After having been plundered the natural resources of the Saharawi people and having invested them to support the military presence at the expense of the rights of the Saharawis, Morocco is trying to rob the Saharawi of their identity and culture in an attempt to present the world with a false image, especially in Europe. In this context, it was announced that a seminar on Saharawi culture will be held at the museum of Sundsvall city in Sweden early next March.

Talking from firsthand experience, any organized event – whether cultural or otherwise – related to Western Sahara in any European country is always supervised , regulated and must be approved by the Moroccan embassy. Moroccan Embassies act upon higher instruction and have under-the- table budgets to buy international support for the country’s position on Western Sahara. This money comes straight from the revenues of the plundered natural resources of the occupied territory.

Recently, a Moroccan newspaper revealed that Morocco had announced that it invested in the tourism sector in the Dominican Republic a sum of $ 33 million as soon as that country spoke of revoking its recognition of the Saharawi Republic. The embassies of Morocco have been working hard to fund a lot of cultural and political activities so as to give a false image of the situation in Western Sahara; an image quite different from that shown by human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the Robert Kennedy Foundation, all these which talk about the deteriorating situation in the areas occupied by Morocco. These same reports described at length the horrible living condition. The occupied Western Sahara is the only region in the world, other that North Korea, which prevents journalists’ access. Limited access is given only under conditions set by Morocco in order to give a false image of the real situation.

After international resolutions condemning violations of human rights in Western Sahara, the recent sentencing of 24 Saharawi civilians by a military court, and the strangling of Morocco economically after the European Union’s refusal to renew the Fisheries Agreement , Morocco is trying to twist the international law and to use culture as a cover-up.

As Saharawis, we regret that the Museum of the Swedish city of Sundsvall will turn into a platform for appropriating Saharawi culture. Undoubtedly, this will only add to the suffering of the Saharawi people.

* Said Zeroual, a journalist, and Rugaibi Abdullah Mohammed Sheikh, a Saharawi citizen.

FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSPJNgdVI-Y
http://www.iemed.org/publicacions/quaderns/13/qm13_pdf/8.pdf

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