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CIVIL SOCIETY WATCH
With
Jim Pressman,
Jpressman2001@yahoo.com
08091248286
NLC, ASUU, Falana others
boost
Saharawi
Women’s Struggle for
Freedom
Jim Pressman,
Gender Reporter, Abuja Newsdiaryonline Wed Sep
28,2011
The 2011
International Conference on the Struggle of Saharawi Women for
Freedom opened in Abuja Nigeria Tuesday September 27, with a
yellow card to Moroccan authorities that their time is up in the
Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic, where the government of the
North African Arab nation has continued to oppress, torture
imprison and assassinate Saharawi people, especially the heroic
women, veterans and survivors of the
Polissario war
spear-heading the dogged struggle to end domination of an
African country by another.
The day
before the opening of the confab, a mass of women from all walks
of life and many African and non-African countries from the
Civil Society, the professions and variegated groups, had
converged in the city on a huge road show which culminated in a
picketing of the Embassy of Morocco with placards asking for a
stop to the atrocities in the Western Sahara, which have
subsisted for 35 years unabated.
Addressing
the opening of the confab which ends Wednesday September 28 with
a Communiqué, WAELE/ARCELFA’s Founder/President and Chief
Hostess of the event,
Otunba (Dr.) Basirat
Nahibi,
recalled how the world pressurized Sudanese President Oumar Al
Bashir to respect the January 9, 2005 Peace Agreement and hold a
Referendum in Southern Sudan against all
odds January 9, 2010, which led to the emergence of
Southern Sudan as the 193rd member of the United
Nations, and wondered: “Why then is the case of
Western Sahara different? Is it because they do not have
oil as in the case of Southern Sudan?”
Underscoring the significance of this continent-wide and even
global boost for the Saharawi Women’s struggle for freedom,
being spear-headed this time around by women, Otunba Nahibi
declared: “Gone are the days when African women (were)
indifferent to the suffering of our Saharawi brothers and
sisters in bondage. Let this conference be the catalyst that the
international community needs to galvanize global action in
heralding the death knell of the last colony (on) our beloved
continent.”
The
conference is being attended by no less than two prominent
martyrs and leaders of the Sahrawi Women’s Struggle for Freedom,
Mrs. Fatma Mehdi, Secretary-General of the Saharawi Women Union
and Aminatou Haidar, Saharawi Human Rights Defender and
Political Activist, who said she was ashamed to even state the
manner of indignities to which Saharawi women were subjected by
Morocco’s agents, while the Saharawi President was represented
by Mohammed Khaddan.
The keynote
address at the opening was given by no other than former
Representative of the United Nations’ Secretary-General to the
Western Sahara, American diplomat Ambassador Frank Ruddy,
50-year of diplomatic work in African and the one who conducted
a Referendum on Western Sahara (he was also new envoy just
posted to Malabo when Nigeria reared to act against reported
slave labour by her citizens on the island!)
Apologetic
on behalf of past Republican administrations in the US, Ruddy
let drop the confession as to where his heart was, even as he
conducted the referendum which was botched with the connivance
of the UN (“what is the UN Charter among friends?”) and while
the Moroccan King was a great friend of his (American)
President!
Nigeria’s
ASUU leader Prof. Ukachukwu Awuzie and NLC President Waheed Omar
renewed their know support for the Saharawis, while in
signature, unequivocal terms, immediate past WABA President,
activist Lagos lawyer Femi Falana, announced that time was out
for hypocritical statements and positions on the Saharawi issue,
adding that his colleagues in the law were ready to collaborate
with others, even as they are already preparing to appoint a
Special Prosecutor
“to file a case against
all other criminals against humanity,
as Morocco will be fought in
and outside Abuja until the S.A.D.R people are free.”
Re-echoing the Pan – Africanist late President Nkrumah of
Ghana as did NLC President Omar earlier, Falana said
Africa and indeed the world could not be said to be free if any
part of it was still in bondage.
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