SPS SADR/SPAIN/DEMONSTRATION Thousands demonstrators claim
for Saharawi people right to self-determination in Madrid
13.11.04
Madrid, 13/11/2004 (SPS) A
demonstration of support to Saharawi people right to
self-determination, which gathered thousands people coming from all the
Spanish regions, took place Saturday in Madrid, reported Algerian Press
Service, APS.
Representatives of all the Spanish political parties, social
organisations, youth organisations and other NGOs as well as normal
citizens took part to the demonstration that started in the midday from
the Glorieta de Atocha Place, the centre of the Spanish Capital.
Coinciding with the 30th anniversary of the "unfortunately famous
Tripartite Accords of Madrid" of October the 14th, 1975, the
demonstration, which is organised to the request of the Coordination of
the Associations of solidarity with the Saharawi people (CEAS-SAHARA),
had also received the support of the main Spanish Trade Unions, the
Workers Commissions (CC) and the General Union of Workers (UGT).
The march was led by the Representative of Polisario Front to Madrid,
Brahim Ghali, The Coordinator of the Izquierda Unida Party (Unified
Left), Gaspar Llamazares, and the President of the Association of the
Friends of the Saharawi people, Jose Taboada Valdes.
A big flag of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) and a
placard on which one can read "30 years are enough, the referendum on
self-determination now!!” were carried by some demonstrators in the
head of the march, which was widely covered by press.
All along the way of the demonstration, the demonstrators chanted
slogans in favour of the Saharawi people: "Stop to betrayals", "Yes to
the referendum", "Free Sahara". "Justice for the Saharawi detainees and
reported missing", they chanted.
Arrived in front of the seat of the ministry for Foreign Affairs, a
delegation that represented the Spanish associations of solidarity with
the Saharawi people handed over a manifesto to officials from the
ministry calling the Spanish Government to "assume, once and for all,
its historical responsibility towards the Saharawi people by demanding
the implementation of the Peace Plan, mainly the Baker Plan II".
The manifesto called the Government to "undertake the needed measures
to ask the UN for the strict enforcement of the peace plan and for the
urgent organisation of a referendum on self-determination so as to
definitively close the decolonisation process of Western Sahara". The
document also called the Spanish executive to give the Polisario Front
delegation in Madrid the "diplomatic status as the unique and
legitimate representative of the Saharawi people, as it is recognised
by UN and by the African Union".
It also called the member States of the European Union to "actively
defend" the enforcement of the peace plan and to reject "any initiative
that pretend to substitute this plan".
On another hand, the writers of the manifesto called the Moroccan
Government to respect "its commitments reached within the framework of
the Baker plan" as well as human rights in occupied zones of Western
Sahara.
The content of the manifesto was read to the demonstrators, while the
participants gathered in the Provinicia Place, by the writer Lucia
Etxebarria.
Philosopher Javier Sadaba also intervened on behalf of the world of
culture to denounce the "betrayals" to which Saharawi people were
victim. "Our Government have got the key to the referendum (on
self-determination). It should show coherence and courage by using this
key", he said.
On his part Jose Taboada Valdes, from the Association of the Friends of
the Saharawi people, denounced the fact that Western Sahara is "the
last colonised African territory".
Saharawi representative in Madrid, Brahim Ghali, warmly applauded by
the demonstrators, expressed his pleasure about the unanimous support
Spanish Government has for the Saharawi cause, underlining that the
referendum on self-determination is a right the whole international
community recognise to Saharawi people, but which exercise was
"hindered by the Moroccan invasion and by Madrid's Tripartite Accords
of 1975".
"Morocco openly rejects the UN's peace plan and Security Council's
resolutions. We call the international community and the Spanish
Government to exert pressures on Morocco until it gives in to the
international legality", said Brahim Ghali.
On his part, the Coordinator of the Izquierda Unida, Gaspar Llamazares,
called the Spanish Government to "a firm position of support to the
Saharawi people right".
"It is already 30 years that Saharawi people right to
self-determination is confiscated (...). It is time this right, in
front of which Morocco put many obstacles, be enforced. The Spanish
Government, regardless its political tendency, has got a moral
obligation towards the Saharawi people", he asserted. (SPS)
SAHARA
PRESS SERVICE