Youth from Western Sahara and Morocco were this week to meet in London to discuss the Western Sahara conflict. Moroccan authorities have now sabotaged the talks, by denying the Moroccan and Sahrawi delegations exit from Morocco. "All the seven Moroccans had family problems", told the Moroccan ambassador to London.
Polisario and the Moroccan government will meet in Vienna to start informal talks after new US intiative. The new UN Special Envoy, Christopher Ross, travelled the region last month and expressed optimism after talking to the governments of SADR, Algeria, Mauritania, Morocco and Spain.
Mohammed Abdelaziz, President of SADR and General Secretary of Polisario was the Guest of Honor at the 2009 IUSY festival in Hungary. He gave a speech before the participants of a conference on Western Sahara organised by IUSY at the festival. Read full transcript below.
ZANKA, HUNGARY: The International Union of Socialist Youth (IUSY), met in Zanka, Hungary at the World Youth Festival under the theme ‘Development for Freedom - Our War on Poverty’ from June 15th to 21st. SADR President Mohammed Abdelaziz was invited as a Guest of Honor and IUSY passed a statement on Western Sahara for the occasion.
WASHINGTON, July 27, 2009 - President Obama's nominee to be U.S. ambassador to Morocco seemed to confirm a U.S. policy shift on the Western Sahara in testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Norway is now doubling its support to the Sahrawi people, making NOK 11.9 million available in 2009. “The support is mainly intended to alleviate the very precarious humanitarian situation in the refugee camps,” said Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere.
See pictures and video here.
The Norwegian investor KLP has today announced that they have kicked out the Australian firm Incitec Pivot from its funds. The company imports phosphate rock from Western Sahara, which is occupied by Morocco. Norwatch, 2 June 2009.
The Norwegian Support Committee for Western Sahara demanded in a letter on 19 March 2009 to the scientific journal Tectonophysics, that research done by a PhD student at the Norwegian Geological Survey should not be published. The geological research in occupied Western Sahara is done in cooperation with Moroccan oil authorities, but without the consent of the Sahrawi people.
A research fellow attached to the Norwegian Geological Survey has been working on an oil research project in the occupied Western Sahara. The Support Committee requests that a scientific geological journal temporarily suspend further publication of her research data. The research institute is itself sceptical of the research project.
This statement was adopted by South Trøndelag Labour Party during the annual meeting, 14 and 15 March 2009
The US lawfirm Covington & Burling helps Morocco in the illegal plunder of phosphates from occupied Western Sahara. The Sahrawi student Senia Bachir Abderahman is trying to get answers from the lawfirm as to how they can defend the plunder of her homeland.
The National Union of Students in Norway (NSU), demands a stop to the oppression of Sahrawi students in a resolution from the 55th Landsting. The NSU counts close to 93.000 members and have been working for students rights since 1936.
The company Thor Offshore from the Faroe Islands participates in the plundering of occupied Western Sahara. The unethical business helps the Moroccan occupying power's illegal oil search in the territory, and contributes to strengthen the brutal occupation. News coverage in Faroese TV, Dagur & Vika, 26 January 2009
Student Peace Prize Ceremony, 2009, Olav Concert Hall, Trondheim, 27 February 2009.
Two Sahrawi girls were stopped on the street and harassed by Moroccan police Sunday. One was the rape victim from February, the other was the sister of Elkouria Amidane, Maimouna.