SPS Redaction
I
Shaheed El-hafed, September 25, 2016 (SPS) - The right of the Saharawi people to independence has been re-consecrated once again, and in the day light, through the legal conclusions by the Attorney-general of the Supreme Court of the European Union, Melchior Wathelet, when he stated, firstly, that the Western Sahara is not a Moroccan territory and, secondly, that the countries of the European Union have never recognized the Moroccan thesis of an alleged sovereignty over our country, the Judge launches two torpedoes in the direction of the sailing line of the expansionist thesis, a thesis weakened from the outset by the opinion of the International Court of Justice and mortally wounded in 1984 with the admission of the SADR to the OAU, now African Union.
In fact, the conclusions of Judge Wathelet do not constitute a novelty in the positioning of the international system, represented by the United Nations and on our continent by the African Union, which considered the Moroccan colonialist adventure as a violation of international law.
The novelty is, however, that these torpedoes were launched from a base that Morocco considered until December 2015 as something built upon a secure platform and fertile ground for continuous upwelling of a bordering silent position with an unjustifiable complicity with the transgressions of its partner in North Africa.
The European Union has sailed against its founding principles, turning their backs on a barbarian occupation that caused what another European judge, judge Ruz of the national court in Madrid, called genocide against the Sahrawi people. The European Union had closed their eyes to the continuous violation of human rights in Western Sahara and was involved in the illegal plundering of natural resources of our country through agriculture, fisheries and other agreements with Morocco. A blanket of shame lay on the prestige of the European Union.
The decision by the Polisario Front to open the doors of the European Union to wage a legal battle of great significance and implications to unmask the prolonged Euro-Moroccan honey moon bore first fruits in December 2015 when the Court of Justice of Luxembourg decided to put an end to the validity of the agreements signed by the European Union with Morocco including Saharawi natural resources over which the occupying power is not legally authorized to exploit them.
In the same way that Morocco has tried in vain, and over decades, modifying the substance of the resolutions of the UN and the African Union on Western Sahara, it tried this time reverse the judgment of the Court of Luxembourg and divert the sense and results of the stage of the appeal introduced by the Commission and its two friends - France and Spain – to conclusions that would support its claim to sovereignty over our country, whose people have given the world and particularly the European Union more tangible evidence of the applicability of its struggle for national independence, maturity and sense of political responsibility in the search for a peaceful, just and lasting solution to the last African colonial case on the agenda of the UN.
The attempt has had the opposite effect. It has brought to the surface what Morocco has always wanted to hide, which is the illegality of their presence in the Western Sahara and the failure of all efforts, which are not few, that has been deployed worldwide to consecrate its occupation of Western Sahara.
In reaffirming vehemently that no country of the European Union recognizes Morocco's claim of "sovereignty" over Western Sahara and that the Territory is not part of Morocco, attorney-general does nothing more than enshrine the principle of legality on the issue of decolonization of Western Sahara so often reaffirmed by the UN and the African Union.
Morocco has certainly harvested a major political and diplomatic setback of large repercussion in legal terms of solid shield and in a place regarded as its backyard protected by France, in this case auto-reduced to the role of a "Moroccan protectorate".
The Saharawi people have waged on the ground a war of liberation in defense of its legitimate right to existence against the Moroccan invading army, forcing it to retreat behind a long shameful wall, erected as an eloquent expression of the failure to achieve a decisive military victory. If it wanted, in El-Garagart, to test the new Sahrawi political leadership, the reading offered by the facts should not leave room for miscalculation.
At the same time the Saharawi people carried their message across five continents through a difficult, costly diplomatic battle, and where it does not always move in the same direction.
However, tests are there within the reach of any observer. Africa expelled Morocco from the OAU and wanting to join the African Union is not so easy or enjoyable as the proclamation of the Roman Emperor Caesar "I came, I saw and I conquered".
We have managed to secure at the United Nations the legitimacy of our national liberation struggle and the strength of the right of the Saharawi people to self-determination and independence as essential reference in finding any just and lasting solution to the conflict.
We have achieved since 1979 that the UN considers Morocco a simple "power of military occupation" whose withdrawal from our country has been demanded in several resolutions of the UN, including 3437 (1979) and 3519 (1980). We have devoted the representativeness of the Frente Polisario as the sole legitimate representative of the Sahrawi people. The cause of our people is on the agendas of all the international organizations, evidence of the failure of the thesis of "archive dossier".
Today we have attained a wide and profound breakthrough in Europe, the last Moroccan stronghold.
II
Given this situation, Morocco wants to divert attention to other geographical points. It has for several years attempted to harvest something in the Caribbean. There, maybe today or tomorrow a country in the Caribbean or in Africa, through sophisticated techniques of short-range corruption, to sign a statement saying "derecognized SADR". That does not change the equation background.
These techniques, developed from an office in New York and another in Australia, have so far effect on some small countries geographically in the Caribbean and Pacific countries they know very difficult socio-economic situations and deserve honest solidarity of the Community international.
Morocco offers its "understanding" of solidarity, camouflaged in scholarships, school buses, never completed construction projects of runways and airports, and a hotel badly housed in an area infested with mosquitoes, which continues today succumbing to the Caribbean humidity, and a contribution of between 200,000 to one million dollars in the annual budget of some Caribbean countries. It is not known if the amount goes to the budget or lost in someone's pockets.
Corruption technique was applied with limited success in other parts of the world, particularly in Africa and Europe, with obvious monetary support from certain Gulf monarchies and emirates, especially in Asia. All that is known with more than sufficient details. In some cases, the target is middle-level staff at international bodies such as those working in UNHCR and OHCHR offices. Morocco knows that all this is useless. The "support" received does not reflect adherence to the thesis of the annexation of Western Sahara. It is corruption and, as such, the mechanism is fragile and has no guarantees of sustainability. Having recognized the existence of a country, it cannot be "derecognize". It also knows that officials "caught in the web" can be replaced or put under investigation.
In any case the essential does not change and in the same way as "derecognize" they would return and "reaffirm the recognition" of the SADR or resume diplomatic relations with the Sahrawi state. In this sense, there are eloquent examples. Some will go with the investment. Others return and with them the recovery of the credibility of their countries. Morocco loses in the attempt and then officials in charge of corruption techniques deceive their own people by presenting the case as a success of Moroccan diplomacy.
In the end, it's not about "provisionally convince" a Caribbean or Pacific. This is to convince the Sahrawi people, the international community, through a free and fair referendum of self-determination to which Morocco pledged solemnly to the world. This is the conclusion that is inferred from the position expressed by Judge Wathelet. That's the only serious and decisive way to end the conflict. Otherwise, particularly corruption techniques, is swimming against the current history. (SPS)
062/090/TRA