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Mr.sciencemag.org Khallihenna Ould Errachid, chairman of the Royal Advisory Council for Saharan Affairs: « the Sahara conflict is strange for Spain. It is a Morocco-Moroccan problem". There are some persons who try to accuse Spain for having abandoned the territory. It is not true. Spain abides by what has been the most important thing for itself: to maintain the historically important relations with Morocco, the nearest Muslim and Arab country to it on all aspects: human, historic and strategic. Could Spanish decolonization have been done otherwise? No. History does not change. But the conflict is always present? The emergence of the conflict along with the creation of Polisario are strange for Spain and the Spanish.
What would Spain gain from the resolution of the Sahara conflict? Geographically and strategically speaking, Spain is the nearest country to the Maghreb. It will gain a lot. The Maghreb is the only viable zone of the Arab World and Africa. The conflict has come to a sterile stage which brings positive things only. It is a conflict which has gone through two stages: war time from 1976 until 1991; the second stage continues until nowadays. But there are other causes…? Yes. There are some causes related to the region namely Sahrawis’ claims. In 1972, the students of the Rabat University expressed a real claim.
They protested against their economic situation and political marginalization. Why has conflict not been resolved yet? Because the UN has opted for a bad mechanism: self-determination process via a referendum based upon identification which has never been implemented before. There was the Spanish census? This census concerned the Saharan tribes which lived in a region near the city of Laayoune. However, these same tribes are present in Mauritania, Algeria, Mali and in the South of what was Morocco. Therefore, the UN became aware of the fact that it is impossible technically to organize a referendum and that that other methods should be found. There are two: people should stay where they are or autonomy which will deeply change the Moroccan state.
What is your argument? To admit that power does not come from the top authority but from the people’s consent. And what can it deal with? All political, economic, social and cultural issues. That is, personality, identity, tradition and all local authenticity. Absolutely all, except sovereignty attributes. What about controlling natural resources? This point will be discussed at the time of the plan’s adjustment. Do Moroccan political parties benefit from a popular support in the Sahara? The Sahara has always been a tribal society which does not correspond exactly to the traditional political schemes even if they are represented in the CORCAS itself.
Why the Royal Advisory Council has been created? The king wants the Moroccan administration to make it up definitively with Sahrawis. It was held guilty of the creation of Polisario because it did not take into account that we are an important historic component of Morocco. Who profits from maintaining the statu quo? Those who made of the Sahara a personal affair. What do the neighbouring countries say? Algeria says it is not implicated in this affair. However, it is supposed to help us resolve this problem. What is going on in Sahel Sahara? This region witnesses the emergence of a dangerous zone which lacks laws and order. There is a daily increase in unlawful immigration and uncontrolled circulation of weapons. Is it possible to found a new state in the Sahara?
The creation of states which are founded on tribalism has done a lot of harm in Africa. Somalia, genocide in Rwanda and Darfur tragedy are some negative examples of tribalism. Is there any risk of terrorism production in the region? Sahrawis are not terrorists. However, some terrorist groups, coming from other regions, can settle in this zone. What role can Polisario play in autonomy? It can be the governing party. I have asked my brother Mohamed Abdelaziz to preside autonomy. The Polisario Front is a politico-military movement which has a unique thought and doctrine. It should be democratized. What should it change? Dialogue rejection which is not in line with Sahrawis interests.
It should stop claiming that it is the "unique representative of Sahrawis". Since Abdelaziz Buteflika is a Head of State; he should ask for the king’s permission to meet it. I would like to him that it is the best solution for all parties. Khalihenna Ould Errachid is probably the cleverest political Sahrawi man. He has recently been appointed by HM the King Mohammed VI as chairman of the Royal Advisory Council for Saharan Affairs. Having received a Spanish training, he spent his childhood and adolescence in the Spanish schools. During the last period of Franco’s life, he founded the Sahrawi National Union Party (PNUS). At the time of decolonization, the PNUS could not resist the young separatist pressure backing Polisario. Khalihenna Ould Errachid adapted to changes and remained in the territories occupied by Morocco. During the 80s, he was appointed president of Laayoune municipal council and contributed to the modernization of "Moroccan Sahara" for which Hassan II spent twenty thousand million Dirhams (two billion euros). At the end of 90s, Khalihenna Ould Errachid essaya tried in vain to build an autonomist party. He is considered as the most capable person to build a bridge between Morocco and Spain and to reconcile Sahrawis.
Experts say it’s too early to evaluate whether the program has been successful, but many praise its linkage between governance improvements and access to aid dollars. As African governments continue to court foreign investors, including U.S. The Kenyan government, for instance, is beginning to realize that its reputation for high levels of corruption is discouraging foreign investment. 2.54 billion in 2008, according to the CIA World Factbook, but financial analysts say the country underperforms in attracting foreign investors. Some Western donors express concern about the rise in Chinese investment in Africa, suggesting that China’s no-strings-attached approach to aid is undermining anti-corruption efforts.
But Chinese academics and some U.S. China is a relatively new presence in Africa and it will learn that corruption negatively affects its investments. Critics suggest that China will continue to make deals with corrupt governments, such as its multibillion dollar agreement with the Democratic Republic of Congo, as long as it obtains access to prized natural resources. Some analysts argue that one of the most effective ways to reduce corruption is targeting transactions related to natural resources extraction, a major source of revenue in many African countries from the Democratic Republic of Congo to Nigeria. Promoted by a number of international NGOs and watchdog groups, one set of guidelines known as the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) has gained traction throughout Africa in the last five years.
Signing on to EITI is voluntary. Participating countries agree to publish the payments and revenues they receive from oil and mining companies. Critics of the initiative charge it doesn’t go far enough. Countries do not have to include all companies and payments in their reporting, nor do they have to break down payments by individual company. EITI also doesn’t provide guidelines for determining whether a government was paid the correct amount by an extractive company. As a 2008 Revenue Watch report (PDF) on EITI notes, the initiative does not provide for the declaration of payments that are not related to production of natural resources, such as taxes on cars and salaries to expatriates. Such payments can be significant.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. Security Council approved a resolution Tuesday welcoming "new momentum" from the restart of talks on resolving the decades-old dispute over the mineral-rich Western Sahara, but Morocco and the pro-independence Polisario Front remain deeply at odds over its future. South Africa and Russia abstained in the 13-0 vote, calling the U.S.-drafted resolution unbalanced. Last year, the council called for accelerated efforts to reach a solution to the more than four-decade dispute over the territory. But two rounds of talks in December and March, brokered by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ personal envoy, Horst Kohler, made no headway. Morocco has proposed wide-ranging autonomy for Western Sahara. But the Polisario Front insists the local population, which it estimates at 350,000 to 500,000, has the right to a referendum.
Stretching across northern Africa from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Red Sea in the east, the Sahara is the world’s largest desert. It forms a natural barrier between two very different geographic and cultural regions: NORTH AFRICA, with its Arab-influenced Mediterranean culture; and sub-Saharan Africa, where indigenous African culture is dominant. Yet for centuries people have crossed this dangerous expanse along trade routes, supplying goods to the towns and kingdoms on the Sahara’s borders and linking Africa’s northern and southern communities. Today the desert supports a population of about 2.5 million people. The Sahara desert covers 3.3 million square miles in 11 countries and the territory of WESTERN SAHARA. Two Saharan countries are almost entirely desert—LIBYA and EGYPT.
About a fifth of the Sahara is covered with sand seas, called ergs. In some places the strong Saharan winds shape the sand into rows of towering dunes. Elsewhere the desert consists mostly of plains covered with gravel or barren rock. Within the Sahara lie two mountain ranges, the Ahaggar in ALGERIA and the Tibesti in CHAD. The highest point in the desert is Emi Koussi, an 11,204-foot peak in Chad. The lowest point, 4,356 feet below sea level, is in Egypt’s Qattara depression, one of several Saharan basins. Two rivers flow all year through the Sahara: the NILE in the eastern desert and the NIGER in the southwest.
After the desert’s rare rainfalls, smaller streams and rivers appear briefly before drying up and disappearing. The driest parts of the Sahara receive no more than 4 to 6 inches of rain each year. The SAHEL, the zone of transition between the true desert and the rest of Africa to the south, receives up to 24 inches of rain. Occasional springs or pools dot the desert, giving rise to oases, islands of green vegetation amid arid surroundings. The Sahara was not always as dry as it is now. Before about 3000 B.C., the area experienced cycles of heavier rainfall in which a wide variety of plant and animal life flourished.
Prehistoric humans occupied the region during these periods, leaving ROCK ART that shows images of a greener, wetter time when even water-loving hippopotamuses lived in the Sahara. Arab invaders gained control of northern Africa in the A.D. 600s. In the centuries that followed, camel caravans carried gold, slaves, spices, leather, and ostrich feathers from sub-Saharan Africa north across the Sahara and exchanged these goods for weapons, horses, textiles, and paper from the Mediterranean coast. The Saharan people benefited from the trade, providing marketplaces in the oases and collecting tolls and protection money from foreign traders. Cities such as TIMBUKTU (in what is now northern MALI) became thriving centers of commerce. During the Middle Ages, several kingdoms rose on the fringes of the Sahara.
States in the area that is now GHANA and NIGERIA extended their influence into the desert region, but their dominance over the western Sahara ended in 1591, when the sultan of MOROCCO conquered Timbuktu. Saharan groups such as the TUAREG then took control of the region. Around 1850 Europeans began colonizing Algeria and other parts of the Sahara region. Most of the desert came under French control. When North Africa regained independence in the 1960s, the colonial divisions made by the French became national boundaries. Most of the people who live in the Sahara occupy the oases and the highlands on the desert fringes. Arabic-speaking peoples, including the Bedouin of Libya and the Chaamba of Algeria, live in the northern Sahara.
On the northern and western edges of the desert are many groups of BERBERS. The largest Berber-speaking group within the Sahara is the Tuareg, who number between 500,000 and 1 million people. The Berbers and Tuareg have cultural and religious ties to Islamic, Arab-speaking northern Africa. To the east, in NIGER and northern Chad, live the Teda or Tubu peoples, whose languages and cultures are closely linked to those of sub-Saharan African groups. Livestock herding and trade are the main economic activities of the Sahara. Desert dwellers raise camels, goats, and sheep, and in some oases they also grow gardens and date palms.
The principal trade good is salt, either mined or obtained from evaporated water. Since ancient times, Saharans have traded salt for grain and other goods from the agricultural regions south of the desert. The Tuareg salt trade continues today, unlike most of the long-distance trade that once crisscrossed the Sahara. The major economic event of the 1900s in the Sahara was the discovery of mineral resources, particularly oil, phosphate, iron, uranium, and bauxite, the source of aluminum. Jenne and the Saharan Borderlands. In ancient times, many cities and states flourished in the southern and southwestern borderlands of the Sahara. Before the 1970s historians believed that Arabs and Berbers from North Africa sparked the formation of these states by introducing long-distance trade to the region in the A.D.
Recent archaeological evidence, however, reveals a different history. Excavations show that large, highly organized towns existed before the Arabs arrived and before major trade began across the Sahara. Jenne (or Jenne-jeno) in Mali is one of the best studied of these sites. Human settlement at Jenne dates from the 200s or 100s B.C. The city reached its height between A.D. 500 and 1000, with a population of at least 10,000. Its citizens exported copper, pottery, and agricultural goods through a local trade network that covered much of the middle course of the Niger River. Two features show that Jenne was a purely African creation, different from ancient cities built by Arabs and Europeans. First, there is no evidence of a ruling class. Jenne does not have the rich burial sites or monumental public architecture that indicate the presence of nobles or powerful rulers. Second, Jenne was not a dense urban settlement enclosed by a city wall. It was a central town with satellite communities clustered around it. Ruins at other ancient sites in the Niger region suggest that this clustered organization was typical of the African civilizations that arose there. These societies later merged with or developed into the states that joined in the cross-Saharan trade established by Arabs.
The Addax Antelope is native to the Sahara of North Africa. Some Addax live in herds of 5-20 individuals of both genders, and are adapted to survive in the intense desert conditions. Addax are nocturnal, which means that they are active at night. Addax have over developed sensory skills which help them track each other from long distances. Addax herds are usually led by the eldest dominant male. Addax can also track rainfall and will head for areas where vegetation is abundant. If we take more Addax antelopes into captivity, we can hopefully replenish their population, and regulate the hunting of these unique creatures.
The famous saharawi singer, Mariam Hasssan, offered this week-end a great concert in the heart of the british capital, London. The public was astonished and invaded by the deeply rooted voice of the Saharawi singer, coming from Western Sahara, the last colony in Africa. The BBC recorded the entire concert and transmitted at night the interview of Mariem Hassan by Lucy Duran with three songs of the concert. The famous british newspaper The Independent wrote in their first feature of the festival on 25th of July about Mariem Hassan:The early highlight is Mariem Hassan. She plays a version of the Saharan Blues popularised by Tinariwen, the result of rebel fighters in refugee camps plugging into Led Zeppelin, and their Mississippi sources. Black-robed Mariem Hassan is a spokeswoman for the rebel nomad tribes of Western Sahara, easy to believe as her rapid ululations drill through the air. You can only imagine the cultural and political barriers she brazens through daily. Dirty rhythmic lead guitar helps the job here. Nor are potent resistance songs her only talent. As we’re cheerily informed" Mariem will be cooking later at the Taste the World tent." Of course. On 29th of July Mariem Hassan will be performing also in the spanish northern city of Tafalla.
Here's our one of favorites in Ouarzazate, Dar Chamaa. It was built recently and it's getting rapidly popular. From the outside, it looks like a kasbah but the inside is a kind of modern. Huge pool garden is relaxing, and the view from the rooftop is amazing! It locates outside of the Ourzazate town, about 10 minutes drive. You might believe it's one of the kasbahs around Ouarzazate. This courtyard reminds me of the funduk of Nejjarine Square in Fez medina. It has 3 stories and looks so high. Rooms are very simple and clean. Decorations are Moroccan, but somehow it's modern. The pool is huge! Take one of those tables then you can feel cool breeze even during the summer time. Ouarzazate is an oasis town and it's surrounded by palm trees, desert, and Atlas mountains. You can see them all from the rooftop.
Monday's newspapers in Morocco lashed out at the report of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on its recent regional mission to Morocco, Algeria and the Polisario-run Tindouf camps, (southwetsren Algeria), dubbing it "biased" and "surprising". The French-speaking daily "Le Matin du Sahara et du Maghreb" describes the report as "surprising", "biased" and "unfair", with a political character in contradiction with the mission reason. For the daily, this "invisible hand" cannot be but that of Algeria, which has benefited from the complicity inside the commission so that the report be the most possibly in favor of the theses of the enemies of territorial integrity. Other newspapers as "Liberation", "Rissalat Al Oumma", "Assahra Al Maghribia" also rejected the OHCHR document considering it "out of context and not in conformity with the objective," of the mission. The letter describes as "premature" the recommendations of the mission as it remained an un-accomplished mission.
For the first time in 40 years, snow has fallen on the Sahara Desert, the Independent reported Wednesday. "Everyone was stunned to see snow falling in the desert, it is such a rare occurrence," Karim Bouchetat, an amateur photographer who captured images of the snow on Monday, was quoted as saying. "In his images a thin layer of snow rests on deep orange dunes, where he said it stayed for about a day, and forms whirling patterns where the slopes are too steep for it to settle. Snow was reportedly last seen in Ain Sefra in 1979, when a half-hour snowstorm stopped traffic," the Independent stated in its article.
WASHINGTON- President Barack Obama has backed a Polisario state, ending U.S. Moroccan plan to establish autonomy for Western Sahara. Morocco has warned the West that such a state could become a haven for Al Qaida and other terror organizations. Diplomatic sources said the Obama administration has disassociated itself from a Moroccan plan for autonomy for the disputed Western Sahara. They said the White House no longer sees itself as committed to the endorsement by then-President George Bush of Western Sahara autonomy."The United States no longer supports or endorses the Moroccan autonomy plan," a diplomatic source said. In 2007, Rabat launched its plan to end the 35-year-old dispute with the Algerian-backed Polisario by offering autonomy to Western Sahara, 80 percent of which has been under Moroccan control.
At the time, Morocco persuaded such allies as France and the United States that a Polisario-dominated state would become a haven for Islamic insurgency groups, including Al Qaida.But the sources said the administration dropped U.S. Western Sahara autonomy in June 2009. They said the White House ordered the State Department to interpret the United Nations mediation effort between Morocco and Polisario as including the option of statehood. In 2008, a Security Council report determined that Polisario’s demand for independence for Western Sahara was unfeasible.Obama reversed U.S. Western Sahara in a letter to Morocco’s King Mohammed in June, the sources said. The letter, which focused on a U.S. Morocco’s help to advance the Arab-Israeli peace process, ended with a reference to UN-sponsored talks on Western Sahara."I share your commitment to the UN-led negotiations as the appropriate forum to achieve a mutually agreed solution," Obama wrote. Unlike Bush, Obama did not reiterate support for Morocco’s autonomy plan for Western Sahara. Several days after the Obama letter, the sources said, U.S.
Not many people get to say that they’ve been to the Sahara Desert (not counting its denizens). Even fewer people get to say they’ve been there multiple times. I count myself extremely lucky to be one of those people, and last week was another chapter in my book of arid adventures. It was time for IES’ Sahara trip again, this time it took place during the 1st weekend of our spring break. During all these various presentations I was running around the village visiting friends and saying "Lebas" dozens of times. We may not have had much to talk about since my Darija is even more limited than my fusHa, but the smiles I got from people more than made up from it. This was only a fraction of my spring break vacation.
The day after we got back from the desert I was on a flight to Lisbon to stay with amazing the Portuguese family I met when I stayed in Khamlia for 2 weeks: Filipe Marisa and Gabriella. Filipe is a very accomplished musician and very involved in the world music scene in Lisbon, which is what had initially drawn them to Khamlia for first time almost 10 years ago. ’s first gig at the community center. I love food. I love eating food. I love eating good food even more. SteaknEggsnFries, pork, grilled octopus with tomatoes and potatoes, sushi, bread, bread baked with pork, toast, amazing cakes, pastries, PORK, cheese, wine, chicken sausage, homemade rice pudding, chocolate cake and MORE PORK were the staples of my diet this trip.
I was lucky enough to experience so many different kinds of traditional Portuguese cuisine with the people who know the city the best. "pillow" cakes. filled with almond goo, amazing. Cascais. Iberian ham sandwich, fries, and beer- with this guy playing guitar the whole time. I like to think of myself as a relatively well-rounded individual, but one thing I don’t think I’ll ever get is modern art. ". I had a similar experience when we all visited the exhibit of Joana Vasconcelos in the old Palacio Nacional Da Ajuda of Belem, next to Lisbon.britannica.com I had never heard of her before- but her exhibit in the Louvre broke all sorts of records for visits so I guess she is a big deal.
I figured it would be at least better than the other art I had seen, but I left with an equally confused- if not more weirded out- feeling of emptiness. I visited more castles, chateaus, palaces, and religious buildings in this one week than I probably had in my entire life. I found myself in Lisbon, Sintra, Cascais, Belem, and Mufra. Tower of Belem.youtube.com In the old days it was out in the middle of the Tejo River and served as a fortress/prison/warning letting incoming sailors know not to fuck with Lisbon.forbes.com Monastery at Mufra, biggest something in Europe, maybe old building?
Also visit my blog Saharapolicy.com
