SAT., DECEMBER 20, 1980
A Weekly Digest
of
African Affairs
NORTHWEST AFRICA
Whose Coast,
Whose Fish?
AN The war that pits
Morocco against guerrilla
independence forces in the
Western Sahara has once
again spilled over into ter
ritorial waters off the
coast of the former
Spanish colony.
Last week, the Moroc
can coast guard ap
prehended two- Soviet
trawlers and one Cuban
vessel operating in what
authorities called a
"Moroccan economic
zone" off the Saharan
coast. Moroccan officials
charged that the Cuban
ship bristled with
sophisticated electronic
surveillance and transmit
ting equipment to the
exclusion of fishing gear.
In the aftermath of the
incident, military experts
in the Moroccan capital of
Rabat were suggesting
that the Cuban boat was
being used to spy on
Moroccan troop
movements for the
POLISARIO in
dependence forces in
Western Sahara. The
Soviet vessels, they add,
may have been used by
POLISARIO as floating
bases for their occasional
raids on foreign Fishing
trawlers.
Some observers suspect
that the allegations are
primarily a Moroccan
ploy to win support for its
attempt to annex the
Saharan territory.
Although complaints
about Soviet over-fishing
are common among nor
thwest African nations,
including Morocco,
economic ties between
Rabat and Moscow are
strong, and a 1978
cooperation accord made
Morocco the Soviet's
largest commercial part
ner in Africa.
Cuba, for its part, has
issued formal tebutjal S1
the Moroccan charges.
Havana maintains that the
captured vessel had just
unloaded its catch of
seafood in Conakry,
Guinea, and was en route
to Vigo, Spain, for repairs
when it was "unjustifiably
apprehended." According
to the Cuban statement.
"The communications in
struments on board were
of a conventional type,"
and the suspicion of es
pionage is "totally un
founded." Cuba enjoys warm
diplomatic relations with
POLISARIO, as witness
last week's meeting in
Algiers between Havana's
envoy to Algeria ,and a
high-ranking Saharan of
ficial. And Morocco is
making much of
POLISARIO contacts
with the Soviets or their
allies. The Rabat daily Al
Mittaq Al-Wattani, for
example, declared last
week that the naval inci
dent "proved once again
to the entire world that
Cuba and the USSR are
implicated in the war of
aggression being directed
against Morocco."
To add to the complex
ities of the situation, the
waters off Western Sahara
are one of the world's
richest fishing grounds,
and, though they agree on
little else, both Morocco
and POLISARIO oppose
unrestricted exploitation
of the waters by foreign
trawlers.
Each side has taken ac
tion in its own right
against foreign fishermen:
As well as attacking
Moroccan fishing boats,
POLISARIO has
destroyed Spanish, Por
tuguese and South Korean
vessels, and held their
crews to ransom. The
Moroccan authorities, for
their part, have strafed
Cuban ships and cracked
down hard on Spanish
trawlers, though the
Soviet vessels recently ap
prehended may also face
penalties.
. The activities of foreign
fishing fleets have, in fact,
become a problem for all
the nations on Africa's
northwest corner, as a cor
nespondent for Tanzania's
Daily News spells out in
this article:
Despite the risks involv
ed, the trawler fleets con
tinue to plunder the seas
off the northwest African
coast because the rewards
are so great: some of the
richest banks of sardines
in the world have been,
moving slowly south from
Moroccan waters toward
the Western Sahara and
Mauritania. And further
south, off Senegal, are
quantities of the less
predictable tuna fish.
The catch landed off the
Senegalese coast has rang
ed as high as 350,000
metric tons in recent
years. Normally, however,
only a tenth of the total is
caught by Senegalese
boats, with the lion's
share going to foreign
trawlers.
Senegal's small-scale in
shore fishermen have been
doing rather better since
Canadian aid began to
equip them with outboard
motors for their dug-out
boats. But the real money
lies in offshore fishing,
where the catch can be
sold for processing into
cattle food or frozen for
the European and
American markets.
Senegal managed last
year to get the European
Economic Community to
agree to pay about $12
million over two years for
fishing rights. Spain, not
yet a' member of the EEC,
agreed to pay a similar
amount.
Mauritania has also had
to do some hard bargain
ing. By dint of massive in
vestment, particularly in
canning factories,
. .. Vv
Leaders Meet
WASHINGTON-Special Assistant to President Carter, Louis Martin (c) meets wit.. Rev. Jesse Jackson (I) of Operation PUSH
and NAACP Director Benjamin Hooks, along with others to map strategy for sustaining the veto of a major appropriations bill with
an anti-busing rider. UPI Photo
Mauritania managed to
double the value of its fish
exports to $26 million bet
ween 1974 and 1978. And
to protect its stocks, it
declared an "exclusive
economic zone" of 200
miles (320 kilometers) off
shore. During that period,
Mauritania continued its
practice of allowing the
Soviet Union, Japan,
Spain, Portugal, Romania
and South Korea to fish
under license. The only
conditions were that they
did not exceed a total limit
of 100,000 tons a year,
and that they supplied
enough fish to enable the
canning plants at
Nouadhibou to function
at full capacity.
However, it rapidly
became clear that, though
only 60,000 tons were
brought ashore, three
times the limit was actual
ly being fished. As a
result, out of a catch
worth an estimated $1
billion a year, Mauritania
was only getting between
$12 and $30 million, and
the canning plants were
running at only a fifth, or
The worst offender was
Spain, which had 800
trawlers in the area. It was
only after Mauritania had
repeatedly arrested
Spanish fishermen that
Spain agreed to abandon
the licensing system in
favor of a joint company,
in which Mauritania had
the majority shareholding.
Under this agreement,
signed in January, 1979,
Spain was limited to
90,000 tons a year, and at
the same time paid the
Mauritanian government
$116 million as opposed to
only $6 million the year
, before. Similar
agreements with other
countries followed.
One of the disadvan
tages faced by the nor
thwest African states is
that most of them lack a
tradition of fishing and
fish consumption. Only
Morocco has made any
serious attempt to create a
fishing fleet of its own to
rival the 450 foreign
trawlers regularly reaping
the harvest of its seventy
mile "exclusive economic
zone."
Between 1973 and 1977,
J!5La tMrt of capacity.' .Morocco -..acquired JJO
new trawlers. Though
slightly smaller than the
Spanish trawlers, they
were modern and effi
cient. But manpower was
a problem. Moroccan
crews had only had ex
perience on traditional
boats.
As a result, instead of
Mojoccan nationals com
prising at least two-thirds
of all crews on Moroccan
trawlers, as regulations
demanded, the proportion
was allowed to drop to an
eighth.
The remainder of the
crews are Spanish, from
Las Palmas in the Canary
Islands, the headquarters
of Spain's African fishing
operations. The Spanish
crewmen have to be paid
in precious hard currency.
Out of a total annual wage
bill for Morocco's fishing
industry of $9 million over
75 has to be paid in hard
currency.
Another handicap is the
lack of facilities at the
Moroccan port of Agadir.
Because of the gradual
southward migration of
the sardines, most fishing
is now done south of
Agadir. . between.Xarfava-
in Morocco and Dakhla
(formerly Villa Cisneros)
in the Western Sahara.
Not only is a Agadir
further away from the
fishing grounds than the
rival port of Las Palmas,
but the Morrocan port has
little hope of acquiring
comparable dockyard and
cold storage equipment.
The Moroccan govern
ment has no means of con
trolling', either for taxa
tion or conservation pur
poses, the activities of
either Spanish or Moroc
can companies operating
out of Las Palmas.
Frustrated in its efforts
to attract more of the in
dustry to itself, Morocco
has turned, like
Mauritania, to crude
economic bargaining.
Even in order to get a pro
visional agreement on
fishing rights, Spain has
had to make concessions
on agricultural produce,
so that Morocco will con
tinue to get a share of the
European market for fruit
and vegetables after Spain
joins the EEC.
But a final answer lies in
a common policy on the
part of all the- African
THE CABOUNA TIMES -17
countries concerned, and
an agreement on who ac
tually owns the prime
fishing sites in the area.
This can only come about
in the context of a settle
ment of the five-year-old
independence war ih the
Western Sahara.
Until that happens, the
POLISARIO and Moroc
co will continue taking
time off from fighting one
another at least, occa
sionally to make com
mon cause against the
Spanish trawlers.
SIERRA LEONE
Testing Time For
Stevens
IAN The year 1980 at
one time held great pro
mise for Sierra Leone
President Siaka Stevens,
now the incumbent chair
man of the Organization
of African Unity. At
home, however, Stevens i
facing an unprecedented
level of unrest coinciding
with his newfound inter
national prominence.
Protests by students and
lecturers at Fourah Bay
College in Freetown have
caused serious disruptions
in recent months, and the
capital city remains tense.
In addition, during of
ficial visits to the United
States and Britain, Stevens
has encountered embar
rassing demonstrations by
Sierra Leone nationals
hostile to his administra
tion's policies.
Most recently, while
Stevens visited Britain
from November 4-7, anti
government activists in ex
ile took the opportunity to
launch a new opposition
group, the Sierra Leone
Alliance Movement
(SLAM). The alliance's
initial statement proclaim
ed the necessity of
political action in order to
rescue "our beloved
motherland from further
decline," and its leaders
say they will seek coopera
tion with the U.S.-based
National Alliance Party,
another opposition group
launched in similar
fashion around the time of
Stevens' visit to the United
States.
Returning home,
Stevens found himself
saddled with the nasty
business of putting to rest
the latest confrontation
Continued On Pag 15)
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