You turn to us for voices you won't hear anywhere else.

Sign up for Democracy Now!'s Daily Digest to get our latest headlines and stories delivered to your inbox every day.

Bolton Calls for Western Sahara Referendum

HeadlineDec 14, 2018

In news from Africa, President Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, has called on Morocco to finally hold a referendum in the occupied Western Sahara. Morocco has occupied Western Sahara since 1975, and no other country on Earth recognizes its sovereignty over the territory. In 1991, the U.N. promised Sahrawis a referendum on self-determination. Since then, Morocco has blocked attempts to organize the vote. Bolton spoke on Thursday at the Heritage Foundation.

John Bolton: “All we want to do is hold a referendum for 70,000 voters. It’s 27 years later, the status of the territory still unresolved. … I’ve gotten to know the Sahrawi people. I have enormous respect for them. I have enormous respect for the government and people of Morocco and Algeria. Is there not a way to resolve this?”

Bolton’s comments came a week after Morocco and the Western Saharan liberation movement known as the Polisario Front held their first direct talks in six years. The two sides agreed to continue negotiations in the coming months. U.N. envoy Horst Köhler said, “A peaceful solution to this conflict is possible.” Over the past four decades, thousands of Western Sahara’s indigenous people—the Sahrawi—have been tortured, imprisoned, killed and disappeared while resisting the Moroccan occupation. Click here to see Democracy Now!’s exclusive documentary, “Four Days in Western Sahara: Africa’s Last Colony.”

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top