The Royal Advisory Council for Saharan Affairs ( ar, المجلس الملكي الاستشاري للشؤون الصحراوية; french: Conseil royal consultatif pour les affaires sahariennes) is an advisory committee to the Moroccan government on

Western Sahara Western Sahara ( '; ; ) is a disputed territory on the northwest coast and in the Maghreb region of North and West Africa. About 20% of the territory is controlled by the self-proclaimed Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), while ...

. It was created under Mohammed VI in early 2006, after a new autonomy plan proposed by Morocco to replace the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmonizi ...

Baker Plan The Baker Plan (formally, Peace Plan for Self-Determination of the People of Western Sahara) is a United Nations initiative to grant self-determination to Western Sahara. It was intended to replace the Settlement Plan of 1991, which was furthe ...

. The

Polisario Front The Polisario Front, Frente Polisario, Frelisario or simply Polisario, from the Spanish abbreviation of (Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el-Hamra and Río de Oro), (in ar, rtl=yes, الجبهة الشعبية لتحرير الس� ...

opposes Morocco's autonomy plan, demanding for a referendum and independence.

Mission

The CORCAS is a consultative body for proposals related to what Morocco calls their Southern Provinces, CORCAS also defends Morocco's claim over Western Sahara in local media and abroad. The CORCAS fully condemns the refugee camps of Tindouf and the Polisario Front, citing human rights concerns.

Composition

There are 141 members of CORCAS, mostly Moroccan Sahrawi politicians and tribal leaders. The members were appointed by the King of Morocco and support Morocco's claim on Western Sahara.

Khalili Erguibi Khalili Ben Mohamed El Bechir Erguibi (or Rguibi) (1925–2017) was a Moroccan Captain, member of the Southern Liberation Army and a member of CORCAS. He is the father of Mohamed Abdelaziz, the 3rd Secretary General of the Polisario Front. Bio ...

, the father of the late Polisario Front leader and SADR president, Mohamed Abdelaziz was a member of CORCAS until his death in 2017. The president of CORCAS, Khalihenna Ould-Errachid, founded the

Partido de Unión Nacional Saharaui The Sahrawi National Union Party, or ''Partido de Unión Nacional Saharaui'' (PUNS), was a short-lived political party set up by Francoist Spain to rally indigenous support in its rebellious Spanish Sahara colony (presently Western Sahara). C ...

(PUNS) in 1974, the party supported the Spanish colonization of

Spanish Sahara Spanish Sahara ( es, Sahara Español; ar, الصحراء الإسبانية, As-Sahrā'a Al-Isbānīyah), officially the Spanish Possessions in the Sahara from 1884 to 1958 then Province of the Sahara between 1958 and 1976, was the name used f ...

. After the departure of the Spanish in 1975 and the disbanding of the PUNS, Ould-Errachid pledged allegiance to the king of Morocco at the time,

Hassan II Hassan, Hasan, Hassane, Haasana, Hassaan, Asan, Hassun, Hasun, Hassen, Hasson or Hasani may refer to: People *Hassan (given name), Arabic given name and a list of people with that given name * Hassan (surname), Arabic, Jewish, Irish, and Scotti ...

and helped organize the Green March, he is an active defender of Morocco's claim over Western Sahara.

International activities

Members of CORCAS are regularly featured in the Moroccan press. The president of CORCAS, Khalihenna Ould-Errachid, regularly attends meetings in international forums, such as the United Nations, where Western Sahara is discussed. Most notably, Ould-Errachid has met with the

President of the People's Republic of China The president of the People's Republic of China, commonly called the president of China, is the head of state and the second-highest political office of the People's Republic of China. The presidency is constitutionally a largely ceremonial off ...

Hu Jintao Hu Jintao (born 21 December 1942) is a Chinese politician who served as the 16–17th general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 2002 to 2012, the 6th president of the People's Republic of China (PRC) from 2003 to 2013, an ...

Criticism

In 2008, a transcript from a 2005 Equity and Reconciliation Commission meeting regarding the Western Sahara War was leaked to Al-Jarida al-Oula, during the meeting, Ould-Errachid declared that "there are some people .. about three or four Army officers who have committed what can be called war crimes against prisoners outside the scope of the war" and that "many civilians were thrown from helicopters or buried alive". In an interview with the independent Moroccan weekly magazine '' Le Journal Hebdomadaire'', the ex-chairman of CORCAS' Human Rights Commission and head of the Association of Sahrawi Victims of Repression in the Tindouf Camps, El Houcine Baïda, criticized the lack of tackling human rights issues, and about the manner which Ould-Errachid runs the Council. In his opinion, the country's actions in the Western Sahara were alienating Sahrawis, and thus could push more youth towards what he defined as separatism. He further claimed that most of the organization's members had no knowledge of the government's autonomy plan - that they were supposedly responsible for drafting - and that president Ould-Errachid runs the council's affairs despotically, like "a new

Franco Franco may refer to: Name * Franco (name) * Francisco Franco (1892–1975), Spanish general and dictator of Spain from 1939 to 1975 * Franco Luambo (1938–1989), Congolese musician, the "Grand Maître" Prefix * Franco, a prefix used when ...

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