By Jordana Merran March 8, 2017 Since last summer, Moroccan troops and Polisario fighters have stood “within 200 meters (yards) of each other in a narrow strip of land near the Mauritanian border.” On Sunday, February 26, days after a phone call between Morocco’s King Mohammed VI and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, Morocco announced “‘a unilateral withdrawal from the zone’ in conformation with the UN Secretary General’s recommendations,” as
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Threat not Overstated; Remedies Require “Losing Old Paradigms” Jean R. AbiNader, MATIC April 29, 2016 Contradictions are not rare in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region when it comes to politics and diplomacy. This is particularly evident in the continuing efforts to resolve the Western Sahara conflict. While all of the parties voice concern over the lack of a resolution, most, namely the Polisario and Algeria, are unwilling
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An independent Western Sahara would be “not viable,” and a “disaster” for the region; the international community should “take the sensible step of communicating to the Polisario and Algeria that independence for Western Sahara is not a viable option, and that it should accept Morocco’s offer of autonomy”: [...] There is one generalization, however, that holds true much of the time: Creating new nations doesn’t solve problems so much as create
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Robert M. Holley March 3, 2016 Next week, UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon will visit Algeria and the Polisario-run refugee gulags around Tindouf in the vast, vacant and often scorching southern Algerian desert. Here is what I hope he will say to whoever is pretending to be in charge of matters in Algiers these days, and to the perennial President-For-Life of the fictitious Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. What is
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Two Italian womens’ rights organizations target Polisario practices and human rights abuses in the Tindouf camps: Two Italian NGOs on Monday denounced, before the Human Rights Council, the forced marriages of young women and the persistent denial of fundamental rights of the populations held against their will in Tindouf camps, southwestern Algeria. “In this desert area where people live in a total blackout, cases of early marriage under duress are
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