Maputo Statement of Solidarity with the Palestinian and Sahrawi Peoples

Maputo Statement of Solidarity with the Palestinian and Sahrawi Peoples

Demand of the participants of the 9^th Maputo Workshop on Corporate Impunity and Human Rights for the liberation of Palestine and Western Sahara, Maputo, 01 August 2025

As people and organizations who have convened from 30 countries in Maputo to build international solidarity and strategise our resistance to the exploitation of our lands and seas by transnational corporations, we recognise their collusion in the occupation of territories of indigenous peoples across the world. This is evident in both Palestine and Western Sahara.

We stand firmly in solidarity with the Palestinian people who are experiencing genocide. The situation in Gaza has deteriorated to unprecedented levels. The Israeli occupation is using mass starvation as a weapon of war, civilians are being denied access to essential food, water and medical supplies, leading to widespread malnutrition and preventable deaths. Residential areas, hospitals, and schools have been subjected to relentless airstrikes, resulting in the deaths of more than sixty thousand civilians, particularly women and children. Over 1.5 million people have been subjected to forced displacement, only to face further attacks. While a silent war is committed in the West Bank and Israel is proceeding with annexation. As highlighted by the latest report from the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, entitled “From economy of occupation to economy of genocide”, corporations have materially contributed to and profited from the ongoing genocide, by providing Israel with the weapons and machinery required to destroy homes, schools, hospitals, places of leisure and worship, livelihoods and productive assets, to segregate and control communities and to restrict access to natural resources.

As organizations committed to human rights and justice, we urge all governments, civil society organizations, institutions, and individuals to take decisive action against the ongoing genocide.

Western Sahara remains as a colony in Africa, with the majority of its lands occupied by Morocco since 1975, after the sudden exit and unconcluded decolonization of the territory by Spain, the former colonial power. The Sahrawi people have continued their struggle for independence and continue to face human rights violations, including torture and disappearance. Their lands and resources are being carved out both by Morocco and transnational companies, without the consent of the Sahrawi people, which is against international law.

For Palestine, Western Sahara and other occupied territories or territories beset by incessant conflicts, such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, Cabo Delgado in Mozambique, we condemn all forms of colonisation and we denounce the complicity of transnational corporations. We call for recognition that those countries and citizens across the world who benefit from the resources plundered in occupied territories are complicit in these occupations and brutal human rights violations. We firmly stand in solidarity with the people resisting dispossession and destruction in their territories. We join forces to demand a future where life always comes before profit.

For Palestine, we call for:

1. Immediate Ceasefire: An unconditional and permanent halt to all military operations in Gaza.
2. Unrestricted Humanitarian Access: Open the borders and allow for aid organizations to deliver essential supplies to the Gazan people, and for Gazan people to access supplies in safety.
3. Accountability for War Crimes: Independent investigations into all war crimes and violations of international law, with perpetrators held responsible.
4. Freedom and Protection for the Palestinian prisoners and end to their inhuman treatment in Israeli Jails.
5. Free movement of Palestinians: Recognise and ensure the right of Palestinians to free movement.
6. End the Occupation and affirm Palestinian rights and freedom: We uphold the inalienable human rights of Palestinians to freedom, justice, return, and self-determination, and complete withdrawal of foreign troops and illegal occupiers from Palestinian land.
7. Boycott, Divestment and Economic Sanctions: Call for governments to cut diplomatic ties, implement trade embargoes and economic sanctions on the Israeli Occupation. To also call for academic and sports boycotts as well as divestment in Israeli Companies.
8. Stop the supply of Military equipment and Fuel: Call on other countries to immediately stop or cut off the supply of arms and fuel to the Israeli military.
9. States to uphold their obligations under the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

Furthermore, we believe that the only just and long term solution is the establishment of a single democratic state, from the river to the sea, where Palestinian refugees return, Israeli settlements are dismantled, and all inhabitants enjoy equal citizenship rights in a decolonized country that guarantees freedom and dignity for everyone through a truth and reconciliation process that addresses historical injustices and provides reparations for Palestinian dispossession.

For Western Sahara, we call for:

1. End the Illegal Occupation: Call for an end to the Moroccan occupation of the territories of Western Sahara.
2. Respect for the right to self-determination of the Sahrawi people, who must be allowed to freely decide their political future, including by the recognition of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) as the legitimate government of Western Sahara.
3. Return of the Sahrawi refugees, thus ensuring the right for those who live in camps to return to their homeland under safe and dignified conditions.
4. Freedom of the Political Prisoners: Free all the Sahrawi prisoners unlawfully imprisoned by the occupying power.
5. Protection of the Natural Resources: End to the plundering of Western Sahara’s natural resources by the occupation power and transnational corporations.
6. Protection of Human Rights: Ensure the monitoring and protection of human rights in the occupied territories by international independent bodies.
7. Freedom of Movement for all Sahrawis: Guarantee and ensure the right of movement for all the Sahrawi people.
8. African States must comply with their regional and international commitments: the African Union and its member States must ensure compliance with the objectives of the Constitutive Act of the Union regarding respect for and protection of the rights of the Sahrawi people under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and other relevant instruments on the rights of peoples.

A luta continua!