Malainin Lakhal

After 43 years of military occupation of Western Sahara, Morocco has failed to legalise its status, and has not convinced the occupied Saharawi people to accept this colonial fait accompli.

Representatives of Western Sahara’s Polisario Front (the Saharawi liberation movement) and the Moroccan government met in Manhasset, New York, on August 10 and 11 with a view to “achieving a just, lasting and mutually acceptable political solution, which will provide for the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara” — the words of UN Security Council’s Resolution 1754, adopted on April 30.
Secretary general of the Saharawi Union of Journalists and Writers (UPES) Malainin Lakhal, currently on a speaking tour of Australia, spoke to Green Left Weekly's Tony Iltis about the human rights situation in Western Sahara and the Saharawi people's long struggle for democracy and self-determination.