SAHARA PRESSE SERVICE

Chahid El Hafed, 13/11/2006 (SPS) The President of the Spanish League for Human rights, Mr. Francisco José Alonso Rodríguez, declared that the Spanish Government must "rectify its attitude and takes upon itself its historic debt" towards the Saharawi people after it abandoned them to their fate in 1975, when Madrid signed the Tripartite Accords with Morocco and Mauritania.

"Spain must take upon itself its political, juridical and responsibilities been the administrating territory of the territory", M. Rodriguez said in a press release published on Saturday, adding that the decolonisation of the Western Sahara is the pendent subject for the Spanish democracy".

The Saharawi claims for freedom and independence continue to be "brutally repressed" by the Moroccan military forces and police.

The Saharawi population lives under "a real state of terror", M. Rodriguez said, hundreds illegal detentions, sequestration of minors, show trials, plundering and ransacking of houses and tortures as well as assassination of young Saharawi demonstrators.

In this respect, the Spanish League for Human Rights called on the Spanish Government to undertake a process that would enable the Saharawi people to freely decide over their future, through the organisation of a self-determination referendum the only reliable solution to the conflict as confirmed by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in its last report about the Western Sahara. (SPS)

070/090/TRD 131255 Nov. 06 SPS

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OCCUPIED TERRITORIES/MOROCCO/DEMONSTRATIONS

Saharawi students in Marrakech denounce Madrid’s Tripartite Accords

Marrakech (Morocco), 13/11/2006 (SPS) Saharawi students in Marrakech organised a sit-in in the University campus to denounce the Madrid’s Tripartite Accords, through which Spain abandoned the Western Sahara to Moroccan Mauritania, in the 14 November 1975, indicated an eyewitness, who required anonymity.

The demonstrators raised the Saharawi flags and chanted slogans condemning these accords and asked for the Saharawi people’s right to self-determination and independence.

The Saharawi students also started marching heading towards the seat of the Moroccan administration in the city before they were “sealed by the Moroccan forces of repression, so as to stop any additional supporters of the Saharawi cause from joining the demonstrators”, the same source added. (SPS)

20/090/110/TRD 131655 Nov 06 SPS

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SADR/MAURITANIA/VISIT

The Special Envoy of the President of the Republic received by the Mauritanian Head of State

Nouakchott, 13/11/2006, (SPS) Mr. Mohamed Khaddad, Coordinator with the Minurso, and Special Envoy of the President of the Republic, Mohamed Abdel Aziz, was received on Monday morning at the Presidential Palace in Nouakchott, by Colonel Ely Ould Mohamed Vall, President of the Military Council for Justice and Democracy and Head of the Mauritanian State, indicated a Saharawi official source.

Mr. Mohamed Khaddad declared to the Mauritanian Press agency, AMI, after his meeting with the Mauritanian President, that he has handed a message from President Mohamed Abdelaziz, which tackles the bilateral relations and the last developments of the situation in the Western Sahara.

"I would like to reaffirm, he said, in this occasion our support to the demarche of the UN for a peaceful settlement of the question of the Western Sahara on the basis of the respect of the Saharawi people’s right to decide over their destiny", Mr. Khadda declared to AMI.

"The Saharawi State, he adds, was always an element of stability in the region and in a world where should prevail democratic relations and mutual respect between peoples and States, big or small".

The Envoy of the Saharawi President congratulated Mauritania, people and Government, political parties and civil society for the huge step forward they made towards democracy, wishing them full success in this process which is a guidance for the other African and Arab peoples.

The meeting took place with the presence of Mr. Deddoud Ould Abdallahi, Counsellor at the Presidency. (SPS)

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