The North Africa Post
The 900MW wind farm that will be built by Brookstone’s Soluna firm in the southern province of Dakhla for about $2.4 billion is a trailblazing project that has been met with acclaim in Morocco, notably among the population of the southern provinces, much to the chagrin of pro-separatist organizations funded by Algeria.
The project will help develop use of renewable energies to resolve the extensive and unsustainable use of electricity in cryptocurrency computing. The rise of blockchain and other cryptocurrency activities have resulted in a use of energy that equals what Ireland would consume.
Soluna, a visionary in this field, has chosen Morocco’s Dakhla for the abundance of wind energy but some pro-separatist outlets are already making overtures on the press warning of what they described a “political risk”.
But the Polisario, through its mouthpiece in Norway, the Western Sahara Resource Watch (WSRW), has protested as usual whenever a key project is launched in the Sahara.
Funded by Algeria, the WSRW has appointed itself a spokesperson for Sahraouis in a blatant violation of Morocco’s sovereignty and the UN peace process.
The organization went as far as using Polisario separatist terminology describing Morocco as an occupant in a stark bias that erodes whatsoever credibility it seeks from having a headquarters in Norway.
The UN, the arbiter in the Sahara issue, refers to Morocco as an administrative power but the WSRW as a tool used by Algerian diplomacy and the Polisario is adamant on spreading lies and disinformation in a bid to keep large-scale projects away.
But the good news is that Soluna and like-minded companies have actually visited Dakhla and found in Moroccan business climate an incentive to launch a pioneering project that will change the way cryptocurrency activities are powered
Soluna’s John Belizzaire told several news outlets that the project is in line with the status of the region and will help Morocco reach its goal and produce 52% of its electricity from renewable energy by 2030.
Such a project is a big victory for Morocco which made of its Sahara one of the most peaceful, stable and prosperous regions in the country if not in the whole Africa when considering the indicators of human development there.
Besides, the project will employ nearly 1000 and will create excellence centers to train and develop cryptocurrency technology in the region, Belizzaire told the Independent.
While the WSRW speaks of plundering of the Sahara resources, it tend to close an eye that such resources in the Southern provinces are used to develop the region as for every 1 dirham received in the region Morocco spends 7 dirhams.
Morocco recently unveiled a comprehensive development project worth $7 billion where renewable energies take pride of place.
WSRW has better look at the real plundering that Algeria has been doing in its own Sahara where it depleted the oil and gas of its Saharan population of Ain Saleh and Ouargla currently protesting and threatening to set themselves on fire over lack of jobs and poverty.
The Sovereignty of the Sahraouis that the WSRW claims to defend is currently exercised in the southern provinces where the locals are free to choose their own representatives and where sovereignty is exercised within Morocco’s unity and territorial integrity.
The pro-separatist groups like WSRW should also stop portraying themselves as the guardians of resources as no one voted for them nor did they visit the Sahara to meet free Moroccans there.
The WSRW propaganda amounts to hostile actions against the sovereignty of a nation-state like Morocco that didn’t wait for colonial powers to define its statehood.
Besides, the real interlocutor is not the WSRW but rather Algeria which has been funding trips to its southwestern province of Tindouf where thousands are kept hostage by the Polisairo, unable to return to their homeland in the southern provinces nor seek refuge elsewhere.
In a nutshell, the Soluna project and other economic achievements in the Sahara are a reminder for Algeria which failed with all its oil mantra to develop its own Sahara.
The Sahraouis in Morocco live much better and are free to travel, work and study compared to the Algerian Sahraouis in cities such as Ouargla where dissent is growing over exploitation of gas and oil. Not to speak of a generation of Sahraouis who are forsaken by Algiers to the firm grip of a cold war minded separatist militia.
Algeria has better stop pouring its money on groups such as the WSRW and focuses on developing its impoverished south.
Meanwhile, the Moroccan Sahara continues to attract leading companies to bring innovative investments that will shape the future of humanity: renewable energies and cryptocurrency.
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North Africa Post’s news desk is composed of journalists and editors, who are constantly working to provide new and accurate stories to NAP readers.
