Yabiladi
Istiqlal secretary-general Nizar Baraka./Ph. DR
In a letter addressed to US National Security Advisor John Bolton, Moroccan politician Nizar Baraka, who is currently the secretary general of the Istiqlal party, responded to his recent statement about the Western Sahara question.
In the absence of an official response, Nizar Barak wrote that Moroccans are much more “frustrated” about the dispute than Bolton.
“Moroccans’ frustration is greater than yours and it lasted for more than 62 years, because Morocco was granted an incomplete independence in March 1956”, wrote the politician.
“We fought for the territorial integrity of our country by wanting to cover the Saharan regions”, added the Istiqlal party secretary-general.
Questioning the Polisario’s representation of Sahrawis
Nizar Baraka recalled that Morocco “recovered Tarfaya in 1958, Sidi Ifni in 1969 and Sakia El Hamra and Oued Ed-Dahab in 1957 after the Green March was launched by King Hassan II”.
In his letter, the Istiqlal politician stressed that “the international community continues to give the Polisario more importance than what it really deserves”, referring to the fact that some parties believes that “the Front represents the inhabitants of the Sahara”.
“However, statistics conducted by Sahrawi tribesmen under the auspices of the United Nations revealed that the vast majority of Sahrawis live on the Moroccan soil. The true representatives of the Sahrawi people are those elected by local and regional councils, as well as their democratically elected MPs”.
Nizar Baraka
The politician reminded the US official of some facts related to the territorial dispute. “Morocco was the first party to urge, in 1963, the United Nations to include the issue on the list of non-autonomous regions and not the Polisario, which was created 10 years later”, he concluded.
For the record, ten days after a Moroccan delegation, headed by Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita, attended a round table in Geneva (December the 5th and 6th) on the Western Sahara question, the National Security Advisor of the United States John Bolton said that he was unhappy about the fact that the conflict has not been resolved.
“I’d like to see this resolved if the parties can agree on the way forward. That’s the preference”, Bolton told reporters at the Heritage Foundation thinktank in Washington.
The American official referred to the Western Sahara dispute while explaining the Trump administration’s new Africa strategy.
