Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in Peoples Dispatch.
This October marks the third anniversary of the 2019 popular protests in Iraq. On Tuesday, October 25, a large number of people gathered in the Tahrir square in capital Baghdad and paid homage to the people who were killed in the protests. They raised slogans in support of what has been termed by the protesters as the Tishreen movement.
The countrywide protests in 2019, rooted in the long-term grievances of people against successive governments, went on for months. Before the global COVID-19 outbreak forced them to end, the protests were successful in forcing the then government led by Adil Abdul Mahdi to resign, putting the ruling classes on the defensive and pressing for reforms.
Caretaker prime minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, who came to power in May 2020 after months of uncertainty, had promised to deliver on some of the major demands raised by the protesters, including rebuilding the economy and punishing those guilty for the deaths of over 600 people including protesters and others.
Three years down the line and with a new government on the horizon, none of these promises have been met. This is likely to lead the vast majority of pro-reformers pushing for their demands in the coming days.
Economic and Political Aspects of the Protests
The 2019 protests were one of the largest in Iraq’s history since the 2003 U.S. invasion. Long-term grievances regarding inefficiency of successive administrations and the widely perceived corruption among the ruling establishment were at the center of the public anger. In their slogans, the protesters repeatedly denounced the failure of the system created under the supervision of the US occupation in tackling the issues faced by the people, such as rising poverty, unemployment, and basic services delivery.
At the time of the protests, the official rate of poverty in the country of approximately 40 million people was rising. Even before the pandemic hit in 2020, the poverty rate had risen to above 31 percent. Oil-rich Iraq witnessed an unprecedented rise in poverty during the COVID-19 outbreak. While the government claimed that the poverty rate was coming down after the pandemic, a large number of Iraqis are still forced to live a life as paupers.
Since oil revenues make up the bulk of Iraq’s federal budget–around 96 percent–the economy remains vulnerable to market fluctuation.
Iraqi youth, who make up the majority of the population, were at the center of the 2019 protests. The unemployment rate among the youth–fresh graduates from the university and others–was above 40 percent at the time of the protests.
The majority of Iraqis were forced to live without the basic amenities such as power, sanitation, and health care. Protesters claimed that these failures on the economic front were the result of inefficiency and corruption of the ruling elite. They also pointed to structural reasons such as the system of Muhasasa or sectarian quota based on distribution of political posts for this inefficiency and corruption.
Failure to Address Demands for Structural Changes
The protests were not limited to Baghdad but spread across all urban centers in the country, particularly in the southern regions. The protesters raised the demands of more jobs, better governance and systemic changes, including ending the sectarian quota system and all kinds of external intervention in Iraqi affairs.
Instead of taking initiatives to address the issues related to structural reforms, the ruling class announced fresh national elections in October 2021, a year before schedule.
Partial changes in the country’s electoral laws and introduction of the first past the poll system to replace the system of proportional representation were sold as fulfilling the demand for reforms in the political structure.
However, none of these addressed, even partially, the demands raised by the protesters. The U.S. troops were forced to end their operational presence but, in complete violation of the parliament’s resolution and popular demand, they still remain in the country.
The national elections of October 2021 saw a historically low participation rate with just about 40 percent of the electorate exercising their right to vote amid a call for boycott. This resulted in a situation where no political coalition or group was in a position to claim majority and form a new government for almost a year after the elections.
Mohammad Shia al-Sudani was finally approved as prime minister this week. He was designated to the post by Abdul Latif Rashid who was newly elected as president earlier this month. Al-Sudani’s appointment is expected to end the political uncertainty in the country for now. However, it may not mean an end to the political turmoil despite his promises to deliver on the economic front and tackle corruption.
A sign of the challenges ahead is the fact that disagreements and disputes over the nature of government as well as al-Sudani’s candidacy led to the killing of dozens of people this year.
Police crack down on Tunisian protesters on July 22 / credit: People’s Dispatch
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by People’s Dispatch.
Tunisian security forces violently repressed a massive protest in the country’s capital on July 22 against the moves by President Kais Saied to further undermine democratic institutions in the country. According to human rights organizations, police repressed protesters who had gathered at the emblematic Habib Bourguiba Street in the center of Tunis by hitting them with batons and launching tear gas at them. Several people injured during the repression were hospitalized, and police arrested nine people.
Among those arrested are feminist rights activist Olfa Baazaoui of the Workers’ Party of Tunisia, human rights and LGBTQ+ rights defender Saif Ayedi of Damj, Aziz Ben Jemaa of the Workers’ Party of Tunisia, and other progressive activists.
Their arrests were widely condemned by diverse civil society organizations. Damj, the Tunisian Association for Justice and Equality, released a joint statement with organizations such as the Tunisian Association of Young Doctors, the Tunisian Organization Against Torture, and others, condemning the repression and demanding the immediate release of the protesters.
Denouncing the repression, they stated that “police repression had replaced democratic mechanisms” and emphasized their support “for all forms of demonstration, protest, assembly and expression, which they consider one of the most important gains of the revolution.” They added that protest is the central mechanism to exert pressure on the ruling system in order to “review development policies, combat corruption, terrorism and all the elements of tyranny, and guarantee respect for rights and freedoms.”
Egalité, the women’s organization to which detained activist Baazaoui also pertains, wrote in a statement that they hold President Saied responsible for the wellbeing of the detained activists. They also called on all female citizens “to boycott the referendum on a constitution that threatens rights and freedoms and dedicates it to the dictatorship of the individual and the return of the police state with force, which has been clearly and tangibly proven today.”
In a statement released by the Workers’ Party of Tunisia shortly following the arrests, they called for the protester’s immediate release and alerted that the detainees had been deprived of visits from their lawyers and some had been denied medical treatment.
The protest action was held three days ahead of the national referendum wherein Tunisians will vote on a draft constitution presented by Saied. A large number of opposition parties have called for a boycott of the referendum in rejection of the undemocratic nature of the new constitution’s writing process, as well as its proposals. The current constitution, which was adopted in 2014, is seen as a significant achievement of the revolution that overthrew dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in 2011. A major objection to the draft presented by Saied is the proposal to do away with the division of executive power between the president and prime minister, concentrating power solely in the hands of the president.
The referendum on the constitution comes after several other moves by Saied which opposition parties have alleged undermine the democratic institutions in the country. These include the dissolution of judicial bodies, dissolution of the parliament, the persecution of leaders from major opposition parties, and the dissolution of other state institutions. These measures which began with the dissolution of parliament on July 25, 2021 have been met with constant protest from diverse civil society organizations and political parties.
Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in Peoples Dispatch.
Country-wide anti-coup demonstrations were underway once again in Sudan on Monday, December 26, a week after the previous “March of Millions” on December 19, during which 499 protesters were injured by the security forces in the three cities of Khartoum state alone. Sudanese have been protesting across the country against the power-sharing framework agreement signed earlier between the junta and right-wing political parties, and calling for the complete overthrow and prosecution of the leaders of the October 2021 coup.
Of the nearly 500 people who were injured on December 19, 226 had to be rushed to hospitals for treatment, while others were treated by medical volunteers on the field, according to the Association of Socialist Doctors.
Another doctor’s group, Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors (CCSD), estimated the total injuries treated in hospitals to be 155 in Khartoum State, and added that two of them with gunshot wounds had to be stabilized with surgeries. One protester is reported to have lost an eye.
Deliberately “targeting the eye,” “aiming tear gas canisters directly at the head,” and stun-grenade attacks on protesters who were already blinded by and choking on tear gas were systematic, CCSD added. Most of the injuries, 120 of them, were in the country’s capital Khartoum city, followed by its twin cities of Omdurman and Khartoum Bahri (North).
Demonstrations were also reported from at least 16 other cities outside Khartoum, including Wad Madani, capital of Al Jazirah state, Port Sudan, capital of Red Sea state, Atbara in River Nile state, and even capitals of civil war-affected states of South Kordofan and South Darfur.
The day marked the fourth anniversary of the start of the December Revolution in 2018. By April 2019, the mass protests had led to the overthrow of dictator Omar al Bashir who had been in power for nearly three decades. The Revolution did not stop, however, and continued the struggle against his inner circle of generals who had formed a military junta.
While maintaining control over much of the economy and foreign policy, the military ceded some power to civilian leaders chosen by the FFC parties for a period under this deal, before taking it back in a coup in October 2021. Soon after, the FFC parties opened another round of negotiations with the junta, and signed the framework agreement on December 5. This is said to be the first step toward a final agreement to pave the way for another transitional government.
In the meantime, relentless mass-demonstrations have continued since the coup. Led by Resistance Committees (RCs)—a network of over 5,000 of which are organized in neighborhoods across the country—hundreds of thousands have been taking to the streets several times nearly every month under the slogan, “No negotiation, No Compromise, No Partnership.” Thousands have been injured and over 120 killed in the crackdown on these protests.
On December 19, protesters in Khartoum, carrying portraits of those killed in the repression and waving national flags, once again marched to the Presidential Palace—the seat of coup leader and army chief Abdel Fattah al Burhan—amid the barrage of tear gas, stun grenades, and live bullets fired by security forces.
The marches in the capital city originated from 12 different locations and pushed toward the Presidential Palace along six separate routes, with some protesters reportedly getting as close as 1.5 kilometers (close to 1 mile) to the junta’s seat of power.
In an attempt to prevent the protesters from the capital’s twin cities of Omdurman and Khartoum Bahri from joining forces with those marching towards the Palace, security forces blocked the bridges over the Nile with large containers well before the start of the demonstrations.
“Early in the morning, the police had barricaded all the main roads of Omdurman with barbed wire and armored police vehicles. All over the city, the police were deployed in massive numbers. They fired hundreds and hundreds of stun grenades on the protesters,” said Osama Saeed, a member of the Sudanese Communist Party (SCP), who was among the protesters rallying in Omdurman.
He further claimed that many of the tear gas canisters were filled with stones and crushed glass, which, on exploding, sprayed shrapnel, injuring several at once. 82 different injuries were recorded in Omdurman, according to the Socialist Doctors. One young woman is reported to have lost her eye.
No Credibility
“[A]dherence to international human rights charters, especially charters of women’s rights… and protecting… freedoms of peaceful assembly and expression,” were commitments the coup leaders had made in the framework agreement with the FFC. The agreement assures that the “transitional authority” established after the final agreement would be “a full democratic civil authority without the participation of the regular forces.”
However, “the FFC political parties have signed six documents with the junta. None of them was respected by the junta,” Fathi Elfadl, national spokesperson of the SCP, told Peoples Dispatch. “Every time mass movements force the military to retreat, they buy time by signing such agreements with right-wing parties, and then violate them,” he added.
While the agreement makes way for a civilian prime minister and cabinet, Elfadl said that the real levers of power will nevertheless be held by what is envisaged in the agreement as the “Security and Defense Council.”
The agreement states that this body, consisting of the leaders of the security forces and of the six armed formerly rebel movements—those who signed the Juba agreement and went on to support the coup after getting a share in state power—will be headed by the Prime Minister. It declares that the civilian head of state is the supreme commander of the armed forces.
However, coup leader al-Burhan clarified to the media soon after signing the agreement that the “civilian Supreme Commander of the SAF (Sudanese Armed Forces)” neither “presides over the army chief” nor appoints him, but “only approves recommendations made to him.”
The agreement “prohibits regular forces from engaging in investment and commercial activities, except for those related to military manufacturing and military missions.” However, the army chief cautioned, “Do not listen to what politicians say about military reform… no one will interfere in the affairs of the army at all.” Matters of military reform are in any case only stated in principle in this agreement. The modalities will only be spelt out in the final agreement.
Regularizing a Notorious Militia
The formation of a single unified army and the disarmament and dissolution of all militias have been key demands of the pro-democracy movement since 2019. This is especially applicable to the notorious Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which carried out the massacre of June 3, 2019, and whose members are the soldiers who committed the atrocities in Darfur during the civil war under Bashir.
While Bashir stands trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC) for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, his footsoldiers, organized as the RSF, not only continue what has been called a depopulation campaign in mineral-rich Darfur, but also police the protesters in Khartoum.
This militia, which controls over a billion dollars in finances, is headed by the military junta’s vice-president, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemeti, who will continue to be a powerful figure in the Security and Defense Council.
The framework agreement states that the RSF “will be integrated into the armed forces according to agreed timetables”. However, it also recognizes the RSF as a separate entity, terming it a “military force affiliated with the armed forces.”
Saeed said that the agreement is in effect regularizing the RSF as “a special force of the army,” which will effectively continue to operate autonomously instead of ensuring its Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) as demanded by the pro-democracy movement.
He added that the agreement also makes a mockery of another central demand: the prosecution of all military generals and officers responsible for the massacre on June 3, 2019, and for all other atrocities, including war-crimes, committed since 1989 after the Bashir’s coup.
“Transitional justice,” the agreement states, “is an issue that needs the participation of the stakeholders and the families of the martyrs, provided that it includes all those who have been affected by human rights violations since 1989 until now.”
This is a “manipulation of the whole concept of justice, shifting the burden on to the victims and families of martyrs,” said Saeed. “What they are essentially saying is, the state is not responsible for any crimes, only individuals are. If someone got shot while protesting on the street, it is not the responsibility of the state, but of the individual soldiers or police or militiamen carrying out this action. So victims must cooperate with the state to help identify them. But the state and its high command will always be protected.”
‘The Juba Agreement Has Failed’
The implementation of the Juba peace agreement is another commitment in the framework agreement that the SCP and many other sections of the pro-democracy movement are radically opposed to. While the leaders of the armed rebel groups who signed the agreement have made peace with the army and the RSF in exchange for a share in state power and even went on to support their coup, peace has remained elusive for the people in the war-affected regions.
Since the Juba agreement in October 2020, hundreds of thousands have been displaced and several hundreds killed in massacres by the RSF and other militias it backs in Darfur, whose governorship has been handed over to a former rebel leader Minni Minnawi.
Communal clashes have also been engineered by the junta in the Blue Nile State by pitting tribes against each other, allegedly with the connivance of Malik Agar, a former rebel leader who signed the Juba agreement.
“The Juba agreement has failed. It is not only the Communist Party and the Resistance Committees seeing this – everybody knows. The displaced people living in camps, the refugees, are all suffering the further deterioration of security since the agreement. Massacres, rapes, and other atrocities are worse than before the agreement,” Elfadl said.
“We don’t need this agreement between leaders of military and armed groups. We need an agreement between people who have a real interest in bringing peace – between the representatives of the displaced people living in camps, the Resistance Committees and the civil society in Darfur. None of them were represented in the agreement.”
These groups, he said, must be brought together to address the roots of the conflict in a new agreement, addressing the question of facilitating the return of displaced people to their lands, the distribution of resources, and the disarmament of RSF and other militias. Without this process, he insisted, peace can never be realized in the troubled peripheries of Sudan.
Without addressing these contested issues of peace and justice, the agreement rushes headlong into an election at the end of the transitional period, which is to conclude two years from the date of the appointment of the Prime Minister.
Foreign Powers, Right-Wing Parties and the Junta Combine Forces
Saeed calls it the “Egyptian model,” referring to Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who, after taking power in a military coup 2013, went on to legitimize his power grab by winning a “sham election” with over 96 percent of the votes in 2014. He has been Egypt’s authoritarian ruler since. Egyptian intelligence agents are “always around al-Burhan. They now even have an office in Sudan’s military headquarters,” Saeed said.
The Egyptian state, as well as the neighboring Gulf countries that are backing this deal, see the December Revolution as a threat not only to their interests in Sudan, but also to their own regimes domestically, he explained. These autocratic regimes, he said, fear that a successful revolution in Sudan might inspire the people of their own countries to revolt.
The United States, United Kingdom and European Union countries backing this domestically unpopular agreement also “prefer a military dictatorship” that they can use to advance their own interests in the country, located in a geopolitically crucial place on the Red Sea, Saeed argued.
“However, the Americans and their allies see the power of the streets. They see that the military junta has been paralyzed by the mass movement, and is not able to run the country. The situation today is that there is a junta on the top, but there is effectively no government to administer the country. So the Western powers and their regional allies hammered the right wing parties of the FFC to sign a deal with the military in an attempt to stabilize power in the country by hook or by crook.”
The stabilization of what will essentially remain military rule by simply giving it a civilian face is the goal of holding such an election, he said. Without the trials of the generals involved in the coups and other crimes since Bashir’s ascent in 1989, without first ensuring peace in the peripheral regions, any election—conducted in the absence of the right to organize, assemble, and express oneself freely—will be meaningless, he insisted.
“Even if the communists win such an election, they will not be able to accomplish anything,” because state power will still be held hostage by the forces of the dictatorship, Saeed said.
However, a consolidation of the authoritarian state through the alliance of the military, right-wing political parties, and foreign powers is far from certain, given internal contradictions.
The FFC split last month, and its constituent parties and armed rebel groups are currently squabbling over who should and should not be party to the agreement. In the meantime, their attempt to divide the mass movement with this agreement – with which they hoped to take a section of people off the streets from the protests – has “clearly failed,” said Saeed.
Pointing out that even rank-and-file members of the FFC are taking part in the protests against this framework agreement, he questioned what authority FFC leadership had to negotiate with the military.
“To negotiate, there should be a balance of power. The FFC has nothing. They don’t have the backing of the mass movements. Their own cadres are opposing the deal. That is why their leaders are found every night in the house of the Saudi Ambassador,” he said.
“They are relying on the backing of foreign powers to negotiate, but foreign powers are only interested in stabilizing the situation, even if it is on the terms of the military, so long as their interests are served.”
And the interests of the foreign powers are not unified either, added Elfadl. The UAE, which has “very strong relations” with Hemeti and the companies associated with his RSF, secured a $6 billion deal to construct a port in the Red Sea soon after the framework agreement. “This definitely goes against the interests of Saudi Arabia, and of Egypt, which is very closely allied with Bashir and his loyal generals in the army.”
The contradictions among foreign powers backing the consolidation of power in Sudan are also escalating the internal contradictions, including between the army and the RSF, he said. “Army officers are wary of integrating RSF among their ranks. The RSF, on the other hand, has been recruiting officers suspended from the army for one or the other reason.”
Unify the Resistance
In the face of attempts by this alliance of forces with contradictory interests to consolidate into a unified authoritarian state in Sudan, the main task is to unify the resistance, Elfadl said. “What we are trying to do now is to build a network for cooperation and coordination between the political activities of the Resistance Committees and the task of organizing a trade union movement.”
The first phase of the December Revolution, culminating in the overthrow of Bashir in 2019, was in fact spearheaded by the Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA), a coalition of trade unions, organized underground during his dictatorship.
However, after the formation of the joint civil-military transitional government, “we made a mistake,” he said. “The SCP and progressive movements had agreed that the next immediate task was to bring into force labor laws,” on the basis of which the trade union movement can be formally established.
“However”, with the failure to secure these labor laws under the former transitional government in which the military continued to have the greater share of power, “it proved to be the wrong approach. Since 1948, the working class and professionals in Sudan never had labor laws” to sanctify their unions. “Nevertheless, they called their general assemblies and organized their forces into a trade union movement, regardless of the law. This was the tradition, from which we had wrongly deviated recently.”
Arguing that “it is the right of the working class to organize themselves into unions,” Elfadl said, “we will organize the trade unions in accordance with the ILO conventions,” irrespective of labor laws (or the lack of it) in Sudan. The several separate strikes currently underway in the country makes the time fertile, and the task all the more urgent, argued Elfadl.
“This work must go hand in hand with the implementation of the proposals of the Resistance Committees for continued action on the streets. From this, the unity of action will emerge,” he said, adding that the SCP will strive to “unify the trade unions, Resistance Committees and the civil society on a common charter for the building of civil-democratic authority.”
Appealing for “international solidarity to stop the repression, and to force the junta to respect human-rights and the right to demonstrate”, Elfadl asserted, “the rest are tasks the mass-movement in Sudan is capable of achieving itself. It will defeat all the reactionary schemes, be it of international or local forces.”
A Saharawi refugee camp in the Tindouf province of Algeria / credit: European Commission DG ECHO
Editor’s Note: The following represents the writer’s analysis about a disputed area known as “Western Sahara” and was produced byGlobetrotter.
In November 2020, the Moroccan government sent its military to the Guerguerat area, a buffer zone between the territory claimed by the Kingdom of Morocco and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR). The Guerguerat border post is at the very southern edge of Western Sahara along the road that goes to Mauritania. The presence of Moroccan troops “in the Buffer Strip in the Guerguerat area” violated the 1991 ceasefire agreed upon by the Moroccan monarchy and the Polisario Front of the Sahrawi. That ceasefire deal was crafted with the assumption that the United Nations would hold a referendum in Western Sahara to decide on its fate; no such referendum has been held, and the region has existed in stasis for three decades now.
Map of the disputed Western Sahara, with a red pin marking the location of Guerguerat, a town on the border with Mauritania / credit: Google
In mid-January 2022, the United Nations sent its Personal Envoy for Western Sahara, Staffan de Mistura, to Morocco, Algeria and Mauritania to begin a new dialogue “toward a constructive resumption of the political process on Western Sahara.” De Mistura was previously deputed to solve the crises of U.S. wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria; none of his missions have ended well and have mostly been lost causes. The UN has appointed five personal envoys for Western Sahara so far—including De Mistura—beginning with former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker III, who served from 1997 to 2004. De Mistura, meanwhile, succeeded former German President Horst Köhler, who resigned in 2019. Köhler’s main achievement was to bring the four main parties—Morocco, the Polisario Front, Algeria and Mauritania—to a first roundtable discussion in Geneva in December 2018: this roundtable process resulted in a few gains, where all participants agreed on “cooperation and regional integration,” but no further progress seems to have been made to resolve the issues in the region since then. When the UN put forward De Mistura’s nomination to this post, Morocco had initially resisted his appointment. But under pressure from the West, Morocco finally accepted his appointment in October 2021, with Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita welcoming him to Rabat on January 14. De Mistura also met the Polisario Front representative to the UN in New York on November 6, 2021, before meeting other representatives in Tindouf, Algeria, at Sahrawi refugee camps in January. There is very little expectation that these meetings will result in any productive solution in the region.
Abraham Accords
In August 2020, the United States government engineered a major diplomatic feat called the Abraham Accords. The United States secured a deal with Morocco and the United Arab Emirates to agree to a rapprochement with Israel in return for the United States making arms sales to these countries, as well as for the United States legitimizing Morocco’s annexation of Western Sahara. The arms deals were of considerable amounts—$23 billion worth of weapons to the UAE and $1 billion worth of drones and munitions to Morocco. For Morocco, the main prize was that the United States—breaking decades of precedent—decided to back its claim to the vast territory of Western Sahara. The United States is now the only Western country to recognize Morocco’s claim to sovereignty over Western Sahara.
When President Joe Biden took office in January 2021, it was expected that he might review parts of the Abraham Accords. However, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken made it clear during his meeting with Bourita in November 2021 that the U.S. government would continue to maintain the position taken by the previous Trump administration that Morocco has sovereignty over Western Sahara. The United States, meanwhile, has continued with its arms sales to Morocco, but has suspended weapons sales to the United Arab Emirates.
Phosphates
By the end of November 2021, the government of Morocco announced that it had earned $6.45 billion from the export of phosphate from the kingdom and from the occupied territory of Western Sahara. If you add up the phosphate reserves in this entire region, it amounts to 72 percent of the entire phosphate reserves in the world (the second-highest percentage of these reserves is in China, which has around 6 percent). Phosphate, along with nitrogen, makes synthetic fertilizer, a key element in modern food production. While nitrogen is recoverable from the air, phosphates, found in the soil, are a finite reserve. This gives Morocco a tight grip over world food production. There is no doubt that the occupation of Western Sahara is not merely about national pride, but it is largely about the presence of a vast number of resources—especially phosphates—that can be found in the territory.
Detailed map of Western Sahara, showing borders with Morocco, Algeria and Mauritania / credit: Kmusser, based primarily on the Digital Chart of the World, with UN map and commercial atlases (Rand McNally, Google, Encarta, and National Geographic) used as references
In 1975, a UN delegation that visited Western Sahara noted that “eventually the territory will be among the largest exporters of phosphate in the world.” While Western Sahara’s phosphate reserves are less than those of Morocco, the Moroccan state-owned firm OCP SA has been mining the phosphate in Western Sahara and manufacturing phosphate fertilizer for great profit. The most spectacular mine in Western Sahara is in Bou Craa, from which 10 percent of OCP SA’s profits come; Bou Craa, which is known as “the world’s longest conveyor belt system,” carries the phosphate rock more than 60 miles to the port at El Aaiún. In 2002, the UN’s Under-Secretary General for Legal Affairs at that time, Hans Corell, noted in a letter to the president of the UN Security Council that “if further exploration and exploitation activities were to proceed in disregard of the interests and wishes of the people of Western Sahara, they would be in violation of the principles of international law applicable to mineral resource activities in Non-Self-Governing Territories.” An international campaign to prevent the extraction of the “conflict phosphate” from Western Sahara by Morocco has led many firms around the world to stop buying phosphate from OCP SA. Nutrien, the largest fertilizer manufacturer in the United States that used Moroccan phosphates, decided to stop imports from Morocco in 2018. That same year, the South African court challenged the right of ships carrying phosphate from the region to dock in their ports, ruling that “the Moroccan shippers of the product had no legal right to it.”
Only three known companies continue to buy conflict phosphate mined in Western Sahara: Two from New Zealand (Ballance Agri-Nutrients Limited and Ravensdown) and one from India (Paradeep Phosphates Limited).
Human Rights
After the 1991 ceasefire, the UN set up a Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO). This is the only UN peacekeeping force that does not have a mandate to report on human rights. The UN made this concession to appease the Kingdom of Morocco. The Moroccan government has tried to intervene several times when the UN team in Western Sahara attempted to make the slightest noise about the human rights violations in the region. In March 2016, the kingdom expelled MINURSO staff because then-UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon referred to the Moroccan presence in Western Sahara as an “occupation.”
Pressure from the United States is going to ensure that the only realistic outcome of negotiations is for continued Moroccan control of Western Sahara. All parties involved in the conflict are readying for battle. Far from peace, the Abraham Accords are going to accelerate a return to war in this part of Africa.
