Your statement condemning the Polisario Front would perhaps carry some moral weight if the United States had shown even a fraction of the same outrage toward the suffering endured by the Sahrawi people during nearly fifty years of occupation.
Where was this language of “regional stability” when Moroccan warplanes bombed Sahrawi refugee columns with napalm and white phosphorus in Um Draiga, killing thousands of civilians in a single day. Where was this concern for “peace” during decades of forced disappearances, torture, arbitrary detention and systematic repression documented year after year by organizations such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and UN human rights bodies. Where was your indignation when Moroccan drones killed Sahrawi civilians since 2020, including children, far from any battlefield. The truth is simple and everybody knows it.
Western Sahara remains a non-self-governing territory under international law. Morocco occupies it by force. The Sahrawi people never surrendered their right to resist that occupation. No people on earth are expected to peacefully disappear while their land is occupied, their resources are exploited and their civilians are terrorized.
You speak today as if history began yesterday. It did not.
Even former U.S. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski openly admitted decades ago that Washington knew Morocco was not right in its war against the Polisario and still chose to militarily support Rabat for strategic reasons. He acknowledged that Morocco had entered the conflict illegally, yet insisted the United States should continue arming and backing the Moroccan monarchy. You can see it in the video that accompanies this text . The words are clear. Your government knew exactly what it was supporting then, just as it knows today.
So please spare us the lectures about violence.
The Polisario Front did not invade Morocco. Morocco invaded Western Sahara. The Polisario did not occupy Rabat. Morocco occupied El Aaiún, Smara and Dajla. The Sahrawis are not fighting to conquer another people’s land. They are fighting to recover their own and to protect their people from an occupation that has lasted longer than the lifetime of an entire generation.
What truly threatens peace is not Sahrawi resistance. What threatens peace is the international normalization of occupation, repression and impunity. What threatens peace is telling colonized people that they must accept military rule forever because powerful countries have decided their rights are inconvenient.
You cite UN Security Council Resolution 2797 while conveniently ignoring the foundation of the entire issue, the Sahrawi people were promised selfdetermination by the United Nations decades ago and that promise was never fulfilled because Morocco, protected by its allies, obstructed every genuine path toward it.
The “status quo” indeed cannot continue. On that, we agree completely.
But peace without justice is surrender, and no free people in history have ever accepted that quietly.
Taleb Alisalem
#Western_Sahara #Morocco #Polisario #Smara_attack
