SADR Advisor Highlights Western Sahara Resource Struggle

Aby Bachraya Bachir, Special Advisor to the President of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), recently affirmed the pivotal role of natural resources in Western Sahara's decolonization. Speaking at the Polisario Front and Sahrawi State Summer University in Boumerdes, the advisor highlighted that the effort to preserve these resources is a crucial strategy to counter occupation plans and prevent continued occupation fueled by resource revenues.

The issue of Western Sahara's natural resources, according to Bachir, has transcended its material-economic dimension to assume significant legal, political, and diplomatic importance within the broader Sahrawi national struggle. He noted that recent decades have witnessed intensive exploitation and looting of these resources without the consent of the Sahrawi people. This exploitation, he added, has involved foreign partners of Morocco, engaging through agreements with the Kingdom of Morocco.

The advisor underscored that this situation has drawn international criticism and has been the subject of several judicial rulings, most notably by the European Union Court of Justice. Bachir stressed that the decolonization process in Western Sahara must encompass the full restoration of national sovereignty over all natural resources, specifically citing phosphate as a resource that has been subject to looting.