“I ask the EU to please take into account the rights of my people. We, the Saharawi, are saddened over the way this fisheries agreement with Morocco affects our struggle”, stated the Saharawi refugee Senia Abderahman to the European Commission.
For more than a month, Aminatou Haidar, the internationally awarded Saharawi human rights activist and President of Saharawi Human Right organisation CODESA, has waited for a reply from the EU’s ambassador to Morocco, Mr. Eneko Landaburu. The EU ambassador is failing to respond to a simple question regarding the legality of the EU fisheries in occupied Western Sahara.
"We urge BHP to issue a statement that upon acquiring PotashCorp, all phosphate-imports from occupied Western Sahara will be terminated", stated Western Sahara Resource Watch in a letter to BHP Billiton Sunday night.
The Trade Union of Saharawi Workers in El Aaiún, occupied Western Sahara, started a general strike this morning, denouncing the “policy of segregation applied by Morocco” and the “plundering of Saharawi natural resources”.
Louisiana fishermen, victims of the BP Gulf spill, could be moving their place of work to an occupied country, supporting an illegal and brutal regime. This might be the reality if Washington lobbyists get what they want. Press release, Western Sahara Resource Watch, 30 July 2010.
During the first two weeks of July, highly educated Saharawi took to the streets in Rabat, denouncing the Moroccan plunder of Western Sahara’s natural resources and the fact that they are discriminated in the job market simply for being Saharawi.
European Commissioner for Fisheries, Maria Damanaki, has met with a group of euro-parliamentarians regarding the difficulties in renewing the current fisheries agreement between the EU and Morocco. This agreement is set to expire in March 2011 and its ending may lead to the withdrawal of the European fleet from Moroccan waters. EFE, 13 July 2010.
The theft of fish from Western Saharan waters should be damned by the European commission, not encouraged. The Guardian, by David Cronin, 10 July 2010.
Norwegian insurance company divests from Australian fertilizer importer over imports from Western Sahara.
The Secretary General of the Stockholm based Olof Palme Center and the international secretary of the Swedish Labour Party, have this week written a letter to three Greek colleagues asking for help to exclude occupied Western Sahara from the EU-Moroccan fisheries agreement. The three Greeks are the EU fisheries commissioner, the Greek prime minister and president of the Socialist International, as well as the international secretary of the country's socialist party.
Norwegian investor KLP has blacklisted another two new fertiliser companies that buy phosphate from occupied Western Sahara. Furthermore, two additional corporations were dropped from its portfolio because they are linked with nuclear weapons production. Norwatch, 1 June 2010.
Yearly Morocco receives the equivalent of 350 million Swedish kroner for its fisheries agreement with the EU. The agreement also applies to occupied Western Sahara’s waters, where vessels registered in the EU trawl. Many people, including human rights expert Hans Corell, criticise the agreement and demand tougher conditions when it is to be renegotiated.
On European Maritime Day, Western Sahara Resource Watch (WSRW) demands that the depletion of European fish stocks not be used to justify illegal fisheries practices elsewhere.