Stained by blood and theft: Morocco breaking the shackles of a coloniser

For most South Africans, the judgment handed down at the end of last month by the European Court of Justice will have meant little, if anything. The ruling effectively barred the European Union from concluding a fishing deal with Morocco which would apply to the territory of Western Sahara.

That is because the people of the territory were not consulted. This was yet another legal acknowledgement of the rights of the people of the territory which is the stage for what is often called “Africa’s last liberation struggle”. For almost 140 years, the people of the desert lands on the north-west tip of Africa has been, in some way, subject to the rules and whims of a coloniser.

For His Excellency, the Ambassador of the Saharawi Republic in South Africa, Mohamed Yeslem Beisat, the ruling was a significant step on the road to forcing the Moroccans to relinquish their conquest of most of his country… but it is nowhere near the end of the struggle. Yet, he says, he and his people are “patient”.

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As a lifelong member of the Polisario Front, which was a liberation movement and then formed the administration of the unoccupied part of the Western Sahara, Beisat is passionate and articulate… but also seemingly uncaptured by the lure of luxury diplomatic life. Leaving our meeting, he climbs into a modest Toyota Corolla, which has to be all of 17 years old. He is the driver. There are no bodyguards.

That makes his commitment all that more poignant. The history of his country is one stained by blood and theft. In 1884, Spain took possession of the territory after the Conference of Berlin, where the European powers carved up Africa into chunks for themselves. With the wind of change blow- ing through Spain in the 1970s, the government in Madrid – like its counterparts in neighbouring Portugal – lost its appetite for main- taining its colonial possession.

While the colonial masters promised the people of Western Sahara a referendum about their future, in 1975, they merely tossed the land to its adjoining neighbours – Morocco to the north and Mauritania to the south. Morocco promptly occupied the top two- thirds of the country, with Mauritania taking the lower one-third.

Beisat said the Polisario was established to fight the arbitrary and illegal annexation of the country. Over the years, its fighters battled both countries, with strong diplomatic support from Algeria. Interestingly, Beisat reminds South Africans that, back in the days of apartheid, Pretoria and Rabat were staunch allies and Moroccan military personnel even participated on the side of South Africa and Unita in the Angolan war in the 1980s.

That solidarity continues to this day, with the ANC government using diplomatic pressure to further the Saharawi Republic cause and standing up for its liberation in international forums. Such was the effectiveness of the armed struggle waged by the Saharawis that Mauritania withdrew after Polisario units caused huge damage to economic targets in that country.

The Moroccans, though, were less inclined to leave and enforced their occupation by erecting a huge sand wall across the country to separate its territory from the rest and to keep Polisario fighters out. The reasons that Morocco is so keen to hold on to almost 80% of Western Sahara territory are not difficult to define.

The country, despite its barren appearance, sits atop one of the world’s largest phosphate deposits and, in addition, its coastline – most of which is now under Moroccan control – abuts one of the richest ocean fisheries in Africa. Initial hostilities ceased in 1991 under an UN-brokered peace plan, which provided for a referendum to allow the Saharaw- is themselves to decide their future.

But, as had happened in 1975, it was not to be because, as Beisat puts it, the Moroccans reneged and “used all manner of tactics to avoid holding the referendum”. Tension has been ratcheting up this year and there have been some clashes between Polisario and Moroccan units, while the UN mission seems to be looking on, helpless as always.

Earlier this month, UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres announced the appointment of a new envoy Staffan de Mistura of Italy and the Polisario Front has been urging the world body to ensure the referendum is held. For Beisat, the European Court judgment is an indication that more countries are realising the fundamental illegality and immorality of the Moroccan occupation.

He is heartened, too, by the appointment of the new UN envoy and the release this week of a letter sent by an influential group of US senators to the state department urging the American government to tackle Morocco on human rights abuses. – brendans@citizen.co.za