By Driss El-Hassan.
French President Emmanuel Macron and American Chief-Diplomat Marco Rubio stated their support for Morocco’s illegal claims over the Western Sahara. Macron also pledged French investment in the region.
By throwing their support behind Morocco, France and the United States are conspiring to violate international law for the sake of the interests of monopoly capital. In 1972, UN Resolution 2983 affirmed, “the inalienable right of the people of the Sahara to self-determination and independence.” The International Court of Justice (ICJ) also advised against Moroccan and Mauritanian claim over the Western Sahara, declaring, “The materials and information presented to it [the ICJ] do not establish any tie of territorial sovereignty between the territory of Western Sahara and the Kingdom of Morocco or the Mauritanian entity. Thus the Court has not found legal ties of such a nature as might affect the application of resolution 1514 (XV) in the decolonization of Western Sahara and, in particular, of the principle of self-determination through the free and genuine expression of the will of the peoples of the Territory (ICJ Reports 16 October 1975, 162).”
The Kingdom of Morocco, a lapdog of American and EU imperialism, is continuing its long-held tradition of conniving with the US and its allies against communist and national liberation movements in the Middle East & North Africa (MENA) region. During the time of the Soviet Union, Morocco was an important Cold War ally of the US. A former United States Ambassador to Morocco, Joseph Verner Reed Jr., remarked, “It is obvious that the next pressure point for the Soviets is going to be the Kingdom of Morocco, situated strategically as it is on the Straits of Gibraltar.”
France has a long-held interest in maintaining its economic control and influence in West and Northwest Africa, its former colonial stronghold on the African continent. Amongst France’s interests in Northwest Africa is the regions natural resources, which French companies have waning access to due to the new anti-imperialist policies of Niger, Chad, and Burkina Faso. These West African countries rebelled against ECOWAS, an international economic alliance of West African countries under the yoke of EU and US business interests.
The natural resources NATO imperialists seek include raw materials such as phosphate, a crucial ingredient for making crop fertilizer. Near the Moroccan-occupied city of Laayoune, an astronomical output of phosphate is produced from a small mining town called Bou Craa, over 2 million tons of phosphate per year. Phosphate is vital for the agricultural industry worldwide.
In the absence of the Soviet Union and a strong international anti-imperialist movement to defend it, the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic will continue to have its sovereignty and right to self-determination challenged by the interests of monopoly capital.