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Phosphate in Support of Human Development and Regional Prosperity

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Phosphate in Support of Human Development and Regional Prosperity RAPPORT EUROMED-CDC - 2017 P FOR PROSPERITY Phosphate in support of human development and regional prosperity. 2017 Euromed-CDC Contact: [email protected] Phosphates : a Strategic Issue for the World’s Population PUBLISHED: January 2017 UNDER THE DIRECTION OF LATIFA AÏT BAALA RÉDACTION: Latifa Aït Baala Frédéric Truillet Géraldine Van Leeuw Claude Vandermeuler Tazo Tania Muller Ham Mandoza Pietroski Hassan El Bouharrouti Samantha Antonio Pedro HOME PAGE: The longest conveyor in the world transports phosphate from the mines in Bou Craa to the port of El-Aaiún This report may be used freely, in print or online format. For comments or questions about this report, please contact [email protected]. Phosphates : a Strategic Issue for the World’s Population Phosphorus – for which the chemical symbol is P – is the staff of life and essential for feeding the world’s population. The reason is that farmers use phosphates as fertilizer. Given the world’s ever-expanding population, worldwide agriculture and secure food supplies depend entirely on the phosphates used to manufacture chemical fertilizers. Global population growth and the need to optimize use of arable land make phosphates a strategically critical asset. A shortage of phosphates could lead to widespread famine. Morocco is the world leader in the phosphate and phosphate derivatives market. The country owns 75% of the world’s known reserves. Moroccan phosphates are known for their exceptionally high phosphorous content. China and Morocco account for two-thirds of global production. Morocco is the number two producer of phosphates in the world, behind China, and the number one exporter of rock phosphates and phosphoric acid. OCP exports to every continent, shipping to around forty countries worldwide. In short Morocco is one of the largest fertilizer producers in the world. Morocco has four deposits of phosphates. The Khouribga deposit is home to the largest open-pit phosphate mine in the world. Contrary to the allegations of WSRW the Phousboucraa site, located eighty kilometres from Laayoune, accounts for only 1.7 percent of Morocco’s proven reserves – USGS. So why are these lobbyists trying to render illegitimate Morocco’s phosphate operations in the Southern Provinces? Natural resources have always been cause for envy and phosphates are no exception to the rule. Given that the demand for and use of phosphates will continue to grow and some specialists predict that fertilizer prices will skyrocket by five hundred to one thousand percent in the next twenty to thirty years, we can begin to understand the motivation of these lobbyists and their sponsors. In 2015 a dozen companies, more particularly from Canada, New Zealand and Venezuela, imported phosphates from the Southern Provinces. According to OCP’s annual report, 1.41 million metric tons were exported in 2015 at an estimated value of 167.8 million US dollars. Two companies stand out here. They alone account for 64.5 percent of phosphate sales for the whole year. These two Canadian companies are Agrium Inc. and Potash Corporation. This report aims to investigate how phosphate resources are used to benefit the population. Unfortunately, the politicization of exploiting natural resources on the part of Morocco’s opponents, is detrimental to local populations. This report draws an overview of how the phosphate’s resources are exploited to the advantage of the population. Unfortunately, the politization of those exploitations by Marocco’s opponents has a bad effect and penalizes the local people. A humanitarian drama on Europe’s doorstep For over forty years, the Sahrawi people living in camps in Tindouf, Algeria, have been held hostage to a conflict that is much bigger than them. For too many years these people, who fled the violence during the period of Spanish colonization have been used as a weapon and bargaining chip to justify a number of demands. The refugee situation is exploited to obtain international humanitarian aid. However despite the fact that a census is a statutory obligation for Algeria, the responsible office of the United Nations has never been able to perform a census of the refugee population which is what would be needed to determine the amount of international aid, While eighty percent of the Sahrawi population live in Western Sahara, Sahrawi refugees in camps in and around Tindouf live in one of the driest deserts in the world. Their living conditions are extremely difficult and often inhumane, as the Australian journalist, Violeta Ayala, from Reporters Without Borders has revealed. “We originally went there to work on the problem of separated families. But during our stay we witnessed scenes that were naked slavery.” Baba Sayed, brother of the founder of the Polisario Front agrees wholeheartedly. On the ARSO website he remarked, What is aWHAT refugee? EXACTLY IS A REFUGEE? ANY PERSON WHO, “owing to a well-founded fear of persecution for Commissioner shall be of an entirely non-political reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership character; it shall be humanitarian and social and of a particular social group or political opinion, shall relate, as a rule, to groups and categories of is outside the country of his nationality and is refugees.” unable or, owing to such fear, unwilling to avail Article 2 of the Statute of the Office of the United himself of the protection of that country or who, Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, unwilling to return to it.” fills the bill. Article 1, the 1951 Convention Relating To The Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol. The Convention imposes obligations on the states party to the agreements. However, Algeria does not uphold its statutory obligations. Algeria has always refused to allow a census of the refugee populations. Algeria has said the census depends “on a comprehensive political resolution of the Saharan problem” on Algeria’s own terms, namely, the granting of independence to the Sahara. Such an attitude clearly demonstrates the extent of Algeria’s claimed neutrality in this matter.This attitude is nonsensical and entirely contrary to the United Nations mission. Indeed, “The work of the High IN THE ABSENCE OF A CENSUS, A WAR OF NUMBERS Estimates of the Sahrawi population in the Tindouf camps according to various authorities On 14 December 1975 and according to the International Federation of the Red Cross, 20,000 On 21 December 1975 and according to the United Nations, 10,000 to 12,000 On 8 March 1976, according to a letter from the Algerian Minister of foreign affairs sent to the United Nations, 15,000. On 22 November 1976 and according to the Algerian authorities 50,000 On 22 November 1976 and according to the Algerian authorities from 165,000 to 200,000 In 2004 and according to Algeria 90,000 Unable to perform a census as everyone was and in the wake of various investigations, international and European institutions, such as WFP, UNHCR and ECHO, agreed to reduce the figures Algeria and the Polisario front had submitted to them while recognizing that the final figure was still high, particularly given the large number of persons who had returned to Morocco. “The issue of the census was first brought up in Rabat and I raised this question in Tindouf and Algiers, where local authorities told me that the UNHCR is satisfied with the figures provided by the host country with regard to the number of refugees. This makes it possible to establish the amount of humanitarian aid. To go further than that would entail unjustified politicization.” In its resolutions involving refugees, the General Assembly of the United Nations Christopher Ross, the states unequivocally, “The General Secretary General’s Per- Assembly recognizes the importance of sonal Envoy for West- early establishment of effective registration ern Sahara at a press systems and censuses in order to ensure conference in New York, protection, while quantifying and assessing on 28 November 2012 food provision and humanitarian assistance stated, needs and implementing appropriate lasting solutions.” New York, press confer- Colossal amounts of international humanitarian aid In addition to international and European institutions, with food and in order to manage distribution of numerous states, non-governmental organisations food coupons. Water is one of these refugees’ and movements in support of the Sahrawi people main sources of concern. So the Commission grant staggering amounts of aid that never makes it helps ensure that a sufficient supply of safe to the people for whom it is intended. Unfortunately, drinking water is made available to them. There these people continue to live in extremely difficult ensued projects designed to connect camps to conditions. water sources directly via networks of pipelines and by trucking in water. The UNHCR built two According to the Norwegian Support Committee for wastewater treatment stations, in order to Western Sahara, http://www.vest-sahara.no/a82x391, guarantee a supply of clean drinking water. The Norwegian humanitarian assistance in refugee Commission also financed supplies of essential camps in Algeria currently amounts to several million medicines and training for local medical personnel Norwegian kroner per year, http://www.vest-sahara. through Medico International in order to improve no/a50x246. management capacity and reduce the refugees’ consumption of antibiotics. EUCOCO, the European Coordination Conference for Solidarity with the Sahrawi People, brings together In 2016 the humanitarian aid which the European representatives from support committees from non- commission granted enabled the Danish Refugee governmental organisations and all the countries in Council and Triangle Génération Humanitaire to Europe. It defines the types of political and material launch subsistence activities. The aim was to support to be sent to the Polisario movement improve refugee families’ resilience and to reduce http://www.arso.org/R91/refl0591.htm.
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