SAHARA PRESSE SERVICE

Smara (refugee camps), 11/11/2006 (SPS) The Executive Director of the World Food Programme (WFP, a UN body), Mr. James Morris, is expected Saturday morning at the Wilaya of Smara in the Saharawi refugee camps heading an important delegation of his organisation for a visit to the Saharawi refugee camps, Saharawi official sources indicated.

Mr. James Morris will be received at the Wilaya of Smara by members of the Saharawi Government chaired by the President of the Saharawi Red Crescent, before he visits the different Dairas and socio-economic institutions of the Wilaya.

He will also meet the citizens of the Wilaya and have a meeting with the local authorities and the different officials of Polisario front.

Mr. Morris will be invited in the afternoon by the President of the Republic, Mohamed Abdelaziz, at the presidency in Chahid El Hafed. (SPS)

020/090/100/TRD 111130 Nov 06 SPS

SPS
SADR/SPAIN/POLITICAL PARTIES

Western Sahara is ''black mark'' in the policy of the Spanish Government, a Spanish political party declares

Madrid, 11/11/2006 (SPS) The question of the Western Sahara is a "black mark" in the foreign policy of the Spanish Government, which must "justify" the position it adopted regarding it since it reached power, estimated the Spanish political party, Izquierda unida (United Left- 3rd power in Spain) on Friday.

"The absence of a response to the reasonable and jus claims of the Saharawi people and their representative and the silence observed in the face of the initiative undertaken by social and sectors and in the face of political actions adopted since the beginning of the legislature makes of this question a black mark in the foreign policy adopted by the current Government'', the Spanish Political party stresses in a press release.

Izquierda Unida, which expressed its "total support" to the demonstration organised for the support of the "decolonisation and independence of the Western Sahara", which is planed for Saturday in Madrid, affirmed that "it is time that the socialist Government gives explanations about its policy in the Western Sahara since its accession to power".

"Our Government can not submit our foreign policy to the interest of any country, and less, to use the Saharawi people’s right to self-determination as a an exchange money", for other gains, the Spanish political party adds.

Izquierda Unida regretted "the scandalous role" of the Spanish representation during the vote last October within the UN General Assembly’s Fourth Committee on Decolonisation, since Spain has adopted "a position of abstention in its vote of a resolution that reaffirmed the Saharawi people’s right to self-determination".

This abstention took place while "15 European countries, including Germany and the United Kingdom, have voted in favour of this resolution", enabling thus its adoption and reaffirming the "validity of the Peace Plan" for the Western Sahara, elaborated by the UN and the Organisation of the African Unity and adopted by the UN’s Security Council, the Party recalled. (SPS)

020/090/700/TRD 111200 Nov 06 SPS

SPS
OCCUPIED TERRITORIES/POLITICAL PRISONERS

Saharawi Political prisoners denounce human rights abuses committed by Morocco

El Aaiun (occupied territories), 11/11/2006 (SPS) Saharawi political prisoners incarcerated in the notorious Carcel Negra (Black Jail in the occupied city of El Aaiun) denounced the human rights violations perpetrated against them by the Moroccan forces of occupation, the political prisoners indicated in a press release published recently of which SPS received a copy.

The Saharawi political prisoners also condemned the torture they are subjected to in addition to the harassment to which their families are submitted, calling for the opening of “just and transparent” investigation on this allegations and asking for the judgement of the accountable Moroccan officials.

They also expressed their attachment to the defence of the legitimate rights of the Saharawi people in the Moroccan courts, estimating that "the Moroccan authorities assume the full responsibility about what may happen to us or to our families who come to visit us in jail", the text underlines.

They launched an appeal to the Moroccan and international human rights organisations, to the democratic forces concerned about peace and justice "to intervene urgently so as to protect the helpless Saharawi citizens in the occupied territories of the Western Sahara from the Moroccan repressive machine".

On another hand, the family of the Saharawi political prisoner, Choubeida Laroussi, « energetically » denounced the decision pronounced by the Moroccan colonial court of El Aaiun on Wednesday against their son, who was sentenced 18 months imprisonment.

The family further expressed its full solidarity with all the Saharawi political prisoners in Moroccan prisons, calling for their immediate an unconditional release. (SPS)

020/090/110/TRD 111530 Nov 06 SPS

SPS
SADR/SPAIN/SOLIDARITY

A demonstration calling for the decolonisation of the Western Sahara in Madrid

Madrid, 11/11/ 2006 (SPS) A demonstration "for the decolonisation and independence of the Western Sahara" will be organised on Saturday afternoon in Madrid following an appeal of the civic platform for the self-determination referendum in the Western Sahara and the State Coordination for the Associations supporting the Saharawi People (CEAS-Sahara).

According to the appeal, published by the organisers, the demonstrators ask for "the end of the torture and human rights violations committed by the Moroccan forces of occupation" and claim "for the intervention of the United Nations so as to compel Morocco respect the international legality".

The text registered the denunciation by many organisations, during the last months, of many human rights violations against the Saharawi citizens in the occupied territories of the Western Sahara.

It recalled that due to these violations, the Group of the Saharawi Human Rights Defenders has called last September from the UN to intervene so as to put an end to this situation.

The organisers also noted the critical situation of the Saharawi refugees, a situation that is getting more serious because of the reduction in the humanitarian aid dedicated t these refugees.

The demonstration coincides with the commemoration of the 31st Tripartite Accords of Madrid, signed in the 14 November 1975, by the Spanish Government of then according to which it ceded the occupied Western Sahara to Morocco and Mauritania, in complete violation to the international law because the Western Sahara is a Non-Self-Governing territory that was under a process of decolonisation.

In 1979, Mauritania withdrew from the Western Sahara an signed a peace accord with Polisario Front leaving Morocco as the only illegal force of occupation in the territory.

To the ex-Spanish Ambassador to Morocco, Fernando Arias Salgado, the signing of the Tripartite Accords of Madrid was "one of the biggest strategic errors" of the Spanish foreign policy.

"Spain should have handed over the Western Sahara to the UN so as it can be administrated temporarily until the valid expression by the Saharawi people of their will.

The Spanish Government did not respect the international legality at the time, and the option represented by the signing of these accords did not bring peace, nor stability, nor development to the Maghreb", he affirmed. (SPS)

020/090/700/TRD 111210 Nov 06 SPS

SPS
SADR/SPAIN/MOROCCO/MEDIAS

"Pressures" of Morocco on Saharawi youngsters to force them migrate to Spain, according to a Spanish newspaper

Madrid, 11/11/2006 (SPS) Morocco exercises "pressures" on the Saharawi youth living in the occupied territories of the Western Sahara to force them migrate to Spain, the Spanish newspaper «El Mundo» wrote on Wednesday.

The newspaper underlined that the Saharawis who try to leave the Western Sahara do it because of the increase of the Moroccan repression''.

"Get out of here. Go to Spain. There is no place for you here", Mohamed Salem says, knowing that he was "detained and tortured by the Moroccan police for having demonstrated in favour of the self-determination of the Saharawi people".

Mohamed Salem, El Mundo quotes, affirms he was subjected many times to pressures by the Moroccan police to push him migrate to the Spanish Canaries Islands.

The newspaper recalled that Polisario Front has recently declared that the Moroccan forces adopted new tactics to "get rid" of the Saharawis who struggle for the rights of their people: they ''put pressures on them to push them migrate to Spain".

The Moroccans, "try to empty the territory from the youth. But the Saharawi population is not scared and got out to the streets to demonstrate", Polisario Front’s Representative to Spain, Brahim Ghali, indicates, stressing that this Moroccan campaign increased since the start of the Intifada of Independence last May 2005.

"The Moroccan police threaten the Saharawis during interrogatories and propose them to leave the Western Sahara if they do not want to be tortured", Mr. Ghali affirmed.

"There is a web of Moroccan policemen whose work is to send the Saharawi youth to the Canaries Islands. This is a plan of the Moroccan Government against the Saharawi youngsters in the occupied territories", declared Saharawi human rights activist, Ali Salem Tamek.

El Mundo recalled that the Polisario Front, which "struggles, the newspaper underlines, since 30 years for the liberation of the Western Sahara", has denounced "the complicity" of the Moroccan authorities with the organised nets of illegal migration.

"The deputy Governor El Aaiun decides who can or cannot leave. Then, the smuggler s contact the concerned and define an amount of money to help him migrate", Mohamed Salem indicates, adding that this smugglers receive "clear instructions" from the Moroccan police about the zones put under surveillance and those which are not.

More than 500 Saharawi youth were forced out from the Western Sahara to exile in one year because of the Moroccan repression and because of the torture they are subjected to, indicated the Saharawi Minister of the Occupied Territories, regretting the absence of international observers to investigate on the situation in these territories. (SPS)

020/090/700/TRD 111230 Nov 06 SPS