Refugees face starvation In 1975, after the death of Franco, Spain withdrew from its Western Sahara colony. It was promptly annexed by Morocco against the wishes of (at least part of) the indigenous population, leading to a decades long guerilla war. During the course of this war, some 155,000 people fled to the borders with Algeria, which is where they're still living in refugee camps. These camps are wholly dependent on humanitarian aid provided via the UN world Food Programme, which is now struggling to get the funds needed to do so, according to a report from AllAfrica.
Since 1991 an UN sponsored ceasefire has been in effect between Morocco and Polisario Front and since then the UN has been trying to hld an referendum on the future of the Western Sahara. Read more about the history of the Western Sahara here.
"America was never innocent. We popped our cherry on the boat over and looked back with no regrets. You can't ascribe our fall from grace to any single event or set of circumstances. You can't lose what you lacked at conception.
"Mass-market nostalgia gets you hopped up for a past that never existed. Hagiography sanctifies shuck-and-jive politicians and reinvents their expedient gestures as moments of great moral weight. Our continuing narrative line is blurred past truth and hindsight. Only a reckless verisimilitude can set that line straight."
--James Ellroy, American Tabloid
Ensure a Free and Fair Election (Ban Paperless Voting Machines
"The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words."