A new war threatens Western Sahara - peace negotiations with Morocco bound to fail.

The Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) demands more initiatives for peace in Western Sahara. "Western Sahara - which is illegally occupied by Morocco - is threatened by a new war, if the international community doesn't manage to start new initiatives to ease the situation," said Ulrich Delius, the STP's expert on questions regarding Africa, in Göttingen on Friday. This week, Morocco had rejected new peace negotiations. In January 2012 the kingdom will join the UN Security Council as a non-permanent member for two years.

"We are very concerned about the fact that more and more Sahrawis are reviving armed conflict as a form of liberation struggle, because Morocco rejects any constructive dialogue. The ceasefire-agreement that was met in 1991 is now shaken." Being elected into the World Security Council has obviously encouraged the kingdom to procrastinate the UN-referendum on the future of Western Sahara. Eight rounds of negotiations between the governments of Morocco and Western Sahara have been carried out since April 2007 under UN mediation, but no progress was made to solve the colonial conflict.

The morale among the 165,000 Sahrawis in the refugee camps in the region of Tindouf in southern Algeria is low. After 37 years of displacement and forced exile, hopelessness has spread among the refugees from Western Sahara. "This is an ideal environment for those who think that further peace talks with Morocco don't make sense and therefore are in favor of the armed freedom movement Polisario", warned Delius.

The situation of the Sahrawi refugees in Tindouf has further deteriorated since three aid workers from Spain and Italy were kidnapped on Saturday night by fighters of the terrorist movement Al Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb (AQMI). "Now the supply of humanitarian refugees is endangered, because many workers will choose to stay away from the refugee camps for fear of further kidnappings", said the human rights advocate. This is a dangerous situation for the Sahrawi people, because they are dependent on being supported by many smaller humanitarian organizations to prevent further immiseration of the refugees. At least the tragic kidnapping made clear that the accusations by Morocco's government, that the Polisario are cooperating with AQMI, are unfounded.