After thirty years of attempts to resolve the conflict in the Western Sahara, the House of Representatives International Relations Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights, and International Operations was scheduled to hold hearings on the conflict at 1:30 p.m. today. At 2:25 p.m. and a room change later, an overflowing, largely North African crowd was still waiting for the hearings to begin. By that time, I had had a chance to pick up some of the prepared testimony and ask the press person for the Moroccan Embassy for a copy of the embassy's statement, which she declined to give me because I was not a member of the press. At that point, my lunch hour was over and I had to return to work.
Highlights of the Prepared Testimony
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Gordon Gray was scheduled to speak first. In his prepared remarks, Mr. Gray emphasized that the United States supports the United Nations. Otherwise, Gray acknowledged that there had been little progress since the Department of State last testified before the Congress in 2000. The seven-year effort to produce a Peace Plan led by James Baker failed to bear fruit, and Mr. Baker resigned as Personal Envoy in June 2004. Despite the success of the Lugar mission in securing the release of 404 Moroccan prisoners of war from the Polisario Front, relations between Morocco and Algeria remain cold. The State Department has reported human rights abuses by all sides (Algeria, Polisario, and Morocco), but notes that the Annual Human Rights Report on Morocco classifies Moroccan human rights performance as poor throughout Morocco and the Western Sahara.
Erik Jensen, Former UN Undersecretary General, stated that while Polisario has been calling for international sanctions to impose the Baker Plan,
The Security Council has been unwilling to impose it. The international community, through the Council, again makes clear that it will not impose a solution, that it will not resort to sanctions, much less force, to compel Morocco and Polisario and Algeria to act against their perceived interests. It has only recently reaffirmed its commitment to achieving a just, lasting and mutually acceptable solution.
Journalist and author Toby Shelley testified to a long history of human rights abuses by the Moroccan government in the Western Sahara, but denied any bias toward to the Polisario. Mr. Shelley stated,
[T]he streets of Laayoune are currently swarming with units of an alphabet soup of security forces. Each week I and many other journalists receive photographs of Sahrawis covered in blood, bandages, bruises after their release from custody. I know children as young as five years old who have been chased through their neighborhood by police on the grounds that they were illegally demonstrating.
Mr. Shelley described the murder of demonstrators, the detention of civil rights activists, prison sentences of many years handed down after hearings where the defense was unable to function, and "appalling" prison conditions, particularly in the Carcel Negre prison in Laayoune. Mr. Shelley warned of violence and possibly "pogroms" by the Moroccan settler majority if a peaceful resolution is not reached.
Congressman Christopher H. Smith, Chairman of the Committee on International Relations, reiterated his support for self determination for the Sahrawi people, and distinguished his support for self determination from United States support for its longtime ally, Morocco. Congressman Smith cited a 1975 International Court of Justice ruling that "Moroccan claims to the territory are without merit, and the Saharawi people have the right to decide whether they want to join the ranks of independent African nations."
"Morocco is one of America's longest-standing allies," he continued. "Our relations with Morocco are separate from the issue of self-determination for the Saharawis."