Panama, 16/07/04, (SPS) Panama's Foreign Affairs Minister, Nivia Roxana Castrellon, reiterated, Tuesday in Panama City, the support of his country to "a referendum on self-determination for Saharawi people", hoping for a fair and urgent settlement to the "already 30 years ongoing" conflict, reported a close source to Saharawi embassy to Panama.

Receiving the Saharawi minister Counsellor at the Presidency for Latino-America, Ahmedu Suilem, who is running a work visit to Panama, Mrs. Castrellon, accompanied by the General Director for Foreign Policies, Mr. Lawrence Chewning Fabrega, reaffirmed her Government's constant position, reiterating "its firm support to the organisation of a referendum on self-determination for the Saharawi people".

She, further, hoped for "the establishment of fair and lasting peace in the territory, within the framework of international legality, and to the profit of all the Maghreb's region", added the same source.

On another hand, the Saharawi minister, accompanied by Saharawi Ambassador to Panama, Salama Taib, had had meetings with officials of the Revolutionary Democrat Party (PRD) in power, especially the ex-minister for Foreign affairs and actual person in charge of the Party's Foreign relations, Leonardo Kam, the imminent Dr. Nils Castro, Founding member of the PRD and man of letters, beside other high officials in the Party.

They all expressed their "country's firm position of solidarity and support to Saharawi people's legitimate rights to self-determination and independence", concluded the same source. (SPS)

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Supported by France and tolerated by the USA, Morocco continues fooling international legality, criticises David Keene

Washington, 16/07/04 (SPS) The Chairman of the American Conservative Union, American's largest grassroots conservative organization, estimated that Moroccan intransigence against international community will regarding Western Sahara's conflict, is the consequence of French support to Rabat's colonial thesis and American passivity in front of the insolent practices of this country, which is deserve the title of "the last colonial power in Africa".

In his regular chronicle in American Congress website, "The Hill", issued in the 13th July, Mr. Keene exposed his vision about the struggle and the legitimate rights of Saharawi people, exposing the latter's experience with international bodies, which failed so far to impose respect for their decisions regarding the process of decolonisation in Western Sahara. He considered France unconditional support to Morocco and the passivity of the USA as the main pillars to Moroccan arrogance and intransigence.

The USA, which claims to be the defender of freedom and democracy, almost does not act in front of Moroccan illegal practices in Western Sahara, while France, the pretended guardian of international legality, does not stop violating international communities resolutions on the territory, he claimed.

Here is joined the integral text of the chronicle
Source at The Hill

David Keene
The Right View                                13.07.04

Deserting the Baker plan

President Bush likes to talk about nurturing democracy within the Muslim world, but he’s doing little for the pro-Western Muslims of the Western Sahara whose future rests in his hands.

If you don’t know much about the plight of these people, you aren’t alone. They have been languishing in refugee camps in western Algeria for nearly 30 years and will remain there until the United States stops playing chief enabler to a Moroccan government that invaded and seized their country when it was freed from colonial rule by Spain in the 70s. I’ve visited the camps, and to suggest that the people who inhabit them live under harsh conditions is to speak euphemistically.

The Western Saharan or Saharawi peoples tried to resist the Moroccans, but hundreds of thousands of them were forced to flee to Algeria before a U.S.-equipped Moroccan army determined to seize their land. Today more than 300,000 of them survive as best they can, unable to see their relatives or visit their homeland.

Realizing they didn’t have the capability to defeat Morocco on the battlefield, the Saharawi faced a choice. They could fall back on the asymmetric warfare of the terrorist, surrender or turn to the international community. They perhaps rather naively chose the latter course and went to the United Nations and the World Court seeking justice.

Meanwhile, they’ve built a functioning democracy that guarantees equal rights to men and women alike, educated their children and let it be known that all they want to do is live in peace with those around them. Their congressional friends in the United States include people such as Sens. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Reps. Joe Pitts (R-Pa.), Mark Green (R-Wis.) and Donald Payne (D-N.J.), but so far few of their colleagues and virtually no one in the Bush administration or the media seem to share their concerns.

This is in spite of the fact that virtually everyone agrees the Saharawi are right. The International Court of Justice in 1975 ruled Morocco had no right to the land seized, but the king of Morocco ignored the ruling and the United Nations sought a referendum in which the people of the region could vote on whether they wanted to be ruled by their colonial masters or by leaders of their own choosing.

Meanwhile, the United States stood by silent as our Moroccan ally consolidated control over the region to become the last colonial power on the African continent.

Publicly, of course, the Moroccans declared that they too believed in self-determination, but marched hundreds of thousands of Moroccans into the region and declared that if there was to be a vote, these folks should be allowed to vote too. The Saharawi and the United Nations balked at this bald-faced attempt to stuff the ballot boxes, but finally appointed former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker as a special envoy to work something out. Baker eventually came up with a “compromise” plan that would grant the vote to enough Moroccans to give them a majority if they stuck together and suggested a period of autonomy within Morocco followed by a vote to decide whether the region would go its own way.

To everyone’s surprise, the Sahrawi accepted the “Baker Plan.” They know they can’t survive in the camps forever and suspect that more than a few of the Moroccans who will vote might welcome the chance to escape the tender mercies of their king. The Moroccans immediately rejected the plan announcing that they will never accept any scheme that includes the possible loss of the territory they have grabbed.

The United Nations doesn’t know what to do, and Baker has thrown up his arms and resigned. The king’s only real ally in the United Nations is France, but it’s our silent acceptance of whatever he wants do to that has allowed him to thumb his nose at the world. Everyone knows that as long as King Mohammed VI can keep the United States in line, he will remain intransigent.

During the king’s visit to Washington last week, President Bush supposedly brought up the Baker Plan, but one wonders if he pressed very hard. He has, after all, said nothing about the Saharawi in public and done everything from declaring Morocco a “major non-NATO ally” to leading the charge for a U.S.-Moroccan Free Trade Agreement to give the King the impression that we aren’t about to do anything at all about the way he acts in his own neighborhood.

Meanwhile, the Saharawi hang on, praying for the day when an American president who talks about democracy and justice will come to their aid.

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* David Keene: Chairman of the American Conservative Union, the nation's largest grassroots conservative organization, and Managing Associate of The Carmen Group, a Washington lobbying firm. He was National Chairman of Young Americans for Freedom while at the University of Wisconsin Law School; a Special Assistant to Vice President Spiro Agnew; Executive Assistant to New York Senator Jim Buckley; Southern Regional Political Director for Ronald Reagan's 1976 Presidential campaign; National Political Director for George Bush's 1980 Presidential race; and Senior Advisor to former Senator Bob Dole. He has been a John F. Kennedy Fellow at Harvard University's Institute of Politics, a First Amendment Fellow at Vanderbilt University's Freedom Forum, and a member of the Board of Visitors at Duke University's Public Policy School.
Mr. Keene has written for Human Events, National Review, the Washington Times, and the Boston Globe and is a regular columnist for The Hill, a newspaper covering Congress
 
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