SAHARA PRESSE SERVICE

El Aaiun (occupied territories), 19/07/2005 (SPS) Moroccan colonial authorities prepare to start a wide campaign of intimidation and suppression against Saharawi population in the occupied territories through false demonstrations organised by Moroccan settlers and paramilitary agents disguised in traditional Saharawi clothes (‘Darraa’ for men and ‘melhfa’ for women) and through political delegations sent by Rabat, concordant sources indicate.

The preparations for the reception of important delegation can be easily noticed in El Aaiun, taking into account the flags and the king’s pictures put here and there since the early morning in Streets coming through the way from El Aaiun’s airport to the city, reported SPS’s correspondent on the ground.

"They skipped from the policy of the baton and the carrot to a security approach", said a human rights’ activist to SPS, estimating that "after the failure of the taming of the Saharawi population, the colonial authorities will now attempt to play the card of their obedient political parties to create a national consensus around what they call the territorial integrity".

"From one hand, he said, they increase the arrests, tortures, intimidations, iniquitous trials, heavy sentences, terror and they seal the city, from the other the psychological pressures and the political speeches hailing the generosity of the colonialism".

The observers on the ground expect a huge gathering in the "Palace of Meetings" in the city for which the authorities will gather Chioukhs, notables, renegades and hundreds settlers and security agents, who will be wearing recently bought Saharawi clothes.

Since the starting of the uprising last May, many Saharawis were arrested, tortured or condemned to heavy sentences going from 1 year to 20 years imprisonment for having participated in peaceful demonstrations claiming for the independence of their country and the respect of human rights in the occupied territories of Western Sahara, it should be recalled.(SPS)

010/090/100/ALG/TRD 191112 Jul 05 SPS

SPS
RASD/UN/OCCUPIED TERRITORIES/HUMAN RIGHTS
President Abdelziz calls on the UN Secretary General to intervene for the release of Human rights activists Aminatou Haidar and Ali Salem Tamek

Bir Lehlou (liberated Territories), 19/07/2007 (SPS) The President of the Republic, Mohamed Abdelaziz, called on the Secretary General of the UN to immediately intervene for the release of human rights activists, Aminatou Haidar and Ali Slem Tamek, Moroccan authorities detains because of their peaceful struggle for the respect of human rights in the occupied territories of Western Sahara.

In a letter he addressed today to the Secretary General of the UN, Kofi Annan, Mr. Mohamed Abdelaziz insistently called upon the UN’s highest official to "intervene in order to ensure the release of the human rights activists Aminatou Haidar and Ali Salem Tamek and all Saharawi prisoners of conscience", so as to "avert the serious consequences that might ensue from this tense situation" resulting from the Moroccan systematic suppression of Saharawi population in the occupied territories of Western Sahara.

The Head of the State further "demand that the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western ahara (MINURSO) have a more active role and presence in line with its practical embodiment of the responsibility of the Untied Nations regarding this territory by providing the necessary protection for the Saharawi population as well as the conditions of security and ensuring the respect for human rights".

He called upon Mr. Annan to intervene urgently to exert pressure on the Moroccan Government in order to "immediately cease its oppressive practices and the unfair court trails and the unjust prison sentences passed on Saharawi citizens, and to allow access by international observers to the Saharawi occupied territories".

Here is the complete text of the letter, SPS received:

"Bir Lehlou 19 July 2005

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

His Excellency,

Further to the letter addressed to you on 18 June 2005 concerning the tense and potentially explosive situation in the Saharawi territories under Moroccan occupation as a result of the campaigns of repression, torture, terror, kidnapping and arrest carried out by the Moroccan authorities against defenceless Saharawi citizens, especially since 21 May 2005, we would like to draw your attention to the increasingly serious situation in those territories owing to the
persistence by the Moroccan authorities in their repressive policies.

Yesterday, 18 July 2005, the Moroccan authorities kidnapped and arrested the human rights activist, Ali Salem Tamek, upon his arrival to La Aaiún’s airport where he was received right at the plane’s door by a group of different security forces: judiciary and urban police, border police, general and military intelligence services and gendarmerie. Tamek was then taken to an undisclosed place.

This peaceful human rights activist, who was on his way from Canary Islands, was arrested after he had spent some time in Europe receiving medical care for the physical consequences that resulted from his unjust imprisonment in Moroccan jails, and where he took pace in forums on human rights.

On the same day, the Moroccan police and army forces were massively deployed in all neighbourhoods and streets throughout the Saharawi occupied cities where they proceeded to suppress the peaceful demonstrations that were taking place in El Aaiún, the occupied Saharawi capital. The demonstrations continued until late on Monday’s night and resulted in a number of casualties among the demonstrators.

All this happened after this city had witnessed during the last weeks a series of unfair court trials and unjust prison sentences passed on Saharawi citizens some of which amounted to 20 years imprisonment. These people did nothing but expressing, in a peaceful and civilised manner, their legitimate demands as to the release of Saharawi prisoners of conscience, respect for fundamental human liberties and enabling the Saharawi people to exercise their inalienable right to self-determination in accordance with UN Charter and resolutions.

His Excellency,

This Moroccan oppressive escalation may lead to incalculable consequences. Whilst warning anew against the risks of the Moroccan occupying forces engaging in atrocious massacres against the defenceless Saharawi citizens, and condemning these unjust colonialist practices, we call upon you urgently to intervene personally in order to ensure the conditions conducive to the completion of the decolonisation process of Western Sahara.

In this context, we demand that the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western ahara (MINURSO) have a more active role and presence in line with its practical embodiment of the responsibility of the Untied Nations regarding this territory by providing the necessary protection for the Saharawi population as well as the conditions of security and ensuring the respect for human rights.

In order to avert the serious consequences that might ensue from this tense situation, we call upon you insistently to intervene in order to ensure the release of the human rights activists Aminatou Haidar and Ali Salem Tamek and all Saharawi prisoners of conscience.

We also call upon you to intervene urgently to exert pressure on the Moroccan Government in order to immediately cease its oppressive practices and the unfair court trails and the unjust prison sentences passed on Saharawi citizens, and to allow access by international observers to the Saharawi occupied territories.

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

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

060/090/100/ALG 191724 Jul 05 SPS

SPS
MOROCCO/WESTERN SAHARA/PARTY
"Any solution to the conflict of the Sahara must be a democratic solution or there will be no solutions", (Moroccan political party

Rabat, 19/07/2005 (SPS) "Any solution to the conflict of the Sahara must be a democratic solution or there will be no solutions", warned the only real Moroccan political party of opposition, 'Annahj Addimocrati' (The Democratic Path), in a letter addressed to the Moroccan Royal Palace in which the Party refuse an invitation to attend a meeting dedicated to Western Sahara. The Party considered that it did not "yet see any signal of the existence of a political will to search a solution really democratic to this question".

The Party did not hide its concern to participate to a conference with the different political parties of the country, "so as to find a solution to this conflict" and "not to search for a new re-launching of the same old policy".

In this respect, it recalled that "during the three last decades the dossier of the Sahara was maintained in the Palace only hands while the political parties and the public opinion could play absolutely no role except that of applauding the adopted decisions".

The policy of the Palace consisted in "strengthening the security grab which led to arrests, abductions and judgments, to which many Saharawis were victim", stressed the letter, adding that this policy "did not succeed to control Saharawis".

To the 'Annahj Addimocrati', "it is not a question of searching new ways to strengthen the old concepts and objectives. It is instead time to ask oneself on the validity of these same concepts and objectives within the framework of the freedom of dialogue and auto-frankness".

In the letter, originally written in Arabic in the Party’s web page, the Moroccan political organisation underlined, nevertheless, that the solution of the question of Western Sahara is indeed "one of the biggest problems Morocco is facing in its internal political life, in its position within the framework of the nations of the world besides its consequences of the social and economical situation".

Unfortunately, this question was used by the Moroccan system to proceed without been disturbed to the "falsification of elections, creation of false parties and the creation of Councils and leaders, of whom a part is corrupted and the other worthless and this is leading the country to a ‘heart failure’ ".

"The position of Morocco at the international level was seriously damaged because of the question of the Western Sahara. It was forced to leave the Organisation of the African Unity (OAU), and it accepted the principle of self-determination through the organisation of a referendum under the auspices of the UN, for which reason there was a cease-fire with the Polisario Front", the text recalled.

"To deny to Saharawi people, now, their right to self-determination will identify Morocco as a country that opposes the international law and legality", the Party warned.

The text further recalled the question of the Sahara "has always been the question of disagreement in the Maghreb Arab between the two brother countries, Morocco and Algeria, going in many time to the borders of military confrontations. It has also stopped the aspirations of the two peoples to unity".

"Seeing under its socio-economic angle, the weight of war and the engendered money spared on weapons could have been oriented to the funding of the economic and social development of the country. Instead, the military bureaucracy took control of the fishing resources and the sand of the beaches to deepen the lack of transparency in the economy and hinders the path of democracy", the text deplored.

"Annahj Addimocrati" highlighted the "sudden" reverse of the Moroccan official position, which is calling now to "the search of a solution that is negotiated and accepted by all the parties" while it had initially accepted the principle of resolving the conflict on the basis of the self-determination and the UN’s peace plan".

It noted that the leaders of the regime precipitated in "a hastened reading of the international situation", taking profit of the difficulties announced by Kofi Annan regarding the implementation of the UN’s plan, the intention of the USA to avoid imposing a solution on any of the parties and the succession to power of the Socialist Party in Spain that contributed to the amelioration of the relations between Spain and Morocco.

The text warned Morocco that returning to the starting point of the conflict engendered "a radicalisation in the occupied territories of Western Sahara with what follows it of arrests, repression and judgments that destroyed all the so far realised acquisition after the release of the Saharawi prisoners. It also caused threats from Polisario Front to resume to military operation".

"We are convinced that the obstruction in the face of the political solution will lead only to the increase of this radicalisation, to the return to military confrontations or to the radicalisation of the political protests in the Saharawi territories within the framework of what Saharawis now are calling the Intifada of independence", the party further warned.

Being convinced that the return to "the security approach" is not in the benefit of the struggle for democracy beside the fact that "it will destroy the image Morocco tries to give of itself as a country in the process of democratisation, the Party gave an example the last statements of the Spanish Minister for Foreign Affairs and the recent recognition of SADR by Kenya after South Africa did. "These are indicators to what the future may bring", the text added.

Annahj Addimocrati expressed special "concern" by the tendency of exploiting the question of Western Sahara "as if it was a question of national consensus" of which none is allowed to oppose, aimed at building an internal front so as to initiate "a holy war" and "not a national dialogue" on a political question of a high importance, "but like any other political question, requires debates".

To the Party, the search of a solution to the Western Sahara’s conflict "is not in adopting escalating positions in the UN or in the Saharawi territories".

The text also called to the "release of the Saharawi prisoners arrested during the last events, as well as the institution of an atmosphere of freedom of expression, including the expression of the support to the independence" of Western Sahara.

"Sahara’s conflict has had negative consequences on the evolution of democracy in Morocco and the absence of democracy does not help in finding a solution to the question. Thus, we believe that any progress in the resolution of the conflict requires a progress in the path towards democracy. And the opposite is possible", the letter put.

The ‘Annahj Addimocrati’ estimated that it did not see any political will that could convince the Party adhere the search for a democratic solution, and for this it rejects the invitation "to participate to the invoked consensus".

The Democratic Path (Annahj Addimocrati in Arabic) was constituted in 1995 as a legal political left tendency. (SPS)

010/090/666 191746 Jul 05 SPS

SPS
OCCUPIED TERRITORIES/INTIFADA/DEMONSTRATIONS
Demonstrations start again in the occupied Saharawi cities and in the south of Morocco

El Aaiun (occupied capital of Western Sahara), 19/07/2005 (SPS) Saharawi population organised demonstrations of protest, Tuesday afternoon and evening, in the Saharawi cities of El Aaiun, Dakhla and in Assa (south Morocco), claiming for the release of Saharawi human rights activists, Ali Salem Tamek and Aminatou Haidar, reported SPS’s correspondent on the ground.

«In Assa demonstrations broke up twice. At about 19.00 (GMT) demonstrators got into the streets to protest against the arrest of Saharawi human rights activist, Ali Salem Tamek, claiming for the release of all Saharawi political prisoners. Moroccan forces of repression brutally responded to the peaceful protest. 5 demonstrators were purely driven through by police cars, the victims are Azili Bachir, Ahmed Bainahou, Ain El Aabidin Bainahou, Banga Hadrami and Oufkir El Houssein who is in a serious state», indicated the correspondent of SPS from Assa.

After brutal confrontations, and after having been harshly dispersed, the Saharawi population in Assa organised a second demonstration at about 21.00 GMT refusing to submit to the Moroccan intimidations. «The authorities of repression finally arrested Ahmed Abdellah Fal and Rachid Labbat, who were token to unknown destination», it was added.

In El Aaiun, the Saharawi population organised a demonstration at about 19.00 GMT to demand the immediate release of Saharawi activists, Ali Salem Tamek, Aminatou Haidar and all Saharawi political prisoners, indicated SPS’s correspondent in El Aaiun.

Violent confrontations started as a result to the brutal intervention of the forces of occupation. «Dozen citizens were injured, but it is still difficult to get their names. The city is now completely sealed", he added.

In the occupied city of Dakhla, the Saharawi population expressed its condemnation to Moroccan colonialism and to the systematic violations of human rights in the occupied territories of Western Sahara.

"The Moroccan authorities immediately proceeded to the systematic repression of demonstrators as usual. Moroccan torturers under the orders of the famous Ahriz El Aarbi proceeded to the arrest of Hamiya Mussa, a human right activist, Sidi Aamar, Labaihi Abdelwahed, Aamar Mohamed Salem, Sidi Machnan, Mamay Ahmed Hannoun, Elmahjoub Baida, Mailah Baailla, Wanna Baida, Agouha Baaila in addition to the correspondent of Moroccan newspaper El Baidaoui, Mme. Ment Baba El Filali, were severely ill-treated" reported a reliable source.

The different sources of SPS in the occupied territories report an intense deployment of the different corps of the Moroccan repression, especially in El Aaiun and Assa, which are completely sealed. (SPS)

060/090/ALG 192355 Jul 05 SPS