Colombian Senators highlight prosperity in Moroccan Sahara, criticize their Government’s Stance
Colombian senators underlined the “great socio-economic development” and the security and tranquility prevailing in the southern provinces, and criticized the recognition by the current government in Bogota of the so-called SADR, an entity that “does not exist”.
This came in a statement signed by three senators, “legitimate representatives of the Colombian people”, who have just visited the southern provinces. “We were able to take stock in situ of the great socio-economic development of this part of Morocco, as well as peace, security and tranquility in which its population lives,” the senators said, adding that this is very different from what some parties portray and totally opposed to the appalling situation in the Tindouf camps.
The three signatories of the statement, which was published on the Senate’s official website, are German Blanco Alvarez, President of the Colombia-Morocco Friendship Group in the Colombian Senate, and Paola Holguin Moreno and José Luis Pérez Oyuela, members of the Foreign Affairs Committee.
“Thanks to this visit, during which we were able to get to know the southern provinces of Morocco, about which many people have preconceived ideas, perhaps without knowing the facts, we were able to corroborate that, on the ground, there is no phantom or self-proclaimed republic, because we only saw Moroccan territory, Moroccan institutions, and Moroccan authorities, and above all a population that has no doubt about the fact that it is Moroccan,” the Senators said.
The three senators emphasized that the purpose of their visit is “to strengthen the friendly relations that the Republic of Colombia has maintained with the Kingdom of Morocco for nearly half a century, and to reiterate our support for its sovereignty and territorial integrity, as expressed through the two motions we presented to the Senate of the Republic in October 2022 and November 2023.”
The motion adopted in November by the Colombian Senate expressed unequivocal support to Morocco’s territorial integrity and sovereignty over its Sahara, and reiterated categorical rejection by the “legitimate representatives of the Colombian people” of the current government’s “unwise decision” to establish relations with the pseudo-SADR.
“As Senators and legitimate representatives of the Colombian people, we profoundly reject this unwise decision by the current government, which in no way represents the position of Colombians towards Morocco, and we reiterate our firm position of respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Morocco,” said the motion adopted by a majority of 65 Senators out of the 105 in the upper house of the Colombian Congress.
The motion, which was endorsed by Senators from nine of Colombia’s most important political parties, two of which are part of the government coalition, was supported by president of the Colombian Congress and Senate, Ivan Leónidas Name (Green Alliance), and by chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Lidio Garcia Turbay (Liberal Party), both of whom wished to send a strong political message to president Gustavo Petro.
In their latest statement, the three senators recalled that during their trip to the Sahara, they had “witnessed the attachment and total belonging” of the local populations “to their homeland, Morocco,” and pointed out that that “the United Nations does not recognize the self-proclaimed SADR, nor do 85% of its member countries (165/193). In addition, over the past few decades, more than 60 countries worldwide have withdrawn their recognition of this separatist movement.”
“On the ground, we have held several meetings with the regional and local authorities who, in the 2021 elections, were elected with the highest national turnout, as the legitimate representatives” of the populations of the Moroccan Sahara.
Similarly, “almost 40% of African countries have opened consulates there, expressing their firm support for Morocco’s sovereignty and unity,” they said.
The Colombian senators added: “This visit has further confirmed what we have been expressing to all our country’s authorities. The importance of Morocco which, as a founding member, in 1963, of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), today known as the African Union (AU), exercises great leadership in Africa, focusing its efforts on the continent’s development, peace and security, which are also fundamental issues for all our countries.”
On October 30, 2023, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2703 on the Moroccan Sahara issue, which renewed the mandate of MINURSO for one year until October 2024, and which reiterated that the Moroccan Autonomy Initiative, presented by Morocco in 2007, is the most viable political solution to end this regional dispute, they recalled.
“We were also impressed by the high standard of Morocco’s tourism infrastructure, and by the way it has preserved its identity, its age-old history and the diversity of its three components – Arab, Amazigh and Hassani – taking advantage of all the advances in air, land and sea mobility to make it one of the world’s leading tourist destinations,” stressed the signatories.
“It is for all these reasons that we reiterate, with full conviction and as legitimate representatives of the Colombian people, the bonds of friendship between Colombia and Morocco, and our willingness to further consolidate our institutional relations, within the framework of the Senate’s remit, which enables us to assess both national and international issues that we consider relevant to the interests of our country,” the statement pointed out.
