Picture above: the Shekou Sea, photographed by Raenuld Greenleaf.
Tomorrow, a bulk vessel with a capacity of over 72.000 tonnes, the “Shekou Sea” (IMO: 9138927), will arrive in Geismar, Louisiana - home of US-Canadian fertiliser company PotashCorp's processing plant. For decades, PotashCorp has been the single largest buyer of phosphate rock from occupied Western Sahara. And it shows no intention of ending its controversial imports.
Western Sahara Resource Watch has today sent a fourth letter to the company, raising previously unanswered questions on the company's purchases and also commenting on a statement released by PotashCorp in defence of its imports from the occupied territory.
Read the full letter here.
The company had first published their statement “Phosphate Rock from the Western Sahara” in April 2011, but revised it in April 2012, correcting several of the factual errors, misquotes and politically unfortunate statements outlined by WSRW in our letter of 26 April 2011.
“It is to us peculiar to observe that PotashCorp, in its concluding remark in the statement, claims that abstaining from trading with phosphates in Western Sahara is a political action, while undertaking it as apolitical”, WSRW wrote in the letter sent today. “It would be obvious that remaining the largest purchaser of commercial goods from occupied Western Sahara, paying the occupying power tens of millions of dollars annually, is an act of highly political nature, making it less likely that Morocco will engage in serious peace talks under the auspices of the UN.”
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