CURRENTS
OPEN WINDOW Electric Life by Gatis Sluka (Riga, Latvia)
WESTERN SAHARA
CONFLICT MINERALS
A recent report by Rothamsted
Research sounded the alarm
over the agriculture industry’s
excessive reliance on fertilizer
derived from phosphates,
a finite and dwindling
resource. The ensuing media
coverage pointed out that
by far the largest reserve of
phosphate lies in Morocco and
Western Sahara but failed to
mention that rich countries
have been benefiting for
decades now from supplies of
phosphate from the mine at
Bou Craa, in the Moroccan-
occupied zone of Western
Sahara.
Western Sahara is the last
remaining colony in Africa
whose people have not been
accorded the right of self-
determination. The UN Legal
Office has ruled that resource
extraction of this kind from
occupied territory is ‘in
violation of the international
law principles applicable to
mineral resource activities
in Non-Self-Governing
Te r r i t o r i e s’.
The world’s longest
conveyor belt (98 kilometres
long) takes the phosphate ore- which is of exceptionally
high quality – from the
Bou Craa mine to the port of
El Aaiun (the Western Saharan
capital), through which a
quarter of all phosphate rock
is exported by Morocco.
In 2018, 1.9 million tonnes
of phosphate were exported
from Western Sahara, with
a value of $163.9 million.
The top four importers in
2018 were the Canadian
company Nutrien, the Indian
firm Paradeep and two
New Zealand companies:
Ballance Agri-Nutrients and
Ravensdown Fertiliser Co-op
Ltd. Nutrien ceased its imports
of the conflict mineral at the
end of 2018 after decades of
profiting from the trade.
The Saharawi government-
in-exile has long called on
the UN to hold revenues from
resource extraction in trust, in
the way it did for two decades
in Namibia. Instead the UN
has failed to intervene, just
as it has failed to insist on the
long-promised referendum
on self-determination
that Morocco and its allies
continue to deny.
CHRIS BRAZIER12 NEW INTERNATIONALIST
Still waiting for self-determination:
an indigenous Saharawi woman sits
inside her tent in Tifariti, Western
Sahara.
ZOHRA BENSEMRA/ REUTERS