Canberra, 3 june 2024 (SPS) - The Polisario Front representative in Australia, Kamal Fadel, has urged the "Fortescue" company to end its involvement in the plunder of Sahrawi natural resources, warning of the legal consequences of continuing its activities in the occupied Western Sahara.
In a lengthy interview published on the Australian website "News.com", the Sahrawi diplomat has asked the famous businessman and billionaire John Andrew Henry Forrest, the owner of the "Fortescue" company, to cease his activities in the occupied territories, stating that these investments contribute to "perpetuating a brutal occupation that violates the rights of the Sahrawi people" and to "arming the Moroccan occupation army", thus reinforcing "a fait accompli that Morocco wants to impose by force".
According to the Polisario Front representative, these investments "violate international law and encourage the Moroccan occupation regime to continue its lack of cooperation with the UN and to defy the international community", recalling the extent of the plunder affecting the natural resources of Western Sahara, particularly its phosphate, its fishery resources and renewable energies.
In this regard, he criticized the joint project carried out by the Australian company with the Moroccan Office Chérifien du Phosphate (OCP) to produce green fertilizers, considering that it "undermines the UN peace process and prolongs the suffering of the Sahrawi people".
In its latest report, published in May, the International Observatory Western Sahara Resource Watch (WSRW) denounced Morocco's continued appropriation of the benefits of phosphate illegally exploited in occupied Western Sahara, stating that 1.6 million tons of this mineral were exported from this territory in 2023.
According to this Observatory, phosphate is one of the main sources of revenue for the Moroccan government in occupied Western Sahara.
Indeed, Morocco currently holds 31% of the world phosphate market share thanks to the illegal exploitation of the phosphate mines of Western Sahara, located in Bou Craa, 100 kilometers south of occupied El Aaiun. The reserves are estimated at 3 billion tons and the deposits extend over 250 km².
The Polisario Front, as the representative of the Sahrawi people, has been fighting for several years in the courts to protect the natural resources of Western Sahara from plunder. It is supported by around forty international organizations, mainly by the WSRW, whose action has made it possible, in 2017, to block in the ports of Panama and the Cape of Good Hope ships transporting Sahrawi phosphate.
The following year, no ship loaded with phosphate from Morocco transited through the Cape of Good Hope or Panama.