Morocco's crimes in Western Sahara fit definition of genocide

Thu, 09/18/2025 - 12:29

Madrid, 18 September 2025 (SPS) - Morocco has committed crimes in Western Sahara that fit the definition of genocide, asserts Spanish writer and journalist Victoria Garcia Corera, recalling that in 2015 a Spanish magistrate clearly described the crimes perpetrated by Moroccan military and police forces against the Sahrawi people and their determination to seize the territory of Western Sahara.

In an article published on the platform "Don't Forget Western Sahara" titled "The Sahrawi Genocide is not a metaphor: it is a legal reality established by a European court," the Spanish writer emphasizes that in April 2015, a ruling by Spain's Audiencia Nacional (a Spanish court with national jurisdiction) recognized what the Sahrawi people had been denouncing for decades: "Morocco has committed crimes that fit the definition of genocide."

According to Victoria Garcia Corera, the magistrate, Pablo Ruz, clearly described the facts, including "systematic attacks against the Sahrawi civilian population by Moroccan military and police forces: bombings of Sahrawi civilian camps, forced displacement of civilians, murders, arrests, and disappearances of Sahrawis (...) with the aim of totally or partially destroying this population group and seizing the territory of Western Sahara."

For the Spanish journalist, this ruling was "far from being a symbolic statement; it was the legal recognition of a crime that remains without answer or reparation."

Drawing a parallel with the ongoing genocide in Gaza, the Spanish writer argues that what unites the Sahrawi genocide and the Palestinian genocide is a common pattern: "colonial occupation, land dispossession, systematic violence against a population considered 'expendable,' and the political protection of powers that block justice."

Both occupiers (Morocco and the Zionist entity) "obey the same logic: the annihilation of the colonized people to perpetuate the occupation of the territory," she states, deploring that both enjoy the impunity granted by their international alliances.

"Saying that Western Sahara and Palestine are identical struggles is not a slogan; it is a historical and legal observation. Both peoples suffer military occupation, the plundering of natural resources, systematic repression, and extermination campaigns that constitute genocide. Both have international resolutions that recognize their rights, and both face the hypocrisy of an international system dominated by those who protect the occupier," she explains.

Furthermore, she believes it is no coincidence that Morocco and (the Zionist entity) have strengthened their military, intelligence, and diplomatic ties in recent years. "They are allies in occupation and partners in impunity," she points out.

Denouncing the inaction of the international community, Victoria Garcia Corera notes that, in both the Sahrawi and Palestinian cases, "the greatest obstacle to justice has not been the absence of evidence, but international complicity."

In Gaza, she continues, "the international community witnessed the devastation live, broadcast by journalists and human rights organizations. Yet, the predominant reaction has been to look away, send weapons to (the Zionist entity), and render international law meaningless."

"In both cases, the occupied peoples have become the sacrificed victims of a geopolitics dominated by economic, energy, and strategic interests," she laments.

She concludes by stating that the Sahrawi genocide and the Palestinian genocide demonstrate that "international law alone does not put an end to crimes."

"It needs mobilized peoples, active solidarity, and political will," she advocates, recalling that the inscribing of the Audiencia Nacional's ruling on the walls of Sahrawi camps is "not an act of remembrance, but an act of resistance: to remember the victims, denounce the guilty, and keep the demand for justice alive."

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