Morocco

By Federico Pacheco - La Via Campesina, July 6, 2022

European Coordination Via Campesina calls for solidarity with the workers of the company Sudaphi, part of the Premium Foods Solutions group, located in the province of Inezgane Ait Melloul in Souss Massa, Morocco. Sudaphi specializes in the processing and export of tomato-based products. It produces the Sud’n’Sol and Sunblush Tomatoes brands and sells its products to supermarkets and food processors in Europe.

In December 2021, Sudaphi unilaterally announced that it was subjecting all of its incumbent staff to a new written contract that threatens workers’ job security and their transfer to production sites far from their homes, without consulting the company’s employees or their elected representatives. Workers under the new Sudaphi contract have been protesting these changes outside the company’s gates since May 26.

A staff delegate affiliated with the National Federation of the Agricultural Sector (FNSA-UMT) was dismissed by Sudaphi on 27 May 2022. Two other delegates were sanctioned with 8-day layoffs and 3 members were forced to change positions. Sudaphi’s abusive practices represent a violation of the right to free association and collective bargaining. The delegate has organized a sit-in in front of Sudaphi’s offices in Inezgane Ait Melloul since his dismissal over a month ago. The FNSA demands respect for trade union rights and a serious and responsible dialogue with its regional authorities for a settlement of this collective dispute.

By Joe Hayns - Jacobin, November 11, 2016

Each year, the world’s heads of state meet at the Conference of Parties (COP) to discuss how to “stabiliz[e] greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system,” as the guiding United Nations Framework on Climate Change demands.

Last year’s COP garnered international attention and praise. Le Monde’s verdict included a quote from the event’s president and Parti Socialiste foreign minister, Laurent Fabius (“a compromise guided by ‘climate justice’”). The Guardian called the meeting “a rare and heartening case of disparate peoples being led to a common conclusion by evidence and reason.” The New York Times declared that the negotiations ended with “a historic breakthrough.”

But many climate justice activists and scientists disagree. Against the “People’s Test” — “a set of criteria that the Paris deal would need to meet in order to be effective and fair” created by social movements, unions, and environmental groups — the Paris agreements failed on every count.

On Monday, COP22 began in Marrakech, Morocco. International attention will again focus on the political class’s negotiations. But if we’re serious about fighting climate change globally, we might be better off listening to the Moroccan activists currently fighting environmental ruination.

This resistance comes out of the country’s imperialist environmental policy, which, to paraphrase William Faulkner, isn’t past: it isn’t even history.

By Fabian Wagner - Green European Journal, November 28, 2016

Young Green Fabian Wagner attended the COP 22 negotiations in Marrakesh and found that despite the host’s eagerness to project itself as a constructive force in the fight against climate change, its policies in other areas raise serious concerns – not least the levels of repression around the question of Western Sahara.

Morocco certainly did not hold back in terms of advertising its efforts to become a country powered by renewable energy during the COP22. Only the most oblivious of visitors could have missed the banners at the airport, posters in the city, ads on horse carriages, and stickers on cars. Wind power, solar power — Morocco is transitioning towards clean energy at a very quick pace.

Africa’s forgotten conflict

Sounds great? Here’s the downside: Africa has a largely forgotten and ignored conflict right on the doorsteps of Europe. After colonial Spain retreated from Western Sahara in the ‘70s, Morocco quickly imposed itself following a bit of a struggle with Mauritania which ended in its favour, and subsequently annexed the entire territory as its “Southern Provinces”. The UN installed a peacekeeping mission there (without a mandate to observe human rights in the region) and spent the next almost half a century repeatedly, and without success, calling for a referendum on the independence of resource rich territory, and its identity as the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. It was interesting to see how much effort Morocco invested into presenting this as the “African COP”, despite Morocco being the only country in Africa that is not a member of the African Union (AU) — Morocco left after the AU acknowledged the independence of Western Sahara. In the run-up to the COP in Marrakech the topic naturally attracted slightly more attention than usually, but very little criticism was raised openly for obvious reasons. Morocco’s reaction to any kind of criticism of its Western Sahara politics is brusque. When the UN Secretary General called the situation out for what it is — an illegal occupation — Morocco expelled the entire peacekeeping mission. A subsequent apology from the Secretary General was still not enough to re-admit the entire mission. Moreover, our own Green activists from several of the Federation of Young European Greens’ (FYEG) member organisations have been evicted from or denied entry to both Western Sahara and Morocco, when trying to report from the ground. Plain-clothes and uniformed police are everywhere, as FYEG’s activists witnessed first-hand, when trying to work on unrelated, but still undesirable for the Moroccan government, media projects. Under these circumstances FYEG, the Western Sahara Support Committees from around the world, the Sahrawis themselves, and other civil society organisations and movements like the teachers group we met in Marrakech found it very difficult to raise concerns about the topic of Western Sahara while being present for COP22 in Morocco.