Western Sahara Resource Watch
The former UN Legal Counsel, Ambassador Hans Corell, calls the EU-Morocco Fisheries Partnership Agreement (FPA) illegal. Western Sahara Resource Watch demands immediate halt to European plundering of occupied Western Sahara.
Continue reading
Yearly Archives: 2008
Hans Corell addresses Pretoria conference and provides new impetus to the resources campaign
The International conference on multilateralism and international law, with Western Sahara as a case study, was held in Pretoria, South Africa, on 4 and 5 December 2008. The new clarifications by Hans Corell in his paper to the conference may give fresh impetus to the resources campaign. See press release below from the WS Resource Watch network. Corell’s paper can be downloaded in pdf form.
More information and papers at>>
426 organisations demand exclusion of Western Sahara from EU-Moroccan cooperation
PRESS RELEASE
Western Sahara Resource Watch (www.wsrw.org
Melbourne, Brussels, Madrid,
December 5th 2008No less than 426 organisations signed a petition letter, demanding from the EU Commission that occupied Western Sahara be kept clearly outside of the so- called Advanced Status cooperation that Morocco currently is being granted. The petition was sent to the EU Commission this morning.
The larger part of Western Sahara has been illegally occupied by Morocco since 1975. Morocco tries to integrate the occupied country into its own economy, and through the new “EU membership light”, the EU risks lending further legitimacy to that process.
Press Release 4 Dec: AWSA outraged by killing of two Saharawi students.
AWSA outraged by killing of two Saharawi students
Press Release: 4th December 2008 – Australia Western Sahara Association
Members of AWSA (Vic) meeting during their ordinary Annual General Meeting (AGM) on Wednesday 3rd of December are saddened and shocked by the outrageous killing of two young Saharawi students in Agadir (Morocco).
Continue reading
Western Sahara’s struggle for self-determination
29 November 2008
In October, a three-member delegation of Australian unionists visited the Western Saharawi refugee camps in the Hamada desert, South West Algeria. Western Sahara has been illegally occupied by Morocco since 1975.
Green Left Weekly’s Margarita Windisch spoke with Sid’Ahmed Tayeb, the minister of public health for the exiled Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic, in 27 February refugee camp.
Two Saharawi students murdered four injured and three arrested in Agadir
02/12/2008
Two Saharawi students were murdered, four injured and three others arrested by the Moroccan authorities after a peaceful sit-in Saharawi students organised at a bus station in the Moroccan city of Agadir, human rights organisations in Western Sahara reported.
ACTU calls on Australian government to play “an active and positive” role
The Australian Council of the Trade Unions (ACTU) called on the Australian Federal government to play “an active and positive role” on the issue of Western Sahara at the UN, in a letter it sent to the Australian Minister of Foreign Affairs last June.
ACTU recalled Minister Stephen Smith of the position adopted by the Labour Party in its last three national conferences, and indicated that Australian Trade Unions are paying a growing attention and concerns to the situation in Western Sahara.
Continue reading
MUA concerned about shipment of phosphate from Western Sahara
29/11/2008
The Maritime Union of Australia expressed concern about some Australian companies shipment of phosphate from the occupied territories of Western Sahara, the Union stressed in a written statement of which UPES received a copy yesterday.
Continue reading
Melbourne plays host to African Studies conference
29/11/2008- AWSA
By: Cate Lewis
Many scholars from around Australia and abroad attended the “31st annual conference of the African Studies Association of Australasia and the Pacific” (AFSAAP) hosted by Monash University. It was held in the centre of Melbourne at the State Library of Victoria’s conference centre 26-28 December 2008, and entitled Building a common future, Africa and Australasia, see http://www.meetings.com.au/africa/
Continue reading
Inaugural launch of the Australian Parliamentary Friendship Group with Western Sahara
27/11/2008
The Australian “Parliamentary Friends of Western Sahara Group” was officially launched Wednesday night (26 November 2008), during a dinner held at Parliament House in Canberra. The inaugural dinner was attended by many members of Parliament from all parties, members of the Diplomatic Corps, representatives of NGOs and trade unions as well as members of the Australian Western Sahara Association (AWSA).
Continue reading