Home > Keywords > International > Africa

Africa

  • Why self-determination for Western Sahara?
    15 August 2009 par (Open-Publishing)

    The Western Sahara builds the whole case for its self-determination on inherited colonial borders. Between 1884 and 1975, whatever the prehistory, it was a separate territory with its own colonial master (Spain). And every single such colonial territory in Africa, except Western Sahara, has been granted independence: the last ones were Namibia in 1990 and Eritrea in 1993. (A belated Asian case, very similar to W. Sahara, was East Timor, which became independent only in 2002 after lengthy (…)

  • Marseille Sways to a Maghreb Rhythm
    12 August 2009 par (Open-Publishing)

    By SETH SHERWOOD
    AS a warm Saturday night hung over the Mediterranean, the Algerian-French band Yazmen shuffled under the spotlights with its instruments — hand drum, flute, electric bass and a boxy, long-necked stringed instrument called a guembri — while a crowd filed into the hot confines of the windowless Tankono club.
    Couples arrived with children while bespectacled record-store geeks and a bald guy in a dashiki made toasts with Kronenbourg beers. Close to the stage, a dozen or so (…)

  • Western Sahara : Status quo risk
    10 August 2009 par (Open-Publishing)

    The American diplomat Christopher Ross was chosen this past summer to untangle this mess. Ross was originally selected for the job in September, but it took several months to make it official, after Morocco obstructed his appointment because, as the moroccan press say, that, from now on, any talks must focus on how to implement the king’s autonomy plan, not whether to do it the Moroccan autonomy plan must be the "sole platform" for future discussions, leaving aside any proposals from (…)

  • Way smoothed for genocide in Western Sahara
    6 August 2009 par (Open-Publishing)
    1 comment

    The following is extracted and edited from a letter to Charles Clarke, my Member of Parliament. Morocco is being extremely active in promoting its new plan for the the disputed territory of Western Sahara, which it partially occupies, and has had a number of “constructive” talks with European politicians in recent weeks. Morocco has been praised for its efforts by a number of individuals and bodies, including political representatives of the EU. It appears that the way is being smoothed for (…)

  • Judges say UK spy visited Morocco 3 times while ex-Guantanamo detainee was held there
    2 August 2009 par (Open-Publishing)

    A British intelligence officer repeatedly visited Morocco at the same time that a former UK resident was allegedly being tortured there, two senior judges said Friday. Supporters of Binyam Mohamed say the revelation casts doubt on the position of the UK spy agency, which insists it never knew he was being detained by Moroccan authorities. Mohamed, an Ethiopian who moved to Britain as a teenager, was arrested in 2002 in Pakistan.
    He alleges he was subjected to sleep deprivation and had his (…)

  • Why Morocco is Proposing Autonomy Now?
    31 July 2009 par (Open-Publishing)

    By Chasli
    Just a few observations about why I am so skeptical about Morocco’s autonomy plan and what I see as Morocco’s reasons for going down the autonomy road.
    Anyone who thinks that Morocco would ever allow the Sahrawi to control any of the territory’s mineral or fishing wealth is seriously suffering from “head-in-the-sand” syndrome. It just won’t happen. The Moroccan military, elite, and monarchy have been happily stealing Western Sahara’s abundant resources for over thirty years (…)

  • Why Was Morocco’s Autonomy Initiative Devised?
    29 July 2009 par (Open-Publishing)

    This view that Morocco’s autonomy initiative for the Western Sahara should be supported because it is a commendable and reasonable compromise to once and for all overcome “the deadlock in United Nations’ mediated negotiations” has been getting a lot of play time recently by the pro-Rabat forces. The view is unacceptable and should be soundly rejected because its basic premise — that the “deadlock is the result of a “fail[ure] to reach a mutually-acceptable solution — is just not true. The (…)

  • Robbed of truth?
    26 July 2009 par (Open-Publishing)

    By Bob Ellis
    In Stolen a camel is chosen, dragged bellowing toward a truck, seen travelling many miles with a quirky expression on its likeable, nose-wriggling face, then later by moonlight, shrieking and hooting, its throat cut, gushes its blood towards Mecca in accordance with the provisions of the Law. After this we see dancing and ululating veiled black women at a reunion party in which the camel, drained of its blood, is roasted and eaten in the first such feast in the village in 30 (…)

  • Foreign friends
    23 July 2009 par (Open-Publishing)

    By Nick Brooks, SAND & DUST, 18 february 2009
    History demonstrates that unpleasant regimes bent on suppressing dissent and menacing their neighbours can always find foreign apologists who are ready to scurry to their defence without bothering to understand precisely what it is they are defending. It seems that Morocco is no exception in having an army of foreign sycophants ready to fight for its right to expand its territory through force and stamp on anyone who might object to its (…)

  • The world’s only UN mission with no human rights bureau
    21 July 2009 par (Open-Publishing)

    By Nikolaj Nielsen Monday, July 20 10:56 am EST
    A row of Moroccan flags firmly embedded in a concrete wall too tall to scale, align a compound that has no political will and surround a United Nations mission that has no human rights bureau. Minurso, the UN Mission for the Referendum in the Western Sahara, is a sad spectacle where the single blue flag appears to reach tall into the warm sky.
    But it hangs limp as the dozens of red draped green stars flutter in the slight breeze; defiant (…)