Reporting International Conflicts through the Environmental Discourse: The Moroccan Sahara Conflict as a Case Study (chapter in "The Climate-Conflict-Displacement Nexus from a Human Security Perspective")
Publisher: Springer
Author(s): Mohamed Mliless and Mohammed Larouz
Date: 2022
Topics: Climate Change, Conflict Causes, Extractive Resources, Governance, Land
Countries: Morocco
It is usually believed that the role of international NGOs is meant to reinforce environmental justice all over the world. However, it is not the case with the Environmental Justice Organizations Liabilities and Trade’s (EJOLT), whose approach seems distorting the real picture in the Moroccan Sahara. Against the expectations and principles of environmental justice, the EJOLT has targeted many achievements made in the region in the area of economic and social development. From its perspective, the exploitation of the region’ resources is an environmental justice issue given the fact that the Polisario front – an armed militia that has been fighting Morocco over the territories for more than 45 years – has not been consulted about the extraction and trade of such resources. To argue for this position, the EJOLT preferred taking a pro-Polisario disinvestment stand in the region claiming that environmental justice should prevail, making a separatist movement benefit from the disputed resources. In the same vein, EJOLT uses a political discourse which considers that the exploitation of the region’ resources is a ‘reinforcement of the occupation by Morocco’. To demystify such a discourse, this chapter examines the EJOLT’s homepage and extracts its narratives using the content analysis (CA) method. The first investigation revealed that there are six infrastructures targeted by the EJOLT. The analysis also revealed that the EJOLT uses a biased discourse – mostly distorted and defamatory – that failed to provide the real picture of the population in the region. Moreover, the EJOLT argues that the Polisario militia which lives in the Algerian territory, NOT the Moroccan population living in the Moroccan Sahara provinces, must benefit from the existing resources. Similarly, the rhetoric used in the narratives has failed to recognize that one million inhabitants inside the Moroccan Sahara have been directly benefiting from the many projects developed in the region. Equally important, the results show that EJOLT’s discourse aims at triggering violence, insecurity, and instability in the region, thus serving potential interested agendas.