Morocco wants to rejoin African Union: king

Yahoo – AFP, July 18, 2016

Moroccan King Mohammed VI, pictured in February 2016, says his country
want to rejoin the African Union (AFP Photo/Fadel Senna)

Rabat (AFP) - Morocco wants to rejoin the African Union, 32 years after quitting the bloc in protest at its decision to accept Western Sahara as a member, King Mohammed VI said Sunday.

Morocco maintains that Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony, is an integral part of the kingdom even though local Sahrawi people led by the Polisario Front have long campaigned for the right to self-determination.

"For a long time our friends have been asking us to return to them, so that Morocco can take up its natural place within its institutional family. The moment has now come," the monarch said in a message sent to an AU summit taking place in Kigali, the MAP Moroccan news agency reported.

Morocco has occupied the sparsely populated Western Sahara area since 1975 in a move that was not recognised by the international community.

Morocco quit the AU in protest in 1984 when the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) was admitted as a member.

But although Morocco left the club, "it never quit Africa", King Mohammed said in his message to AU leaders as they began a two-day meeting in the Rwandan capital.

"Through this historic act and return, Morocco wants to work within the AU to transcend divisions," he added.

Morocco's King Mohammed VI wife Princess Lalla Selma, front right, welcomes

 U.S. first lady Michelle Obama, front left, and daughters Malia, rear right, and 

Sasha at Menara Airport in Marrakech, Morocco, Monday, June 27, 2016. The

 first lady is on a visit to Morocco to promote eduction for girls. (AP Photo/ 

Abdeljalil Bounhar)

In 1991, the United Nations brokered a ceasefire between Moroccan troops and Sahrawi rebels of the Algerian-backed independence movement the Polisario Front but a promised referendum to settle the status of the desert territory has yet to materialise.

Earlier this year Morocco expelled several UN staff members who were part of the MINURSO mission in Western Sahara in angry retaliation over UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's use of the term "occupation" to describe the status of the territory.

In his address to the African Union, King Mohammed urged the bloc to rethink its position on the "phantom state" of Western Sahara, saying that a political solution was being worked on under the auspices of the UN.

"The recognition of a pseudo state is hard for the Moroccan people to accept," he said.

The SADR is not a member of the UN or the Arab League, the king went on to note, adding that "at least 34 countries" do not recognise it.

"On the Sahara issue, institutional Africa can no longer bear the burden of a historical error and a cumbersome legacy," the monarch said.

Morocco's return to the AU would need to be validated by a vote.

Morocco king in rare visit to disputed Western Sahara

Yahoo – AFP, 7 Nov 2015

Morocco's King Mohammed VI (L) and his brother Prince Moulay Rachid arrive

at ceremony in Laayoun on November 7, 2015 (AFP Photo/Fadel Senna)

Laayoune (AFP) - Morocco's King Mohammed VI has vowed that revenues from the mineral-rich Western Sahara will continue to be invested locally, on a rare visit to the disputed territory.

He was speaking late Friday in the territory's main city Laayoune, to mark 40 years since hundreds of thousands of Moroccan civilians marched across the border with the then Spanish colony to lay claim to it.

The Green March triggered war with the Algerian-backed Polisario Front which had been campaigning for independence for the territory since 1973 and continues to do so to this day.

King Mohammed, who arrived to much fanfare in the city for only his third visit since he succeeded to the throne in 1999, described the Green March as "a watershed moment in the process of completing the kingdom's territorial integrity".

He listed several projects that are due to be implemented to improve infrastructure in the territory, including a desalination plant and industrial zones.

He promised that "revenues from natural resources will continue to be invested in the region, for the benefit of the local populations and in consultation and coordination with them".

Moroccan protesters take part in a demonstration marking the 40th anniversary

 of the "Green March" on November 6, 2015, in Western Sahara's main city of 

Laayoune (AFP Photo/Fadel Senna)

On Saturday night, during a televised ceremony in Laayoune, the king announced a 7.2-billion-euro development plan for the region.

But King Mohammed also renewed his insistence that there could be no compromise on Morocco's claim to sovereignty over the Western Sahara.

A UN-brokered ceasefire between Morocco and the Polisario has held since 1991, but UN efforts to organise a referendum on the territory's future have been resisted by Rabat.

Morocco has offered some autonomy but flatly refuses to make any more concessions.

"Those who are waiting for any other concession on Morocco's part are deceiving themselves. Indeed, Morocco has given all there was to give," the king said in Laayoune.

The Polisario controls a small part of the desert interior of the Western Sahara but its main base is in Tindouf across the border in Algeria, where tens of thousands of Sahrawi refugees also live in desert camps.

The king lashed out at Algiers for not doing more for the refugees.

"The people in Tindouf... continue to suffer from poverty, despair, deprivation and the systematic violation of their basic rights," he said.

On Wednesday, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called for negotiations in the coming months to finally settle the Western Sahara dispute.

"This conflict must be brought to an end if the people of the region are to meet their shared challenges and achieve their full potential," Ban said.

He said he had asked his envoy Christopher Ross to intensify efforts to bring Morocco and the Polisario to the negotiating table.

WHO calls for revamp after 'too slow' Ebola response

The head of the World Health Organization, Margaret Chan, has called for reform amid criticism of the body's response to the Ebola crisis. She warned against complacency despite progress in fighting the epidemic.

Deutsche Welle, 25 Jan 2015

A baby receives a vaccine during a routine doctor's visit at the Kuntorloh Community
 Health Centre in the outskirts of Freetown on November 14, 2014. AFP Photo/
Francisco Leong/Getty Images

Chan told a rare emergency session of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva on Sunday that it had been too sluggish in responding to the recent Ebola crisis in West Africa, saying the agency should learn from its mistakes.

"This was West Africa's first experience with the virus and it delivered some horrific shocks and surprises," she said.

"The world, including WHO, was too slow to see what was unfolding before us," Chan admitted, adding that "never again should the world be caught by surprise, unprepared."

Chan went on to say that although the "worst-case scenario" had been avoided and progress in fighting the disease was evident in the three worst-hit countries - Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone - the world should not let down its guard.

"Cases are clearly declining in all three countries, but we must maintain the momentum and guard against complacency and donor fatigue," she said, warning that cases of the disease could easily surge if bodies were buried unsafely or communities violently resisted attempts at disease prevention.

Zero target

She added that the WHO aimed to reduce the number of Ebola cases in the three countries this year "to zero," while admitting this was "not going to be easy."

Chan said the Ebola crisis
taught many lessons

In her speech, Chan called for a "dedicated contingency fund to support rapid responses to outbreaks and emergencies" and for help to be given to countries so they can maintain their own highly trained teams to react quickly to emergencies.

She also demanded better international coordination and surveillance and improved crisis management within WHO itself.

The director of the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Tom Frieden, also pointed out failings in the WHO reponse to the outbreak, calling for "significant changes."

"We have to be frank that too many times the technical is over-ruled by the political in WHO. We have to reverse that. It must be technical, from the selection of regional directors to the establishment of rapid response," he told the meeting.

African dissatisfaction

Sunday's meeting of the WHO executive board was called by several member states critical of the United Nations agency's slow response.

"Countries in the African region feel that building WHO's capacity to respond to emergencies must be a priority activity," said Liberia's deputy health minister Dr. Bernice Dahn, saying the Africa region had "been disappointed by slow progress."

The recent outbreak of Ebola, a hemorrhagic fever transmitted by body fluids, has left at least 8,641 people dead over the past year or so, most of them in West Africa, according to WHO estimates.

tj/bw (AFP, Reuters, dpa)

A medical worker checks the temperature of a man, in quarantine since his daughter

died from Ebola, in Omega town, a suburb of Monrovia, on January 21, 2015.The

World Health Organization said in its latest update that 8,688 people had died,

among a cumulative total of 21,759 cases. AFP Zoom Dosso/AFP/Getty Images 

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Morocco fears Algeria may stir Western Sahara unrest

Reuters, by Souhail Karam, Tue Feb 15, 2011

RABAT (Reuters) - Morocco said Algeria and the Polisario Front, which wants independence for Western Sahara, may use political upheavals sweeping some countries in the Arab world to stir unrest in the disputed desert region.

Demonstrators wave Sahrawi flags during a pro-Sahrawi
protest at the Hispa-Maroc Expo outside the congress palace
in Malaga December 4, 2010. The words on flag reads: "Free
Freedom". (REUTERS/Jon Nazca)

Foreign Minister Taieb Fassi Fihri also urged Algeria, Morocco's neighbour and the Polisario Front's biggest supporter, to turn the page on past disputes and focus on greater economic cooperation.

Morocco annexed the Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony in 1975, sparking an armed conflict with the Polisario.

A U.N.-brokered ceasefire was reached in 1991 on the promise that a referendum would be held to decide the fate of the territory, but differences between the two sides about who is eligible to vote sabotaged it.

Morocco has offered limited autonomy to Western Sahara, a thinly populated region that has rich fishing waters and phosphate deposits, and may also have oil and gas reserves.

Polisario and its ally Algeria reject this and say they want a referendum, with independence for Western Sahara as one of the options.

In unprecedented violence in November, about a dozen people, mostly Moroccan security force members, were killed after they broke up a protest camp near the territory's main city Laayoune.

Speaking of the popular unrest in parts of Arab world, Fihri told state television: "The enemies of our territorial integrity will probably use it to push forward their agenda ... What the Polisario and Algeria are looking for is to create some disturbance in this region."

He urged Algeria to focus on forging ahead with a long-dormant plan to create a regional economic bloc that includes Tunisia, Libya and Mauritania.

"Let's forget about the past," he said, addressing Algeria.

He said a plan by the country to devolve some power to regions would start with the disputed territory. "A referendum cannot be implemented," he said.

Prime Minister Abbas El Fassi held a rare meeting late on Monday with leaders of the main political parties ahead of a February 20 march planned by a group of young Moroccans to demand constitutional reform and an independent justice system.

Government spokesman Khalid Naciri said the prime minister promised political parties that "social, economic and political issues" would be tackled.

"There already is a dynamic to react to these demands ... These demands have been on the government's agenda for some time ... We are listening and we don't just listen: We look for solutions," Naciri told reporters.

Credit rating agencies Standard & Poor's and Fitch have said Morocco is the least likely Maghreb state to be affected by the wave of popular unrest.

Related Article:

Morocco boosts 2011 subsidies amid regional unrest

Leave W. Sahara to the UN: RI

Mustaqim Adamrah, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Tue, 06/22/2010 10:52 AM

The Indonesian government maintains its stance of not recognizing Western Sahara, a non-self governing territory in Africa, as a sovereign state, following the line of the United Nations.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Teuku Faizasyah said Indonesia hoped for immediate results from “an ongoing process” by the UN to hold a referendum in the territory of Western Sumatra.

“We have good relations both with Morocco and Algeria. We cannot send anyone to a disputed territory or send aid there. It could be interpreted as recognition [of Western Sahara’s standing as a sovereign state],” he told The Jakarta Post recently.

“One thing is for sure, we will support any efforts made by the UN,” he said.

Indonesia’s decision not to recognize Western Sahara’s sovereignty will likely win favor from Morocco, which claims sovereignty over the territory, but risk the ire of Algeria, which supports the establishment of Western Sahara as an independent state.

The president of local NGO InSahara, Luluk Nur Hamidah, earlier said the Indonesian government’s silence on the issue was one of the main reasons for a lack of public knowledge about “the last colonized state in Africa”, and had resulted in little or no local support for a global recognition of Western Sahara.

“As the world’s largest Muslim majority country and the [third] largest democratic country, Indonesia’s voice will be listened to by Morocco and other countries if it has a clear stance on the Sahrawi people,” she told the Post, referring to the name of the ethnic population of the disputed region.

“Indonesia can play the role of mediator between Morocco and Western Sahara, or be active and bring the matter to ASEAN, for instance,” she said.

Echoing Luluk, Middle East expert at the University of Indonesia Hanief Saha Ghafur said that a lack of information among academics on the conflict, which involved Morocco, Algeria and Western Sahara, was one of the reasons why Western Sahara remained off the radar.

Indonesia, Luluk said, should help the Sahrawi people attain their rights to a referendum.

“I’m not saying whether they should be independent or not. But their first right to self-determination, whatever that is, must be fulfilled,” she said.

She also said the UN had on three occasions cancelled a planned referendum for the Sahrawi to choose whether they would reject Morocco’s sovereignty over the region.

Moroccan Ambassador to Indonesia Mohamed Majdi said Western Sahara belonged to Morocco, based on historical, religious and political factors.

“Western Sahara is Moroccan territory. It is proven by international treaties. Many dynasties that ruled Morocco came from there,” he said.

He also said Morocco had proposed autonomy for Western Sahara before the UN Security Council to help settle the prolonged issue.

But Polisario is "not interested in solving the issue", he said referring to the region's national liberation movement.