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After a period marked by distancing, Spanish party Podemos came back with a pro-Polisario demand. On Monday, the left-wing party published a press release on its website, urging Spain to «shoulder its legal and historical obligations towards Western Sahara».
The demand comes two weeks after the country’s Supreme Court revoked the right of Sahrawis born in Western Sahara after 1975 to claim Spanish citizenship. It ruled on June 4 that Western Sahara could not legally be considered a part of Spanish sovereign territory when Spain controlled the region.
«We remember that the United Nations considers Western Sahara as a non-self-governing territory awaiting decolonization since 1963, and that in 1975 the International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled that neither Morocco nor Mauritania had any sovereignty over their territory», recalled the party.
After this «historical» introduction Podemos urged Spain to grant citizenship to Sahrawis born under the occupation. The panel considers that «Spain can open extraordinary procedures to grant citizenship to the descendants of the former colony». The party even compared Sarawis to the descendants of Sephardic Jews, expelled during the
Reconquista.
«Our country should grant citizenship to Sahrawis under the same conditions as it does with other ex-colonies, that is to say two years of residence and not ten. This was demanded by the Congress of Deputies in a lawless proposal approved unanimously by the Justice Commission on September 15, 2016», it added.
Podemos returns to its pro-Polisario positions
Podemos also recalls its support for «the self-determination of the Saharawi people». «We promote the establishment of high-level diplomatic relations with the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) and the extension of the mandate of the United Nations mission for the organization of a referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO), in order for it to acquire powers in the protection and promotion of civil rights, political, economic, social and cultural aspects of the Sahrawi population», it added.
It also called for «increasing humanitarian aid in the Tindouf refugee camps (Algeria)» by the European institutions and Spain and demanded «an urgent intervention in the face of the serious situation of Saharawi prisoners imprisoned in Morocco to keep them from being infected with Covid-19».
Podemos’ recent demand breaks up with the recent position it adopted since it became part of the government. In May, the comrades of Pablo Iglesias had even received instructions not to interfere in the controversy that followed the tweet of the Spanish Foreign Minister.
The Spanish Foreign minister published on the Africa Day an African map that did not include the separatist movement’s flag, the latter slammed its allies within Spanish party Podemos.
Since January 2020 and on several occasions, Pablo Iglesias had avoided irritating his allies in the government of Pedro Sánchez, which considerably annoyed the Polisario.
