STAFF PHOTO D. HANLEY
activisms_52-63.qxp_June/July 2022 Activisms 5/18/22 1:19 PM Page 54
Visitors enjoy music and art at the Museum of the Palestinian People’s exhibition opening and Nakba commemoration. tents on the sidewalk to protect food, guests and musical equipment. Composer and oud artist Fuad Foty, aka “DC’s Voice of Palestine,” and his 14-year-old daughter Yasmine, played Palestinian music. Foty noted that tents are a poignant symbol of what refugees have to go through, but this year it also symbolized a funeral tent for the murdered journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. Guests shared a moment of silence to remember the latest of too many Palestinian martyrs. Bshara Nassar, founder and director of the museum, introduced his father Daher, a farmer who is a symbol of non-violent resistance in the West Bank. Nassar said it was fitting to honor Nakba Day by having Palestinian children tell their own stories at the museum. Chairman of the board, Farshid Hakimyar, urged the crowd to donate to the museum. Board member Ruba Marshood said she wished the museum had existed when she was a child, to help her answer questions like, Why is your country not on a map? “My country was erased from the map but now I can bring my children to the museum so they can get to know my country and my heart,” Marshood said. Another board member, Mohammed El-Khatib, said volunteering at the museum is the most rewarding thing he’s ever done. “We have a space to anchor us,” he said. —Delinda C. Hanley 54
WAGING PEACE The U.S. Role in the Moroccan Occupation of Western Sahara On April 13, experts addressed the issue of Morocco’s occupation of Western Sahara in a webinar co-hosted by the Campaign to End the Occupation of the Western Sahara, the Institute of the Black World 21st Century and the Pan African Unity Dialogue. Bill Fletcher, co-coordinator of the Campaign, moderated the discussion. In 1974, Spain decided to end its control over Western Sahara and allow the native Sahrawis to hold a referendum to determine their future. However, due to legal objections by Morocco and Mauritania, the referendum, slated for 1975, never occurred. The U.S. also apparently played a role in preventing the Western Saharans from choosing between independence and Moroccan rule. Katlyn Thomas, former legal adviser to the U.N. Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) and author of The Emperor’s Clothes: The Naked Truth About Western Sahara, said the entire conflict “might not have occurred had it not been for the meddling of the United States government in 1975.” Based on records received from Freedom of Information Act requests, Thomas discovered that then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger “basically arm-twisted
WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
Spain to capitulate to Morocco and allow Morocco to take over the territory.” Thomas cited several examples from FOIA documents showing the extent to which the U.S. government “put its hand on the balance of this situation in Morocco’s favor.” While Thomas and her colleagues responsible for legal affairs in MINURSO were working on a referendum of self-determination for the Sahrawis, “the U.S. government behind our backs was doing everything to undermine us,” she explained. Christopher Ross, former U.S. ambassador to Algeria and Syria, was the U.N. secretary-general’s personal envoy for Western Sahara from 2009 to 2017. While his mandate was to facilitate direct negotiations between the parties and ensure the self-determination of the Western Saharan people, “the Moroccans kept insisting that I was there only to become an advocate for their position,” he said. The former diplomat said the U.N. lacks the authority to change the status quo in Western Sahara. Steffan de Mistura, the U.N. secretary-general’s current personal envoy for the region, needs a broader mandate, he emphasized, “or we’re just going to keep spinning our wheels…and the ones who are really paying for this are the 173,600 Western Sahara refugees in the [Algerian] camps.” The Biden administration has demonstrated ambivalence on this issue, as it has refused to rescind President Donald Trump’s 2020 acknowledgment of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara. This acquiescence to the prior administration’s disregard for the international consensus is probably because the Biden White House “feels that facts on the ground in Western Sahara and the passage of time will both favor the Moroccans, so basically they don’t need to do much,” Ross said. Stephen Zunes, professor of politics and international studies at the University of San Francisco and co-author of Western Sahara: War, Nationalism and Conflict Irresolution, pointed out the Biden administration’s hypocrisy in condemning Russian aggression in Ukraine, while not condemning—and even recognizing—Morocco’s illegal annexation of Western Sahara. “What JUNE/JULY 2022
