Sahara is not East Timor, French academic
Morocco-Algeria, Politics, 10/27/2003

French doctor of geopolitics at the War School and at the Sorbonne University, Aymeric Chauprade told a conference in Naples that drawing a parallel between the Sahara and East Timor issues is not a scientific approach.

The French academic who is a researcher at the international geopolitics academy and editor in chief of the French geopolitics magazine explained that the case of East Timor is about Indonesia's political construction as the Javanese ethnic group occupied its periphery, East-Timor, where there is a population of a different ethnic group and religious belief. For the Sahara, he went on, there has been a time-old harmony between northern and southern Morocco that have interacted between each other.

Several Moroccan dynasties hail from the south, he told a conference held here October 22 through 24 on the theme "the issues of East Timor and Western Sahara in contemporary international law," with the participation of a Moroccan delegation led by former founding member of the Polisario, Mustapha Bouih aka Barazani, and Mohammed Fadel Dadi, a former polisario official.

The creation of the tiny state of East-Timor is due to the geopolitical will of Australia that sought to break the east-west frontier, embodied by Indonesia, and that prevents Australia from reaching out to the North Pacific region, he argued.

For the French research, the only similarity between the two cases which are both masks of a foreign power lies in the desire of a neighbor country (Australia in the case of Timor and Algeria in the case of the Sahara) to create a satellite state. He underlined that a hypothetical Sahrawi state will only be a huge oil harbor for Algeria to export its oil to the USA.

It's all about geopolitics, he insisted The Polisario founding-member, Barazani, on his part, focused his lecture on the historical and legal bases confirming the Sahara as Moroccan territory affirming that Sahrawis have enrolled since the 50's in the liberation army to fight the Spanish occupier.

The former Polisario co-founder told the conference how the front was born in Rabat, with the aim to retrieve the Sahara from Spanish colonization, rather than in the south like it is widely thought. It was founded by sons of members of the liberation army, many of whom were students at the University of Rabat.

"The Algerian-backed guerrilla movement does not represent Saharan populations since most of Sahrawis live in Morocco where they participate in political life (40 deputies and local councilmen)," Barazani said, adding that many Polisario founders, just like so many sequestered people, have escaped the Tindouf Camps.

Previous Stories:
  The polisario was born in Rabat, not in the Sahara, says ex-member   (10/25/2003)
  The polisario was born in Rabat, not in the Sahara, says ex-member   (10/25/2003)
  Tragic situation of Moroccan POWs in Tindouf exposed to Amnesty International and HCR   (10/23/2003)
  Tragic situation of Moroccan POWs in Tindouf exposed to Amnesty International and HCR   (10/23/2003)
  Morocco holds Algeria responsible for violations against Moroccan POWs   (10/23/2003)
  Morocco holds Algeria responsible for violations against Moroccan POWs   (10/23/2003)

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