DFF Organizes Fact Finding Missions to Sahrawi Refugee Camps, Testifies at U.N. Meets with Ambassador Bolton
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The Defense Forum Foundation continued to be active promoting freedom and democracy in North Africa though its work in support of the Sahrawi people of Western Sahara, the only colony in Africa that has not been decolonized. DFF organized factfinding missions to the Sahrawi refugee camps. Among the Congressional staff participating in trips in 2005 were the following individuals representing Members of Congress: Cynthia Vukmer (Senator Jim Inhofe, OK), Paul Sawyer (Congressman Richard Baker, LA); John Hildreth (Congressman Mark Foley, FL), Jennifer Milek (Congressman Henry Cuellar, TX); Mark Morehouse (Congressman Jim Kolbe, AZ); Steve Traver (Congressman Steve Pearce, NM); and Lindsey Plumley with the House International Relations Committee’s Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights and International Operations.
When DFF first became involved in the issue in 1993, there was little recognition or knowledge of the conflict between the democratic people of the Sahrawi Republic and the King of Morocco. Working with Sahrawi Republic Ambassador Moulud Said, DFF has organized nine programs on Capitol Hill and over fifty fact-finding missions to the refugee camps. Participants in these missions have included non-governmental organizations, Members of Congress, Congressional staff, and Christian humanitarian workers. In 1999, DFF formed the US-Western Sahara Foundation with a distinguished Board of Advisors including two of the most active Members of Congress on the issue, Congressmen Joseph Pitts (PA) and Donald Payne (NJ) and Ambassador Frank Ruddy. DFF’s Suzanne Scholte serves as Chairman, and Carlos Wilson of California serves as Executive Director.
In October, Scholte, Ruddy, Wilson, and Dan Stanley, head of the Church Liaison Office for the U.S. Western Sahara Foundation, testified before the United Nations’s Fourth Committee. They were joined by many of the individuals who had participated in fact finding missions to the camps including Nancy Huff, who has helped coordinate humanitarian shipments to the camps; Janet Lenz, who runs the Sahrawi Children’s Programs, David Lipiatt of We International, Trey Hicks of Congressman Ted Poe’s (TX) Office and Helen Hardin of Congressman Zach Wamp’s (TN) office.
DFF was able to arrange a meeting for all the participants, as well as international supporters of the Sahrawis, with Ambassador John Bolton, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Included from the international community were Ronny Hansen and Erik Hagen of the Norwegian Support Committee, Jan Stomdahl of the Swedish Western Sahara Committee, and Pedro Pinto Liente of the International Platform of Jurists for Western Sahara. In addition, meetings were held with the Ambassadors of Algeria, Norway, and other countries.
“The question is whether the U.N. is willing
or able to restrain Morocco’s lawlessness.
Shamefully, the answer so far has been an
unequivocal no...There is a common-law
doctrine known as “res ipsa loquitur. “That
is Latin for ‘the thing speaks for itself,’? It
means that where the accused’s fault is
obvious by reciting the facts, no proof is
necessary. A recitation of Morocco’s crimes — its invasion of Western Sahara, its occupation
and colonization for 30 years and
its cynical destruction of the referendum
set up by the U.N. to settle the question —
speak for themselves and for Morocco’s
guilt.”
- from the testimony of Ambassador
Frank Ruddy
“Failing to get Morocco out of Western
Sahara will mean that invasion and aggression
and war are the means to achieve
one’s end. It will prove to Morocco and
other would be aggressors that invasion
and aggression are the answer. It will prove
to the Sahrawis that laying down their
weapons and agreeing to the cease fire
was a terrible mistake.”
- from the testimony of Suzanne Scholte