One man describes a harrowing dash through a mine field, his pregnant wife in tow, as they raced to escape from the very rebels who were supposed to be protecting them.
Another talks of unmarried pregnant women and unwed mothers, including rape victims, being held in a special prison for adulterers — ostensibly to protect them from relatives bent on redeeming the family’s honor.
The stories, recounted by five Western Saharan refugees on a Moroccan-sponsored trip the US, cast a new spotlight on a largely ignored three-decade-old conflict between the rebel Polisario Front and Morocco over a mineral-rich region to which both lay claim.
PHOTO: AP
But in a war for independence that has gone largely unnoticed outside of the region, the testimonies also represent the latest salvo in a battle where propaganda increasingly plays a greater role than bullets.
“There is no future under the Polisario. There is no freedom of movement. There is no freedom of speech,” Said Abderahman said in an interview. He is one of the refugees whose trip to the US was sponsored by the lobbying group, Moroccan American Center for Policy.
“If you dare to talk they take you and put you in jail, and they bring you to a public place and they accuse you of being a thief, in front of society,” he said, speaking through a translator provided by Morocco’s UN mission in New York.
Morocco and Mauritania split Western Sahara when Spanish colonizers left the territory in 1975, but a year later they went to war over it. In 1979, Mauritania pulled out and Morocco took over the whole Western Sahara. But fighting continued between the estimated 15,000 Polisario guerrillas and Morocco’s US-equipped army, leaving thousands dead.
A UN-negotiated truce in 1991 called for a referendum on the region’s future, but that vote never happened because the two sides could not agree on voting lists. The stalemate has been monitored by UN peacekeepers.
Over the years, Morocco has pressed the UN and the world community to allow it to annex the territory, promising considerable it autonomy and a share in its mineral wealth. The autonomy offer is backed by the US and France. More than 50 countries, however, recognize the government-in-exile of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic.
In March, the two sides ended a fourth round of talks under UN auspices, blaming each other for their standoff, but agreeing to consider easing restrictions against people traveling by road to visit family in the disputed territory.
Tens of thousands of residents who fled the fighting remain displaced, living in camps in Algeria.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) greetings with what appeared to be restrained rhetoric that comes as Pyongyang moves closer to Russia and depends less on its long-time Asian ally. Kim wished “the Chinese people greater success in building a modern socialist country,” in a reply message to Xi for his congratulations on North Korea’s birthday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday. The 190-word dispatch had little of the florid language that had been a staple of their correspondence, which has declined significantly this year, an analysis by Seoul-based specialist service NK Pro showed. It said
On an island of windswept tundra in the Bering Sea, hundreds of miles from mainland Alaska, a resident sitting outside their home saw — well, did they see it? They were pretty sure they saw it — a rat. The purported sighting would not have gotten attention in many places around the world, but it caused a stir on Saint Paul Island, which is part of the Pribilof Islands, a birding haven sometimes called the “Galapagos of the north” for its diversity of life. That is because rats that stow away on vessels can quickly populate and overrun remote islands, devastating bird
‘CLOSER TO THE END’: The Ukrainian leader said in an interview that only from a ‘strong position’ can Ukraine push Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘to stop the war’ Decisive actions by the US now could hasten the end of the Russian war against Ukraine next year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday after telling ABC News that his nation was “closer to the end of the war.” “Now, at the end of the year, we have a real opportunity to strengthen cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,” Zelenskiy said in a post on Telegram after meeting with a bipartisan delegation from the US Congress. “Decisive action now could hasten the just end of Russian aggression against Ukraine next year,” he wrote. Zelenskiy is in the US for the UN
A 64-year-old US woman took her own life inside a controversial suicide capsule at a Swiss woodland retreat, with Swiss police on Tuesday saying several people had been arrested. The space-age looking Sarco capsule, which fills with nitrogen and causes death by hypoxia, was used on Monday outside a village near the German border. The portable human-sized pod, self-operated by a button inside, has raised a host of legal and ethical questions in Switzerland. Active euthanasia is banned in the country, but assisted dying has been legal for decades. On the same day it was used, Swiss Department of Home