Sahara visits spark policy dispute

Date: 27/06/02

SHARP policy divisions have emerged in the European Parliament after MEPs reached different conclusions following fact-finding visits to North Africa's Western Sahara.

Swedish left-winger Marianne Eriksson has taken the rare step of preparing a dissenting report to the official account by the delegation's head, French Socialist Catherine Lalumière.

Eriksson insists that the only basis for settling the conflict is to allow the native Saharawi people to hold a referendum on whether they want independence from Morocco.

Rabat claimed sovereignty over the territory, formerly a Spanish colony, in 1956. Its occupation was resisted by a movement called the Polisario Front and 10,000 Moroccan soldiers lost their lives in fighting between 1975 and 1991.

About 200,000 Saharawis now live in refugee camps, mainly in South Western Algeria, while a further 100,000 remain in Western Sahara itself. 'The argument that the Saharawis are a small population and therefore do not qualify to have their own independent country must be dismissed once and for all,' said Eriksson. 'Let us just think of Luxembourg with its 250,000 citizens.'

Lalumière's report says a joint sovereignty plan proposed by James Baker, a UN special envoy and former US secretary of state, is 'worthy of consideration'. His framework agreement would grant the Saharawis the power to raise their own budget and control key economic activities such as fisheries and mining. Morocco, though, would continue to run foreign and monetary policy, customs and defence.

The Lalumière report is due to be discussed by the Parliament's foreign affairs committee in Strasbourg next week (4 July). Eriksson has presented her dissenting account to both the committee's chairman Elmar Brok and the assembly's chief Pat Cox.

Sharp policy divisions have emerged in the European Parliament after MEPs reached different conclusions following fact-finding visits to North Africa's Western Sahara.