Sahara: Human rights, an ethical challenge

Hence, it is within this peaceful context that Morocco has recovered its Sahara in 1975. However, beyond this separatist phenomenon, having really appeared only in 1976, it was clear from the beginning that this decolonization would be impeded. Morocco had then to suffer from a long armed subversion deployed against it via the interposed Polisario. Due to propaganda and fear, families were forced to leave the Sahara territory to find refuge in Tindouf in Algeria as part of a premeditated plan. Gathered for over 30 years within concentration camps in inhuman conditions, these refugees or sequestered are wildly badly treated. If they can escape from the Algerian military vigilance and security, they have no other choice but to go into the desert at the risk of thirst and heat. Morocco, having always denounced this violation of the most elementary rules of human rights, tirelessly works to break the conniving silence in this issue.
In the Sahara under Moroccan sovereignty, authorities have always opened the territory doors before the international and regional humanitarian institutions and NGO in order to observe in situ the respect of legal obligations relating to human rights in the Sahara. Deprived from any kind of constraint, this interference willingly accepted and favorably welcomed contributes to  unveil some truths. However, we should keep in mind that it is sometimes impossible to ensure security without encroaching in some situations upon liberty. Liberty and security appear, in some cases, requirements which are at the same time contradictory and interdependent that it would be convenient to better conciliate. “The European  Court of  Human Rights had noticed that the restrictions to rights and liberties constitute  measures, which are necessary in a democratic society, to ensure public security, defend order, protect health and public morality  or still the national security,  the territory integrity, the public security, defend  order  and  prevent crime ”. Beyond these requirements, all the security drifts in the Kingdom, and particularly, in the Sahara, expose their perpetrators to heavy sanctions, evictions and even judiciary condemnations.

Many factors stand behind the social movements brought about every now and then in the Sahara, political life liberation, human rights demand, unemployment and youth protest, phenomena existing everywhere else. They appear on the front page of the national press, to the extent of echoing secessionist words. All the authorities relating to human rights respect are represented in the Sahara in order to receive the complaints of the Moroccan Sahrawi citizens, victims of exaction or power abuse: courts, the Advisory Council for Human Rights, Diwan Al Mazalim, Equity and Reconciliation Commission, as well as a human rights committee created within the CORCAS.
Nonetheless, human rights, besides the political rights, require also socioeconomic rights and human development within the respect of dignity. Morocco has undertaken from the beginning all the necessary measures so that the Sahrawi people feel totally integrated in the Moroccan society. A solidarity impulse has been launched by the State and the Moroccan civil society for an upgrading of the Sahara region in order to catch up with the delay in development, precariousness, total absence of basic infrastructure and the extreme poverty in which colonization has left the region.
The Moroccan State has carried out tremendous development efforts in the Sahara, qualified even as positive discriminations vis-à-vis the other regions of Morocco. Human rights are, prior and after all, regarding all their aspects, an ethical challenge issue.
Posted on

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *