Western Sahara: Self-determination

Mark Williams Excerpts

Wednesday 20th April 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)]

It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Mr Rosindell. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) for her speech, and particularly to the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown), who initiated the debate. He is a much valued member of the all-party group on Western Sahara, which I chair, and he has done the people of Western Sahara a great service in raising the issue today.

I want to express a few of the concerns that I have had for some time, since I visited the country with the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), who used to chair the all-party group. It was my privilege to visit Laayoune, the capital of Western Sahara, in February 2014, along with the right hon. Gentleman, the director of War on Want and a constituent of mine who runs the Western Sahara Campaign Cymru. The hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun mentioned that visit, as a result of which we produced a report titled “Life Under Occupation”. I believe the Minister will have seen it and his predecessors in the Foreign Office certainly saw it.

I want to ask the Minister, as the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun did, for his response to Morocco ordering the expulsion of the 84 civilian and three military MINURSO personnel following the visit of the United Nations Secretary-General to Western Sahara in March. The mission complied with that request, despite the fact that it was a United Nations mission in a country designated a non-self-governing territory. In short, the Moroccan authorities had no authority to make that request. Surely Morocco cannot be allowed to dictate to a UN mission in a territory it does not have sovereignty over. I believe that that represents an unprecedented challenge to the authority of the United Nations Security Council, and I worry that it shows the Security Council is failing to live up to its responsibilities. I hope that it will strongly condemn the action of the Moroccan authorities in expelling the citizens and military personnel after the March visit by Ban Ki-moon.

I visited the mission in 2014, and we sat and talked to the officials there. Without mentioning names, I have to say that some of those UN officials expressed great frustration that they had no human rights monitoring mandate for Western Sahara. They were fully aware of the human rights violations and the street demonstrations in Laayoune, some of which were witnessed by colleagues on our visit. They were also fully aware of the great brutality with which the Moroccan authorities broke up peaceable demonstrations by men, women and children. However, they were unable to take any action because of the lack of any human rights monitoring role. They had no capacity or power to act. That was one of the most distressing things—to witness, with colleagues, those violations taking place in the streets, and to know that there was a UN capacity there with the potential to act, which could do nothing.

There was great brutality. The constituent who came with me attempted bravely to take photographs of the demonstrations. It was perhaps no surprise, given the way things are controlled in Laayoune, that his camera was stolen. It was later returned, with the offending pictures of course removed and wiped completely. While we were spending those three or four days in an unfamiliar city some way from home, it was quite clear that the powers of surveillance, under the pretext of protecting our interests, were following our every move—that is an unnerving experience. However, I had the luxury of being able to hop on a plane to return to this country. The Sahrawi people, of course, continue to be less fortunate.

The hon. member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun talked at length about human rights issues. I can only concur with what he and the hon. Member for Bridgend said. The UN special rapporteur on torture, Juan Méndez, visited Morocco and Western Sahara in 2012. He found that torture and ill treatment were used to extract confessions, and that Moroccan law enforcement officials used excessive force. In 2015, Human Rights Watch noted the growing intolerance for independent human rights organisations and other critical voices. All the meetings that we had in Laayoune, whether with organisations campaigning for women’s rights, trade unions or other human rights activists, had to be conducted under the cloak of secrecy. All too often, we had to sit in dark rooms—literally—in the back streets of the city, because any public acknowledgment that the meetings were taking place would seriously implicate the Sahrawis we were meeting.

The huge natural resources in Western Sahara are clear from any visit, and their exploitation by Morocco is used as a justification for its occupation. Phosphate mining, fishing and market gardening provide jobs for Moroccan settlers—very few of those jobs go to the indigenous population, among whom unemployment rates are disproportionately high. We visited the ports and saw for ourselves how all offshore fishing is carried out by Moroccan-owned trawlers. In the phosphate mining industry, only 21% of the workforce are Sahrawis, the majority of whom are employed in the most menial jobs. Moroccan influence and money dominates the market gardening industry, its capital and its rewards.

For the indigenous population, there is very little evidence of a return on investment and improvements in their lives. We are talking about the absence of democracy and basic human rights, but in narrow economic terms, the people of Western Sahara are not being delivered a fair share—chwarae teg, as we say in Wales—of resources.

Our overwhelming impression from our visit was of deep and utter sadness—of an indigenous people being repressed, their identities being supressed and their history and culture not being recognised in school. We saw several private Sahrawi schools, which basically meant that parents educated their children in their own history, traditions and culture in their own homes. Again, that took place in secrecy, because it is illegal and the Moroccan authorities would clamp down on it.

All Members who have spoken today have agreed that such violations occur as a direct consequence of the UN’s failure to fulfil its duty to provide self-determination through a referendum for the people there. I know that, as the years go by, that becomes more of a challenge. Concocting an electoral list when the population is so split is, of course, a huge challenge. It is not helped by the concessionary tax and housing rights that encourage people to migrate from Morocco into Western Sahara, which the hon. Member for Bridgend mentioned. I strongly encourage the Minister to do whatever he can, because there is an expectation that countries such as ours should take more of a lead, to ensure progress towards the referendum and a continuing UN presence with a human rights monitoring role. Nothing less will do.

Finally, I want to talk about the case of a Sahrawi campaigner, Mr Brahim Saika, who fell into a coma and died last Friday after being arbitrarily detained by the police and accused of organising protests for self-determination. He was a co-ordinator of a group of unemployed Sahrawis and was arrested on 1 April. According to reports, he was detained and tortured in Gulemin police station. He was then transferred to a hospital in Agadir in Morocco from Bozakarn prison, where he had been held. His sister stated that he had been hit on the head, which is why he fell into a coma and subsequently died. After he was arrested, he went on hunger strike in protest against his detention and maltreatment. A few days later, his condition deteriorated significantly, which was when he was transferred to hospital. The reports we have heard suggest that no serious attempts were made to save his life. The hospital authorities are now refusing to conduct an autopsy to determine the cause of his death, despite his family’s demand for one. The family have been told that the cause of death was poisoning due to a rat bite.

I would appreciate the Minister raising the case with Morocco, and the all-party group would very much like to hear back about that in due course. The sad reality is that brave people such as Brahim Saika are by no means the only victims of the continued occupation of Western Sahara.

--- Later in debate ---

[Fabian Hamilton]

I will continue with my speech, if I may. There is not too much left. I had just quoted from the text of resolution 2218.

The international community must never seek to impose a solution on the dispute over Western Sahara. Whether it remains part of Morocco or becomes a self-governing territory or an independent state, Western Sahara will always have to rely on a very close relationship with Morocco. Whatever the outcome, Western Sahara will need to trade with Morocco, particularly if it is to benefit from the significant investment currently going into it from the Moroccan state and Moroccan companies.

We must also recognise Morocco’s role in providing security in an increasingly unstable area with rising levels of extremism and sectarian conflict. However, the difficulties of achieving a long-term solution should not mean we forget the human rights of the Sahrawi population and their political and economic situation.

I was pleased to see from written answers that the Government have repeatedly raised the Western Sahara issue with the Moroccan Government, including with His Majesty King Mohammed VI. I am particularly pleased that the Government made successful representations to ensure that the UN Secretary-General’s personal envoy to Western Sahara was able to gain access to the region. I hope the Minister will be able to tell the House whether his discussions with the Government of Morocco have included the human rights situation in Western Sahara and the human rights issues facing the Sahrawi people in Morocco. I also hope the Minister will tell us what steps the UK is taking unilaterally and through the Friends of Western Sahara group of nations, of which the UK is a member, to improve the economic and civic participation of the Sahrawi population.

I want to press the Minister on the mandate for MINURSO. I understand that, as has been said this afternoon, it is the only mission in the world without a human rights remit. As the mission is about to have its mandate renewed, or at least reviewed, is it not time to include human rights within its remit and to ask it to report back to the UN Security Council on its findings? Is it also not time to set a date for a free and fair referendum in Western Sahara, with an option for independence on the ballot paper, consistent with the established international legal norm of self-determination?

Is the Minister prepared to demand an end to the extraction of natural resources from Western Sahara through deals that disregard the interests and wishes of the indigenous Sahrawi people? In particular, I hope he will set out the UK’s position on the sale of products from Western Sahara within the EU. I understand that the European Court of Justice ruled to exclude waters off the Western Sahara from the EU-Moroccan fisheries agreement, but that is subject to an appeal from the EU.

[Mr Mark Williams]

Would the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that there is a problem with labelling? We have just had a debate on agriculture. Many of the products produced in the occupied territories, which is how some of us refer to the area, are labelled as products of Morocco when clearly they should be labelled as products of Western Sahara.

[Fabian Hamilton]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I will finish what I was saying because it may cover the point he has raised. Will the Minister explain the UK’s position on the current appeal? Will he also explain what the judgment will mean for the sale of other Western Sahrawi produce within the EU if the appeal fails? In particular, will he explain whether Western Sahrawi goods, such as phosphorus and tomatoes, will be excluded from EU-Morocco trade agreements or require special labelling? I hope that covers the point raised by the hon. Gentleman.

These steps could be important in addressing many of the issues in Western Sahara that we have heard about today and could facilitate further progress. It is precisely because Morocco is such a close ally of the United Kingdom and a significant diplomatic player in its own right that we should work with the Moroccans to welcome a bigger role for the United Nations in finding a long-term and sustainable solution for all the parties involved in Western Sahara.