Western Sahara: Self-determination

Madeleine Moon Excerpts

Wednesday 20th April 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

I am delighted to have this opportunity to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell.

In recent years, the UK has spent a great deal of its time and effort, and one could say a great deal of its blood and treasure, focusing on the MENA—the middle east and north Africa. However, I have to agree with the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown), who secured the debate, that we have failed in relation to Western Sahara. We have failed to recognise the human rights abuses there, and we have failed to lend our voice to those calling for the legitimate rights of the indigenous people of the region to be recognised and endorsed.

As the hon. Gentleman said, Western Sahara is in essence Africa’s last colony. The Kingdom of Morocco has maintained the territory in subjugation since Spanish rule collapsed in 1976. The Sahrawi people are caught between the competing claims of a repressive Moroccan occupying force and the Polisario Front, which is supported by the Algerian Government and emerged in the 1970s in opposition to Moroccan rule. Their right to self-determination has been recognised by the EU, the United Nations, the African Union and the International Court of Justice, but it is still denied to them.

Morocco’s annexation of Western Sahara precipitated a fierce civil war, during which, the Red Cross alleges, Moroccan armed forces deployed napalm and cluster bombs against civilians. Throughout the 1980s, the Moroccan Government sought to cement their position and secure their claim to the territory, and to the vast natural resources that it contains. They encircled Western Sahara with a wall, or a berm, extending nearly 3,000 km, and peppered its perimeter with landmines. The wall also violated Mauritanian security and extended into its territory. Under those conditions, thousands of Sahrawi refugees poured into neighbouring Algeria, where they continue to live in sprawling camps near Tindouf. With an absence of independent food sources or opportunities for employment, residents live dependent on aid to feed their families. A survey conducted in 2012 found that 8% of residents in the camps were malnourished. There is huge opposition to the refugees, who are being denied their human rights. We all too often hear of people in Western Sahara, particularly women, facing sexual subjugation and torture.

A ceasefire was agreed in the 1990s, and a settlement plan was brokered by the then Organisation of African Unity and the United Nations. A referendum on Sahrawi independence was an integral component of that plan, and the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara was established to oversee the Sahrawi people’s transition to autonomy, but that referendum has not taken place. The composition of the electorate has been complicated by the influx of Moroccan nationals into Western Sahara. There have been allegations that the Moroccan Government have introduced thousands of their citizens as part of an insidious policy of colonisation and forced integration. Sporadic violence perpetrated by both Moroccan and Polisario forces has continued to interrupt and delay the peace process. That stagnation has undermined the credibility of MINURSO and the settlement plan it was established to uphold. In 2013, the Moroccan Government persuaded the US to abandon its plans to extend MINURSO’s mandate to include human rights abuses in Western Sahara and in the refugee camps.

In October 2010, a camp called Gdeim Izik was established by the Sahrawi people near El Aaiún in protest against human rights abuses, the repression of dissidents and the continued reluctance of the outside world to act. That reluctance is shocking once we start looking at the issue. The city is the administrative capital of the southern provinces—of Western Sahara—and the erection of the camp was interpreted by Moroccan officials as an act of aggression. The forceful dismantlement of the camp sparked riots, in which a number of Moroccan security personnel were killed, as were an unknown number of Sahrawi people.

With the camp destroyed, the Moroccan Government set out to convict what they called the instigators and leaders of the riots, and 25 people were convicted of murder following confessions that were said to have been extracted through torture. According to Amnesty International, such practices are depressingly common in Western Sahara. We cannot overestimate the shockwaves that those acts of repression are causing across the region. Eyes are on countries such as the United Kingdom that have a track record of upholding human rights. People in Algeria, Western Sahara and Mauritania are rightly asking, “What is the UK doing? Where are its values? Why are its values not being endorsed here, where there is clear repression of an indigenous people?”

It is time that we looked at Western Sahara. There is a huge danger of it becoming an incubator for terrorism and organised crime. There is a sense of injustice, and of the failure of western Governments to acknowledge that injustice, among the indigenous people, who have been given no opportunity to go anywhere to seek redress, except through organisations such as al-Qaeda and Daesh. The grievances generated by the Moroccan occupation are powerful recruiting tools, and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has flourished in the absence of legitimate political authority. The UK can no longer afford to confine the conflict and the plight of the Sahrawi people to the peripheries of its foreign policy. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say, and I hope that we will at last use our position in the United Nations to move forward on the UN mandate and seek justice and legitimacy for these people.

--- Later in debate ---

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) on securing the debate and the members of the APPG from whom we have heard. The debate is timely, coming as it does shortly after the 40th anniversary of the Moroccan invasion—40 years during which 165,000 refugees from Western Sahara have lived in the Algerian desert. It is one of the global situations, or African situations in particular, that does not receive the attention that it is due.

[Mrs Moon]

One of the things that we must put on the record is, honestly, our gratitude to the Algerians. They have provided a safe haven for those people and, let’s face it, we have created additional problems for the Algerians with people fleeing from Libya and Tunisia into Algeria. The Algerians are carrying a huge burden, so we have a responsibility to them, too, to resolve the problem.

[Patrick Grady]

That is a fair point.

Sadly, we can look across Africa and see a number of forgotten nations that maybe do not get the attention that they deserve. For example, the APPG on Eritrea, of which I am a member, was recently founded. There is the situation in Somalia. Western Sahara’s particular situation, however, with its description as “the last colony”, is especially tragic. I was trying to find some statistics, but that is difficult to do, because of its stateless position. I could not find, for example, a ranking in the UN human development index, although I found a GDP figure of about US $2,500 per head, which is not in any way significant. I pay tribute to the work of the various campaign groups that are seeking to make the issue live. They have helped to provide background briefings for Members for today. I note that the comedian and activist Mark Thomas is doing a fundraiser for the cause on 2 May. I wish him all the very best for that.

Three key issues have arisen in the debate: first, the principle of self-determination; secondly, a reflection on recent developments and the human rights situation in the country; and, thirdly, questions for the Government that I hope the Minister will be able to answer. As my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun said, the SNP feels passionately about the principle of self-determination, and we in Scotland were able to exercise it in 2014, in a wonderful exercise in democratic participation. Here in the UK, after elections in Scotland in a few weeks’ time, on 23 June we will have a referendum on our membership of the European Union. That is the kind of thing that we take for granted, but it is sadly denied in so many different parts of the world—only today, in Question Time, the Prime Minister was asked about the Chagos islands. In any event, surely a referendum has to be the endgame and the way in which matters are resolved.

[Mrs Moon]

Not a great ask.

[Patrick Grady]

No, it is not a great ask at all. A peaceful solution has to involve the right of individuals and nations to self-determination. Also, we cannot and should not prejudge what the decision might be. It might be a form of autonomy, or of independence. We will not know until it is put to the test. The UN groundwork has been done, but it is rapidly dating. Generations continue to grow up, still waiting for an opportunity to have their say.

Meanwhile, the situation continues to deteriorate, perhaps not least because of a lack of a human rights mandate for the UN mission. My hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun referred to the Oxfam analysis, which described the recent crisis and the expulsion of UN diplomats as a threat to regional stability. Other examples can be found of human rights abuses; some were referred to by the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams). A 2015 Amnesty International report lists a whole range of different torture techniques used by Moroccan security forces to extract confessions to crimes or to silence activists and crush dissent.

We expect a report in the next few days from the Secretary-General of the UN. Press reports, from those who have perhaps seen advance copies, say that the language used by the Secretary-General seems to indicate that the UN is backing away from its insistence on the concept of self-determination as necessarily leading to independence. I do not know if that is accurate; it is from an article that I have read and it would be interesting to hear from the Minister, because that is the big-picture question. The situation of the people of Western Sahara is important in its own right, but there is a bigger question about the mandate and role of the UN and the respect attributed to decisions by the UN Security Council, of which the United Kingdom is a member. How will the Government use its role as a permanent member to push for further action? The hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) rightly pointed out the risks of inaction. Now is a very appropriate time for action.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun said, it would be useful to know the Government’s view on Morocco’s claim to the territory and its progress in entering into commercial contracts for the exploitation of natural resources in Western Sahara. What consideration are the Government giving to support refugees from Western Sahara in neighbouring countries, as well as to those trying to enter the UK and the EU? Finally, as was touched on in exchanges at the start of my speech, what role do the Government see for neighbouring and regional countries in the area and the broader African Union? The hon. Member for Bridgend noted that a wide range of international institutions recognise the right of the people of Western Sahara to self-determination. Surely, after 40 years, it is time to stop talking and start doing.