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SPS Arrival of Mrs. Haidar to the Spanish region of Valencia 23.05.05
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Valencia (Spain), 23/05/2006 (SPS) Mrs. Aminetou Haidar, famous human rights activist and ex-political prisoner, arrived to the Spanish region of Valencia, on Sunday, within the framework of a turn of mobilisation she started since the beginning of May in the Spanish autonomous regions.
In the same city, Mr. Haidar has had meetings on Monday with the President of the Spanish Parliament, Julio De Espana Moya, who expressed "the engagement of the Parliament to save no effort to impose the respect of the human rights in the occupied territories of the Western Sahara".
In a statement to the press, after his meeting with Mrs. Aminatou Haidar, Mr. Julio stressed that the "main goal behind this meeting is to arise the awareness of the Spanish public opinion on the necessity of supporting the Saharawi people’s legitimate rights".
"We listened to a person who was victim to repression, torture, imprisonment and ill-treatments for the only reason to have defended her opinion and the independence of her territory, which was a Spanish region not so long ago", he said.
Mr. Julio also wished a unblock to the current impasse in the conflict of the Western Sahara within the framework of the UN, so as to find a solution to the 30 years old conflict, underlining that the "Saharawi people have got the right to live in peace and freedom".
On another hand, Mrs. Haidar met with the Representative of the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE), Mrs. Isabel Escudero, also assistant spokesperson of the socialist group within the regional Parliament of Valencia, in company of the member of the National executive Committee of the PSOE, Andres Perelle, and many other officials of the region.
The Saharawi activist informed her interlocutors on the human rights situation and the repression to which the Saharawi population is subjected in the occupied territories of the Western Sahara, especially "the Saharawi human rights activists", as well as her personal experience in the "Moroccan prisons" where she underwent "all sorts of tortures".
Mrs. Haidar, has lately received the "Juan Maria Brandes" Price of the Defence of the right to exile and solidarity with refugees that was offered to her by the Spanish Committee for the Assistance to the Refugees (CEAR), was also received by the President of the Catalonian Agency for Cooperation, David Minovc, and by the Coordinator of the Catalonian solidarity with the Saharawi people, Oriol Fort, in addition to Catalonian sympathisers with the Saharawi cause.
39 years old and mother to two children, Mrs. Haidar was arrested for the first time in 1987 for having participated in a peaceful demonstration against the Moroccan illegal occupation of the Western Sahara at a moment when a UN’s ad-hoc Committee was visiting the territory.
She disappeared for 4 years in the Moroccan secret detention camps, undergoing all kinds of torture before been released in 1991. She was arrested many times because of her peaceful activities for the defence of the human rights in the Western Sahara, which is submitted to the Moroccan military occupation and to a permanent Medias and security siege since 1975.
Release last January the 17th 2006 from the notorious Moroccan prison the Carcel Negra (Black Jail) in El Aaiun after she served a 7 months sentence, Mrs. Aminetou Haidar participated to many activities such as to the Committee of Coordination of the victims of forced disappearance and detention in the Western Sahara in 1994, the Committee for the release of Sidi Mohamed Deddech and all Saharawi detainees in 2002, an the Committee for the release of Ali Salem Tamek and all the Saharawi political prisoners in 2003.
Her appeal from the Carcel Negra on the occasion of the International Day against torture is impossible to forget:"...It is a miracle that I am still alive, because I am physically exhausted as a woman by all these years of forced disappearance and imprisonment, so much torture and repression. But I am still here and I will continue to fight with all my energy knowing that you are there struggling with us. I am convinced of this as I am convinced of the existence of the sea that is awaiting for me some 25 kilometres, and as I am convinced that these Saharawi children refugees in Algeria will come back to their free land. I am even more convinced of your support and of the tender sight of my own children, Mohamed and Hayat for whom I am badly missing".. (SPS)
020/090/000 231100 May 06 SPS
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SPS The Saharawi Government doubts about the neutrality of Madrid regarding the Western Sahara conflict
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Chahid El Hafed, 23/05/2006 (SPS) The neutrality of Spain in the conflict opposing Morocco and the Saharawi people, who are colonised since 1975 by Rabat, was questioned by the Saharawi Government, which go further to deny any possibility for Madrid to play "an objective role" in the efforts of the international community aimed to resolve the conflict.
"The Spanish Government puts in doubt the possibility to play an objective and fair role in searching a solution to the conflict of the decolonisation of the Western Sahara", the Saharawi Government warned in a press release, of which SPS received a copy. The Saharawi Republic blames the Spanish Executive of being, in addition to France, the instigators of the EU-Morocco fishing agreement for the robbery of the Western Sahara’s fishing resources.
"The Spanish Government, the exclusive beneficiary from the market, has no legal or ethical reason to be proud about the signature of the fishing agreement with Morocco including the territorial waters of the Western Sahara to the detriment of the international legality", the press release underlines.
To the Saharawi Executive, "the Spanish Government’s activism, including the use of the most tendentious means to materialise the (fishing) accord, shows an evident alignment with the Moroccan expansionist thesis".
The responsibility about the "tragedy" the Saharawi people are living and the "consecutive tension" the region witnesses in addition to "the delays in the regional cooperation and development of the Euro-Maghreb relations", "devolve on Spain", the press release, which was publicised on Tuesday from Bir Lehlu (liberated territories of the Western Sahara).
Recalling that no country "recognises the sovereignty of Morocco on the Western Sahara", as clearly mentioned by the UN’s Secretary General, Kofi Annan, in his report to the Security Council, the Saharawi Government called the EU to "review this accord and stop playing the Moroccan colonial political game, which is unanimously rejected by the Saharawi people, and which unrealism and failure do not need proofs".
The Saharawi Government "hailed" anew the American position that excluded the Western Sahara, conforming to the law, from its Free Trade Agreements with Morocco. The Saharawi Republic, further, expressed its "recognition and gratitude to all the European countries which opposed this accord, especially Sweden that voted against it, hailing it for its courageous position that is conform to the ethics and to the international legality. (SPS)
010/090/100/TRD 231716 May 06 SPS
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SPS Polisario Front qualifies the EU-Morocco fishing accord as a "serious mistake"
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Brussels, 23/05/2006 (SPS) The ratification by the European Union, under the impulsion of France and Spain, of the EU-Morocco fishing agreement is a "serious mistake", a "support to the international robbery" and a "plundering" of the Saharawi natural resources, Polisario Front affirmed on Monday in a statement publicised in Brussels.
"Giving away to their colonialist tendencies, and so as to perpetuate a colonial fait accompli in the Western Sahara, Spain and France have driven the member States of the EU in their unreasonable adventure", what constitutes "a black page in the history of the European Union", underlined the statement of Mr. Mohamed Sidati, Saharawi Minister delegated to Europe.
"By submitting to the desiderata of Spain and France", Polisario Front’s statement adds, "Europe knows pertinently that30 years after the beginning of the Western Sahara conflict, the international community do not recognise any kind of sovereignty to Morocco over the territory. And by acting as such, the EU simply ignores the juridical status of the Western Sahara as recognised by the UN".
In fact, the press release stressed, the legal opinion of the Security Council legal bureau of January the 29th 2002 had recalled the status of "a Non-Self-Governing territry" of the Western Sahara, which remains registered on the agenda of the UN as such since 1963.
Recalling that the Saharawi declaration, the resolutions 1514 and 1541 adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1960 and the article 73 of the UN Charter, have enacted the laws ruling the protection of the natural resources of non-self-governing territories, "rules that the EU simply ignored when it came to the Western Sahara".
The Polisario Front considers, thus, that the ratification by the EU of the fishing agreement with Morocco as "a wide action of robbery and seizing of the natural resources and a flagrant violation of the international law".
Polisario Front warns that it "will make use of all means to defend its legitimate rights".
On another hand, it paid tribute to the countries that opposed the accord, such as Sweden. (SPS)
010/090/700/TRD 231112 May 05 SPS
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SPS Sweden opposes the EU-Morocco fishing agreement
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Brussels, 23/05/2006 (SPS) Sweden officially rejected, on Monday, the EU-Morocco fishing agreement, because of the illegal occupation of the Western Sahara by Morocco and because of the absence of consequences in the benefit of the Saharawi people.
Explaining its country’s vote in the EU Ministers Council, the Swedish Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, Mrs. Ann-Christin Nygvist, underlined that the opposition of her country to this agreement was because the "Western Sahara is not part of the Moroccan territory according to the international legality".
The Western Sahara conflict, she added in a statement, is the object of a UN process for a "just and mutually acceptable solution that must lead to a self-determination process for the Saharawi people".
On another hand, Sweden underlined that this accord "must be conform to the international law" and stressed that it "is not to the benefit of the Saharawi people".
The EU-Morocco fishing agreement, qualified by Polisario Front as "an operation of international robbery", will be n force this June after its ratification on Monday by the European Council, it should be recalled.
Other countries, such as the Netherlands, Ireland and Finland criticised the dispositions of this accord. According to Saharawi sources, legal procedures may be undertaken against this accord within the European or international courts. (SPS)
020/090/700/TRD 231750 May 06 SPS
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SPS An international association calls on Mohamed VI to put an end to the repression against Saharawis
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Paris, 23/05/2006 (SPS) the International Association "the Christian Action for the Abolition of torture" (ACAT) declared to have called on the King of Morocco, Tuesday, to "adopt measures" to stop the repression against the Saharawis who "demonstrate peacefully for their right to self-determination".
"ACAT-France learned with consternation that serious vents occurred in El Aaiun on May the 17th 2006 on the occasion of the visit to the Western Sahara of a delegation from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights", the association wrote in a letter addressed to the Moroccan king.
Recalling that "similar events occurred on May the 19th and 20th in the cities of Dakhla and Boudjour", ACAT-France stressed that "many of these demonstrators were released after having been beaten while others are still in custody and we fear they are submitted to torture as some released persons were".
"On another hand, some wounded persons are in critical state", the association added stressing that "As far as we are informed the following persons remains under detention: Eljoumani Saleh Elmahdi, Mohamed Sahraoui, Echiaa Elballah arrested in El Aaiun and Mohamed Andour, Tarfaoui Fatah, Hassan Elmoussaoui arrested in Boudjour".
The Association asked the Moroccan king "to adopt the necessary measures" to ensure that the arrested demonstrators "be released as soon as possible" and to undertake an "independent and impartial investigation" on these cases of arrests and on "the ill-treatment administrated to some victims". (SPS)
010/090/700 231902 May 06 SPS
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SPS The Spanish Unified Left criticises Zapatero’s Government efforts for the settlement of the Western Sahara conflict
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Madrid, 23/05/2006 (SPS) The Coordinator of the Spanish Izquierda Unida (Spanish Unified Left, the 3 main political party in Spain), Gaspar Llamazares, described the efforts deployed by the Spanish Government for the settlement of the conflict in the Western Sahara as ''insufficient''.
''As far as we are concerned, to have the best relations with Morocco does not mean that the Saharawi situation be used as a change coin in this relations'', he declared.
M. Llamazares recalled that the Saharawi question comes within the framework of the ''international law'' and the ''historical responsibilities'' of the Spanish State, deploring that the ''Moroccan Government does not show any readiness to accept the Saharawi people’s right to self-determination''. He accused Rabat of committing ''serious human rights violations in the occupied territories of the Western Sahara''.
In this respect, the leader of the leftist party recalled that no delegation from the Spanish Congress was able to enter the occupied Saharawi territories because of Moroccan obstacles. (SPS)
010/090/700/TRD 231856 May 06 SPS
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SPS A Spanish official calls on the Government to "act" in front of human rights violations in the Western Sahara
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Madrid, 23/05/ 2006 (SPS) The Councillor (Minister) of Cooperation in the regional Government of Valencia, Gema Amor, called on the Spanish Central Government to "put an end to its inertia" regarding the Saharawi population situation in the occupied territories of the Western Sahara and to "act in the face of the permanent human rights violations in these territories".
The Minster pronounced this statement after a meeting she had with the Saharawi human rights activist and ex-political prisoner, Mrs. Aminetou Haidar, who is undertaking a turn of mobilisation in Spain, according to the Spanish Press Agency, Europa Press, quoted by Algerian Press Service, APS.
The same source said that Mrs. Haidar had exposed to her interlocutor "the tragic situation" the Saharawi population is living in the territories under Moroccan occupation. The Saharawi population is "disappointed" about the "passive" position by the Spanish Government to its responsibilities in the Western Sahara.
"We still can count on the support of the Spanish people, in front of the abuses of the most fundamental of our rights but we can not count on the Spanish Government", she reaffirmed.
Answering an invitation of the Saharawi Activist, the Spanish Minister, Mrs. Gema Amor, announced that she will pay a visit to the occupied territories of the Western Sahara to investigate on the human rights situation, stressing that the Government of Valencia "will remain seized" of the subject and pay all efforts for the respect of the Saharawi people’s rights. (SPS)
020/090/700 231740 May 06 SPS
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