SAHARA PRESS SERVICE

Nouakchott 10/02/2004 (SPS) Mr. El Khalil Sidi M'Hamed, Envoy of the President of the Republic, Mohamed Abdelaziz, was received on Tuesday in Nouakchott by the Mauritanian President, Maaouiya Ould Sidi Ahmed Taya, reported a dispatch of Mauritanian Information Agency (AMI) on Tuesday.

The Councillor of Mauritanian president, Mohamed Fadel Ould Dah, was present to the meeting, from Mauritanian part, and Saharawi ambassador, Mr. Edda Ehmeim, it was indicated.

Mr. Khalil declared to AMI that the message of the President of the Republic concerns "the last development in the region, especially Saharawi question", bringing out "the excellent relationships between the two countries and the two heads of states", added the Mauritanian press agency. (SPS)

010/090/720/TRD 102017 Feb 04 SPS

SPS
SADR/EAST TIMOR/FRANCE/MASS MEDIA
The Nobel Price, Horta: "France is bringing its image into play, by the incoherence of its position about Western Sahara"

Madrid, 10/02/2004 (SPS) Nobel Peace price winner, Ramos Horta, East Timor's minister of foreign affairs, considered that Paris "France is bringing its image into play, by the incoherence of its position about Western Sahara", and that this position from a permanent member of Security Council "can be detrimental to the UN".

Mr. Horta, giving an interview to the journalist, Ana Camacho, published on Monday in the Spanish magazine "Mundo Negro", considered that "the UN who claims for international law in Iraq for example, can not in the same time ignore this same international law in Western Sahara question".

"Ignoring the right to self-determination to a people is a delicate challenge to the prestige of this organisation", he noted.

According to the Nobel price winner, "Spain has got a special prestige in UN and it can play a decisive role in the search of a solution for Western Sahara".

"Spain can and must play an important role in the promotion of peace for Saharawi people, being the colonial power in Western Sahara, and out of moral and historical obligations such state impose", he considered.

Bringing out the similarities of the two cases, Saharawi and East Timor, Mr. Horta considered that "the key that allowed, after 25 years oppression, the withdrawal of Indonesian occupation forces and the organisation of the referendum that led to sovereignty and peace in East Timor, consisted in the struggle of Portugal to push the international community to exert pressures on Indonesia to make it respect the UN's resolutions".

"Without Portugal's will and without the diplomatic efforts paid by the Portugalian lobby, I am sure that East Timor would have never gained its independence"?, he said.

Expressing his conviction of the invalidity of Madrid's Accords, Mr. Horta expressed his indignation to the parting of Saharawi people in 1975 because of these accords.

"I think that the (Spanish) political and historical mistake was the signature of the tripartite accords in Madrid, because Spain does not have the authority, nor the competence as far as international laws are concerned, to deliver a people under its administration to Morocco and to Mauritania", he added.

To Mr Horta, "What is important is international laws not a domestic act, especially when the latter contradicts international laws", underlining that these accords have no juridical legitimacy unless they are ratified by Spanish Parliament.

According to the Noble price winner, the unconditional solidarity of Spanish people with Saharawis compensates the big mistake of the Spanish Government and is lately leading to a more satisfying attitude in favour of the Saharawi issue

Finally, he expressed his conviction that the bilateral preoccupations and interests between Spain and Morocco "can not serve in forgetting or justifying Saharawi people's sufferings". (SPS)

010/090/770/TRD 101508 Feb 04 SPS

SPS
SADR/SPAIN/INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST
Spanish associations urge Zapatero and the International Socialist to support referendum in Western Sahara

Madrid, 10/02/2004 (SPS) The Coordination of Supporting Spanish Provinces with Saharawi People (CEASAPS) urged the SG of the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE), José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, to support Baker's plan for the self-determination of Saharawi people, reported a letter of the associations
and reproduced by Spanish mass media.

The letter asks Spanish socialists to defend Saharawi people's right to self-determination against the ''intransigence'' of Morocco, in front of the session of the International Council that took place last week end in Madrid.

The Spanish associations denounced ''the obstruction'' and ''intransigence'' with which Rabat received Plan Baker II for the self-determination of Saharawi people.

They expressed that they are convinced that Morocco will not change its opinion unless ''international community exert firm pressures''.

Meantime, the CEASPS recalled the socialist leader that ''Spain still remains the administrative power'', in Western Sahara, according to international laws as UN has recalled last February 2002.

On another hand, the letter estimated that the former Spanish colony case is ''an unachieved decolonisation problem'', which will be closed when the inhabitants of the territory will have practiced ''their right to self-determination through a fair and transparent referendum, conforming to UN's resolutions''.
(SPS)

010/090/710/TRD 101213 Feb 04 SPS