Following Coop’s decision to stop selling cherry tomatoes from the region in 2017, Migros and its subsidiary Denner are now following suit. Upon request, the two wholesalers announced that they had already decided at the end of 2017 to remove products from Western Sahara from their product ranges for reasons of international law. The three largest Swiss retailers have thus banned products from the conflict zone from their shelves.
terre des hommes schweiz and other organizations have been drawing attention to the problem with melons and tomatoes from the occupied Western Sahara for years. The agricultural products originate from the area near the city of Dakhla, where they are grown against the will of the Sahrawi people and in violation of international law.
According to the UN, Western Sahara, which has been partially occupied by Morocco since 1975, is a so-called non-self-governing territory; Switzerland also follows this definition. According to international law, the exploitation of resources in such a territory is only legal if the people concerned have given their consent. However, the Saharawis repeatedly speak out against these economic activities in Western Sahara and demand that there should be no trade in products from the occupied territory, as this supports the occupying power and cements the status quo of the occupation.
Difficult declaration
For a long time, Migros and Denner took the view that it was sufficient if the products were correctly declared for customers in the stores. However, this was not always the case either, and tomatoes from Western Sahara were repeatedly labeled as “Morocco” in supermarkets.
After media attention and a cash register report on the subject in 2016, retailers promised to improve. From then on, the products were finally declared for import in accordance with the law – at least as far as this is comprehensible, as Morocco refuses to correctly declare products from Western Sahara for export.
It was therefore natural to take the foreign trade statistics for 2019, which were finalized in the middle of this year, with a grain of salt: for the first time since the “Western Sahara” category was introduced in 2016, it shows no imports of melons and tomatoes from the region. When asked, Migros and Denner confirmed that they did not purchase any products from Western Sahara in 2019 and will continue to do so in future.
No products from territories occupied under international law
Migros informed terre des hommes schweiz that following “in-depth clarifications and legal opinions”, it decided in 2017 to “refrain from sourcing products from territories occupied under international law”, including Western Sahara. According to Denner, this decision was made in December 2017.
In Switzerland, only Volg now uses tomatoes from the region in exceptional cases, according to its own information, and is content to declare the products correctly in stores.
terre des hommes schweiz very much welcomes the decision by Migros and Denner, but regrets that it was not publicized more widely. Unfortunately, the level of information on Western Sahara and economic activities in this region is poor in Switzerland.
Problem too little known
We demand that the federal government pursue a more active information policy on the subject and clarify that Switzerland, in accordance with international law, follows the principle that economic activities in Western Sahara are only permitted with the consent of the Sahrawi people. For example, the companies, mainly from the energy sector, that visited Morocco with the then Federal Councillor Doris Leuthard in 2018 were not informed about whether future projects would actually take place on Moroccan territory or in Western Sahara to the south, which Morocco refers to as the “southern provinces”.
Other Swiss companies also
In addition to Volg, which continues to sell tomatoes from Western Sahara on a case-by-case basis, other Swiss companies are involved in ethically questionable business activities in occupied Western Sahara that violate international law. LafargeHolcim operates a cement factory near El Aaiún and, according to its own statements, does not rule out the possibility that the cement produced there will also be used for military and settler infrastructure. Swiss companies are also repeatedly involved in the transportation of fish or phosphate from the occupied Western Sahara.
