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Today's Topics:



1. Pambazuka News 618: Special Issue: Western Sahara - Africa's

last colony revisited (Pambazuka Editor)





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Message: 1

Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2013 18:43:46 +0300

From: Pambazuka Editor <editor@pambazuka.org>

To: pambazuka-news <pambazuka-news@pambazuka.gn.apc.org>

Subject: Pambazuka News 618: Special Issue: Western Sahara - Africa's

last colony revisited

Message-ID:

<CAMhgu+C4jT1MkY_p_+RpQ1B9djt1o2WXCHbS=T1ht41W2k40+Q@mail.gmail.com>

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252



PAMBAZUKA NEWS 618: SPECIAL ISSUE: WESTERN SAHARA - AFRICA'S LAST

COLONY REVISITED



The authoritative electronic weekly newsletter and platform for social

justice in Africa



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Pambazuka News (English edition): ISSN 1753-6839



CONTENTS: 1. Features





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1 Features



WESTERN SAHARA OCCUPIED, AFRICA RE-COLONISED

Malainin Lakhal



In introducing this second special issue on the occupied Western

Sahara in Pambazuka News, Malainin Lakhal argues that it is ?a subject

that should concern all Africans, and all actors who know that Africa

can never rise up as a Union or as a future power unless it jointly

struggles for its freedom from poverty, ignorance, re-colonisation,

foreign exploitation, internal rivalry, and lack of communication

between all its peoples and elite.?

http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/86408

******





AFRICA?S LONGEST AND MOST FORGOTTEN TERRITORIAL CONFLICT

Aluat Hamudi



Despite wide international recognition, Western Sahara still remains

under occupation because of a complex web of geopolitical and

strategic interests of neighbouring countries and their Western allies

http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/86426

******





OAU/AU AND THE QUESTION OF WESTERN SAHARA

Sidi M. Omar



The continental body, which admitted Western Sahara to its membership

in 1982, has consistently defended the right of the Saharawi people to

self-determination and independence. But Morocco has always proved to

be cunning.

http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/86402

******





THE QUESTION OF WESTERN SAHARA: FROM IMPASSE TO INDEPENDENCE

Pedro Pinto Leite and Jeffrey J. Smith



There is little hope for a genuine referendum on self-determination

for the Sahrawi people. Their international supporters and the UN

General Assembly should now work towards universal recognition and

acceptance of the statehood of Western Sahara.

http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/86407

******





PUBLIC DIPLOMACY AND GENDER MAINSTREAMING

An ethnographic exploration of Saharawi informal representation in Italy

Sonia Rossetti



The Saharawi case represents a unique example of women?s inclusion in

state-building for an Islamic government-in-exile.

http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/86425

******





ANOTHER MOROCCAN ?COUP DE TH??TRE?

Konstantina Isidoros



The latest trial has yet again stunned the world with regard to

Morocco?s persistent audacity to blatantly defy international law,

digging itself deeper into a geo-politically embarrassing legal ditch

of its own making.

http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/86412

******





LETTER TO UN SECURITY COUNCIL

Suzanne Scholte



In this letter to the President of the UN Security Council, Seoul

Peace Prize Laureate Suzanne Scholte urges the Council to prevail upon

the King of Morocco to overturn the draconian sentences recently

handed down to 24 Sahrawi activists

http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/86422

******





THE EU-MOROCCO FISHERIES AGREEMENT

POLISARIO brings an action against EU?s plunder before the European

Court of Justice

Joanna Allan



Morocco is working in cahoots with the European Union to pillage

Western Sahara?s fish despite opposition from the European people. The

plunder is a crime under international law.

http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/86410

******





HUMAN RIGHTS MONITORING IN WESTERN SAHARA

Thomas O?Bryan



There are horrendous human rights violations in Western Sahara

perpetrated by agents of the Moroccan authorities. But the UN mission

has neither mandate nor capacity to monitor and document the

violations.

http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/86409

******





DEMOCRATIC EXPERIMENTS IN DISPUTED NATION

Alice Wilson



When refugees turn out to vote, and when they raise their voices, in

participatory meetings or in their homes, to criticise their

government, they show how much they value the possibility for

democratic participation.

http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/86411

******





A LAWYER?S TESTIMONY TO THE UN

Comments of Katlyn Thomas before the Special Political and

Decolonization Committee of the United Nations General Assembly,

October 2012



?After examining every available legal argument to support Morocco?s

presence in the territory we have come to the conclusion that Morocco

cannot claim a legal right to the territory on the basis of any

historic relationship it had with the territory prior to its

colonization by Spain.?

http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/86404

******





THE DESPERATE FISHERMEN

Khalil Asmar



This short narrative of the diminishing optimism of several Saharawi

fishermen casting their rods in the seas of the Western Sahara

illustrates how the Moroccan authorities and EU fishing agreements

have pillaged the seas and denied these fishermen not only hope but a

livelihood

http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/86418

******





THE VALIANT FISHERMAN

Khalil Asmar



In this interview with Mohammed El Baykam, a fisherman and the

spokesman of the fisheries association in Dakhla, Western Sahara, his

uncompromising determination to expose the plunder of European Union

trawlers and those of the Moroccan authorities shows how his

resistance has denied him gainful employment

http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/86421

******





WAITING FOR ?ISTIFTAH?

Self-determination and independence of our homeland

Fatimetu



Reflecting on her life as a refugee in the Tindouf camps Fatimetu

contemplates how the Saharawi people are wholly dependent on

humanitarian aid whilst Morocco exploits the wealth of the Western

Sahara. For all Saharawis it is an independent homeland that they

seek.

http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/86419

******





THREE STORIES

Senia Bachir Abderahman



In this personal account refugee Senia Bachir Abderahman reflects on

her own educational sojourn in Algeria and Norway, the cultural beauty

of the El-melhfa fabric as well as those Cubaraui who left their

homeland to study in Cuba and returned with considerable skills to

help the Saharawis in their struggle for freedom

http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/86420

******





DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT IS ?HOMELAND? FOR A REFUGEE?

Asria Mohamed Taleb



Many people may take for granted being the citizen of a free,

sovereign nation. But for someone who was born in a refugee camp and

has only heard about her occupied homeland, the question of

citizenship stirs up very strong feelings.

http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/86416

******





THE LIFE OF A SAHARAWI STUDENT

Mohamed Brahim



The Moroccan regime goes into appalling lengths to dehumanize Saharawi

school children, even promoting drug use among them to break their

resistance. But many of the children are increasingly politically

conscious

http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/86403

******





MY STRUGGLE TO GET A GOOD EDUCATION

Agaila Abba Hemieda



Education is every child?s right. But for Saharawi children, getting

an education may require making tremendous sacrifices, including

prolonged separation from family and loss of culture and language.

http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/86417

******





A VIOLENCE THAT GOES UNNAMED

Vivian Solana



The conflict in the Western Sahara is inadequately represented by

terms such as ?stagnated?, ?frozen? and ?locked?, which contribute to

obscure the reality that this conflict represents the continuation of

French, US and Spanish colonial practices in Africa.

http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/86424

******





HOPING FOR A UN SPRING

Salah Mohamed



Blatant violence against peacefully protesting Saharawis, official

propaganda that misrepresents the situation in the occupied territory

and blockage of independent external observers are just a few of the

many dirty tactics employed by Morocco in Western Sahara. How long

will this be allowed to go on?

http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/86413

******





SAHARAWI MUSIC AND ITS ROLE IN THE INDEPENDENCE STRUGGLE

Violeta Ruano



Music and poetry have been key elements in Saharawi culture since

nomadic times, when they were efficient ways of transmitting news and

stories, providing entertainment and establishing links among the

tribes. After Spain abandoned Western Sahara and Morocco and

Mauritania invaded the territory in 1975, music became the voice of

the revolution. It played an essential role in the formation and

establishment of the new Saharawi Republic and the reshaping of the

society. Music, thus, was used by the Saharawis to foster social

change.

http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/86406

******





STUDIO-LIVE: EMPOWERING SAHARAWI VOICES THROUGH MUSIC

Danielle Smith



Setting up a music project in the Saharawi refugee camps in south-west

Algeria may not seem to some an obvious priority for a population that

relies largely on humanitarian aid for its survival. Yet that is

precisely what London-based arts and human rights charity Sandblast

has been hard at work doing since early 2010.

http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/86423

******





USING CULTURE AS COVER AFTER PLUNDERING RESOURCES

Said Zeroual and Rugaibi Abdullah Mohammed Sheikh



Morocco, which militarily controls Western Sahara since its occupation

in 1975, is trying to present a false image of the situation in

Western Sahara, taking advantage of the military siege and the media

blockade imposed on the region.

http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/86414

******





BOOK REVIEW OF ?WESTERN SAHARA: THE REFUGEE NATION?

By Pablo San Mart?n. Iberian and Latin American Studies. Cardiff:

University of Wales Press, 2010.

Anthony G. Pazzanita



The book gives a credible history and analysis of the ways in which

the Sahrawis, from Spanish colonial times to the present, have come to

see themselves and have coped with the often-wrenching changes to

their environment

http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/86415

******









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End of Pambazuka-news Digest, Vol 255, Issue 1

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