"It is inconceivable that MINURSO should remain the only contemporary UN peace mission lacking a mandate to monitor human rights", WSRW stated in a letter to the Security Council yesterday. WSRW asked for the UN to monitor both the human rights violations and the illegal plundering of natural resourecs in the territory.
The Polish Ministry of Economy says that there is no need to “differentiate between the territory of Morocco and that of Western Sahara”. However, such a position is inconsistent with international law and resolutions of the UN General Assembly adopted over the last 40 years, said representative of Western Sahara Resource Watch (WSRW).
In a letter to a number of EU institutions and representatives of the Spanish government, The European Association of Lawyers for Democracy and World Human Rights yesterday expressed concern for the EU fisheries in occupied Western Sahara.
WSRW can today present the 11 page statement from the European Parliament’s Legal Service. The statement – concluding that EU fisheries in occupied Western Sahara under its current shape is in violation of international law - has been kept from the public for 7 months.
The NGO France Liberté, Fondation Danielle Mitterrand, denounced the EU fisheries agreement before the UN General Assembly's Human Rights Council.
While the EU is in the process of revising its fisheries policy, 25 Sahrawi NGOs recommend the EU to let its fisheries follow international law, by stopping its fisheries in occupied Western Sahara. The organisations represent the vast majority of Sahrawi civil society groups in the occupied territories of Western Sahara and in the refugee camps in south-west Algeria.
The Australian fertilizer producer Incitec Pivot imports phosphate from occupied Western Sahara in violation of international law. Australian Council of Trade Unions, and Australia Western Sahara Association protested at the company's annual general meeting.
"On the behalf of Brahim, myself and all the Saharawis I would also like to take the opportunity to thank Sweden for their opposition to the EU Fisheries Agreement" stated Aicha Dahane, upon accepting the Swedish Per Anger Human Rights Award, Monday, on behalf of her brother. Brahim Dahane is in Moroccan prison awaiting military trial for having visited his countrymen in the Sahrawi refugee camps.
"It is a violation of international law for the natural resources of Western Sahara to be exploited in this way. But the EU continues to buy permits from Morocco for EU fishing vessels which allows them to fish in Western Saharan waters. The people of Western Sahara have never given their permission for this to happen", stated MEP Jill Evans in a press release.
Western Sahara human rights activist Aminatou Haidar hopes for increased attention to the EU plundering of occupied Western Sahara.
At the UN Fourth Committee on Decolonization held in New York on 6-12 October, WSRW called for the United Nations to send a Mission of Observation to Western Sahara, to monitor the natural resource exploitation from the territory.
The fertiliser producer Incitec Pivot states in Australian Farm Journal that they are fully dependent on phosphate from occupied Western Sahara.
The Norwegian Government Pension Fund has invested billions of Norwegian kroners in companies that participate in the plunder of Western Sahara. An examination carried out by Norwatch shows that Pension Fund companies are behind two-thirds of all phosphate purchases in the occupied country. Norwatch, 06 October 2009.
Press release from the Western Sahara Campaign UK today, announces that a delegation of MP’s, High Commissioners and representatives of the exiled Western Saharan government today will go to 10 Downing Street to call on the British government to take the lead in resolving the Western Sahara conflict.