Saharawis in Bilbao, Spain, demonstrated as a cargo vessel is arriving to pick up more controversial windmill components for occupied Western Sahara.
A group of Saharawis gathered today in front of the headquarters of Siemens Gamesa in Bilbao, Spain, to protest against the company's involvement in Moroccan energy projects in occupied Western Sahara.
The company has systematically failed to take into account the right to self-determination of the Saharawi people.
The demonstrators carried signs such as “Siemens Gamesa, stop supporting the occupation of Western Sahara” and “Sell your dirty windmills elsewhere”.
The demonstration took place the day before a Dutch-flagged cargo vessel Monika is arriving Bilbao to pick up windmill components destined for the controversial Boujdour windpark. The vessel is part of a large fleet of ships that has gone back and forth between Spain and Western Sahara since June this year.
Siemens Gamesa is currently constructing the biggest energy project in the occupied territory so far, a 300MW park, for Italian group Enel. The project is described in the WSRW report Greenwashing Occupation issued in October 2021.
How can it be wrong to develop renewable energy, in a world that is in desperate need for a green transition? In Western Sahara, the problems are numerous.
Nareva, the wind company of the King of Morocco, fails to answer questions on human rights by the international Business and Human Rights Center, in a study published yesterday.
At COP22, beware of what you read about Morocco’s renewable energy efforts. An increasing part of the projects take place in the occupied territory of Western Sahara and is used for mineral plunder, new WSRW report documents.
Danish-German Siemens Wind Power and Italian Enel Green Power have won the tender to construct five wind farms in Morocco. Only, two of planned farms are located outside of Morocco, and inside occupied Western Sahara. WSRW had warned them from taking part in the tender.