The Algerian newspaper "El Moudjahid" in its January 22, 2008 internet edition announced that the Polisario Frente considers launching a second oil prospection bids in Laayoune’s basin. The majority of the concessions object of the offer had already been in a prospection program in the fifties and sixties under the Spanish occupation. El Moudjahid, official organ of the FLN during and after Algeria’s liberation war, remembers certainly the oil bulimia which seized the oil companies supporting the French occupation of the Algerian Sahara. The law voted in 1958 by France for the oil exploitation in the Sahara and which allowed the foreign companies to join, had been the object at the time, of a praise by the American newspaper the New York Times for which the Sahara “can become a source of richness’s not only for France but also for its allies and its friends of the free world”.
Oil was always regarded as a factor largely counted for by colonization in the delimitation of the territories known for their oil fields. The hardness, the intensity and the ferocities perpetrated by the occupant during the Algeria war are partly due to France interest in oil. It is in this context that France created the O.C.R.S. (Common Organization of the Sahara Areas) and proposed to Morocco to join the project. Morocco rejected the offer in solidarity with Algeria.
Always according to El Moudjahid, the contracts proposed by the Polisario to the oil companies constitute a formula of production division guaranteed 10 years maximum until (R.A.S.D) recovers its sovereignty and its natural resources.
This is not the first manoeuver of the Polisario Front. On May 27, 2002 so called (R.A.S.D.) had signed a technical contract of co-operation with the Britannic – Australian company “Fusion Oil” to evaluate the offshore oil potential in the Sahara. The evolution of the conflict in favour of Morocco alerted the perfidy of the Polisario and its upholders who want to make pressure on the great powers and certain importing oil countries by interposed oil lobbies, and to disturb in the same time the Sahara inhabitants, more and more indifferent to the Polisario separatist symphony heard since 32 years.
The Polisario must seize the valuable autonomy plan opportunity which opens the doors to hope and, if there is any oil in the Sahara… it will benefit to all in a prosperous and stable area.
Always according to El Moudjahid, the contracts proposed by the Polisario to the oil companies constitute a formula of production division guaranteed 10 years maximum until (R.A.S.D) recovers its sovereignty and its natural resources.
This is not the first manoeuver of the Polisario Front. On May 27, 2002 so called (R.A.S.D.) had signed a technical contract of co-operation with the Britannic – Australian company “Fusion Oil” to evaluate the offshore oil potential in the Sahara. The evolution of the conflict in favour of Morocco alerted the perfidy of the Polisario and its upholders who want to make pressure on the great powers and certain importing oil countries by interposed oil lobbies, and to disturb in the same time the Sahara inhabitants, more and more indifferent to the Polisario separatist symphony heard since 32 years.
The Polisario must seize the valuable autonomy plan opportunity which opens the doors to hope and, if there is any oil in the Sahara… it will benefit to all in a prosperous and stable area.