Some 30 Sahrawis and Norwegians carried out a demonstration in front of the Spanish embassy in Oslo today to protest the Spanish government’s undermining of the Sahrawi people’s rights. Spain is currently pushing the EU to try to renew an illegal fisheries agreement covering the waters offshore the occupied territories.
The French shipping company Setaf Saget removed a vessel from their webpages, and stopped replying to mails, after a French organisation wrote them about a transport of phosphates from occupied Western Sahara.
The international network BHP Billiton Watch dedicated a chapter to the Western Sahara issue when they this week launched its BHP Alternative Annual Report for 2010. The report was published before the BHP announced its withdrawal from the plans of buying Western Sahara phosphate plunderer.
"Had the benefits been flowing to the Saharawi people, would there have been a need for the peaceful and ultimately tragic protests by more than 20,000 Saharawi people in the area in and around El Aaiún, angered by the long-standing political repression and desperate socio-economic conditions prevalent in the Territory?", the Western Sahara liberation movement asked the EU fisheries commissioner Damanaki yesterday.
The British-Australian mining company BHP Billion has decided not to bid for the Canadian fertiliser firm PCS. Western Sahara Resource Watch previously urged BHP to terminate the imports from occupied Western Sahara if it was to gain control over the company. BHP stated today they have "no plans for activities" in the territory.
Tuesday 16 November, 14:30 - 16:00, in the European Parliament.
Speakers: former UN envoy Francesco Bastagli, Law Professor Carlos Ruiz Miguel and Saharawi human rights defender Aminetu Haidar.
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In complete violation of international law, Morocco is pillaging the minerals and phosphates in occupied Western Sahara. This week, their office in El Aaiun was raided by Saharawis. A phosphate worker was killed by Moroccan police.
Every now and then we discover all is not as right with the world as we thought it was. Even so, who would think a wake-up call could come in the shape of phosphatic rock?
Check out this WSRW video showing the vessel spotted by Brisbane Times.
Brussels, 21 Oct (EFE). – European Commissioner for Fisheries, Maria Damanaki, and the Moroccan Minister for Fisheries, Aziz Akhannouch, have debated the fisheries agreement, set to expire in March 2011. But still no agenda has been set to negotiate its renewal, sources from within the Commission informed Efe.
At their annual Party Congress, the European Liberal Democrats’ Party have adopted a resolution stating that the fisheries agreement between the European Union and Morocco should not be extended, unless the Saharan waters are excluded from the agreement.
In its statement to the United Nations’ Special Political and Decolonization Committee (Fourth Committee), Western Sahara Resource Watch called for the establishment of a mechanism to place the proceeds from the exploitation of Western Sahara’s natural resources under international administration until the conflict has been resolved, and for the inclusion of a human rights component into the MINURSO mandate.
“Extravagant”, is the term used by a spokesperson for the Moroccan government, to describe the request made by several MEPs to exclude Western Saharan waters from the EU-Moroccan fisheries agreement. MEPs from different political groups launched this request during a seminar on illegal fisheries in Western Sahara, held in the European Parliament on Tuesday 5 October.
