Moroccan minister denounces Western Sahara hunger-striker

(BRUSSELS) - Morocco's foreign minister on Monday accused a Western Sahara activist on hunger strike in Spain of employing political blackmail to promote her cause.

"Mrs Aminatou Haidar is not a human rights defender she has a political agenda as a member of the Polisario," Foreign Minister Taeib Fassi-Fihri told a press conference in Brussels after meeting European Union officials.

"She has renounced her (Moroccan) nationality, she has thrown away her passport," which was why she could not return to Morocco or its western Sahara region, he added.

"We mustn't fall for this blackmail," said the minister.

Haidar says she is not a member of the Polisario Front.

The group has demanded independence for the Western Sahara since Spain left in 1975, but Morocco annexed the territory.

Haidar has been on hunger strike at Lanzarote airport in the Canary Islands for three weeks.

The 42-year-old stopped eating on November 16, three days after Moroccan authorities denied her entry into her native Western Sahara, allegedly confiscated her passport, and sent her back to Lanzarote, from where she had flown in.

According to the Moroccan authorities she had refused to fill in normal paperwork.

The mother-of-two, who campaigns for the independence of the Western Sahara, has been backed by celebrities, including Oscar-winning Spanish actor Javier Bardem and film director Pedro Almodovar.

The Polisario Front in a statement urged the EU "to take immediate, urgent action to save the life" of Haidar.

"The European Union cannot allow this woman, symbol of resistance and hope, to die in Spain in a terrritory of the Union," the statement added.

According to Fassi-Fihri, the hunger striker's action is blocking the resumption of negotiations between Morocco and the Polisario Front under UN auspices.

"The UN Security Council is calling for talks on the basis of a realistic compromise, unfortunately the other parties are not showing either realism or a sense of compromise," he said.

"The talks won't move ahead with such a firm and rigid position taken by Algeria and Polisario," he added.

"What a coincidence that just as we were studying the possibility of a new meeting for informal talks, that's when Aminatou Haidar chose to renounce her nationality."

Morocco proposes broad self-government for the Western Sahara region.

Representatives from Algeria, which backs the Polisario Front, and from Mauritania, which lies south of the Western Sahara and briefly controlled part of it before Morocco annexed the whole territory, have been attending the UN-brokered talks.