It's the final day of the 34th EUCOCO conference and people are slowly filing into the conference hall at El Palau de la Musica in Valencia, Spain. It is an appropriate setting for this finale where the dramas of injustice, oppression, and conviction play out on the stage in its many halls. Except this time, the dramas have been lived and experienced by those present.
They are tangible in the faces of those who have been traumatized and left scarred. Dramas that line the faces of Enaama Asfari who was tied to a tree and beaten unconscious by Moroccan police in April. Lines that address the curves of the young Sultana Khaya who lost an eye while demonstrating for Saharwi self-determination at the University of Marrakesh last year.
And while delegates all around the world have come to declare their support, I cannot help but feel somewhat unsettled at the prospect of another thirty years of a status quo. The Polisario, along with Morocco, Algeria and the United Nations have vested interests in maintaining this status quo. A disturbing situation that aggravates the already harsh living conditions of the common Saharwi.
In the meantime, the civil solidarity movement, while vibrant, is fragmented. There is a lack of coordination between the human rights activists in the occupied territories and the Polisario who are oddly withdrawn. Morocco has had a hand in this as well. They have silenced voices and with the aid of France, have blocked the 2006 UNHCHR from publishing the following phrase:
“The right to self-determination for the people of Western Sahara must be ensured and implemented without any further delay…almost all human rights violations and concerns with regard to the people of Western Sahara…stem from the non implementation of this fundamental human right…”
The UN established MINURSO in 1991 with a mandate to monitor a ceasefire and organize and establish a referendum for self-determination. To date, MINURSO is only UN mission that has no human rights office. The Saharwi want to expand MINURSOs mandate to include the human rights office and allow in observers. Efforts in the United Nations are, however, underway to maintain some focus in the Western Sahara.
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the World Organization Against Torture…, have all documented cases of human rights abuse in the Western Sahara. This includes torture, kidnapping, arbitrary detention, unfair trials, ill treatment of children and minors, right to assembly, and the disappearance of some 500 Saharwi civilians.
written November 9
Next blog entry – the victims
