"This report is in two parts. Part one examines present-day human rights conditions in Western Sahara. Part two examines present-day human rights conditions in the Sahrawi refugee camps administered by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el-Hamra and Rio de Oro (Polisario), the Sahrawi independence organization, near Tindouf, Algeria. For Western Sahara, the focus of Human Rights Watch's investigation is the right of persons to speak, assemble, and associate on behalf of self-determination for the Sahrawi people and on behalf of their human rights. We found that Moroccan authorities repress this right through laws penalizing affronts to Morocco's 'territorial integrity,' through arbitrary arrests, unfair trials, restrictions on associations and assemblies, and through police violence and harassment that goes unpunished. For the refugee camps in Tindouf, the focus is freedom of expression and of movement. We found that at the present time, the Polisario effectively marginalizes those who directly challenge its leadership or general political orientation, but it does not imprison them. It allows residents to criticize its day-to-day administration of camp affairs. In practice, camp residents are able to leave the camps, via Mauritania, if they wish to do so. However, fear and social pressure keeps those who plan to resettle in Western Sahara from disclosing their plans before leaving"--P. 2 (2nd group).

For nearly four decades since Morocco's invasion of Western Sahara, thousands of Sahrawi refugees have lived in camps run by the Polisario Front deep in the Algerian desert. Based on first-hand research, Off the Radar: Human Rights in the Tindouf Refugee Camps, examines conditions in the camps, which outside human rights observers seldom visit. Human Rights Watch found no cases of persons imprisoned for their political views. However, the report documents the cases of some individuals who encountered harassment for openly criticizing the Polisario. Human Rights Watch also found that a recent decree transferring drug offenses to the jurisdiction of Polisario military courts has undermined the rights of suspects in such cases, some of whom have been held in custody for many months without a valid judicial order. The report found no evidence that the Polisario Front imposes arbitrary restrictions on the freedom of refugees to leave the camps, including to return permanently or temporarily to Moroccan-controlled parts of Western Sahara. However, the report does document the persistence, in isolated cases, of certain forms of slavery. In order to enhance human rights protections for the Sahrawi people, Human Rights Watch recommends that the U.N. Security Council enlarge the mandate of the MINURSO peacekeeping mission to include human rights monitoring both in Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara and the Tindouf refugee camps, or establish an alternative regular mechanism to monitor and report on conditions. -- back cover.

As the Spanish were preparing to leave colonized Western Sahara in 1975, Morocco invaded, sparking a war with the Western Saharan Polisario Front. About 70% of Western Sahara was occupied by Morocco, which stations up to 140,000 soldiers in the territory, primarily along a 1700 kilometre long sand berm that is protected by one of the world’s largest fields of landmines. In 1991, Morocco and the Polisario Front agreed to a truce ahead of a referendum on Western Sahara’s future. However, Morocco has since refused to allow the referendum to take place, and has begun the extensive exploitation of Western Sahara’s non-renewable natural resources. This has both highlighted the plight of the Saharawi people who live in refugee camps in Algeria and in occupied Western Sahara, and pushed the Polisario Front back to a position where it is openly canvassing for a return to war. This book was originally published as a special issue of Global Change, Peace and Security.

IT'S AFRICAS LAST COLONY - BUT NOBODY TALKS ABOUT IT • On a Saharan desert strip lies a country of enormous natural riches, but whose inhabitants are destitute. Western Sahara has been torn apart by close to forty years of war, occupation and international power struggles. Half of the population lives in Algerian refugee camps. But the world turns a blind eye. The forgotten conflict is closely linked to all of us - we literally have it in our bodies. Western companies buy Sahrawi phosphate, fish and fruit from the Moroccan occupiers, in breach of UN resolutions. • Investigative reporters Fredrik Laurin and Lars Schmidt have visited refugee camps and presidential palaces, met with activists and the UN-envoy, and travelled through endless deserts in search of answers. They show how a small elite controls both the fishing and vegetable industries, and how Swedish and international companies are deeply involved in the exploitation of Western Sahara. Using isotope analysis, they follow the phosphate from the Bou Craa mine to the aisles of our supermarkets. • Will the Sahrawis ever get their freedom? Or are those who profiteer from the occupation too powerful?

This book explores the traces of the passage of time on the protracted and intractable conflict of Western Sahara. The authors offer a multilevel analysis of recent developments from the global to the local scenes, including the collapse of the architecture of the UN-led conflict resolution process, the advent of the War on Terror to the the Sahara-Sahel area and the impact of the ‘Arab Spring’ and growing regional security instability. Special attention is devoted to changes in the Western Sahara territory annexed by Morocco and the Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria. Morocco has adapted its governance and public policies to profound socio-demographic transformations in the territory under its control and has attempted to obtain international recognition for this annexation by proposing an Autonomy Plan. The Polisario Front and Sahrawi nationalists have shifted their strategy and pushed the centre of gravity of the conflict back inwards by focusing on pro-independence activism inside the disputed territory.