(Special Envoy)

Vitoria (Basque Country- Spain), 04/11/2006 (SPS) The President of the Republic, Mohamed Abdelaziz, warned "the parties which are looking in vain for a “mutually acceptable” solution outside the natural and legal framework of the conflict, then we assert them that the Saharawis are today more attached to their rights as guaranteed in the international conventions and laws".

In his intervention during the opening session of the 32nd edition of the European Conference of Coordination and Support to the Saharawi people (EUCOCO), Friday in Vitoria, Mr. Abdelaziz stressed that the "the credibility of the international community, represented by the UN Security Council and General Assembly, finds itself, anew, under the test challenged by the need to impose the implementation of its decisions and countering the preludes to some attempts that aim to avoid the law, and to legitimise the Moroccan colonial de facto presence in the Western Sahara".

"The decisions of the international legality are very clear regarding the last African colony’s issue of decolonisation. There is no possibility for any solution that does not respect the inalienable right to self-determination", the President of the Republic said adding that this self-determination if impossible "without giving the Saharawi people an opportunity to say their word, in total freedom, transparency and democracy".

On another hand, he called on Spain to review its position regarding the conflict in the Western Sahara so as to "serve peace and to serve the international law", knowing that the Spanish State "is historically, politically, legally and morally accountable for the Saharawi people’s ongoing tragedy since it’s hastened and chaotic withdrawal from the territory during the Moroccan military invasion in 1975".

"And Spain shall thus remain responsible as long as the Saharawi people can not exercise their right to self-determination", he said. (SPS)

010VCT/000 040947 Nov 06 SPS

 

 

 

Here is the full text of the speech translated by SPS:

 

 

“Ladies and Gentlemen, dear friends

 

We are here gathering to open the works of the 32^nd International Conference of Solidarity with the Saharawi People, and I would like, on this occasion, to express sincere thanks and gratitude to His Excellency Mr. Juan José Ibarretxe, President of the Basque Country’s Government, for the concern and interest he granted this conference since the preparatory phases and for his presence among us now.

 

It is clear that this attention His Excellency is showing is a sincere reflection of his steady support, as well as the reflection of the steady position of the Basque Parliament, Government and people.

 

And it is an occasion, for me, to address our deepest thanks to the Basque country, including political parties, organisations, institutions and individuals, and especially the authorities of the Alaba and of the Mayoralty of Vitoria-Castiz, as well as the representatives and members of the Associations of solidarity with the Saharawi people in this region, for the huge efforts they paid all along the year for the sake of the success of this conference.

 

I would also like to greet the members of the Bureau of the European Coordination of solidarity with the Saharawi people for the efforts they deployed in the follow up and implementation of the resolutions of the 31^st conference as well as for their efforts in the preparation for the actual conference.

 

It is also an opportunity, for us, to recall with much respect and pride the founders of the solidarity movement in Europe and in the rest of the world, especially Senator Pierre Galant, the President of the European Coordination, who is present among us today, pursuing the struggle, with no break or hesitation, since the very beginning of the Moroccan unjust colonial aggression against the Western Sahara.

 

We address him our deepest sentiments of respect and gratitude, and through him to all those women and men who created this solidarity forum, including those of them who passed away while faithfully and devotedly absorbed in their solidarity activities, and those of them who are still pursuing their action with dedication, faithfulness and engagement.

 

Ladies and Gentlemen, dear friends

I would like, also, to invite you to stand respectfully in this forum, in order to pay tribute to the two Martyrs of the Intifada, the late Lembarki Hamdi and the late Lakhlifi Aba Cheij, and to stand in solidarity and support to the Saharawi political prisoners in the colonial prisons, as well as in solidarity with the heroic and resisting Saharawi population, which is defying the Moroccan colonial barbarism with highly civilised and peaceful demonstrations to advocate legitimate claims, in particular the respect of the Saharawi people’s right to self-determination.

 

It is thanks to the testimonies of many international and national human rights organisations, observers delegations and independent journalists, who were denied entry to the occupied Saharawi territories, that the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights’ last report was able to record all the gross human rights violations perpetrated by the Moroccan State, emphasise the fact that the disrespect of the self-determination is the cause behind all these abuses, and stress the need to protect the Saharawi population in the occupied territories.

 

Because the Moroccan Government is now disregarding the international human rights’ law, as it ignored all its international obligations, and is escalating in the violation of the Saharawis’ human rights. An attitude that is making of the current situation in the region a real source of concern and worry. The Moroccan authorities are adopting a very dangerous oppressive policy based on a systematic terrorisation of the Saharawi human rights activists and their families, threatening of the youngsters of the Saharawi intifada of independence in their physical and sexual integrity and safety, not to talk about the daily exercise of torture, abductions, illegal arrests, abandonment of victims in bad states in the middle of streets and in the desert suburbs of the occupied cities, in addition to the attempt to force these youth to abandon their convictions and pushing them to flee their country even if the fate is no more than to be drowned in the deep ocean.

 

Meanwhile, the Moroccan Government is imposing a tight military and Medias siege on the occupied territories, and is still denying free access to the territory to Parliamentarian delegations, and Media’s representatives. There is also an important deployment of military forces, gendarmerie, police and other Moroccan security corpses in all neighbourhoods and streets of the occupied Saharawi cities and villages, after they were  brought from the different Moroccan military positions, including groups of the army brought from the Moroccan wall, which is another crime against humanity that is parting the Western Sahara and its people to two parts.

 

In this respect, we warmly hail all the delegations representing civil societies, including Parliamentarians, elected officials, personalities, members of NGOs and journalists for the efforts they pay aiming to investigate on the situation in the occupied territories despite the ill-treatment and expulsion they face from the Moroccan colonial authorities.

 

But we size this opportunity to say to all of them, to all international human rights organisation and to the international community that you are required more than ever for an urgent intervention to protect the law, justice and peace in the Western Sahara through the protection of the Saharawi population in the occupied territories, and by granting them their first and fundamental right to self-determination. Your intervention is also required to help for the immediate release of all Saharawi political prisoners in Moroccan custody, for the revelation of the truth on the fate of more than 500 civil victims of forced disappearance, 151 prisoners of war, and for the creation of the appropriate atmosphere for the Saharawis in the occupied territories that would enables them exercise their fundamental rights and help protecting their lives, their physical integrity, their properties as well as helps in lifting the huge and heavy military apparatus that is sealing them day and night.

 

You are required to continuously support them and to participate in a civilised action, which is no more than breaking this siege, opening the region to the international and independent observers and Medias, and denouncing the disinformation and Medias blackout adopted as policies by Morocco.

 

Ladies and Gentlemen, dear friends

The decisions of the international legality are very clear regarding the last African colony’s issue of decolonisation. There is no possibility for any solution that does not respect the inalienable right to self-determination and there is no possibility of self-determination without giving the Saharawi people an opportunity to say their word, in total freedom, transparency and democracy.

 

The responsibility of closing this struggle via the respect of these fundamental bases, as it was the case in all the Non-Self-Governing territories, is a responsibility of the United Nations and the international community in general since the sixties of the last century.

 

But the Spanish State is historically, politically, legally and morally accountable for the Saharawi people’s ongoing tragedy since it’s hastened and chaotic withdrawal from the territory during the Moroccan military invasion in 1975, and Spain shall thus remain responsible as long as the Saharawi people can not exercise their right to self-determination.

 

And if there are some parties, which are looking in vain for a “mutually acceptable” solution outside the natural and legal framework of the conflict, then we assert them that the Saharawis are today more attached to their rights as guaranteed in the international conventions and laws.

 

Self-determination is a sacred and inalienable right, and the credibility of the international community, represented by the UN Security Council and General Assembly, finds itself, anew, under the test challenged by the need to impose the implementation of its decisions and countering the preludes to some attempts that aim to avoid the law, and to legitimise the Moroccan colonial de facto presence in the Western Sahara.

 

Ladies and Gentlemen, dear friends

The two parties to the conflict, Morocco and Polisario Front, had organised sets of direct negotiations and reached agreements they both accepted and which were endorsed by the UN Security Council, mainly the UN-OAU Settlement Plan of 1991. It is thanks to this plan that we still have an ongoing cease-fire and a UN Mission in the territory supervising this agreement, which is in charge of the organisation of the self-determination referendum in the Western Sahara. There are also the Houston Accords that were reached to improve the Settlement Plan. We also have the “Peace Plan for the Self-determination of the People of the Western Sahara”, endorsed by the UN’s Security Council in its resolution 1495 as “an optimum solution” to the conflict.

 

The Moroccan Government is the direct responsible for the crisis in the Western Sahara and is accountable for the failure of the efforts aimed to resolve the issue. It is Morocco that violated the international legality in the first place by its illegal invasion of parts of the Saharawi Republic’s territories since 31 October 1975. It is Morocco that denied its international engagements and clearly declared its rejection of the organisation of a self-determination referendum after it accepted it, disregarding the Saharawi people’s will and jeopardizing 15 years of efforts paid by the international community. It is Morocco that rejected the Baker Plan, and is perpetrating gross and continuous human rights violations in the occupied territories of the Western Sahara.

 

From this stage, we call on the Spanish Government to review its positions concerning the conflict in the Western Sahara, so as to serve peace and to serve the international law.

 

We are not hostile to the interests of our neighbour, the Moroccan Kingdom, and we do not oppose its establishment of tight relations of cooperation with all the countries of the world, and in all fields, but we certainly do refuse that these cooperation and relations be to the detriment of the UN’s Charter and the international legality.

 

The signing by the European Union of a fishing agreement with Morocco is not only a gratis encouragement to the intransigence of the kingdom and its refusal to implement the UN’s resolutions, but also an international and illegal permit to the robbery of the natural resources of the Saharawi people, before they can determined their future.

 

In addition, it should be stressed that the granting of huge amounts of credits to Morocco on the name of the struggle against illegal migration and implantation of Cannabis is a support to the illegal colonial presence of the Moroccan military forces in the Western Sahara, and encourages Morocco to pursue its policy of blackmailing against its neighbours, and against Spain in particular.

 

On another hand, the attempts to put pressures on the Saharawi refugees using the humanitarian aids for political aims to force them kneel and give up their attachment to their legitimate claims, is an immoral, inhumane and illegal deed, which is unacceptable in all civilisations and cultures.

 

The reasonable, rational, possible and necessary, is that the international community gathers all its strength to implement its own resolutions, and thus works for the implementation of the accords it endorsed, which both parties has signed and this via putting pressures on Morocco which has rejected its own engagements, and via imposing the necessary economic and diplomatic sanctions. It is illogical to reward the party that refuses to respect its engagements towards the international legality by going back to the starting point.

 

And we would like, in this respect, to salute the courageous and principled positions of countries such as South Africa, Uruguay and Ecuador, which recognised the Saharawi Republic as a firm response to the Moroccan position of rejection of the self-determination referendum. We call on the entire countries of the world to follow this example because the Saharawi State is now the main practical expression of the Saharawi will the Moroccan Government would like to unfairly and aggressively thwart.

 

Ladies and Gentlemen, dear friends

 

Let me welcome and hail all those who endured the hardships of travelling to join this international conference of solidarity, and came from Europe, Africa, or from Latino America, the USA or Australia.

 

You represent the elite of the population of this planet, choosing to pay precious efforts and spend time dedicating it to a just cause, so as to defend the right of self-determination of a small oppressed people, to draw a smile on the lips of dozens thousands Saharawi children, who are deprived of their country and to put hope in the hearts of hundreds thousands Saharawis who long for a free and decent life.

 

I thank you, and I congratulate you, and inform you that this Saharawis need you now, as they did in the past, because they are subjected in the occupied territories to oppression, torture, impoverishment and deportation, while they face the reduction of humanitarian aids in the refugees camps.

 

I would also like to address a special thank to all the Spanish peoples, their political parties, associations, institutions, Governments, their regional Parliament and National Parliament as well as the active and effective associations of solidarity, for the wide solidarity, which is growing every day in accordance with the historical, cultural and geographical relations that links them to the Saharawi people.

 

And I won’t let pass the occasion, without hailing the position of the brotherly Algerian State, which is here represented by this important delegation. This neighbouring country rejected the partition of the Saharawi land and resources, and refused to accept a new colonial fait accompli. Algeria maintained its attachment to a brave and honourable position, in accordance with the UN’s Charter, and continued to ask for the implementation of the international legality in the Western Sahara issue and in all other decolonisation issues world wide. So, let me address a special salute of recognition and gratitude to this brotherly country, Algerian people and Government included, for this noble and honourable position.

 

And I can but hail all the Moroccan voices that openly raised to ask for the respect of the Saharawi people’s right to self-determination, especially the Moroccan Party Annahj Ademocrati (the Democratic Path), which is represented among us today. We thank them and welcome them among the advocators of the implementation of the international legality and the defenders of the human rights and the rights of the peoples.

 

And once again, I thank His Excellency President Juan José Ibarretxe for the personal concern and for the honour he granted us by attending the opening session of the 32 International Conference of solidarity with the Saharawi people, to which I wish success in the works of all its workshops and in all the decisions it will take, the resolutions it will adopt and the plans and programmes for the coming year.

Thank you.

”

 

 

 

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SPS SADR/SPAIN/CONFERENCE Pursuit of the works of the 32nd edition of the EUCOCO Conference’s committees