Our U.S. Rep. Jimmy Panetta, D-Carmel, is supporting yet another controversial foreign policy initiative by his Republican colleagues. Along with far-right Rep. Joe Wilson (D-SC), he is the principal co-sponsor of a bill designating the Frente Polisario, the recognized government of Western Sahara, as a foreign terrorist organization.

However, in the 50 years of resistance against Moroccan occupation forces, the Polisario has never engaged in any acts of terrorism. Not once. Indeed, they have formally ratified the Geneva Conventions and their protocols and they are a party to the African Union’s Convention on Counter-Terrorism.

The United Nations recognizes the Polisario as the legitimate representative of the Western Sahara people and the African Union recognizes Western Sahara as a full member state. Neither they nor any other credible international legal entity classify the Polisario as a terrorist group.

Supporters of Morocco’s autocratic monarchy have tried to link the Polisario — which is a democratic, secular, moderately left-leaning liberation movement governing a Sunni Muslim population — with reactionary Shia Islamists like Hezbollah and the Iranian regime. Not only is this ludicrous at face value, but the U.S. State Department has found no indication that the Polisario has adopted such extremist ideologies.

Even former U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton, one of the most hardline critics of Iran and its proxies, recently noted that allegations of Iranian influence on the Polisario are “without evidence.”

As someone who has twice visited the refugee camps, I can confirm accounts of U.S. officials, including the late Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), who have praised the Polisario’s religious tolerance and openness. They have welcomed international aid organizations, including American Christian NGOs, to provide education and humanitarian relief. They have regular competitive elections for their president and parliament. Women are granted equal rights and are in positions of political leadership.

As with the Russian and Israeli annexations of neighboring territories, Morocco’s 1975 annexation of Western Sahara is a flagrant violation of international law, which prohibits countries from expanding their territory by force. As long as civilians are not targeted, it is not terrorism for a people to resist a foreign belligerent occupation.

Morocco’s claim on Western Sahara is rejected by the United Nations, the International Court of Justice, the African Union, and a broad consensus of international legal scholars that consider the region a non-self-governing territory that must be allowed an act of self-determination.

Unlike the Polisario-controlled areas, those living in the Moroccan-occupied parts of Western Sahara suffer under brutal repression. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and other reputable human rights groups have documented widespread suppression of peaceful pro-independence activists by Moroccan occupation forces, including torture, beatings, detention without trial and extrajudicial killings.

If Panetta is successful in his effort to get the Polisario classified as a foreign terrorist organization, it would jeopardize the U.S.-backed United Nations peace process. U.S. officials could no longer be part of the negotiations if one of the parties is labeled a terrorist group.

Furthermore, the 170,000 Sahrawi civilians living in the Polisario-governed refugee camps would no longer be able to receive much of their desperately needed humanitarian aid. If the Polisario is designated as a foreign terrorist organization, it would criminalize many of the interactions and transactions on which the refugees are dependent to survive in their harsh desert environment.

Panetta’s false charges of terrorism undermine the struggle against real terrorist threats. And his support for the repressive Moroccan occupation and his cynical efforts to delegitimize Western Sahara’s right to self-determination once again raises serious questions about his commitment to human rights and international law.

Stephen Zunes, a Santa Cruz resident, is a professor of politics and director of Middle Eastern studies at the University of San Francisco.