La Asociación Juvenil el Trisquel estrena en Asturias el documental “GDEIM IZIK: detonante de la primavera árabe”. Viernes 18 a las 19:30 horas en la Casa de Cultura de Candás. Con la colaboración de la Liga de Jóvenes y Estudiantes Saharauis, Sáhara Thawra e Ingeniería Sin Fronteras. En el acto, a parte de la proyección del documental que cede Sáhara Thawra se presentará la campaña “YO RECONOZCO A LA R.A.S.D” de Ingeniería Sin Fronteras y se repartirán a los asistentes los tebeos "El conflicto del Sáhara en menos de 3000 palabras" de Mauro Entrialgo.

EN EL DÍA DE AYER, 10 DE MAYO DE 2012, Y COINCIDIENDO CON LA CELEBRACIÓN DEL 39 ANIVERSARIO DE LA CREACIÓN DEL FRENTE POLISARIO EL 10 DE MAYO DE 1973, SE HA APROBADO POR UNANIMIDAD, EN EL PARLAMENTO EXTREMEÑO, UNA DECLARACIÓN INSTITUCIONAL EN LA QUE SE RECLAMA, ENTRE OTRAS COSAS, EL CUMPLIMIENTO DE LOS DERECHOS HUMANOS EN EL SÁHARA OCCIDENTAL OCUPADO ILEGALMENTE POR MARRUECOS Y PENDIENTE DE UN PROCESO DE DESCOLONIZACIÓN.

El texto íntegro de la Declaración es el siguiente:

El Parlamento de Extremadura, ante la situación que se vive en el Sahara Occidental, territorio ilegalmente ocupado por Marruecos y pendiente de su proceso de descolonización, declara:

By Jacob Mundy

At the end of every April, a small drama plays out in the UN Security Council. This is when the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO, its French acronym) comes up for its annual renewal. Western Sahara — Africa’s last colony according to the United Nations — is largely ignored by the Security Council the other eleven months of the year. The Secretary-General has a Person Envoy working on the case, former US Ambassador Christopher Ross, one of the great Arabophone diplomats of his age.  The mandate given to Ambassador Ross, to achieve a mutually acceptable political solution that will afford Western Sahara its long denied right to self-determination, is a farce and everyone knows it.

Morocco, the country that has illegally occupied Western Sahara since 1976, has made it abundantly clear that self-determination (that is, a referendum on independence) is out of the question. Backing Morocco’s unilateral assertion of sovereignty over Western Sahara is a member of the Permanent Five, France. What the United States is to Israeli interests on the Council, France is to Morocco’s. Even when Morocco does not hold a seat on the Council (as it will for the next two years), Paris and Rabat are thick as thieves when it comes to protecting Morocco’s control over Western Sahara.

By now it is well known that there is no will from the other permanent members of the Council to challenge France and Morocco on this issue. So every April Western Sahara’s “group of friends” (France, Russia, United States, United Kingdom, and Spain, the de jure administering power) comfortably assume their well established roles in the well scripted dramaturgy called the Western Sahara peace process.

I attended the Finnish Social Forum (FSF) screening of Gdeim Izik documentary. The Finnish Social Forum is an annual gathering of Finnish NGO’s, professionals, researchers and activists. It is also the local branch of the World Social Forum. The event is mainly funded by the Finnish Foreign Ministry. FSF attracts a vast and varied crowd and this year was no exception. On my walk to the fourth floor where the documentary was to be shown, I had met several friends and bought three books from a discount basket.

The room was half full when I arrived. Inside there were people I already knew, but also a lot of new faces. Some of the Social Forum events gather dozens of people, and I was aware that the Western Sahara issue would not be one of those big ones where it is hard to find a seat. So, I was very pleased to see so many people attending. The documentary was released by the human rights organization Sahara Thawra

More people should see the film. It brings to light at least two major issues connected with the conflict: the conflict is mainly ignored by the world and there is very little independent monitoring of human rights.

Now, the strength of the film is in its weakness. The documentary depicts only a partial truth. It only shows what it can show. There was no independent reporting because Morocco made sure no reporters were around. Amazingly, reporters who tried to fly from Spain were not let in to the planes heading for Morocco. The UN Minurso operation was nowhere to be seen. All we got from Gdeim Izik is this documentary and the parts that were filmed in the camp were shot by amateurs who just happened to have a camera. This is not a work of journalism but it is a statement. It is easy to dismiss as propaganda but in doing so we fail to see the other side: The Sahrawi side, the side, we seldom see.

I must admit that I had very little knowledge of the documentary beforehand. I knew it was about Gdeim Izik, the 2010 Saharawi protest camp in the occupied Western Sahara and that it was brutally dismantled by the Moroccan military and secret police. It has been claimed by Noam Chomsky that what happened in Gdeim Izik was the “first spark” of the Arabic Spring.

5 de Mayo, Almudena Barragán

Doce años lleva la Misión de Naciones Unidas para el Referéndum en el Sahara Occidental (MINURSO) en los territorios ocupados  por Marruecos y en los campamentos de refugiados de Tinduf (Argelia)  en lo que más parece una estancia vacacional bien pagada, que una misión de vigilancia de alto el fuego y no injerencia entre el Frente Polisario -representante del pueblo saharaui- y el gobierno de Marruecos.

El pasado 30 de abril el Consejo de Seguridad de Naciones Unidas renovó por un año más la única misión de la ONU que no tiene dentro de sus principios de actuación la vigilancia del respeto a los derechos humanos en el territorio ocupado. Marruecos, como miembro de turno, y Francia, como miembro de pleno derecho, han buscado constantemente el veto de este punto que vienen reclamando el Frente Polisario y las asociaciones de defensa de los derechos humanos como Human Rights Watch, Amnistía Internacional o AFAPREDESA (Asociación de Familiares de Presos y Detenidos Saharauis).