Alvin Botes
Pretoria - As we celebrate Human Rights Day tomorrow, it is an opportunity to express our solidarity with the people of Western Sahara who continue their struggle for self-determination and liberation from illegal occupation.
Western Sahara has become known as the last remaining colony in Africa, and the world can no longer turn a blind eye to the suffering of its people.
Despite several UN resolutions calling for a referendum on self-determination, Western Sahara has continued to be illegally occupied by Morocco since 1975.
The UN-sponsored process of negotiations between Morocco and the Polisario Front – the movement that seeks self-determination for Western Sahara – remains stalled. A ceasefire deal in 1991 between Morocco and the Polisario Front was meant to lead to a referendum on self-determination. However, despite efforts to broker a deal by the UN, talks ground to a halt in 2019.
The continued delay in finding a solution has dire humanitarian consequences for the people and is an impediment to greater regional integration and security co-operation.
The rich natural resources found in Western Sahara, such as phosphate mines and fisheries, continue to be exploited by Morocco without the consent of the Sahrawi people.
According to the December 2016 ruling of the EU Court of Justice, Morocco can no longer sell products or resources of occupied Western Sahara to Europe. So, these products are now being marketed in Africa and elsewhere, making self-determination – whereby Sahrawis have control over their own resources – even more unpalatable to Morocco.
South Africa supports the AU and the UN’s call for an end to the illegal exploration and exploitation of the natural resources of the Western Sahara and discourages foreign companies from engaging in such activities.
Our position is that the AU must implement its decision to lead an international campaign against any companies and multinationals involved in such exploitative practices.
According to Human Rights Watch and numerous other international human rights organisations, the Sahrawi people continue to be subjected to human rights violations by the Moroccan government, such as arbitrary arrest, torture and enforced disappearance.
Moroccan authorities have stepped up their harassment of activists, dissidents, journalists, bloggers, and human rights defenders, who are regularly subjected to unfair trials.
Authorities in Morocco have continued to impede the work of the Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AMDH), the country’s largest independent human rights group. The authorities systematically prevent gatherings supporting Sahrawi self-determination and obstruct the work of some local human rights groups, including by blocking their legal registration.
The drama of the Khaya sisters – Sultana and Luara – who were held under de facto house arrest by Morocco beginning on November 19, 2020, is ongoing.
The plight of the Khaya sisters has been widely recognised by numerous independent, impartial, and highly reputable international human rights organisations, including the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch.
CNN Global previously published an op-ed by Sultana, who claimed that at the direction of the Moroccan government, the Khaya sisters were tortured, raped, and forcibly injected with unknown substances, among other abuses, during their de facto house arrest. Sultana’s international legal team submitted a petition to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, as well as an urgent appeal to the UN Special Rapporteurs on Torture, Human Rights Defenders, and Violence Against Women.
Morocco has routinely denied that the Khaya sisters were ever under house arrest.
In a recently published decision on January 24 this year, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention ruled in favour of the sisters and Sahrawi activists in Western Sahara.
It found Sultana and Luara’s detention to be arbitrary or without a legal basis, and that the Khaya sisters were “deprived of their liberty on discriminatory grounds because of their status as Sahrawis and their political opinions in favour of the self-determination of Western Sahara”.
The Working Group also noted the psychological, physical, and sexual violence perpetrated against the Khaya sisters and family during the de facto house arrest. The exposure of what happened to the sisters has been a wake-up call for the international community, and Morocco must continue to be reminded that the world is watching.
Just as Madiba said when he was president that our freedom would not be complete without the freedom of the Palestinians, so President Cyril Ramaphosa has said: “The gains of our democracy cannot be complete while the Sahrawi people’s yearning for freedom and justice is not realised.”
Showing solidarity with Western Sahara is a matter of human rights, justice, and regional stability.
* Botes is the Deputy Minister of International Relations and Co-operation in South Africa.
** * The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.