El FOSFATO de Marruecos (parte IV)

Western Sahara is a disputed territory. It's also where Morocco's best phosphate lies. The region known to the King as "Moroccan Sahara" begins just south of the fishing village of Tarfaya on the Atlantic coast. The U.N. calls it "the non-self-governing territory of Western Sahara" and deems it "occupied." It's a place where phosphate rumbles to the coast on the world's longest conveyor belt, while tanks and soldiers roam alongside, defending the shipments from Sahrawi separatists.
When Spain withdrew from Morocco in 1975, some 350,000 Moroccans marched into Western Sahara with tents on their backs. The native Sahrawi fought back for 16 years under the leadership of the Algerian-backed Polisario rebels, signing a cease-fire in 1991. The U.N. continues to monitor the agreement with 215 uniformed peacekeepers, but a planned vote on self-determination has been repeatedly delayed. Today, approximately 90,000 Sahrawi live in refugee camps in Algeria, separated from their families in Moroccan-controlled territory by a 1,400-mile-long berm dotted with land mines.
In Western Sahara, rarely visited by North Americans, one finds the flip side of the optimism on display at Khouribga. Driving in and out of the principal city of Laayoune, one passes not one but two sets of checkpoints. Police in heavy coats haunt chaotic roundabouts in the desert town, and an attempt to photograph the clay-colored domes of the Catholic church—a reminder of the region's Spanish heritage—is met with a barrage of questions from a barrel-chested Moroccan soldier in green, followed by an order to move on. Laayoune has an official tourist office, unsigned and hidden from the street by a high wall, and a visit by two Americans was surprising to the attendant there. She had no printed materials to offer.
OCP reports that just 2 percent of Morocco's phosphate lies in the Phousboucraa mine at Bou Craa in Western Sahara, and that it accounts for 6 percent of sales. Zouaoui says in an e-mail: "In 27 of the 33 years from 1976 to 2008, Phousboucraa's net contribution to OCP was negative." Yet because the rock there is of the highest quality in the country, the mine produces 11 percent of the country's total output.
The U.S. Census Bureau collects import data on Moroccan phosphate rock coming from the disputed territory, but it suppresses data on some shipments, according to Stephen M. Jasinski, the phosphate specialist at the U.S. Geological Survey. This is done at the request of U.S.-based importers, he says, a phenomenon he has not observed with mineral commodities from other nations. He adds that he has "never been able to get a straight answer" from the Census Bureau about the Western Sahara data. They may be trying to avoid the trouble given companies in Australia and Norway, who have been pressured into promising not to use phosphate mined in Western Sahara. In August, Mosaic told the advocacy group Western Sahara Resource Watch that it has stopped buying rock from the territory and has no plans to renew shipments.
Eddia Sidi Ahmed Moussa is a Sahrawi and former miner turned labor activist who lives in a compound made of concrete block in Laayoune. A slight, 60-year-old man with a frosting of white beard and a perfectly bald head, Moussa sits on the floor in a blue robe, pounding the air and gesturing with his fists as he speaks. He tells of the days of the Spanish empire when the mines employed over 1,000 Sahrawi, and they were paid European salaries. He was a welder and later a firefighter, and the work was good. Today the mine employs fewer than 200 Sahrawis and recruits most new employees from Morocco. Despite the somber topic of conversation, the atmosphere in the house is boisterous as veiled women giggle and banter in Arabic and one of Moussa's relatives displays his palm-reading skills. Every Sahrawi wants independence, Moussa asserts: "We want to live on our own resources."

fuente : http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_46/b4203080895976_page_4.htm