Musings From Abroad

France supports Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara

Published

4 months ago

August 1, 2024

President Emmanuel Macron of France has stated in a letter that the only viable solution to the long-standing territorial conflict is a plan for autonomy for the Western Sahara region under Moroccan authority.

The 1975 conflict opposed the Algeria-backed Polisario Front, which wanted to establish an independent state in Western Sahara, against Morocco, which views the region as its own.

As the former colonial power in the area, France has handled the situation diplomatically by balancing between Rabat and Algiers. Morocco’s initiative has the support of the majority of France’s Western friends.

Algeria was so incensed by the decision that it chose to remove its ambassador from France and assign the charge d’affaires to oversee Algeria’s diplomatic representation, as stated in a statement from the country’s foreign ministry.

“For France, autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty is the framework within which this issue must be resolved,” according to the letter sent by Macron to Morocco’s King Mohammed VI.

“Our support for the autonomy plan proposed by Morocco in 2007 is clear and constant. For France, it now constitutes the only basis for achieving a just, lasting and negotiated political solution in line with the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council.”

Macron declared that France would behave both internally and internationally under its conviction that Morocco’s sovereignty extends to the Western Sahara.

Regarding the declaration, the Moroccan Royal Palace welcomed it as a “significant development in support of Moroccan sovereignty over the Sahara.”

“The French government is denying the right of the Sahrawi people to self-determination,” the foreign ministry of Algeria declared.

The recall of Algeria’s envoy, according to a French diplomatic source, was a sovereign decision, but Paris was committed to strengthening bilateral relations with Algiers.

“We are looking to the future with a strong ambition to benefit both our peoples,” stated a source.

Algeria has supported a 1991 United Nations plan for a referendum with independence as a possible outcome, as well as the Polisario’s self-declared Sahrawi republic.

Conflicts about who should vote and how the referendum should be held prevented that referendum from happening, and more recently, resolutions passed by the U.N. Security Council have urged the parties to cooperate to reach a workable compromise rather than bring up the subject of a referendum.

The former colonial power of Western Sahara, Spain, declared in 2022 that it supported Morocco’s desire for autonomy.

Rabat regards the opening of consulates by 28 largely African and Arab nations as tangible support for Morocco’s sovereignty over the region, which is also backed by the United States, Israel, and the monarchies of the Arab world. 2020 saw the Polisario pull out of a truce mediated by the UN.

Israel recognized and supported Morocco’s claim to the Sahara two weeks ago, despite Algeria, Morocco’s neighbour, who opposes and calls the region’s claims an international infringement. In 2020, the United States, then led by President Donald Trump, acknowledged Morocco’s territorial claims in exchange for Morocco reestablishing diplomatic relations with Israel.

In all, 28 foreign countries—mostly Arab and African ones—have opened consulates there as an outward symbol of their backing for Rabat.

Related Topics:Featured France Morocco Western Sahara

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Musings From Abroad

Finnish court imprisons Nigeria’s Simon Ekpa for aiding terrorism

Published

5 hours ago

November 21, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

Simon Ekpa, a Nigerian separatist leader based abroad, has been placed under detention by the Päijät Häme District Court in Finland on suspicion of inciting others to commit acts of terrorism.

According to the local daily, Helsingin Sanomat, the court rendered the ruling on Thursday following his arraignment by the Central Criminal Police for his involvement in the terror attacks that have afflicted the southeast area of Nigeria.

“The police suspect that the man has promoted his efforts from Finland with means that have led to violence against civilians in the region of South-Eastern Nigeria,” stated Otto Hiltunen, the crime commissioner and investigation head.

“The man has carried out his activity, among other things, on his social media channels.”

Hiltunen also informed the court that the police suspected four additional individuals in Finland of funding Ekpa’s activities.

According to the story, Ekpa is of Nigerian descent and was born in the Finnish city of Lahti.

His offence occurred between August 23, 2021, and November 18, 2024, according to court documents cited in the publication.

Ekpa is not the only person the police have arrested. In February 2023, they caught him at a private Lahtian flat, but he was freed the same day.

Through the Eastern Security Network (ESN) and the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) movement, Ekpa has continued to be outspoken on social media, raising money and agitating for a Biafran nation to secede. In the southeast part of Nigeria, both factions have been involved in acts of violence, murders, and maimings.

Since gaining formal independence in 1960, Nigeria has seen the emergence of several separatist organisations. The latest surge of calls for self-determination among different ethnic groups has been louder under its immediate previous President Muhammadu Buhari.

Musings From Abroad

Malian singer Rokia Traore arrested in Italy, to be sent to Belgium

Published

1 day ago

November 20, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

After Italy’s top court denied her appeal, well-known Malian singer, Rokia Traore, who was detained in Rome in June due to a global child custody dispute, will be sent over to Belgium in the next few days, her attorney announced on Wednesday.

The 50-year-old Traore is a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR and one of Africa’s most well-known vocalists.

“Rokia suffered an injustice. She was arrested without the Belgian criminal court hearing her voice. Now, the battle for Rokia’s rights moves to Brussels,” lawyer Maddalena Del Re said in a statement to Reuters.

The attorney also stated that in its decision late Tuesday, Italy’s Court of Cassation upheld an extradition decision from the European Court of Justice.

Under a European arrest order, Traore was taken into custody on June 20 at the Fiumicino airport in Rome. In October 2023, she was given a two-year prison sentence in Belgium related to a dispute over her daughter’s custody.

She had flown to perform outside Rome’s Colosseum, and she has been imprisoned in Civitavecchia, close to the Italian city, since her detention at Fiumicino.

Lawyer Del Re said that because a conviction was rendered without the defendant’s presence, the Belgian process goes against both international norms and Italian constitutional standards.

After she disregarded a court order to turn over her baby to her Belgian father, the singer’s divorced ex-partner, she was initially taken into custody in France in 2020 on a Belgian arrest warrant.

She disobeyed orders not to leave France until her extradition case was handled by taking a private jet to Mali months after being conditionally released. Mali is where her daughter resides.