PUSL.- The BNG (Bloc Nacionalista Galego) questions the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Spanish Congress regarding the absence of the Saharawi flag on the map of Africa that she published.
The Deputy of the Galician Nationalist Bloc, Néstor Rego, sent questions to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, González Laya, about the tweet she published on May 25, on the occasion of Africa Day. In this tweet, the minister excludes the Saharawi people from her message of congratulations, publishing a map with the flags of all African countries, leaving the territory of Western Sahara blank.
To THE BOARD OF THE CONGRESS OF MEMBERS
In accordance with the provisions of article 185 et seq. of the Regulation of the Congress of Deputies, the deputy of the GALICIAN nationalist bloc , Néstor Rego Candamil, attached to GRUPO PLURAL, asks the following questions addressed to the Government for its written answer.
In a tweet to mark the annual celebration of the founding of the Organization for African Unity (OAU) on May 25, 1963, which in 2001 became the AU (African Union), the Minister of Foreign Affairs included the political map of Africa that she posted with each country with its corresponding flag, but without that of Western Sahara, co-founder of the OAU and AU, which appears in white.
This communication was answered publicly by different people involved at the international level in the struggle for human rights and the right to self-determination of the Saharawi people.
This demonstration by the minister goes against the Constitutive Act of the African Union, excluding from the map the flag of one of its founding members, Western Sahara. It cannot be tolerated that the head of diplomacy, the Spanish State, subordinates the rights of the Saharawi people to the economic and political interests of the Kingdom of Morocco, and that it continues to evade the international obligations of both states regarding the realization of a self-determination referendum of the Saharawi people.
It is not the first time that the minister has been in favor of Moroccan interests in relation to the situation in Western Sahara. Thus, last February, she declared that the meeting that the Secretary of State for Social Rights had with Suilma Beiruk, Saharawi Minister for Social Affairs and Promotion of Women, two days earlier, did not represent the position of the Government of Spain, which does not recognize the SADR. So she responded to her Moroccan colleague, Nasser Bourita, who protested the meeting, saying that “Spain’s position in Western Sahara has not changed, it is state policy,” said the minister.
The Delegation of the Polisario Front insisted on the need to continue working to restore the confidence of the Saharawi people in the United Nations and that MINURSO fulfill its mandate and that the Saharawi people can exercise their right to self-determination.
For these reasons, BNG asks the Government the following questions:
1) Will the government, and specifically the foreign minister, rectify its public position contrary to the recognition of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR)?
2) Does the government plan to officially recognize the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) as a sovereign state?
3) Are there plans to establish bilateral relations with the SADR, represented by the Polisario Front, and the support and intermediation of the Spanish State to favor the holding of the referendum of self-determination in Western Sahara?
Madrid on May 27, 2020
Nestor Rego Candamil – Congressman BNG in Congress
