Nahi Abdelahe, a senior official of COSAL, said in an interview with this newspaper that during those 24 hours they will remember the Saharawi prisoners who have been on hunger strike for 51 days in Moroccan prisons.
The Saharawi community of Lanzarote wants to take this opportunity to talk about the current situation facing their people. At the end of this month, the extension of the MINURSO mission that the United Nations has deployed in Western Sahara will be decided.
Adelahe recalled that the Saharawi people have been waiting since 1990 for the holding of a referendum that never comes because Morocco has always obstructed the peace plan. "We have waited a decade, I don't think any people have so much patience to achieve what is theirs, their right to independence," he pointed out. "What we have noticed is that the central government of Spain and, more specifically, its Minister of Foreign Affairs, has assigned himself the role of lawyer for the Moroccan government, has always given coverage to Moroccan intransigence, and has tolerated Morocco's rejection of UN agreements."
In addition, Adelahe insisted, the current Government of Spain did not vote in favor of the self-determination of the Saharawi people in the United Nations Assembly, as has been customary and a diplomatic custom, arguing that they do not want to take a position in favor of any of the parties involved, neither the Polisario Front nor Morocco. For the Saharawis, however, this is a "strategy to confuse public opinion, since what it was about was being or not being with international legality." In this case, he added, "you cannot equate the executioner and the victim."
Morocco's blackmail of Spain
According to the opinion of the senior official of COSAL, "Morocco will not spare efforts to continue blackmailing Spain with issues of immigration and drugs." He recalled that Morocco is declared by the UN as the largest producer of hashish in the world and said that "we all know the relationship between drugs and terrorism." "We have a neighbor who is the first exporter of drugs internationally and its relationship with terrorism is no secret," he said. "He takes advantage of the misfortune of Africans to make a new green march, which in this case is not green, to pressure and blackmail the Spanish Government, to get more money and subsidies that will then be used to strengthen the Moroccan dictatorial regime," he insisted.
According to Abdelahe, just before the meeting held in Seville between the Spanish and Moroccan Foreign Ministers, "Morocco provoked the latest avalanches of immigrants" recorded on the border with Ceuta and Melilla. He assured that the Government of Morocco blackmails Spain by asking for economic aid and international support, in exchange for controlling immigration.
In his opinion, the Canary Islands cannot remain oblivious to this issue because, despite the fact that there is a natural barrier that is the sea, "it continues to be threatened with this policy of Moroccan blackmail." The Canarian-Saharan fishing ground has always been a bridge between both peoples and the Saharawi community rejects the fishing agreement recently reached between Brussels and Rabat because the European Union (EU) "has mistaken the owner, since the natural owners of that bank are the Canarians and the Saharawis, and it is with them that it should negotiate."
Likewise, Abdelahe asked the Canarian Government to be clearer and adopt a more decisive position in its support for the Saharawi people, because it is in tune with International Law and with the feeling of the Canarian people.
