SAHARA PRESSE SERVICE

Algiers, 08/11/2006 (SPS) A delegation of the African Union (AU) chaired by the President of the AU’s Committee for Refugees, Mr. John Aggrey, finished on Tuesday a 5 days solidarity visit to the Saharawi refugee camps.

"The objective of the visit was to express anew the solidarity of the continental organisation with the Saharawi people, for the sufferings they are baring because of the occupation of their territory, in addition to bring them help via symbolic humanitarian aid", indicated a source from the African delegation.

The African delegation also paid a visit to Algiers, where it had meetings with the Algerian authorities and "thanked them, on behalf of Africa, for the assistance Algeria is providing to the Saharawi refugees in the camps near Tindouf", the same source added.

The African delegation also had meetings with representatives of the Red Cross International Committee (CICR), World Food Programme (PAM) and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (HCR), and "raised their awareness about the need to continue bringing and increasing the necessary assistance to the Saharawi refugees", it was underlined.

The resident of the African delegation expressed his "deep concern about the impasse registered in the decolonisation of the Western Sahara and asked for a mobilisation campaign within the international community so as to prevent the Saharawi refugees from been forgotten".

Mr. Aggrey, who is also Ambassador of Ghana to Addis Ababa, declared that he will present a report to the next meeting of the AU’s Committee for Refugees, this Thursday in the Ethiopian capital, "to raise more countries, institutions and public opinion about the sufferings of the Saharawi people", the same source stressed. (SPS)

020/090/700/TRD 081040 Nov 06 SPS

SPS
SADR/MOROCCO

Instituting an independent State in Western Sahara is the best way to establish peace and security in the region (Saharawi Minister)

Bir Lahlou, 08/11/ 2006 (SPS) The Saharawi Minister for Occupied Territories and Communities, Mr. El Khalil Sid M'hamed, affirmed Tuesday that the institution of an independent Saharawi State, through a just and regular self-determination referendum, is "the best way for the consecration of security, peace and stability in the region because this is the democratic solution conforming to the UN Charter".

In a statement published by the Saharawi Ministry for Information after the speech pronounced by the Moroccan king in which he said that "the recovery by the Saharawi people of their freedom and the institution of their independent State is a threat to security and stability in the region", Mr. El Khalil Sid Ahmed underlined that “the Moroccan colonial presence in the Western Sahara against the Saharawi people’s will and against the international legality” is the real reason behind the instability and tension in Morocco, in the Maghreb and in North Africa.

In this respect, the Saharawi Minister estimated that "30 years of merciless war, policy of genocide and repression imposed by the Moroccan Government on the Saharawi people are more than enough to reveal the failure of the Moroccan colonial approach".

The Minister further stressed the "Moroccan violations of the Saharawi people’s right to self-determination, which opens the way to the gross human rights violations against the Saharawi people as registered and reported by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in its report » are the real reason behind the deterioration of the situation in the occupied territories of the Western Sahara.

Reiterating the Saharawi Government’s readiness "to constructively cooperate with the UN for the implementation of the UN-African Union’s Settlement Plan (of 1991) and the Peace Plan for the self-determination for the people of the Western Sahara", the Saharawi Minister of the Occupied territories called on the international community for "the necessity of putting pressures on the Moroccan Government so as to compel Morocco respect the international legality and organise a free and regular self-determination referendum, been the unique way to resolve the conflict ". (SPS)

SPS
SADRD/CHILIE/INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST

Many Presidents and political leaders of the International Socialist support Saharawi people’s right to self-determination

Santiago de Chile, 08/11/2006 (SPS) Many Presidents and political leaders of the parties of the International Socialist Movement expressed their support to the Saharawi people’s right to self-determination and expressed their concern about the "serious and systematic" human rights violations in the occupied territories of the Western Sahara perpetrated by Morocco since 1975.

The Socialist Presidents and leaders recalled, in a press release they published Monday during a meeting of their organisation held between November the 6 and 7th in the capital of Chilie, that the "question of Western Sahara is a decolonisation question, defined as such by the U since 1963".

The meeting that gathered more than 160 social democrat political party from all continents, indicated that international human rights organisations such as Amnesty international, Human Right Watch, the International Federation for Human Rights and the World Organisation against Torture 'OMCT' had expressed their "deep concern" in the face of the violations of the Saharawi citizens’ rights in the territories of the Western Sahara occupied by Morocco.

On another hand, the Socialist leaders asked for the creation "of an international and independent mechanism that can guarantee a permanent follow up of the human rights in these territories, the freedom of expression, freedom of association and demonstration in the Saharawi occupied territories ". (SPS)

070/090/TRD/TRD 091237 nov. 06 SPS