20091221

TINDOUF, Algeria (Reuters) - A hunger strike by a Western Saharan independence activist shows the urgent need for the world to intervene to stop Moroccan human rights abuses, the head of the territory's Polisario independence movement said.

Aminatou Haidar's month-long hunger strike in a Spanish airport focussed international attention on Western Sahara's conflict with Morocco in a way rarely seen since Morocco annexed the former Spanish colony nearly 35 years ago.

The 43-year-old mother-of-two stopped eating in protest at Morocco's refusal to let her into the country unless she declared her loyalty to the king. Rabat let her return home after the United States, Spain and other countries intervened.

"Her ... hunger strike has shed light on our struggle and has put the Western Sahara issue back at the top of the international agenda," Polisario leader Mohamed Abdelaziz told Reuters at his headquarters in Algeria, where the movement has been based since fleeing Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara.

"Morocco should ... stop its campaign against our people inside the occupied territories," he said.

"We urge the United Nations to set up a mechanism to protect our people's human rights ... and to report on it as long as the conflict is unresolved."

A tract of desert the size of Britain which has lucrative phosphate reserves and potentially offshore oil, Western Sahara is the scene of Africa's longest-running territorial dispute.

Europe and the United States say their worry is that the conflict, because it has soured relations between Morocco and Algeria, is preventing the two neighbours from working together to contain Islamist violence.