Around 300 representatives of international delegations attend 16th Congress of the Polisario Front
Brasil de Fato .- The Polisario Front, the political organisation which leads the people of Western Sahara, makes it clear that in addition to confronting the invasion of Morocco with weapons, it is also fighting against the invisibilisation of its cause. For 30 years, the Sahrawis hoped to have diplomatic conditions to hold a popular referendum that would consult the population of around 600,000 people on political control of their territory. Just as the popular consultation never took place, the Sahrawi people claim that their cause has fallen into oblivion within the United Nations (UN).
For this reason, in addition to the 2000 Sahrawi delegates, around 300 people from different parts of the world travelled to the city of Tindouf, Algeria, to follow the 16th Congress of the Polisario Front from 13 to 17 January.
Dajla, Auserd, Aaiun, Bujador, Smara are the names of the five camps which house around 260,000 Saharawi refugees, expelled from their land by the Moroccan army. The names refer to the largest cities in Western Sahara and are called Wilayas (states) by the Sahrawis, each of which has a designated governor as well as representatives in the Sahrawi Parliament, made up of 101 congressmen elected by popular vote.
“The United Nations was not firm enough to demand the implementation of the peace plans signed with Morocco. We have already found the solution, which was the referendum that we signed, so the agreement that was signed must be put into practice,” argues the Prime Minister of Western Sahara, Bucharaya Beyun.
France and the United States, permanent members of the UN Security Council, would be Morocco’s main allies in stopping the advance of the Saharawi cause in the internal debates of the organisation. The Kingdom of Morocco demands that Moroccans living in the Sahrawi zone illegally occupied since 1975 should also vote in the consultation.
Moreover, even though the UN has recognised Western Sahara as an autonomous territory since 1963, the UN Peacekeeping Mission for the Sahrawi people (MINUSRO), created in 1991, is the only one without the authority to act in defence of human rights.
Spain, which held Western Sahara as a colony until 1975, is still considered the administering power in the armed conflict between Sahrawis and Moroccans. With the rise of the Socialist Workers Party government under Pedro Sánchez, the expectation was that the Spanish government might be more favourable to the Sahrawi side, however Sánchez broke with neutrality and aligned himself with the Kingdom of Morocco.
The influence of the Moroccan government also reaches other European countries. Last Tuesday the European Parliament approved to start procedures to strip the parliamentary immunity of two MEPs, Marc Tarabella and Andrea Cozzolino. They are implicated in the so-called Qatar-Morocco Gate, a case in which at least six MEPs are suspected of having received around 1.5 million euros in bribes from the Qatari and Moroccan governments to operate in their favour.
Tarabella was vice-president of the delegation for relations with the Arabian Peninsula and a member of the commission of enquiry into the Israeli Pegasus spying software that would have compromised Morocco.
The European delegations attending the Congress of the Polisario Front understand that part of their work of solidarity is to put pressure on their governments in the institutional field.
“What we want is for the Portuguese government to be more active in relation to the situation in Western Sahara, to intervene at the United Nations so that there can be a referendum as soon as possible so that the people can vote for their self-determination”, says Luísa Teotonio Pereira, representative of the Association of Friendship of Portugal with Western Sahara.
In addition to lobbying the Portuguese government, Luísa Pereira says that the association also seeks to articulate activities related to the Saharan cause with other Portuguese-speaking countries.
“There are three [Portuguese-speaking] countries that recognise the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic, which are Angola, Mozambique and East Timor, and we hope that Brazil will now be more active on this issue,” she said.
Brazil was represented at the Congress by the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST), which discusses ways of contributing to political training and food production.
“I come back with this mission to share what we have seen here with other comrades and help in whatever is needed,” says Ayala Ferreira, national leader of the MST. “There is no estrangement, on the contrary, we see that we have many common aspects, of peoples who struggle against the various oppressions of capitalist society.”
The leader of Puerto Rico’s independence movement, Julio Muriente Pérez, also shows that there are more bridges that unite the peoples of the Global South.
“Upon arriving here we saw that we are the only delegation that came from another colony. We know that at this point in history there are not many colonies in the world anymore, but it is important to recognise that there is still a situation of colonialism in force: on different continents, under the domination of different powers, but it exists”, he denounces.
During the Congress, the professor of Social Sciences at the University of Puerto Rico proposed the creation of an anti-colonialist front between Puerto Rico and Western Sahara.
“The common denominator between the Puerto Rican and Saharan people is the right to self-determination. We want the world to know what is happening, not so that they feel sorry for the Sahrawi people or for Puerto Rico, but to applaud the enormous effort they are making to overcome the condition of colony,” he said.
With the rise of a new “pink wave” of progressive governments in Latin America and the Caribbean, the Polisario Front hopes to increase the creation of associations supporting the Saharawi cause, promoting solidarity brigades and opening embassies in countries that recognise the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).
