New York, 1 May 2022 (SPS) - The International Criminal Justice Club and the Center for international Human Rights at John Jay College in New York, USA, organized on Friday a digital conference on “Western Sahara: Africa’s Last Colony”, during which the crimes of the Moroccan occupation in Western Sahara and its obstacles to the work of the MINURSO were reviewed.
Sidi Mohamed Omar, member of the National Secretariat of the Polisario Front, representative to the United Nations and coordinator with the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO), and lawyer Caitlin Thomas, who specializes in international law and conflict resolution, gave lectures during the conference, while the discussion was moderated by Dr. Charlotte Walker Said , Professor in the Department of African Studies and Director of the Master's Program on Human Rights at John Jay College.
In his intervention, Sidi Mohamed Ammar touched on the political history of the issue of Western Sahara and the stages of the Sahrawi people’s struggle against Spanish colonialism and Moroccan occupation. He also explained the nature of the “legitimacy crisis inherent in the authoritarian Moroccan regime and its resort to the expansion policy as a means to manage its internal crises, as well as the geopolitical considerations of some international actors that bear responsibility for obstructing the decolonization of the last colony in Africa.”
For her part, lawyer Caitlin Thomas presented the legal aspects of the Sahrawi issue in light of the ruling of the International Court of Justice and United Nations resolutions that "consolidate the right of the Sahrawi people to self-determination and clearly demonstrate that Morocco has no right to claim the territory that it continues to occupy illegally in complete contradiction to the rules of international law and international humanitarian law.
The lawyer also touched on her experience with MINURSO as a legal affairs officer in the mission, with reference to "the number of Moroccan obstacles that prevented the holding of the self-determination referendum and the failure of the UN Security Council to ensure the mission's implementation of the mandate established by the Council for it due to some geopolitical calculations", and concluded that the referendum remains the only way to achieve a lasting and just solution to the issue of decolonization of Western Sahara.
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