SAHARA PRESSE SERVICE

Chahid El Hafed (refugee camps), 16/10/2005 (SPS) The President of the Republic, Mohamed Abdelaziz, reaffirmed the attachment of Polisario Front to a peaceful solution to the conflict of Western Sahara, during his discussion with the UN’s Secretary General’s Personal Envoy for the Western Sahara, Ambassador Peter van Walsum, Friday at the Presidency, underlining that "Baker Plan remains the optimum political solution" for the decolonisation of Western Sahara, indicated the Saharawi Minister of Information, Sid Ahmed Batal to SPS.

The Secretary General of Polisario Front, Mohamed Abdelaziz, reaffirmed to his guest, "the engagement of Polisario Front to cooperate with the UN for the establishment of a lasting peace in the region. He underlined that the ‘Peace Plan for the self-determination of the Saharawi people', adopted by the UN’s Security Council in its resolution 1495 (2003), remains the optimum political solution for a fair conclusion of the process of decolonisation in Western Sahara", the Saharawi Minister said.

"The implementation of thee peace plan is from now on a challenge the UN is to take", Mr. Abdelaziz has said, expressing the preoccupation of he Polisario Front about the lack of political will in Morocco, "who is still refusing to implement UN’ Security Council and General Assembly’s resolutions regarding the conflict", the same source added.

Polisario Front has got four main preoccupations in the actual stage Mr. Mohamed Abdelaziz asserted during his meeting with Mr. Peter Van Walsum, the same source emphasized.

"First of all, there is a political preoccupation. We are very concerned about the intransigence of Morocco and its refusal to submit to the international legality, what can apparently be solved only if the UN adopts firm sanctions against Rabat", the Minister affirmed.

The humanitarian question is also another domain of the Polisario front’s preoccupation. "Morocco did not only invade and illegally occupies Western Sahara for 30 years, it is further persisting in violating all Saharawi people’ political, economical, cultural and human rights, especially in the occupied territories of Western Sahara, which remains closed to the international press and observers", he added.

The third source of preoccupation for Polisario concerns another aspect of the Saharawi people suffering, he noted, and is related to the Moroccan refusal to cooperate without obstacles for the success of the UN’s visit exchange programme between the Saharawi families, who are separated since 1975 because of the illegal occupation of their country and because of a material Moroccan military wall of separation of more than 2.400 Km, which is parting the Saharawi territory in two from the north to the south. Besides, there is also the question of the preoccupying deterioration of the food stock of the Saharawi refugees.

Finally, the Minister confirmed that the Polisario Front’s Secretary General has clearly expressed his preoccupation "about a new crime against humanity, perpetrated by Rabat against hundreds of our brothers African, to name some immigrants from the sub-Saharan African countries, who were arrested, brutalised, gathered in concentration camps, then deported in inhumane conditions to be abandoned to their fate in the middle of the desert of Western Sahara".

The President of the Republic, Mohamed Abdelaziz, received the UN’s Secretary General’s Personal Envoy for the Western Sahara, Peter van Walsum, Friday at the Presidency, at the end of a 24 hours visit in SADR within the framework of his first turn to the region after his designation at the post last August the 1^st, it should be recalled.

Mr. Walsum was received before by the Saharawi Prime Minister, Abdelkader Taleb Oumar, at the Wilaya of Smara. The latter underlined that the Saharawi people "continues to hope in the efforts of the UN aiming at surmounting the obstacles addressed in the face of the enforcement of the peace plan", expressing the availability of Polisario Front to cooperate fully for this end. (SPS)

SPS
OCCUPIED TERRITORIES/REPRESSION

SADR calls the UN to protect Saharawi population in Boujdour from the Moroccan repression

Chahid ElHafed, 16/10/2005 (SPS) The Minister of the Occupied Territories and Communities called the UN to intervene urgently so as to protect the Saharawi population under Moroccan occupation, denouncing the Moroccan repression against Saharawi demonstrators, last Thursday in Boujdour (occupied city), causing at least 27 injured, 9 detainees and 1 person reported missing, indicated a press release the Ministry publicised Sunday.

"The Ministry of the Occupied Territories and Communities calls on the UN and its forces on the ground to assume their responsibilities, as the direct responsible of the territory, and to guarantee the security of Saharawi citizens in the occupied territories of Western Sahara through the organisation of a free, just and transparent referendum on self-determination", the press release underlined.

Since last October the 6th, the city of Boujdour witnessed the organisation of an unlimited sit-in organised by the Saharawi population in Boujdour to claim for through the organisation of a self-determination referendum for the Saharawi people, the respect of human rigs in the Western Sahara and the improvement of the economical and social situation of the Saharawi families and Saharawi graduates, the text said.

The result of this new Moroccan act of repression raised, according to a nominal list publicised by the Ministry, to 27 injured, 9 persons detained and 1 reported missing. All these victims were ill-treated, brutalised and put in detention in the police stations of the city.

Many of these injured persons are now in the hospital of the city, while their families were forbidden from visiting them and were brutally dispersed in front of the entry of the hospital, where they were gathering, while One of the victims, Hamadi Toueir, was transferred in emergency to Hospital BelMehdi in El Aaiun, because he was seriously injured in the head.

A Saharawi woman, Mrs. Hanan Chaib, who is now in a terrible state, aborted after se was attacked by forces of Moroccan GUS in her house. They did not hesitate ill-treating her and beating her though she cried to inform them about her pregnancy.

On another hand, the forces of occupation ransacked more than 7 houses and robed the goods of their owners, while a truck of the Group of Urban Security (GUS), which was sent from El Aaiun to participate to the repression, hit the car of Saharawi citizen, Ahmedou Najem, who was kicked and brutalised by truncheons after he got alive from the accident.

Saharawi students in Marrakech organised, Thursday afternoon at the University of Marrakech, a sit-in of solidarity with the Sahara population in Boujdour, who was repressed the same day according to eye witness. (SPS)

060/090/000 161833 Oct 05 SPS

SPS
LIBERATED TERRITORIES/IMMIGRATION

22 other African immigrants rescued by Polisario Front and the Minurso

Mhairiz (liberated territories), 16/10/2005 (SPS) Polisario Front announced having found 2 African immigrants in the region of Mahbes (East Western Sahara) while Minurso found 20 others coming from Smara (300 Km to the east of El Aaiun), "all of them were expulsed by Morocco within the framework of a campaign of deportation Rabat undertook in the beginning of the week", according to a spokesperson of the Saharawi Army.

The two groups, from different nationalities, been far from one another of about 200 Km, the later (20 persons) are currently in the region of M’Hairiz (150 Km south-east Smara) under the protection of unities of Saharawi army and Minurso, while the 2 others joined their companions of this ordeal in Bir Lehlu few hours after they recuperated, in quickly built tents, from their long journey in the desert, the same source indicated underlining that they had had all the needed assistance.

These two groups added to another 92 rescued, were expulsed by Morocco and abandoned in the middle of the desert, and are now gathered in a single group in Bir Lehlu (East Western Sahara) and were visited Sunday by groups of international journalists.

These persons from different African nationalities affirm they were forced to march in middle of the desert under the threat of weapons by the Moroccan military forces in different points of the Moroccan military wall, which is erected since 1986 dividing Western Sahara and its people in two parties from the north to the south.

The researches undertaken since last Tuesday by Saharawi army’s units are very difficult because of the big distance to cover so as to track the survivors. The search is undertaken all along the wall of more than 2.400 Km, knowing that the immigrants were expulsed from different points of this military building, which is filled with millions anti-persons mines, it was indicated.

Polisario Front alerted the UN’s Mission for the organisation of a referendum in the Western Sahara (MINURSO), which is present on the ground since 1991, especially in this locality of Bir Lehlu, where the Minurso visited these unfortunate immigrants, the same source added.

To the Saharawi Government, "Morocco must be sanctioned for these inhuman practices", estimating that if urgent international measures are not adopted to back the efforts of search to save, feed and provide shelter to these persons, who were condemned to death by Rabat, and then to repatriate them to their countries in circumstances that guarantee their security and dignity, we will be faced by a human tragedy".

In a letter to the UN’s Secretary General, Kofi Annan, the President of the Republic, Mohamed Abdelaziz, warned about the dangers that threaten the lives of thousands immigrants who are transported by Morocco from the north of the kingdom towards the desert zones of Western Sahara, calling the UN to intervene so as to stop this tragedy. (SPS)

010/090/100 161856 oct 05 SPS