Morocco Using Illegal Investments to Bypass Sahrawi Right to Self-Determination, Polisario
GENEVA – Oubi Bouchraya Bachir, the Polisario Front’s representative in Switzerland and to the United Nations and international organizations in Geneva, has accused Morocco of using economic investments in the occupied territories of Western Sahara as a tool to undermine the Sahrawi people’s right to self-determination. His remarks, made in a statement to the Algerian Press Service (APS), come in response to Rabat’s failure to achieve diplomatic legitimacy for its occupation of the territory.
According to Bachir, Morocco has shifted its strategy from diplomacy to economic coercion by luring foreign companies—particularly from countries hesitant to openly support its claims—into investing in occupied Western Sahara. These companies are then used as lobbying instruments to pressure their governments into backing Morocco’s purported sovereignty over the territory, despite international law classifying it as non-self-governing and awaiting decolonization.
He also condemned Morocco’s licensing of the Zionist company NewMed Energy to explore for oil off the coast of Western Sahara, calling it a clear example of how Rabat seeks to secure political support from the Zionist entity. This, he argued, is part of a broader agenda to exploit the energy sector—especially renewable energy—as a tool to entrench settler colonialism and involve international powers in illegal activities that sustain the occupation.
Bachir welcomed the British government’s recent refusal to sign an energy import agreement with Morocco that would have included resources from occupied Western Sahara, viewing it as a rare act of international accountability.
