SAHARA PRESS SERVICE

Bir Lahlou, 10/09/04 (SPS) The President of the Republic, Mohamed Abdelaziz, declared Friday that the mission of the UN Secretary General's Special Representative, Alvaro de Soto, "can not transcend the framework defined in Security Council's resolutions 1495 and 1541", rejecting " any attempt that tends to deviate the Western Sahara problem out of its framework as a decolonisation problem".

Western Sahara's problem is a decolonisation issue that should be achieved, "it is consequently dependent on the exercise by the Saharawi people of their inalienable right to self-determination and independence", emphasised the President of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic.

Polisario Front, he added, "reiterates its availability to continue collaborating with the United Nations" for the implementation of Security Council's resolutions 1495 and 1541 and "rejects any attempt that tends to deviate the Western Sahara problem out of its framework as a decolonisation problem opposing Saharawi people to Morocco", opting for "the enforcement of Mr. Baker's Peace Plan, as it is clearly defined as an optimum political solution to Western Sahara conflict".
 
Here is bellow the complete text of the declaration:
 

"
Saharawi Arab
Democratic Republic

The Presidency

Declaration of H.E.Mr. Mohamed Abdelaziz, President of the Republic, Polisario Front Secretary General

    Within the framework of the efforts of the United Nations for a fair and lasting solution to the Western Sahara conflict, Mr. Alvaro de SOTO is actually undertaking a visit to the region to meet with the two parties to the conflict, Polisario Front and Morocco.

On this occasion Polisario Front recalls the following:
 
    1- The question of Western Sahara is a decolonisation problem, registered, for four decades, on the agenda of the fourth Commission of the General Assembly. It is consequently dependent on the exercise by the Saharawi people of their inalienable right to self-determination and independence.

    2- POLISARIO Front has always fully cooperated with the United Nations for the success of its actions for peace in Western Sahara. Mr. James Baker, whose resignation as UN Secretary General's Personal Envoy we deeply regret, had found full availability and commitment from Polisario Front to help him in his awesome efforts for the establishment of a fair and final peace to the conflict, which is basically a conflict imposed on our region for nearly 30 years by Moroccan colonial aggression and occupation.
 
    3- For the past thirteen years, United Nations efforts in Western Sahara failed to succeed because of the intransigence of Morocco and its repeated denial of its commitments with the international community. Morocco did block the enforcement of the settlement plan of 1999, after having accepted it; Morocco did push the Houston accords to failure after having signed them; and its Morocco that still rejects the Baker Plan entitled "Peace Plan for the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara", unanimously adopted by Security Council in its resolutions 1495 and 1541.

    4- The facts of the problem are clear and the responsibility of the blockage is defined.

    Thus, POLISARIO Front will receive Mr. Alvaro DE SOTO as a Special Representative of the UN's Secretary General, whose mission can not transcend the framework defined in Security Council's resolutions 1495 and 1541, which calls to the enforcement of Mr. Baker's Peace Plan, as it is clearly defined as an optimum political solution to Western Sahara conflict.
 
     5- POLISARIO Front reiterates its availability to continue collaborating with the United Nations for the implementation of the up mentioned Security Council's resolutions. It rejects any attempt that tends to deviate the Western Sahara problem out of its framework as a decolonisation problem opposing Saharawi people to Morocco, and opposes any questioning of our people's legitimate right to freely decide over its future.
 
    Polisario Front calls the international community to defend international legality in Western Sahara and to demand the organisation of a free, fair and legal referendum for self-determination of the Saharawi people.

060/090/100 102300 SEPT 04 SPS

SPS
OCCUPIED TERRITORIES/DEMONSTRATION/REPPRESSION
Occupied city of Smara defies Moroccan oppressive colonialism after the repression of a sit-in

Smara (occupied territories) 10/09/04 (SPS) Smara town, occupied spiritual Capital of the Western Sahara, awoke Wednesday with the colours of the national flag and placards which carry hostile slogans to the illegal occupation of the Western Sahara, after the repression by the Moroccan colonial authorities of a sit-in organised by Saharawi unemployed graduates, which was held last Monday and Tuesday.

According to a source close to the ministry for occupied territories and communities, Smara was the theatre of a new defiance to the Moroccan oppressor, after Moroccan authorities repressed a sit-in organized Monday and Tuesday by Saharawi unemployed graduates, who "were claiming for their rights usurped by Moroccan administration".

In response to the claims of this peaceful sit-in, the CMI and the mobile auxiliary forces of Makhzen "had brutally dispersed" the demonstrators last Tuesday, wounding a number of graduates and forcing others to disperse.

The next day, all the streets of the town of Smara were coloured with the replicas of the Saharawi national flag and placards on which were written slogans such as: "the POLISARIO is our representative, the activism is our choice and independence is our goal", "Our masses will be a volcano under the feet of the invader until total independence", "there is no solution other than independence", "All the homeland or the martyr", among anthers.

To face this important nationalist reaction, the police forces reacted with rage and frustration, deploying all available means of repression. They reinforced the state of siege within the occupied city by multiplying police checkpoints inside Smara to intimidate the Saharawi population.
 
Smara is today "in a state of defiance to the Moroccan oppressor and sahrawis are ready to face any act of reprisal from the forces of the colonial administration", indicated the correspondent of SPS in occupied territories by telephone.

These events, he confirmed, coincide "intentionally with the 5th anniversary of the glorious intifadha of El Aaiun of 1999, which had spread in all the occupied cities of the Western Sahara between September the 09, 1999 until the beginning of the year 2000. During this Intifadha all the components of the Saharawi people had clearly rejected Moroccan fait accomplit in Western Sahara, expressing their rejection to the illegal occupation of their territory and condemning the passivity of the UN, represented by its mission on the ground, Minurso".

It should be recalled that during the intifadha of September 1999, hundreds of sahrawis, mainly composed of students, unemployed graduates, workers, women, and of handicapped people, had organised a sit-in gathering in six tents they built up in front of the seat of the Moroccan administration and opposite "Negjir Hotel", the residence of the members of the MINURSO in El Aaiun, located in the avenue of Mecque, to protest against Moroccan policy of obstruction to the UN settlement plan for Western Sahara and against colonial repressive policies Rabat is adopting against the Saharawi population.

This peaceful demonstration was repressed in blood, in September the 23rd, 1999, by the Royal Gendarmerie, the police forces and the auxiliary mobile forces, under the direct commandment of the negatively famous Moroccan ex-minister of Interior Driss Basri, Rabat sent at haste to control the situation.

Hundreds of people were wounded during these demonstrations. They were not allowed in hospitals and were left to their fates, while hundreds of wounded demonstrators were carried by the forces of oppression and abandoned far out from the city exposing them to death.

The cruelty of the oppressor was such, that even Moroccan newspapers known by their alignment on the colonial policy in Western Sahara were not able to ignore this cruelty.

"Al Mounaddama", the newspaper of "the Organization of Democratic Work", the left Party chaired by the famous figure of Moroccan opposition, Mr. Ben Saaid Ait Idder, had revealed on September the 25th 1999 that "the police force intervened violently to disperse demonstrations organized in El Aaiun since Friday September the 10", deploring that "these forces had tracked wounded people even in the hospital, what prevented many of them from receiving the necessary care ".

The Minister for planning, Mohamed el Yazghi, member of the former government, had declared himself humiliated then because of the massacre of El Aaiun, expressing his opposition to the "security methods" practised in Western Sahara, according to a report by a Spanish journalist, Pedro Canales.

In September the 27, 1999, the victims of this oppression organized a new demonstration of protest, claiming from the Moroccan Government to open an investigation to establish the truth about the events of El Aaiun and to judge the persons blamed for this barbarian act.

Once more, the authorities of oppression had chosen the policy of the iron hand by mobilizing the Moroccan colonists, who formed armed militias to support their occupying forces in the repression of the Saharawi population.

Failing to intervene to protect the innocent victims, who were helplessly delivered to their torturer, the Mission of the United Nations for the organization of a referendum (MINURSO) had adopted a complete dumbness, refusing to give any public comment on the events. (SPS)

060/090/000 101329 Sept 04 SPS