Why boycott Morocco?
Morocco militarily occupies neighboring Western Sahara, preventing the people of Western Sahara from exercising their legitimate right to self-determination and independence.
The most effective and peaceful way to protest nowadays, is economic boycott. It is our way to support the struggle of the Sahrawi people.
About Western Sahara
Western Sahara was a Spanish colony from 1884 to 1975.
1947 Spain discovered the world’s largest exploitable phosphate deposit in Western Sahara (70% of all usable phosphate on the planet).
1963, the UN put Western Sahara on the list of non-self-governing territories to be decolonized.
1973 The Frente POLISARIO (the sahrawi independence movement) was created to put an end to the Spanish presence in Western Sahara.
1975, the International Court of Justice declared all Morocco’s claims on Western Sahara to be unlawful. In the same year, Morocco started the illegal military invasion of Western Sahara. Moroccan jets bombarded the population with napalm and attacked temporary refugee camps. 350’000 unarmed Moroccan civilians followed the invasion days later into the first occupied cities.
1976 The Sahrawi people proclaimed the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic.
1991 the UN organised a ceasefire agreement between the Frente POLISARIO that provided for a referendum for the Sahrawi people by February 1992 at the latest, in which they could choose to belong to Morocco or become an independent state.
This referendum did not take place until today, the Western Sahara is still in the process of decolonization blocked by Morocco and is the last colony in Africa.
During the 16-year war, the Moroccan army built the largest functioning military wall in the world (known as the “Berm”). It is 2700 km long and consists of a sand wall and a 5 km wide buffer strip of approx. 10 million mines, making it the largest minefield in the world.
The Sahrawis who were able to flee from the Moroccan invasion still live in refugee camps, which only received electricity in 2017, in the Algerian province of Tindouf where they were safe from Moroccan napalm bombs during the war.
The Saharawis who were unable to flee have been living since the invasion under the brutal occupation regime that is blocking the media against what is happening in the occupied Western Sahara. The media blockade is part of the strategy to eradicate the Sahrawi people by forbidding them their culture, identity, language and rights. Saharawis have become a minority in the occupied part of Western Sahara due to massive state-organized sttlement of Moroccan colonists. They are relocated to ghettos, expropriated, tortured, disappeared, and murdered.
2016 and 2018 Complaint by Frente POLISARIO. The European Court of Justice declared twice that all EU-Morocco agreements that contain the territory of Western Sahara and its waters are invalid since the Western Sahara is illegally occupied by morocco according to international Law.
2020 On 13th of November, Morocco violated the ceasefire agreement of 1991 and thus triggered a new war in Western Sahara.
