El Aaiun (occupied territories), 17/05/2006 (SPS) Many Saharawi NGOs denounced, on Wednesday in El Aaiun, before the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights delegation, "the human rights violations" in the Western Sahara and asked the international organisation to "assume its responsibilities in the protection of the Saharawi civilians in this territory, which falls under the jurisdiction of the UN", reported concordant sources on the ground.

The Saharawi Association of the victims of the flagrant human rights violations perpetrated by the Moroccan State. Chaired by Mr. Brahim Dehane, stressed "the violations of the fundamental freedoms in this zone of the world where the Moroccan authorities kills in silence before the eyes of the UN’s mission without any reaction, not even to condemn this reprehensible acts".

Mr. Dehane, accompanied with the members of the executive bureau of the association, also underlined "the radicalisation of the peaceful Saharawi intifada that started last May 2005, which will be continued as long as Morocco does not respect the Saharawi people’s right to self-determination and independence". 

After the meeting with the UN’s delegation, three members of the association, Bachir Lekhfaounni, Daha Rahmouni and Mohamed Fadel El Hairech were arrested in the El Quds street by agents of the Moroccan GUS, before been released few hours after.

The Committee of the families of the Saharawi disappeared, chaired by Mrs. Jimi El Ghalia, asked before the members of the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights delegation that Rabat "account for" their disappeared sons and "give them back the dead bodies of their relatives after identifying them via DNA so as to bury them according to religious rituals ".

The members of the Committee’ executive bureau handed over a list of 116 Saharawi victims of disappearance to the delegation.

The UN delegation, which started its investigation mission on the human rights in the Western Sahara following recommendations of the UN Secretary general, Kofi Anna, also received The Committee for the Self-determination of the Saharawi People, chaired by the 2002 Human Rights RAFTO Price Winner, Sidi Mohamed Dedech, as well as the Association of the Families of Martyrs in the Moroccan Police Stations. The latter asked for the dead bodies of their assassinated sons and the "bringing before international justice of the responsible of such crimes".

The delegation also received a Committee of the City of the occupied city of Smara, chaired by Naciri Hamadi, who exposed "the slaughter that took place last March the 26, during the reception of a Saharawi political prisoner, who was just released from the Moroccan Carcel Negra (Black Jail) of El Aaiun. More than 131 persons were then injured or arrested, including 14 seriously, especially the case of Mr. Dehouar Mohamed Lamine, who is handicapped since then because of fractures in his arms and legs.

Finally, the Committee for the Protection of the Saharawi political prisoners in the Carcel Negra was the last received NGO in this first day of the work of the UN’s delegation.

All the Saharawi NGOS invited the member of the UN delegation to attend a demonstration that was planed for the same evening to protest against the human rights violations in the occupied territories of the Western Sahara, and to ask for the Saharawi people right to self-determination and independence, the same sources indicated.

It should be noted that the members of the family of the ex-political prisoner, Heddi Mohamed Mahmoud El Kainan, living in the Smara Street in the occupied city of El Aaiun, were harassed and intimidated by the agents of the Moroccan police while Mr. Kainan was received by the UN delegation, it was indicated. (SPS)

010/090/000/TRD 171940 May 06 SPS

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El Aaiun (occupied territories), 17/05/2006 (SPS) 19 Saharawi citizens were arrested by the Moroccan colonial forces in many neighbourhoods of th Saharawi occupied capital, El Aaiun, in anticipation of demonstrations planed for by Saharawis on the occasion of the visit undertaken by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Delegation to the Western Sahara.

In Tuesday night to Wednesday early morning, in the street of "Hay Maatalla", 10 Saharawi citizens were arrested, mainly Mr. Jamal El Housseini, Mr. El Kharachi Mohamed, Mr. Mohamed bahia Rachidi, Mr. Mohamed Lamine Sidi Zeine, Miss. Mailemnine Mahjoub Boutebaa, Miss. El Karima Brahim, Miss. Ikmal Mohamed Liha, Miss. Benta Mohamed Hamiya, Mr. Lembarki Mohamed and Mr. Alouatt Sidi Mohamed, while the family of Mr. Mohamed Fadel Lehbib was threatned and his house was banned to visitors.

2 other young Saharawis, Lamadi Said and Boufous Faraji were arrested on Tuesday evening in the “Emirates” Street, while Mr. Mohamed Fadel Bechir and Mr. Bechraya Bechir were arrested in their shops, according to eyewitnesses.

Another Saharawi, Faghour Walid, was arrested in the venue of "Le porco" in company of Laroussi Mheidi, while Lechgar Baba Ahmed was arrested in the avenue "Dir Eidak and Dahou El Mahfoud was brutally aggressed in the middle of a street by GUS agents.

Dozens of tracts were distributed this Wednesday in the neighbourhood of "Lehcheicha" and in the secondary school "Lemsal-la".

On another hand, the Saharawi citizens are terrorised by the concentration of the different corps of police and paramilitary forces in all the streets of the occupied city of El Aaiun, while confrontations took place between Saharawi demonstrators and Moroccan settlers backed by more than 7.000 Moroccan soldiers wearing civil clothes and armed with knifes and sticks, concordant sources indicated.

A specialist on Moroccan colonial strategies considered that the Moroccan authorities are using these methods to start violent confrontations between Moroccan settlers and Saharawi population to justify violent intervention to establish order.

The Saharawi citizens, who were planning to get to the streets in demonstrations, reported the plans so as not to give the Moroccan authorities any pretext of excessive use of violence, it was indicated. (SPS)

010/090/000/TRD 172025 May 06 SPS

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Paris, 17/05/2006 (SPS) The Saharawi Minister delegated to Europe, Mr. Mohamed Sidati, qualified the EU-Morocco fishing accord a "null and void", stressing that the Saharawi people will "sue all legal means" to push to failure this "international operation of robbery", reported the Algerian Press Agency, APS.

"The despoiled Saharawi people consider this accord as null land void and will make use of all legal means and procedures to pus hit to failure, knowing that in terms of the law this accord is a real international operation of robbery", affirmed Mr. Sidati from Strasbourg, in reaction to the adoption, Tuesday in Brussels, by the EU Parliament of the EU-Morocco fishing accord.

Three important European Parliament groups as well as many Euro-Parliamentarians, exactly 178 members, rejected this accord qualifying it as "illegal and as a violation to the international law".

Mr. Sidati warned, on another hand, that the conclusion of such an accord will "deprive the Saharawi people from their own resources and will have dangerous implications on the whole region".

The Saharawi authorities, he said, "will proceed before all European and international bodies for the invalidation of such an accord, which is contradictory to the values the European bodies aim to incarnate on behalf of European citizens".

The adoption by the EU of this fishing accord "without modifying the dispositions to make it conform to the international law will be a serious and dramatic error", Mr. Sidati affirmed.

"We noted that the dispositions of the EU-Morocco fishing accord do not only concern the Moroccan uncontested territorial waters, but illegally  include the Western Sahara territorial waters", Polisario Front Representative to Europe said.

"The Saharawi territory is a Non-Self-Governing territory that is subject to a decolonisation process as far as the UN’s Crater is concerned", he stressed.

"The Moroccan State is not the legitimate sovereign power, nor the legal administrating power following the terms of the article 73 of the UN Charter", he said.

Mr. Sidati deduced, thus, that "any attempt to engage accords including the exploitation of the natural resources of the Western Sahara is a violation of the international law, a violation of the Saharawi people’s right to self-determination and to control their goods".

He considered that the signing of this accord and its enforcement will be "a sort of support brought by the European Union to Morocco to maintain its illegal occupation of the Saharawi territory, and a backing of its policy of repression and oppression against the Saharawi population".

It is also, he added, "an encouragement to the continuity of the shameless plundering of the fishing resources of the Western Sahara to the profit o some egoist Spaniards and Moroccans".

He also declared that he is convinced that the Saharawi population of the occupied territories, as well as the Saharawis living in the refugee camps "will never get any benefit from this accord".

Mr. Sidati finally accused the Spanish Government that it succeeded, via "machinations and manoeuvres of all kinds", to "drive the member States of the European Union to violate the international law through the adoption of this accord". (SPS)

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Chahid El Hafed, 17/05/2006 (SPS) The Federal Government of Germany reaffirmed its clear support to the baker Plan, unanimously adopted by the UN Security Council in its resolution 1495 of July the 31st 2003, recalling that it backs the Bundestag (Parliament), in its resolution of January 2004 that invited the Government to support the same aforementioned plan.

Mr. Gernot Erler, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, answering questions before the Bundestag Committee for Foreign Affairs, reaffirmed that the Federal Government "will continue its policy of very active support to the UN’s activities" and "supports the efforts of the Security Council and Secretary general" for a just and lasting solution to the conflict of the Western Sahara, he said.

Germany is "ready to provide good offices", if the parties to the conflict “want us to pay these good offices, we will do it with full pleasure".

Mr. Gernot Erler recalled that his country has played an important role in 1996 at the moment of the repatriation of the Saharawi prisoners of war from Morocco as well as a group of 101 Moroccan prisoners of war to Morocco. (SPS)

020/090/000/TRD 171920 Mai 06 SPS

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