SPS SADR/ALGERIA/MEDIAS "We hope that the new UN Secretary General will organise a referendum in the Western Sahara", Mohamed Abdelaziz declares          12.10.06

 

 

Algiers, 12/10/2006 (SPS) The President of the Republic, Mr. Mohamed Abdelaziz, hoped on Wednesday to see the new Secretary General, the South Korean, Ban Ki-Moon, succeed in organising a "free and democratic referendum on self-determination for the Saharawi people", and this in the "beginning of his mandate".

 

In an interview to the Algerian National Channel III, the Saharawi President stressed that the "credibility of the UN unavoidably passes by the respect of the fundamental principles of peace the world including the rights of the people to self-determination", adding that the Saharawi question is among the most "clear".

 

Mr. Abdelaziz said he is convinced that the UN new Secretary General "will work to find a just solution to the Saharawi question as his predecessor, Kofi Annan, who succeeded in resolving the Eat Timor question, did" and this, he added, despite the stubbornness of the Moroccan Government".

 

The Head of the State stressed that "70 State world wide recognise the Saharawi republic and establish diplomatic relations with it", underlining the "international consensus on the fact that Polisario Front is the legitimate representative of the Saharawi people".

 

He also recalled that "the Saharawi question is a decolonisation question" and that "no State in the world recognises the Moroccan sovereignty over the Saharawi territories".

 

Mr. Abdelaziz also denounced the gross human rights violations committed by the Moroccan administration in the occupied territories of the Western Sahara", adding that "the Moroccan occupation of the Western Sahara was denounced by the UN General Assembly’s Fourth Commission".

 

The United Nations, he said, "recognised, in their last report, the Moroccan human rights violations" what constitutes a "new victory to the Saharawi people", he considered.

 

Concerning a possible resuming to war, the President of the Republic said: "we do not like war, it is Morocco who imposed war on us in 1975", underlining that "if the Moroccan Government persists in its stubbornness, we will have no other choice but to defend our right by all legitimate means".

 

After having denounced the position of some members of the UN Security Council, who are "accomplices with Morocco, including France which is encouraging Morocco to rebel", the Head of the State affirmed that this policy "will not weaken the determination of the Saharawi resistance".

 

Mr. Abdelaziz finally recalled the current situation in the Saharawi refugee camps, qualifying it s "very difficult after the end of the food stocks". In this respect, he launched "an urgent appeal to the international community to bring humanitarian aid to the Saharawi people". (SPS)

 

020/090/700/TRD 121045 Oct 06 SPS

 

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SPS OCCUPIED TERRITORIES/REPRESSION Postponement of the trial of three Saharawi political detainees to 8 November

 

El Aaiun (occupied territories), 12/10/2006 (SPS) The Moroccan colonial court of appeal in El Aaiun postponed the judgement of three Saharawi political prisoners to November the 8, on Wednesday, concordant sources affirmed.

 

The three Saharawi political prisoners, Mr. Choubida Laroussi, was arrested last March the 19th 2006 in the occupied city of Dajla and transferred to the Carcel Negra, while the two others, Dadi Hmada, and Elmoussaoui Ahmed, were arrested in April 2006 in Smara, it should be recalled.

 

The three political prisoners were arrested while they participated to peaceful demonstrations advocating "the immediate withdrawal" of the Moroccan occupation of the Western Sahara calling to the Saharawi people’s right to self-determination.

 

On another hand, the Saharawi political prisoners, Brahim Sabbar (SG of the ASVDH) and Ahmed Sbai, imprisoned in the Carcel Negra in El Aaiun, are in a critical state of health because of the unlimited hunger strike they are undertaking since last September the 4th, according to sources close to their families. (SPS)

 

0210/090/110/TRD 121150 Oct 06 SPS

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