El Forúm Canario Saharaui recibe con enorme satisfacción la decisión de España sobre el Sáhara

The Fórum Canario Saharaui has issued a statement in which they show their satisfaction for the change in Spain's foreign policy towards Western Sahara. In the note, the association also addresses those who criticise this decision. 

That the association that we represent, the Fórum Canario Saharaui was created in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria on 30 July 2007, as a non-profit organisation. From the first day of our creation, as reflected in our statutes, our main concern has been to promote the rapprochement between the Saharawi people and Morocco, with the aim of the return of its inhabitants to Western Sahara under Moroccan administration from their exile in the Tindouf camps, and the consequent reunification of families terribly fractured between those territories and the diaspora. At that time, and for many years, we were practically the only association in the Canary Islands and Spain to defend this position. 

That this reunification could only be carried out from a realistic and feasible position, which was none other than the proposal for a broad autonomy that was made from Morocco in 2007. It is a proposal that, once carried out, would be the Saharawis themselves, in mutual agreement with Morocco, who would give it content, and would entail the end of this exile, from which only their ruling classes, at the time the Polisario Front, benefit through the management of the only resources on which they sustain themselves, which is none other than international humanitarian aid. For years we have suffered a huge amount of criticism, harassment and even threats from the Polisario and related circles for defending this position. Especially from a large part of the Canarian political class, with whom we share territory, and who have tried to undermine our honesty and credibility with slanderous accusations of all calibres. All this for defending this proposal for autonomy.

That finally today, 18 March 2022, 15 years after our birth as an association, the Spanish Government has recognised this autonomy proposal in a letter addressed to King Mohamed VI, where Spain considers Morocco's autonomy proposal for Western Sahara as "the most serious, credible and realistic basis for the resolution of this dispute". A proposal that has been implicitly recognised year after year in the various United Nations Security Council resolutions, when those same words have long been mentioned with the addition of "mutually acceptable between the parties", to the detriment of the obsolete idea of the referendum on self-determination. 

That, after so many years of waiting, we certainly welcome with great satisfaction this position, which is undoubtedly of enormous importance for regional stability in various areas of cooperation, both between the two countries and within the territory of the Sahara itself. It is also a matter of mutual respect, cooperation, transparency and agreements at various levels between two brotherly countries, which will lead to their prosperity in the short term. And that it should also be the starting point for this autonomy over the Sahara to finally materialise, so that this dispute can come to an end after almost half a century of tragedy and heartache. 

Finally, we urge all those who today criticise this recognition to be far-sighted beyond ideological dogmas. This is something we expected from the left as friends of the Polisario, but which, from the right, without knowing the ins and outs of the conflict, they take their side just to criticise the government, ignoring its terrorist past against Spanish citizens, with almost 300 victims still awaiting justice, or its links with regimes such as Cuba or Venezuela. We have had many differences with the decisions of this government, especially in relation to the recent illegal entry of Brahim Ghali into Spain. But some government, regardless of political colour, had to take this step. And it is undoubtedly the best news on this dispute in many years.