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Casablanca – Aminatou Haidar, the President of NGO Codesa, recently had several meetings with Heather Chase, an American diplomat working for the American embassy in Morocco, according to Codesa’s Facebook page.
In an article by Moroccan publication Telquel, the two women reportedly met for two hours, discussing human rights conditions in the Sahara, with Haidar asking the diplomat to write a report on the issue.
The Moroccan press, namely Libe.ma, a newspaper affiliated with political party Socialist Union for Populist Forces, is not happy about this meeting, calling it American “interference on a national issue.”
After being contacted by a Telquel journalist, a Moroccan official stated that “this NGO is not recognized by the Moroccan government and isn’t even recognized in the United States.”
Luna Jangle, press officer at the U.S. Embassy, said U.S. diplomats “regularly visit the region to discuss the topic of human rights, advanced regionalization and economic development.”
It should be said that tensions between the two countries have eased up since last May, when the United States seemed to side with Ban Ki Moon, who described Morocco’s sovereignty over the Western Sahara as “occupation.”
Ironically, while she has traveled the world, lambasting Morocco, Aminatou Haidar cannot deny she has been traveling with a Moroccan passport.
Meanwhile, the Saharawis in the Tindouf camps in Algeria, she claims to defend areprevented from obtaining a refugee card or the right to travel either within or of Algeria or out.
