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Foreign Policy Experts Urge US and International Community Focus on Realistic Solution, Not Ideology Mar 12 2010
Calvin Dark 202.587.0855 cdark@moroccanamericancenter.com
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Friday, March 12, 2010

Foreign Policy Experts Urge US and International Community Focus on Realistic Solution, Not Ideology, to Break W. Sahara Deadlock

Fact-finding mission participants say “sustainable solution” should recognize new realities, offering stability, security, and self-determination to people in region; deny breeding ground to new al-Qaeda threat

Washington, DC (March 12)—Members of a distinguished panel of foreign policy experts, some recently returned from a fact-finding mission in Western Sahara, called on US and international policymakers yesterday to take a fresh look at ways to break the deadlock and work towards a realistic, sustainable solution to the decades-old regional conflict. Panelists pointed to alarming intelligence reports of al-Qaeda terrorists in the Sahel, and said autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty offered the “best practical way forward” to provide stability, security, and self-determination to the Sahrawi population. The experts noted the sharp contrast between the thriving society today in Morocco-administered W. Sahara and bleak conditions in Polisario-controlled refugee camps in Algeria.

Hosted by the Middle East Institute, the policymakers roundtable on the Western Sahara included: Ambassador David Welch, Former Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs; Dr. J. Peter Pham, Senior Fellow, National Committee on American Foreign Policy; Sam Spector, former corporate associate at Weil, Gotshal and Manges LLP, former Fulbright Fellow, and Associate on a project examining Middle East political change for the Secretary of Defense; Larry Velte, Professor, NESA Center for Strategic Studies, National Defense University; and Ambassador Wendy Chamberlain, President, Middle East Institute, and former Ambassador to Pakistan.

Welch said a number of approaches have been tried to resolve the Western Sahara but have failed to break the stalemate. The UN referendum process in the 1990’s, he said, “never got past disagreements over who votes and what they vote on.” The current UN-mediated negotiations process began in 2007 when Morocco offered its compromise autonomy plan, which Welch called a step forward that deserved more serious consideration than it has received in negotiations to date.

Spector, author of ‘Western Sahara and the Self-Determination Debate’ (Middle East Quarterly), called “Morocco’s autonomy proposal the best practical way forward. It is also a valid legal framework for self-determination,” answering the UN Security Council’s call for “a just, lasting and mutually acceptable political solution” that provides for “self-determination of the people of W. Sahara.” Spector said international legal scholars frame self-determination as a continuum of ways to achieve self-governance. He said some scholars “blame the deadlock on resolving the W. Sahara in part on framing self-determination only as independence,” an ideological position Algeria and the Polisario have insisted on for decades, but not reflecting the realities of evolving legal concepts of self-determination.

Pham said that the prospect of the Polisario ruling an independent W. Sahara “couldn’t be a less promising state.” He said by almost every measure—governance structure and experience, resource base, a common sense of nationhood—the Polisario fails the test. “The last thing Africa needs is another ‘failed state’, much less one in a geopolitically sensitive area like the Sahara.”

Pham added that the Polisario’s poor record on refugee rights, trafficking contraband, military training, and bleak conditions in the camps “is a classic profile for potential terrorist recruitment.” He noted that al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has established a strong foothold in the Maghreb and Sahel, has linked up with drug traffickers in the region, and was casting a wide net for recruits. Pham contrasted the conditions in the camps with thriving economic and social conditions in Morocco-administered W. Sahara, to which refugees “are willing to risk passage over very inhospitable terrain to reach.”

Chamberlain concluded the roundtable saying “the human cost of doing nothing is too high.” She said that whether refugees in the desert camps number 90,000 or 50,000 (Algeria refuses a census), “these people are still stewing in refugee camps and that’s unacceptable.”

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The Moroccan American Center for Policy (MACP) is a non-profit organization whose principal mission is to inform opinion makers, government officials, and interested publics in the United States about political and social developments in Morocco and the role being played by the Kingdom of Morocco in broader strategic developments in North Africa, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East. For more, please visit www.moroccanamericanpolicy.org.

This material is distributed by the Moroccan American Center for Policy on behalf of the Government of Morocco. Additional information is available at the Department of Justice in Washington, DC.

FINAL_MEI_Release031210.pdf
Obama Counterterrorism Official Says al-Qaeda Poses “Immediate Threat” in North Africa to American a Feb 19 2010
Calvin Dark / 202.587.0855 / cdark@moroccanamericancenter.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Friday, February 19, 2010

Obama Counterterrorism Official Says al-Qaeda Poses “Immediate Threat” in North Africa to American and Western Nationals

Stresses Need to Resolve Western Sahara Question and Strengthen Regional Cooperation

Washington, DC (February 19) — In remarks at an event hosted by the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) this week, Ambassador Robert F. Godec, Principal Deputy Coordinator for Counterterrorism at the State Department, said that al-Qaeda’s regional terrorist network in North Africa, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), poses a serious threat to countries in the Maghreb, as well as to Americans and other Westerners in the region. He pointed to resolution of the Western Sahara conflict as an essential step to improve regional cooperation and effectively fight terrorism in North Africa.

Ambassador Godec called AQIM “the biggest challenge facing the Maghreb in the terrorist area” and said that regional organizations like the Arab Maghreb Union [Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia] must be strengthened to help bridge the region’s differences and successfully combat this “immediate threat.”

“While the Maghreb governments have had some success in combating AQIM and terrorism, there remains much to be done,” said Godec, at the CSIS panel addressing “The Dynamics of North African Terror.” He noted that regional disputes continue to be an obstacle to coordination among the Maghreb nations. “Unfortunately," he said, “the lack of resolution of the Western Sahara question block[s] the cooperation and integration the region needs. For the region to achieve real success, the key differences must be resolved or at least bridged.”

Godec said it isn’t known whether AQIM is planning an attack from North Africa like the attempted al-Qaeda Christmas-day bombing of an airliner over Detroit, but “we already know the organization poses a dangerous threat to countries of the region and is a real and immediate threat to American citizens and other Westerners in North Africa.”

The International Center for Terrorism Studies (ICTS) at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies recently issued a report, “Maghreb & Sahel Terrorism,” documenting a dramatic 558% percent increase in the number of terrorist attacks by al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups in North and West/Central Africa since September 11, 2001, with more than 900 terrorist bombings, murders, kidnappings, and ambushes claiming more than 1,500 lives and 6,000 victims in the region.

The full ICTS report is available at http://www.potomacinstitute.org/attachments/525_Maghreb%20Terrorism%20report.pdf.

For more on the CSIS panel, “The Dynamics of North African Terror,” including Ambassador Godec’s full remarks, go to: http://csis.org/event/conference-dynamics-north-african-terror

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The Moroccan American Center for Policy (MACP) is a non-profit organization whose principal mission is to inform opinion makers, government officials, and interested publics in the United States about political and social developments in Morocco and the role being played by the Kingdom of Morocco in broader strategic developments in North Africa, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East. For more, please visit www.moroccanamericanpolicy.org.

This material is distributed by the Moroccan American Center for Policy on behalf of the Government of Morocco. Additional information is available at the Department of Justice in Washington, DC.

PR_PressRelease CSIS 021810.pdf
Congressional Leaders Urge UN Refugee Agency to Address Reports of “On-Going Human Rights Failur   Feb 03 2010
Calvin Dark
202.587.0855
cdark@moroccanamericancenter.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:                                               Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Congressional Leaders Urge UN Refugee Agency to Address Reports of “On-Going Human Rights Failures” in Polisario-Run Camps in Algeria

Letter from Bipartisan Refugee Caucus Co-chairs follows meetings with Congress and visits to region by LOST’s Jeff Fahey, USCRI’s Lavinia Limon, and former US Amb. Michael Ussery

Washington, DC (February 3) — Last week, US House of Representatives Refugee Caucus Co-Chairs Reps. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) and Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-FL) called on the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) to “actively work” to protect Sahrawi refugees in Polisario-controlled camps near Tindouf in southern Algeria and expressed concern over a recent report by the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) that describes three-decades of “ongoing human rights and resettlement failures.”

In a letter sent to UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres—who in 2009 became the first UNHCR High Commissioner to visit the camps in more than thirty years—the Members of Congress expressed serious concern over accounts in the USCRI report of “dire living conditions in the camps” and “human rights abuses” suffered by tens of thousands of refugees at the hands of the Polisario.

“It is critical that UNHCR take a strong position on behalf of refugees,” wrote Reps. Diaz-Balart and Lofgren. “[B]efore yet another generation of refugees is born in these camps, we respectfully request that you actively work with the UN Security Council and other interested States to establish a credible system to protect the population of these camps who have reportedly suffered far too much already.”

The Members of Congress expressed concern over human rights abuses and resettlement failures described in the report such as denial of freedom of movement, the right to be repatriated to a country that will accept them, and the alleged diversion of international humanitarian aid. The letter’s authors wrote that “establishing an accurate count of the number of refugees living in the Polisario-controlled camps is required to ensure the security of the refugees and to adequately assess whether foreign aid is meeting the needs of the people.”

A copy of the letter can be downloaded from http://www.moroccanamericanpolicy.org/refugee/RefugeeCaucusUNHCRLtr012810.pdf

“The Co-chairs of the House Refugee Caucus have sent a strong message to the UNHCR that this horrible humanitarian crisis has gone on for too long and are concerned that it may be worsening,” said former U.S. Ambassador to Morocco Michael Ussery during an interview with the Moroccan American Center for Policy in Washington, DC. “By increasing international pressure and attention on the plight of these refugees, we can end their suffering–-which is not only what they deserve, but is also their right guaranteed by international law.”

   On October 27, Ussery, joined LOST cast-member and international advocate Jeff Fahey, and USCRI president Lavinia Limon in meetings on Capitol Hill where they urged Congress to help end the suffering of the refugees in the Tindouf camps. They also recently travelled to the Western Sahara and conducted interviews with refugees who escaped from the Polisario-controlled camps in southern Algeria, and are continuing their campaign to call attention to the plight of warehoused refugees around the world.

For more information:

‒ In October 2009, USCRI published “Stonewalling on Refugee Rights: Algeria and the Sahrawi”, a detailed report—cited in the Congressional letter to UNHCR—outlining findings and recommendations based on interviews with current and former Sahrawi refugees. [http://www.refugees.org/article.aspx?id=2398]

‒ In September 2009, the Inter-University Center for Legal Studies and the Moroccan American Center for Policy published “Group Rights and International Law: A Case study on the Sahrawi Refugees in Algeria” [http://www.moroccanamericanpolicy.org/refugee/report.pdf], an in-depth look at the long history of human rights abuses in the Polisario-controlled camps in Algeria and lack of attention to the refugee plight by the UNHCR.

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The Moroccan American Center for Policy (MACP) is a non-profit organization whose principal mission is to inform opinion makers, government officials and interested publics in the United States about political and social developments in Morocco and the role being played by the Kingdom of Morocco in broader strategic developments in North Africa, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East. For more, please visit www.moroccanamericanpolicy.org

This material is distributed by the Moroccan American Center for Policy on behalf of the Government of Morocco. Additional information is available at the Department of Justice in Washington, DC.

PR_UNHCRLetter020310.pdf