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Sunday 21 February 2021

US Recognition of Moroccanness of Sahara, Highly Commendable Decision (US Community Actor)

US Recognition of Moroccanness of Sahara, Highly Commendable Decision (US Community Actor)

The U.S. decision to recognize the Moroccanness of the Sahara is a decision that should be highly commended, said Nancy Huff, president of the U.S. NGO "Teach the Children International", who denounced the maneuvers and lobbying of polisario and its Algerian mentors to challenge this wise decision that would "bring peace" to a region plagued by instability.

In an opinion piece published in the newspaper "Tulsa World", the American community activist stressed that the ties between Morocco and its Saharan provinces go back a long way and that the U.S. recognition of Morocco's sovereignty over its southern provinces "aims to bring peace to the region".

For her, the polisario separatist group seeks to maintain the region in a situation of perpetual conflict, by continuing to hold the Sahrawi populations against their will in the camps of Tindouf, a situation that benefits the leaders of this armed group whose members are getting rich through the diversion of international humanitarian aid.

Nancy Huff said she speaks from experience, in the sense that she had personally worked for seven years to ship several containers of humanitarian aid to the Tindouf camps, in Algerian territory, a large part of which never reached the detained Sahrawi populations for whom this aid was intended.

"Much of the aid I send in the form of wheelchairs, medical supplies and food never reaches the Tindouf camps, let alone the people in them," she stressed. The US community actor recalled that in 2015, the European Anti-Fraud Office issued a report on the Sahara, in which it revealed the “polisario and Algerian generals' role” in diverting aid containers to the black market.

 

“My experience administering this aid left me convinced that the polisario does very little to help the Sarawhis in the camps,” she said, adding that “the best hope” for the inhabitants of this region is to live within the framework of Moroccan sovereignty.

“Morocco has invested billions of dollars into the Sahara and turned the once-nomadic desert into thriving cities,” affirmed Nancy Huff.

“I have spoken with Sahrawhis who live in the Sahara, who relayed to me the freedom and prosperity they experience by living in the region. That is a sharp difference from the polisario-run camps,” she said.

MAP 19 February 2021