Freedom for Western Sahara

Some of you may know, some of you might have never heard of this conflict in your lives. Frankly I wouldn't be surprised. This conflict, the same as plenty of other conflicts in Africa and Asia, have been forgotten by us Westeners.

However in Spain the Western Sahara conflict is still alive and kicking. Thousands of Saharaui children come every summer to Spain to study and enjoy a well deserved holiday after plenty of years of missery in the Tindouf refuggee camps in Algeria.

The conflict goes as follows. Western Sahara used to be a colony of Spain all the way up to 1975 when the so-called 'Green March' by Moroccan troops and civilians in the last days of Franco's dictatorship invaded the territory. After Mauritania and Morocco divided the Western Sahara territory, the Polisario Front, the Saharaui independence movement, declared war and managed to expel Mauritanian forces though not the Moroccan ones. In 1991 a UN-backed peacekeeping force, MINURSO, forced a ceasefire enforced until today. Morocco on one side and the Polisario and Algeria on the other keep reclaiming autonomy within a Moroccan state the first and an independent Saharaui state the latter.

I, as a Socialist and a former activist for the freedom of the Saharaui people, believe it is time Zapatero, if reelected on March 9, pushes for a final solution, self-determination, to the Western Sahara problem. The Polisario Front and plenty of Saharauis have felt betrayed by us Socialists who negotiated with Morocco our immigration policy and fishing quotas. And as much as it might hurt it's true. But we can't anymore turn a blind eye to the sufferings of plenty of people stranded in the middle of the Sahara dessert waiting to go back to the territory is rightfully theirs. I know Morocco is our most important southern neighbour, I know our immigration, security and fisheries policies are extremely dependent on them. But an injustice as big as that suffered by the Saharaui people for 33 years embarrasess me as a Spanish Socialist and a friend of the Saharaui people as most PSOE activists are.

We, I believe, are going to win on March 9, it's about time we start demanding what we expect from our incoming government...and freedom for Western Sahara is long overdue.