Geneva, 6 July 2025 (SPS) – Oubi Bouchraya Bachir, the representative of the Polisario Front in Switzerland, the United Nations, and international organizations in Geneva, confirmed that Morocco has resorted to using economic investments in the occupied part of Western Sahara to bypass the Sahrawi people’s right to self-determination. This comes after its failure to achieve a significant breakthrough in multilateral diplomacy to "legitimize" its occupation of Western Sahara.
In a statement to the Algerian Press Service (APS), Oubi Bouchraya Bachir pointed out that Morocco is attempting to gain renewed support from certain countries for its colonial reality in Western Sahara by involving their companies in "illegal" investments in the occupied territory. These companies are then used as "lobbies" to pressure their respective governments into recognizing Morocco’s alleged sovereignty over Western Sahara.
The Moroccan occupation, he added, also aims—by implicating these companies in the plundering of Sahrawi wealth—to secure pro-occupation stances expressed by some international powers. This is done by allowing companies from those countries to operate "illegally" in Western Sahara and exploit its resources.
In this context, he cited the occupation authorities granting a license to the Zionist company NewMed Energy to explore for oil off the coast of Western Sahara. He stressed that this license, along with other Zionist investments in occupied Western Sahara, seeks to "secure the Zionist entity’s supportive stance toward Morocco and benefit from its expertise in managing occupation and circumventing the international community and its resolutions aimed at decolonizing Palestine and Western Sahara."
The Sahrawi diplomat emphasized that the issue of energy, particularly renewable energy, has become a key tool for the Moroccan occupation to entrench the status quo, promote settler colonialism, and implicate international powers in Western Sahara—a territory still on the UN agenda as awaiting decolonization.
In this regard, Mr. Oubi Bouchraya Bachir praised the British government’s recent refusal to sign an agreement with Morocco to import alternative energy produced in occupied Western Sahara. He highlighted that Morocco is attempting to use the energy file as part of its policy to whitewash its image and conceal the crimes committed against Sahrawi civilians under occupation.
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