The Marcha Solidaria por la libertad del Pueblo Saharaui,” organised on a nationwide level, made its presence felt in Salobreña yesterday morning.
Those participating gathered in the Plaza del Ayuntamiento; i.e., right in front of the Town Hall, before moving out for a march at 13.00h to Motril, which is just one leg of a journey that will see supporters of the Saharans, from all over Spain, descend on Madrid on the 18th of June.
The Mayor, M.ª Eugenia Rufino, flanked by her cabinet, was asked to read out an institutional declaration in support of the Saharauis (Saharans) in their struggle for the their independence from Moroccan occupation.
The march has been organised by the Asociación Granadina de Amistad con la República Árabe Sahauri Democrática, gathering about 100 marchers for the cause.
To understand what this is all about you will have to go back to 1975 and the Moroccan bloodless invasion of Spanish, Western Sahara. Franco was on his deathbed at the time and the regime did not want to get embroiled in a colonial war, so they stood aside whilst over 300,000 Moroccan civilians strolled in and occupied the colony.
The UN and the International Court of Justice soon after decided that the Saharan people should be able to decide their future through a referendum. In all those years since then, Morocco has been stuffing the territory with settlers so that if there were a referendum, it could be swayed towards staying with Morocco, which is not much different from what is happening in the Occupied West Bank under Israeli occupation.
Things were made worse when Donald Trump’s administration recognised Morocco’s claim on Spanish Sahara in exchange for Morocco normalising its relations with Israel. The ex-colony is also sitting on considerable mineral wealth and its territorial waters are thought to have oil under the seabed, which was also probably taken into consideration when Trump and the Moroccan king (absolute ruler) came to the arrangement.
(News: Salobrena, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)