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SPS SADR/SPAIN Associations of solidarity demand a "firm action" in favour of the self-determination referendum 06.06.05
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Madrid, 06/06/2006 (SPS) The State Coordination of Spanish Associations of solidarity with the Saharawi people (CEAS-Sahara) called the Spanish Government on Tuesday to undertake "a firm action" in favour of the self-determination referendum in the Western Sahara, recalling that the Spanish State remains "historically and politically" accountable for the decolonisation of the territory.
"We demand that the Spanish Government change its position, stop using the Saharawi people as a change coin in front of the pressures Morocco exercise on Spain in different domains, and to undertake a firm action in order that the decolonisation of the Western Sahara, which was interrupted in 1975, be concluded in a just manner through the organisation of a self-determination referendum", affirmed CEAS-Sahara in a press release.
The representatives of the associations of solidarity from different Spanish regions, which met in June the 2nd and the 3rd in Cordoue in General Assembly, urged the Spanish Government to pressure Morocco to strictly "respect the UN Security Council’s resolutions, especially the resolution 1495, known as the Baker Plan II".
They recalled that the "Spanish State continues to be historically and politically accountable for the colonisation the Saharawi people is subjected to and the sufferings that they undergo these last 30 years".
The Coordination observed that "there is no possibility to conceive the search of a dialogue and of a negotiated solution between the two parties to the conflict, based on the Saharawi people rights and the pretended rights of Morocco in the Sahara, because Morocco does not have any right in the territory as it was postulated by the rule of the International Court of Justice".
"The Saharawi people are the only party who had the right to decide over the destiny of this territory and none can violate this right", the Coordination affirmed.
On another hand it denounced the "illegal" fishing agreement signed between the European Union and Morocco, which included the territorial waters of the Western Sahara, "which are the subject to a conflict and over which Morocco does not have the status of an administrating power, according to the international law", the coordination recalls.
It further denounced the attitude of the delegation of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, which has recently visited the occupied territories of the Western Sahara, and which "did not accomplish the mission of investigation it should have done, by refusing to witness on the human rights violations committed on the ground".
The Coordination thanked the Algerian people and Government for the "position of defence and solidarity of the Saharawi cause", and hailed the African Union for "its recognition and support to the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic".
It hailed the struggle of Aminetou Haidar, and the Juan Maria Bandres 200 Award she received from the Spanish Committee for the Assistance to the Refugees, as a "symbol to the peaceful resistance of the Saharawi population in the occupied zones of the Western Sahara". (SPS)
010/090/700/TRD 061732 June 06 SPS
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SPS SADR/FRANCE/UN Polisario Front "has never threatened" the French group of the MINURSO, Ould Khadad stressed
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Chahid Hafed, 06/06/2006 (SPS) "Polisario had never uttered threats against the French group of the MINURSO", in contradiction to the information reported by the Moroccan official press agency (MAP), the Saharawi Coordinator with the MINURSO, Mhamed Khadad, stated during a press conference on Tuesday in Chahid Hafed.
Asked about Paris position on the Western Sahara conflict, Mr. Khadad nted that it is well known that the French policy on this question, "is a real obstacle for peace and stability in the region because of the blind support to the Moroccan expansionist theses".
He recalled that Paris has "militarily intervened in the conflict with its planes «Jaguar», which bombarded the Saharawis and also through the logistic, economic, diplomatic, technical and military support".
The Saharawi diplomat also noted that "it is the French Government has put all its weight, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, to hinder the UN’s body from mentioning, in its last resolution (April the 28, 2006), the flagrant human rights violations committed by the Moroccan State against the defenceless Saharawi civil population".
To Mr. Khadad, "such a blind support deprives Par from any credibility to play any role in the peaceful resolution of the conflict".
IN this respect, Mr. Khadad recognised that based on these considerations Polisario Front has always "expressed objections vis-à-vis the French presence within the Minurso", but is categorically denying that the Saharawi organisation has ever uttered threats against the French group within the UN’s mission. (SPS)
010/090/100/TRD 061851 June 06 SPS
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SPS SADR/MOROCCO/UN Mr. Khadad: It is Rabat that blocks the family visits exchange programme between the Saharawi families separated by Moroccan military wall
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Chahid El Hafed, 06/06/2006 (SPS) the Saharawi Coordinator with the MINURSO, Mhamed Khadad, affirmed that "it is rather the Moroccan Government which is blocking the visits exchange programme between the Saharawi families separated for more than 30 years by a military wall erected by the Moroccan forces of occupation, filed with anti-personal mines and barbered wires in addition to more than 120.000 Moroccan soldiers".
"The Moroccan colonial authorities did not respect the programme and the calendar established by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and accepted by the two parties in February 2006 instead of that Rabat tried to rearrange it to make the minimum of visits possible to El Aaiun, which is the theatre of bloody confrontations between peaceful Saharawi demonstrators and the Moroccan forces of occupation", Mr. Khadad stressed on Tuesday during a press conference in Chahid El Hafed.
A press release by the Moroccan Foreign Affairs Ministry had indicated that Polisario was behind the suspension, since the last two weeks, of the visits between the Saharawi families, supervised by the UNHCR and the Minurso within the framework of the UN’s peace process confidence-building measures between the two parties to the conflict of the Western Sahara, Polisario Front and Morocco.
Giving examples "on the unwillingness of Morocco and its attempt to politicises this purely humanitarian initiative", Mr. Khadad underlined the rejection by Rabat to allow some Saharawi human rights activists to visit their families. He gave an example with Mr. Sidi Mohamed Dedeche, Human Rights RAFTO Price winner in 2002.
He also indicated that, "despite of the persistent demand fro Polisario to enable the maximum number possible to profit from this programme, the Moroccan authorities always refuse to increase the number to 100 at a time as Polisario would like to and insist on keeping the number to 28 persons" in each trip.
He finally hoped that "the efforts currently undertaken by the UN Secretary General’s Special Representative and by the UNHCR can unblock the impasse created by Morocco", wishing that the resume to the visits "start as soon as possible and profit to the maximum of persons as possible". (SPS)
010/090/000/TRD 061850 June 06 SPS
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