belli » war declaration between Algeria and Morocco, but the absence of a fair and final solution for the Western Sahara issue will be a restraint to the Arab Maghreb Union development ».
As an answer to the question about the possible reopening of frontiers between the two countries, the Algerian Head of the State has indicated « that it was not necessary to talk once again about the circumstances of their closing and the repercussions generated, hence the delay in their opening”. The Algerian Head of the State re-elected today is aware that since then many things have changed, which means to defuse the people’s self-determination debate, inherited frontiers of the colonization etc. These terms have become victims of their excessive usage, and, with time, they do only serve unveiled hegemonic ambitions.
It is clear that the more a concept is a stake object, the more it is a source of confusion. This is what the international community has finally understood. By refusing to calm down, the Polisario does not want to sincerely negotiate with Morocco, while giving the impression to want to do it, unaware of the fate of the poor innocents held as hostages, and claiming at each occasion its threat of holding arms, Algeria forgets that it does not serve the movement it has created.

Last Updated ( Thursday, 21 May 2009 )
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The Sahara conflict, Security Council : End of controversies
Written by Abdelhak Fadli   
Wednesday, 06 May 2009
ImageWhile looking for a means to transcend the difficulties in order to take the Sahara conflict from the deadlock, the Security Council has adopted, during its meeting on 30th April, 2009, the Resolution 1871 while deciding to preserve the Resolution 1813 in its totality, within the frame of continuity refuting to go back and reinforcing the process committed since 2007 thanks to the Moroccan autonomy initiative.
The series of obstacles since more than 30 years would have finally convinced the members of the Security Council of the sincerity of Morocco who wants to achieve a quick, concerted and sustainable settlement of the conflict in a manner that would exclude all the pipe dreams screenplays which can not be applied in reality, that is:
* Abandon the UNO mediation and let the belligerents have the armed hostilities as a resort which would launch a civil war in the Sahara between the majority of Sahrawis living in the secured region undergoing a large development, and their brothers deprived of all the human rights in Tindouf, with the risk of the region’s explosion.
* Deny the existence of the Polisario and the human tragedy of the Moroccan Sahrawis sequestrated in the Algerian territory.
Last Updated ( Wednesday, 06 May 2009 )
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Mobilization of the American Congress in favour of the autonomy plan: representatives write to Obama
Written by Abdelhak Fadli   
Tuesday, 21 April 2009
Image229 members of the United Nations House of Representatives sent on April 3rd, 2009 an unequivocal letter to the President Barack Obama concerning the Sahara conflict resolution, bringing their support to the Moroccan autonomy proposal, and calling for overcoming the “only major obstacle” in order to prevent an efficient anti-terrorist fight in the region. In fact, according to the majority of the United Nations House of Representatives, terrorist incidents in the Maghreb have quadrupled since 2001, and the Sahara conflict resolution would allow the “reduction of terrorists’ action field concerning recruitment and action”, while bringing peace to the Sahrawis.
Still according to the bipartisan coalition that signed the letter, the economic stakes of the Sahara conflict resolution are essential for the achievement of an integrated Maghreb space and more attractive for foreign investments.
Last Updated ( Tuesday, 21 April 2009 )
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Sahara: Ally of the separatist cause, Chavez, an “unclear” revolutionary
Written by Abdelhak Fadli   
Tuesday, 17 March 2009
ImageConsidered as a hero by the Arab and Muslim masses for his courageous support of the Gaza people against the Israeli aggression, the Venezuelan President Hugo Raphaël Chavez Frias is known for his political identity which is neither evident nor transparent and sometimes even unsettled. Unlike Castro, Chavez talks often about God and the Christ in his speeches. He cites the gospels and his citations are sometimes invented. Chavez is also seduced by the exacerbated anti-imperialist nationalism and pretends to incarnate the radical fight against “the empire” while his country is intimately linked to the United States through an irresistible flux of oil commerce and the consumer emulation. He multiplies the most heteroclite faith professions declaring willingly to be castrist in Cuba, Maoist in China or admirer of the green book of Kadhafi in Libya, some consider him a cynic opportunist, obsessed by power and totally deprived of the real convictions, maintaining more than a personality cult.
Last Updated ( Wednesday, 06 May 2009 )
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The ex-OAU and the Sahara conflict: a daring manoeuvre
Written by Abdelhak Fadli   
Tuesday, 24 February 2009
ImageAhmed Sekou Touré, First President of the Republic of Guinea, was the sole African leader to have opposed the French union project proposed in the 50’s of the last century by the General De Gaule. He and his people had fully assumed the shortcomings.
A left-winger, convinced, fair, revolutionary, Ahmed Sekou Touré was one of the first founders of the African Union. Intervening before the Committee of Wise Men created by the OAU, and meeting in Freetown in order to find a solution for the Sahara issue. The late Ahmed Sekou Touré, whose country did not have then diplomatic relations with Morocco, expressed his point of view as a wise African concerning this issue. After having been silent during a three days debate before the Committee of Wise Men, within a confused environment marked with attempts to hide the truth, Ahmed Sekou Touré has pleaded as follows:
« This dispute conflicts with the principles having constituted the basis for the OAU foundation of which Morocco is one of the main founders. The Kingdom had supported the Algerian revolution during the liberation war, and has fiercely opposed the French OCRS project. We have never heard about a national Saharan feeling, if it has existed, we would have supported it. For us, only Morocco claimed the Sahara. We have supported it throughout its long fight against the Spanish colonialism. We have supported Roberto for a period, and have recognized him as the representative of Angola. However, when the MPLA has emerged as the legitimate representative of the Angolan revolution, we have been honest with Roberto, Guinea granted him the nationality. Morocco has supported the Congolese nationalism and its symbol the martyr Lumumba, but nothing then could stop the infernal colonialist and imperialist machine having led to the assassination of Lumumba, and even the elimination of the UN Secretary General Dag Hamarjeold. We have opposed the Biafran separatism in order to preserve the territorial integrity of Nigeria, despite the fact that we had Biafran friends. What was the role of the Committee of Wise Men? It is a work tool and not a sovereign body designated by the Council of the Presidents, its mission emanates from the summit.
Last Updated ( Tuesday, 24 February 2009 )
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The Polisario: An indigestible hastily prepared meal
Written by Abdelhak Fadli   
Wednesday, 11 February 2009
ImageThroughout its long and tireless fight for the Western Sahara decolonization, Morocco has asserted its rights as well as geographic, historical, political, legal and ethnical titles and even the simple logic that each of the Maghreb countries has the right to its Saharan extension. The Kingdom was convinced that it was not wrong unless it should reexamine all the frontiers and accept the creation of a State less peopled and too extended stretching from the Atlantic to the Red Sea. The Saharan space, as for its historical vocation, has never been a divisor, but rather the fosterer of a civilization source of unity inspiration.
The Spanish-Moroccan dispute over the Sahara decolonization, which would have been solved in the 1960’s, has been drawn in many endless negotiations after the discovery of phosphate deposits. Madrid government has simultaneously practiced pressure over the Jmaa members and the National Sahrawi Party in order to mobilize around its independent cause, but unsuccessfully, while starting an anti-Moroccan propaganda campaign directed by Laâyun Radio and Realidad Newspapers. All these tactics were foiled.
Last Updated ( Wednesday, 11 February 2009 )
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Morocco-Spain: Shady relations
Written by Abdelhak Fadli   
Wednesday, 28 January 2009
ImageBetween the southern and northern shores of the Mediterranean, there are no people belonging to two different cultural spheres, nevertheless, sharing as much historical, cultural and economic interference as the Moroccan and Spanish peoples. Despite this interference, Morocco and Spain neighborhood has been often characterized with tensions. Spain’s foreign policy vis-à-vis Morocco is often changeable, changes being the result of the Spanish domestic policy data variation, as well as the two major issues opposing for a long time the governments of both countries. For Morocco, the way in which the Spanish government deals with the Western Sahara conflict and the Moroccan territorial claims relating to the enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla and the neighboring islands reflects that there is an obvious difference between the declared objectives of the Spanish foreign policy with respect to Morocco and its practice in reality.
Last Updated ( Wednesday, 28 January 2009 )
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Sahara autonomy, a solution depending on the local democratic guarantees
Written by Abdelhak Fadli   
Monday, 19 January 2009
ImageA whole process, the countdown relating to the professional local elections and one third of the Chamber of Counselors was started upon a timetable to begin on June 12th and end on October 2nd, 2009. These consultations will take place within a democratic perspective promoted to the rank of a real strategic priority. The main aim should be the establishment of the basis required for an effective decentralization developed as far as possible.  
The constitutions adopted since Morocco’s independence, (1962-1970-1972-1992), comprise clauses relating to the management of the local democracy. With the completion of the territorial integrity, and the Sahara being recovered by the Kingdom in 1975, the region has been automatically integrated within the constitutional framework of the decentralization promulgated in 1976, and modified to respond to the happening development, and which can be adapted not only to a developed centralization situation but also to a more decentralizing legislative regime as well. If the Saharan regions’ integration in Morocco has been carried out without any difficulties despite the colonial division and the separatist movement, this is mainly due to the allegiance to the King of Morocco, to the strong social link uniting all the elements as well as to the intensity and density of the mutual social relationships between the Southern Sahrawi Moroccans among themselves and with the other Northern Moroccans.
Last Updated ( Monday, 19 January 2009 )
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Over 120 British MPs support Moroccan Autonomy Plan for Sahara
A hundred and twenty-one members of the British House of Commons have signed a motion that lends support to the Moroccan initiative
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Sahara issue: Morocco at 'historical turning point'
Morocco is witnessing a historical "turning point as result of the launch of the Manhasset negotiations between the parties in the Sahara issue," Morocco's Foreign Minister said on Monday.
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UK Govt encourages 'continued engagement'
FCO Spokesman: UK Govt encourages 'continued engagement' of parties to Sahara issue
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UN chief: 'in-depth discussions'
UN chief says talks over Sahara gave room for 'in-depth discussions'
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