Tag: Western Sahara

Latest Gran Canaria News, Views & Sunshine

The Canary Guide #WeekendTips 9-11 June 2023

Jun, 2023 |

A delightful second weekend of June ahead with all kinds of events to get involved with on Gran Canaria. The Harvest Fair arrives on the south, in El Tablero, patron saints’ fiestas in honour of San Antonio of Padua and San Pedro are happening around the island, Corpus Christi salt carpets and processions are held this Sunday, markets and music festivals as well as sporting events. Hopefully the weather will sustain all these wonderful festivities and happenings in the glorious outdoors, on which so much depends on this little island.

Menas Case: Foundation Siglo XXI directors allegedly filed false invoices, unrealistic expenses and repeatedly drew funds from ATMs, meant for the care of migrant children, even charging botox facial treatments and posh restaurant bills to foundation debit cards

Jun, 2023 |

A comprehensive analysis conducted by Group I of the Economic and Fiscal Crime Unit (UDEF) of the National Police yielded scandalous results, writes Spanish language daily Canarias7, regarding the alleged irregular use of the public funds intended for the care of unaccompanied minors, by the suspected to have been perpetrated by centres managed by the Foundation Social Response Siglo XXI on Gran Canaria and Lanzarote. In this case, driven by the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, investigators discovered that the director of the Guiniguada centre charged the NGO responsible for €1,500 worth of beauty treatments and €1,113 for bills at top restaurants including Vinófilos, El Vasco de Vegueta, and Triciclo.

Centre-Right Pact Between Regionalists (CC) And Resident Conservatives (PPAV) Returns Marco Aurelio Perez As Southern Mayor

Jun, 2023 |

The conservative Partido Popular-Agrupación de Vecinos (PP-AV) and the right of centre regionalist Coalición Canaria (CC) have this Thursday signed a local government pact that will shape the future of the southern Gran Canaria tourism municipality of San Bartolomé de Tirajana. The alliance, dubbed a “Pact for Stability and Socioeconomic Progress of San Bartolomé Tirajana”, represents 60% of the votes cast in the municipality’s recent local elections, emphasised the mayor-elect, Marco Aurelio Pérez (PP-AV), who returns for the third time to lead the local council responsible for some of the most important tourism areas on the island, including Maspalomas, Playa del Inglés and San Agustín.

Local Government Coalition Agreement Maspalomas and the South of Gran Canaria

Jun, 2023 |

A governing coalition pact has been finalised in San Bartolomé de Tirajana. The Popular Party–Agrupación de Vecinos (PP-AV) conservative residents party is to join forces with regionalist centre-right Coalición Canaria (CC) to govern the main tourist municipality on Gran Canaria for the next four years. Marco Aurelio Pérez will serve as mayor for the entire four-year term, and the Popular Party will take charge of Employment, Sports, Roads and Infrastructure, and Human Resources, among other areas. The regionalists, led by Alejandro Marichal, will oversee Urban Planning, Economy and Finance, and Tourism as their main departments.

Storm Óscar Latest: Government of the Canary Islands Declares Rain Alert for Western Islands and Gran Canaria

Jun, 2023 |

A storm system, dubbed Óscar, has formed over the last few days over the mid-north Atlantic, unusual for this time of year, and has led to concern from meteorologists and journalists as it passes south of the Azores, its tail should reach The Canary Islands, before the system heads northeast towards mainland Spain. Advisory warnings have been issued in expectation of heavy rainfall, primarily in the Western Isles of the Canary Islands Archipelago, though some rainfall is also expected to reach Gran Canaria over the next couple of days. It seems unlikely that any major consequences will stem from the bad weather, however these things can be unpredictable and so every precaution is taken to ensure people are informed and kept safe.

Western Sahara drone strike allegedly kills head of the Sahrawi National Guard in disputed territory conflict with Morocco

Apr, 2021 | Military

The head of the Sahrawi National Guard, Adah el Bendir, was killed on Thursday afternoon in an alleged Western Sahara drone strike, carried out by Moroccan forces, at a point along the wall built by Rabat, in the disputed and occupied Spanish ex-colony territory, according to an official Sahrawi source reported by EFE.

According to the source, El Bendir “fell as a martyr, and with honour, while fighting the occupying forces in the liberated area of Rouss Irni”, near the city of Tifariti, the Polisario Front main base and centre of military operations.
The officer was “hit by drone fire after leading an incursion through the segregation wall,” the source added. “This is further proof of the intense war in the area and why Morocco is determined to deny it,” said the source, who on other occasions has reported alleged Moroccan casualties, which have never been confirmed or denied by Rabat.
Morocco will neither confirm nor deny this latest information, which adds more uncertainty about what is really happening in the north west African conflict zone, just 100km east of The Canary Islands.
Six Months of Military TensionThe former Spanish colony has been on a war footing since last November 13, after Moroccan armed forces penetrated the Guerguerat pass, which separates Mauritania from the territory, occupied by Morocco in 1975, to remove a large group of Sahrawis who had camped as a protest on the road built by the Moroccans, in contravention of UN restrictions. The protesters were trying to interrupt the transit of goods through the area, which the Polisario denounces as illegal, on the terms of the ceasefire brokered 30 years ago on the premise of a promised and long overdue referendum on self determination for the native Sahrawi population.
Just 24 hours after that offensive, Brahim Ghali, the general secretary of the Polisario Front and president of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), the government in exile broadly recognised by dozens of countries including those of the African Union, made clear that this was a violation of the ceasefire and considered the truce signed in 1991 to have been broken.
A day later, he announced a start to military operations along the wall, erected by Morocco in the middle of the desert, which, according to Sahrawi sources, with combat action having been sustained and repeated since then, and which Rabat will not even comment on.
By the end of January, and in the face of stark silence from Morocco, the SADR announced that the Sahrawi Army was preparing to “expand the scope of its military operations, from southern Morocco to southern Western Sahara, to cover all enemy sectors and defences”.
The tensions were added to in recent months by political tension, the result of a decision from the outgoing president of the United States, Trump, to recognise Moroccan sovereignty over the former Spanish colony in exchange for Rabat establishing relations with Israel.
Last month the US 6th fleet aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower took part in military exercises with Morocco in the strip of Atlantic ocean between The Canary Islands archipelago and Morocco’s Port of Agadir, as part of Operation Lightening Handshake. The Government of Spain have lodged a formal complaint with the United States of America, as they had not been warned in advance that such a large exercise, including air, sea and land forces, was scheduled to occur so close to their island territories. Training in Western Sahara drone strike operations is likely to have been included in these exercises.
If these reports of this Western Sahara drone strike are true, then the drone used in this strike was almost certainly US supplied, as part of the multi-billion dollar arms deals that have continued to embolden Morocco in the region. The Moroccans are seen as a key strategic partner, and forward staging post in the region, for AfriCom, in US Military operations on the African continent.

April 12: – Various sources have cast doubt on whether Morocco currently has lethal drone strike capabilities, pointing instead to the more likely use of high-end military intelligence gathering drones, if a drone was use at all, perhaps to seek out and target El Bendir, allowing more conventional weaponry to actually launch the attack, possibly even from the air by fighter-jet. The fact is, the facts are sketchy, not all the reports coming out of Western Sahara are reliable, and Morocco refuses to comment or engage in any way regarding the current situation or their conflict with the Polisario Front.
Has Morocco carried out its first drone strike in Western Sahara?

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Fighting breaks out in Western Sahara as tensions escalate between Polisario Front and Moroccan occupying forces

Nov, 2020 | #TheCanaryMigrantCrisis, Government, History, Immigrants, Immigration, politics

Images: Western Sahara refugee camp © Bård Ove Myhr Most have little or no understanding of the conflict situation just 100km east of The Canary Islands. Africa’s last colonial battlefield has been in a state of ceasefire since 1991, when UN peacekeeping forces brokered a truce in order to ensure a referendum was held on self-determination. Originally agreed to by Morocco, who then changed their minds once the Sahawari fighters laid down their arms, the area has been in a state of limbo ever since with tens of thousands living under occupation, as second class citizens in their own land and an estimated 180,000 native Sahawari’s having spent the last three or four decades in refugee camps, in exile across the Algerian border. That the world’s press rarely if ever refers to the conflict has led to it being referred to as Sahara’s Forgotten War, and Africa’s last de facto colonial struggle for independence.

By Lencer – CC BY-SA 3.0
Previously under military occupation, known as Spanish Sahara, the last vestiges of European colonial rule resulted, in November 1975, in the The Green March, with Morocco laying claim to the resource rich area. Just two weeks before the death of Spain’s ailing dictator, Morocco’s King (Sultan), Hassan II, organised a strategic march of 350,000 Moroccan citizens and some 20,000 troops into the territory to claim it following Spanish withdrawal. This led to a backlash from the Sahawari fighters who had originally formed to expel the Europeans, and a 16 year-long war ensued, only coming to terms with the announcement of the UN backed referendum.

The United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) was established by Security Council resolution 690 of 29 April 1991 in accordance with settlement proposals accepted on 30 August 1988 by Morocco and the Frente Popular para la Liberación de Saguia el-Hamra y de Río de Oro (Frente POLISARIO).
MINURSOUnited Nations Mission For The Referendum In Western Sahara
Polisario Front in Western Sahara Free Zone, Image: © Bård Ove Myhr
The Sahawari are the only people ever to have been recognised be the international community as the native population of the territory and no country in the world has ever recognised Morocco’s claims to it. For 29 years tension has been mounting as optimism, and patience turned to hope, then frustration and and despair as the world turned its back on the situation. Fighting broke out this week, with armed clashes following the clearing of peaceful protesters who had been blockading a road, they say was built in direct contravention of the UN truce, resulting in skirmishes and live rounds being fired. The Polisario Front declared the ceasefire to have been broken and immediately launched a counter offensive.
On Friday Moroccan forces moved into a buffer strip, at the Guerguerat zone, following what they called weeks of “provocations” from members of the pro-independence Polisario Front, to which Algeria is also sympathetic. While Morocco denies that there were any victims in the clashes with the Polisario Front, it did announce this Saturday that there have been “fatalities.”
By Abjiklam Western Sahara CC BY SA 4.0
The Moroccan occupation is cordoned by a more than 2,700km wall, or berm, the second longest in the world, erected in the eighties by Morocco from north to south of the Sahara and separating the occupied territory from the arid desert wastelands in which the free sahawari population survive until this day. It separates the Moroccan areas (the Southern Provinces), to the west, from the Polisario-controlled areas (Free Zone, nominally the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic) to the east.
According to official sources in Rabat, no casualties had resulted during the two days following the removal of the protests. The Polisario Front, however, announced this Saturday that it considers the ceasefire signed with Rabat to have been broken, and decreed a state of war throughout the territory in response to the attack perpetrated on Friday, when Moroccan military units crossed this dividing line to break the blockade and build a security corridor.
Polisario Front train in Western Sahara Free Zone, Image: © Bård Ove Myhr
There have been reported exchanges of fire between the Moroccan Army and the Polisario forces stationed in the area. Saharawi units say they have bombed four military bases and two Moroccan checkpoints located along the desert wall with tension between Rabat and the Polisario (in exile) has skyrocketed.
The U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres ramped up efforts Friday to get Morocco and pro-independence supporters to step back from fighting, warning that the clashes could rupture nearly 30 year’s of cease-fire and warning that any escalation could have “grave consequences.” without specifically accusing either party.
Here on the Canary Islands, regional politicians from the Coalición Canarias demanded the UN intervene to guarantee the ceasefire in Western Sahara continues, while members of Podemos have voiced their “rejection” of “military action” instigated by the Moroccan army, in the area of El Guerguerat against the Sahrawi civilian population, who were peacefully protesting against the deployment of a contingent of the Moroccan Royal Gendarmerie dressed as civilians, as well as the presence in the area of military commanders from the Alawite kingdom, which they consider to be “a serious breach of the ceasefire” signed in 1991.
Polisario Front train in Western Sahara Free Zone, Image: © Bård Ove Myhr
What is clear, is that tension has been building for quite some time, as Morocco continues to strip resources from the region with consistent reports of oppressive policies that do not favour the native Sahawari population. With forty years of diaspora, and many young Sahawaris having grown impatient while the world turns a blind eye, there is every likelihood that the current generation may be willing to take up arms once more to try to secure a better future for their people.
Morocco continues to try to downplay the situation. External international observers, however, agree that this is the most significant development in this ongoing conflict for more than generation.

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