SAHARA PRESSE SERVICE

El Aaiun (occupied territories), 18/10/2005 (SPS) The occupied territories of Western Sahara were the theatre, this week, to a serious escalade in the Moroccan repression against Saharawi peaceful demonstrators, while new victims of ill-treatment and arbitrary arrests are daily added to the lists of the new Moroccan campaign of repression that accompanied the Intifada of Independence since last May.

A peaceful demonstration, organised Monday by the Saharawi families of political prisoners detained in the Carcel negra in El Aaiun, was brutally repressed and demonstrators dispersed while many persons were arrested and tortured in Moroccan criminal police’s torture centres then they were released, concordant sources reported.

This demonstration that was organised in protest against the banning, by Moroccan penitentiary authorities, of visit to the families and relatives of the political prisoners detained in the Carcel Negra, knowing that these prisoners are still in the phase or recuperation after the hunger strike of 51 days they had started last August the 8^th.

In October the 13th, was a day of general repression in the occupied cities of El Aaiun and Boujdour.

In El Aaiun, at least 3 demonstrations took place in the Smara Avenue, Maatallah and Zemla. Demonstrators lifted Saharawi national flags, chanting slogans calling for the independence of Western Sahara and for the respect of the Human rights in the occupied territories of Western Sahara. Moroccan authorities quickly intervened with their traditional violence injuring dozens citizens.

In Boujdour about 30 persons were injured and 12 others were arrested, Thursday in Boujdour (Atlantic coasts) after confrontations with the Moroccan colonial forces which intervened to disperse a sit-in, which started since last October the 6^th; claiming for the organisation of a self-determination referendum of the Saharawi people and the respect of the human rights in Western Sahara.

On another hand, Saharawi political prisoner, Mr. Aalouat Sidi Mohamed, detained in the Carcel Negra, was urgently transferred last Wednesday to Avicenna Hospital in Rabat because of the deterioration of the stat of his right leg because of the Moroccan authorities’ negligence, who denied him medical care. Another prisoner, Mr. Mohamed Daaki, who was arrested during students’ demonstrations in Marakesh in the end of May, was abusively transferred from the prison of "Boulemharez" in Marrakech (where he is studying) to the prison of Kalaat Sraghna (some 200 km north of Marrakech).

Another Saharawi citizen, Mr. Mohamed Lhmaidi, who was arrested during the last events in Boujdour, was transported in inhumane conditions to El Aaiun where he was brought before the Moroccan colonial attorney of the king before been imprisoned in the Carcel Negra.

Mr. Elfaqrawi Sidi Mohamed, a young Saharawi who was thrown from a building ; last May, while he was trying to escape agents of the Moroccan GUS, he survived but had many fractures in the hands, he was arrested Friday with his brother and another unidentified person, credible sources indicated to SPS. (SPS)

SPS
IMMIGRANTS/INTERNATIONAL PRESS/MOROCCO

International press unveils the atrocities committed by Morocco against hundreds immigrants

Chahid El Hafed, 18/10/2005 (SPS) International press clearly unveiled Rabat’s lies in denying having committed a new crime against humanity, covering on the ground the developments and the sufferings of hundreds immigrants, who were gathered in concentration camps then deported by the Moroccan authorities and abandoned to their fate in the middle of the desert of Western Sahara.

Spanish reporter, Luis de Vega, of the newspaper "ABC", saw with his own eyes "the real story of the ordeal of these immigrants, the real face of the Moroccan regime as well as lies", t newspaper underlined introducing the correspondent’s report publicised Monday.

"The definitive proof", de Vega stressed in his report, on the lies of Rabat which persists in denying having abandoned hundreds immigrants in the middle of the desert, is no more than a 28 years old immigrant from Cameroon with whom the reporter himself had an interview only a month ago in the woods near the borders of Melilla (Spanish-Moroccan borders).

To de Vega "the evidence that Thomas and this Youngman are the same person requires no demonstration. It is also evident that he was in Mellilla and that he is now with Polisario". It is also evident that Morocco is lying when it denies having any relation with these immigrants and pretends that Polisario is facilitating the immigration towards Morocco’s territories, because "it is clear that Thomas is absolutely not a candidate for immigration who is trying to get into Morocco passing through Polisario territories".

Carlos E. CUÉ, the correspondent of El Pais, estimated Tuesday that the sub-Saharan immigrants, who were "abandoned by Morocco through the wall of Western Sahara, were localised in the middle of the desert, thirsty and hungry", thanks to the efforts and searches undertaken by the forces of Polisario and the patrols of Minurso.

Worst, the Moroccan Government had clearly "asked the UN to stop any collaboration with the Polisario in this tragedy of the desert, but the international soldiers did not care for its request", the correspondent said.

Indignant, the Special envoy of the Spanish newspaper, "la Voz de Galicia", David Beriain, id not hesitate in confirming, Monday, that all the statements of the Moroccan Government concerning the immigrants are no more than lies.

"Morocco lies. It lied when it denied having abandoned sub-Saharan immigrants behind the wall that divide Western Sahara from the territories under Polisario Front’s control. Its Prime Minister, Driss Jetu, lied when he affirmed that all this story of deportations to the desert is but an invention of Algeria and Polisario" he affirmed indignantly.

"Morocco lied, the special envoy of La Voz de Galicia said, we undertook our investigations and the UN’s mission, Minurso, confirmed to us" that the immigrants were deported from Morocco in inhumane conditions and were forced to cross the Moroccan military wall under the threat of weapons risking to walk on landmines.

"The 92 immigrants, Polisario found in the desert of the Western Sahara, abandoned with little water and bread, are the same immigrants we encountered a week before in a service station in the Moroccan city of Bouarfa or getting out of the desert of Ain Chouater. We saw them piled in busses, handcuffed one with another, calling the journalists for help, asking for water Moroccans denied them, crying like kids because they felt the fate that track them", he asserted. (SPS)

060/090/000 182301 Oct 05 SPS

SPS
SADR/UN/MOROCCO/IMMIGRANT

The President of the Republic calls Annan to ensure that the Morocco stops pushing towards tension, and violating human rights

Bir Lehlou (liberated territories), 18/10/2005 (SPS) The President of the Repulic, Mohamed Abdelaziz, called on Kofi Annan, Wednesday in a letter to the UN’s Secretary General, to intervene urgently so as to ensure that the Morocco stops pushing towards tension, violence and war in the region, and disregarding UN resolutions especially those related to the decolonisation of Western Sahara, denouncing Moroccan new crime against hundreds African immigrants Rabat’s authorities abandoned to waste in the middle of the desrt of Western Sahara.

Here is the complete text of the letter:

H.E..Mr. Kofi Annan,
Secretary-General of the United Nations,
New York

Bir Lehlou, 18 October 2005
Excellency,

In our letter addressed to your Excellency on 11 October 2005, we drew your attention to the fact that the “Moroccan Government was about to carry out a new outrageous act, incompatible with human dignity, that consists in driving ‘clandestine immigrants’ to perish in the middle of the desert as it had done of late, or forcing them out the Moroccan defensive wall that divides Saharawi territories.

We also called for an urgent action to be done so that “we all may ensure that the Saharawi territories are not converted once again into a terrain for committing crimes against humanity as those perpetrated by the Moroccan Government in the past as well as in the present against Saharawi citizens, and the ones it is about to commit against clandestine immigrants, especially those pertaining to our dear Africa.”

Indeed, what we warned against did occur and in the most outrageous and hideous manner. Since Wednesday, 12 October 2005, we have begun picking up clandestine immigrants who were found astray in the Saharawi liberated territories, all in bad shape, exhausted, starving and thirsty after they had been forced by the Moroccan authorities outside the military wall to face the danger of imminent death.

In the face of this tragic situation, I would like to address to you, Excellency, this letter to draw your attention to the Moroccan official statements that were circulated by the media on 16 October 2005. These serious statements aim to contradict the irrefutable facts about the operations conducted to save human lives that were left by the Moroccan Government to face death in the middle of the desert, as you may be witness to this.

Particularly serious are the implications of the statements of senior Moroccan officials, especially those made by the Prime Minister, Mr. Idriss Jetu. In addition to the fact that they were fraught with disinformation and falsification as well as denial of established facts, the statements were clearly betraying a threatening tone hinting to serious escalation.

In the face of these statements, we would like to address your Excellency, the Security Council and the United Nations, in order to draw your attention to what we see as the possibility that the Moroccan Government is preparing to engage in a dangerous adventure consisting in attacking militarily the Saharawi liberated territories. Besides that it would be a blatant violation of the cease-fire between the two parties to the conflict, Morocco and the Frente POLISARIO, which is being supervised and guaranteed by the presence in the filed by MINURSO, this act will be an attempt to rectify a mistake by committing a more serious blunder that may have incalculable consequences on peace and stability in the region as well as on the credibility of the United Nations.

These statements, which imply the threat of waging a global war in the region, come at a time when everybody was expecting from the Moroccan Government to abide by international legality and cooperate with your Personal Envoy, Mr. Peter Van Walsum, who is now on a visit to the region, with a view to expediting the self-determination referendum for the Saharawi people as provided for in the UN peace
plan.

They also come at a time when the entire world was expecting that the Moroccan Government would deal with the issues related to the clandestine immigration in line with the full respect for human dignity and rights.

We would like to call on you, Excellency, to intervene urgently to put an end to these practices carried out by Morocco against the clandestine immigrants, and to ensure that the Moroccan Government stop pushing towards tension, violence and war in the region, and disregarding UN resolutions especially those related to the
decolonisation of Western Sahara.

Please accept, Excellency, the assurances of my highest consideration.

Mohamed Abdelaziz,
President of the Saharawi Republic,
The Secretary-General of the Frente POLISARIO". (SPS)

060/090/100 182350 Oct SPS