Madrid, 16/12/2005 (SPS) The President of the republic, Mohamed Abdelaziz, considered, on Thursday in Madrid, that Morocco is turning its back to peace regarding the peaceful settlement of the conflict opposing it to Polisario Front. He reiterated the will of the Saharawi people to keep on their peaceful struggle to recover their legitimate rights to freedom and independence.

In his speech after he received the International Human Rights Price, Spanish non-governmental Association for Human Right APDHE gave to Polisario Front this year, the Head of the State said that "times and again, Morocco turned its back on peace in contradiction of its own commitments made before the UN Security Council in 1990. Then it passed to the irrational rejection of Plan Baker, and now it has gone to the extent of intensifying its blind and brutal repression, which involves assassination as a common measure, against the Saharawi population in the occupied cities of Western Sahara".

Here is the complete text of the intervention, which presented some details about the last humanitarian and political developments of the Saharawi question, as well as about the Moroccan repression against the Saharawi populations in the occupied territories of Western Sahara and south Morocco.

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ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT MOHAMED ABDELAZIZ
Ceremony of awarding of the Human Rights Prize
Granted by the Spanish Association for Human Rights
Madrid, 15 December 2005

Dear President of the Association for Human Rights!
Members of the Association, dear friends!

It is an honour for me to receive, on behalf of the Saharawi people, this valuable prize, awarded by the Spanish Association for Human Rights to the Frente POLISARIO. I receive it as recognition and a moral and political support for the long-standing struggle of the Saharawi people for exercising the very basic of all human rights, namely the right of peoples’ to self-determination.

We gather today in an event that coincides not only with the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but also with a historic moment in which the Saharawi people, especially in the Saharawi territories occupied by Morocco, continue to pay on daily basis a high price for the peaceful affirmation of this fundamental right, without whose respect and validity, humanity would go back to the Stone Age.

As many nations in Africa, Asia and Latin America, we are a nation that has been forced to go through the hard path of a national war for independence for attaining its freedom. We had believed that the very high price paid before us by those nations and peoples together with the great advances in economic area and that relating to freedoms in the world of the post-World War II, would be a strong reason for sparing the Saharawi people and the Maghreb the tragedy of a colonial war of conquest, of which consequences have been the destruction and death of innocent persons.

Unfortunately, we had been mistaken as evidenced by the fact that, despite the passage of thirty years, Morocco, encouraged now directly or indirectly by the same powers that contributed decisively to the outbreak of the conflict, is still unwilling to accept reality, which is the validity of this fundamental human right.

More than 150,000 Moroccan soldiers were sent in 1975 to carry out genocide in Western Sahara. This invading army, notwithstanding its means, could not achieve success in the adventure in which it was driven, as it had to confront the determination of a people that decided not to give up their right to freedom.

In spite of being the victim and the weaker party, we have kept our faith in international legality and in the peaceful way to resolve our conflict with Morocco.

Based on this conviction, we have helped to raise the hopes that at the time led the UN to try this peaceful solution through the honest and fair implementation of this fundamental human right to settle definitively a decolonisation conflict. We have done that by making concessions and tangible gestures ranging from the acceptance, in 1991, of the identification criteria of voters, which were different from what had already been agreed upon, to the acceptance of Plan Baker, and lastly the unconditional release of all Moroccan prisoners of war.

Times and again, Morocco turned its back on peace in contradiction of its own commitments made before the UN Security Council in 1990. Then it passed to the irrational rejection of Plan Baker, and now it has gone to the extent of intensifying its blind and brutal repression, which involves assassination as a common measure, against the Saharawi population in the occupied cities of Western Sahara.

The recent assassination of two young Saharawis, Lemabarki and Lejlifa Abba Cheij, the sentences passed today at the end of a summary trial, which was a real political reprisal, against the group of Saharawi human rights activists, including the young woman Aminatu Haidar, the images of the overcrowding, reminiscent of medieval dungeons, of Saharawi prisoners in the so-called Black Prison in El Aaiun, the unearthing by Moroccan official institutions of dozens of bodies of Saharawi men and women in different secret jails scattered all over Morocco, and the lack of information regarding the whereabouts of more than 500 civilians and 151 Saharawi combatants, these all are elements that make up the framework of action of a State, which is an affront to the universal conscience.

Media have been publishing, in the last months, news about the successive discoveries of mass graves including the remains of hundreds of Moroccan citizens. The newspapers of today show hard facts. No Latin American dictatorship has broken this record of horror.

This horror of dimensions yet to be known has extended beyond the Saharawi and Moroccan peoples. Dozens of African immigrants were transported, handcuffed, in trucks to be abandoned in Western Sahara, exposing them to die of thirst, hunger or in mined fields. We have managed to rescue several groups, some of whom are still looked after by us, in the hope that their tragic situation would be resolved in a
satisfactory way for them. The same happened with hundreds of Asian immigrants from Pakistan, India and Bangladesh.

Perhaps it is difficult for some to believe or they do not want to believe that this could have happened, but facts in themselves are the unquestionable evidence. What is more difficult is to believe that this very State, which acts in this brutal way against the fundamental human rights, remains at the same time one of the main receivers of the funds of cooperation aid from the European Union.

With this behaviour and the impunity with which Moroccan has paralysed the implementation of the UN resolutions, the original hopes, which had encouraged the international community as to reaching a speedy and lasting solution to the conflict, have fairly dwindled now. Hence, the importance of the role that civil society, the NGOs, as your association, can play.

The temptation to maintain the cease-fire as an end in itself, without any prospect of a real implementation of the resolutions of the Security Council relating to the self-determination referendum, the Moroccan continued defiance of the will of international community, and the repression in the occupied territories, are all elements that constitute a context that could only lead to the failure of the UN and the peaceful way.

At the end of April 2006, the Security Council will again deal with the question of Western Sahara. Before this date, the Council will receive, in January, a report from the new Personal Envoy of the UN Secretary-General. These are important scheduled events. They will even be the decisive moment for the credibility of the United Nations.

Morocco tries to anticipate these events, introducing new obstacles in the way of a genuine peace.

Thus, its intentions, loudly declared, as to offer a pseudo-solutions that depart from the condition of denying the Saharawi people their legitimate right to choose independence, an option that had however been accepted by Morocco and appears in all resolutions and peace plans so far approved by the United Nations, are unacceptable. They are contrary to international legality and they do not have—nor will they have—any possibility of being accepted by the Saharawi people as an alternative to their right to choose their destiny freely and democratically.

History shows us that colonial powers move in the right direction if they are compelled by the pressure of international community, and particularly the pressure of those countries that have a direct influence on the making of the political decision of those powers. That is what happened in Namibia, under the illegal occupation of South Africa of Apartheid, in East Timor, to not go that far.

In this context, France as well as the United States and Spain assume a particular responsibility to demonstrate the credibility of their attachment to international legality, democracy and human rights.

We believe firmly that, in peace, we all can win, in the first, Morocco. This peace has to be just and lasting and the only basis on which its fairness can be judged is to see whether it is anchored in international legality or not. Western Sahara, from the perspective of this unquestionable international legality, is a country in a process of decolonisation that entails giving its people the opportunity to exercise their right to self-determination and choose their future voting in a referendum organised and supervised by the UN.

To go against this principle will not strengthen Morocco, nor will it make credible its intentions of democratisation; nor will it boost the prestige of those powers or bring the peace that is much longed for in this region, which is adjacent and strategic for the Euro-Mediterranean security. I hope and wish that Spain would remain far from encouraging an approach of this kind.

The greatness of nations is not judged by how many square kilometres they possess, but by the degree of economic and democratic development that they could offer to their own peoples and to the rest of the world, particularly in this world of today that is being threatened by many political and economic dangers.

It is this peace that brings with it the reaffirmation of the validity of the human right par excellence, to which we, the Saharawis, are and will be committed. Any other pseudo-peace that denies this right will not command our commitment, and will be just a useless project that will lead only to wasting energies, time and would drive the conflict into new unpredictable risks.

Therefore, I invite the King Mohamed VI to return to the path of the Settlement Plan, to the alternative path offered by Plan Baker, in sum, to the path of the self-determination as a positive inheritance from his father the late King Hassan II.

Let us offer to the Maghrebian generations of today and tomorrow something of which they could feel proud. Let us offer the Arab Maghreb a sincere possibility for opening a new page that ensures concord, confidence, and economic development in freedom and democracy.

Let us offer to the world a lesson of maturity and to the Mediterranean Europe an avoidable strategic partner, a strong reason for believing in the viability of the partnership that is being offered on paper. 

The Saharawi people are a national and international reality that is undeniable. The Moroccan people and their legitimate dreams of a better future are a reality that we should bear in mind.

No one of us can exclude the other in a vast region full of recourses. We can live together in it united between us and with the other neighbouring peoples on equal footing of equality, a sovereign equality, without exclusions.

It is to this peace that we should be committed. I am not saying that the path is easy, without difficulties, especially those of psychological nature, but I am convinced firmly that this peace will bring with it promises of an extraordinary future that could help us to overcome these difficulties.

All peoples of our region and Africa, which have recognised the SADR as a factor of stability and security necessary for Maghrebian balance, are just awaiting a coherent, just and historic decision by the Moroccan leadership so that we together, and with the incentive of Europe and the rest of the world, can embark on the path of a genuine peace that reaffirms the valuable content and meaning of the right to self-determination, the first right on the scale of human rights.

Thank you!" (SPS)

06/090/100 161444 Dec 05 SPS

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