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04/13/2005:

"Bolton in the Western Sahara"

By Maria Carrion
With his controversial past statements on the United Nations now being used as munition against his candidacy to be the United States Ambassador at the UN, President George W. Bush's nominee John Bolton has an uphill battle in proving himself as anything but an enemy of the global body.

But at his raucous confirmation hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this week, Bolton pointed to his pro-bono work on a little-known area of the world as evidence that he respects the work of the UN: Africa's last colony, the Western Sahara. Bolton assisted former Secretary of State James Baker when his then-boss was appointed UN Special Envoy to the Western Sahara and given the task of organizing a referendum for self-determination in the territory, which has been occupied by Morocco for the past 30 years. For just a minute, Bolton put this tiny territory on the Senate's map.

Many of the Senators attending the hearings might have never heard of the Western Sahara, a stretch of land that lies between Morocco and Mauritania. In 1975, Morocco invaded the Western Sahara following the withdrawal of Spain, its former colonial ruler. The invasion had the support of former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and was facilitated by Spain with the signing of an agreement that allowed Morocco and Mauritania to take possession of the land. Mauritania later withdrew.

The brutal military invasion was followed by a repopulation campaign known as the Green March, with hundreds of thousands of Moroccan citizens moving to the area with the promise of financial aid and a better life. At the same time, almost 200,000 Sahrawis, as the natives of the land are known, were forced into exile, settling in camps in Algeria, whose government has supported them financially and militarily. Others too frail to make the long trip by foot through the Sahara Desert stayed behind in the occupied lands, creating traumatic family separations that have lasted to this day. Thousands of others were killed, disappeared or jailed, while many young men and some women joined the newly-formed Polisario Front in a war against Morocco that lasted until 1991, and that produced thousands of deaths on both sides. With US aid, Morocco built a wall ­ more like an interminable sand trench lined with over a million landmines ­ stretching for over one thousand kilometers between the occupied lands and a small part of the Western Sahara controlled by the Polisario Front, known as the "liberated zone." Morocco refers to it as the "protective wall"; Sahrawis call it the "wall of shame."
Full Article: counterpunch.org