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SPS Saharawi students demand the release of the Saharawi political prisoners 25.04.05
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Rabat (Morocco), 25/04/2006 (SPS) Saharawi students in the Moroccan universities in Rabat, Marrakech and Agadir called, on Monday, to the "unconditional release" of all Saharawi political prisoners still in Moroccan prisons, declared press releases issued by the Saharawi students in the three Moroccan universities.
They "reaffirmed the Saharawi people’s right to self-determination an independence", asking the Moroccan Government "to account for the Saharawi disappeareds", the same texts indicated.
The Saharawi students also "denounced the torture of the Saharawi political prisoners, Dedi Mahmoud, Bachir Hmada and Moussaoui Ahmed, as well as their transfer to prisons with criminals" in the Carcel Negra of El Aaiun, at the eve of the release of 38 Saharawi political prisoners last Saturday.
They further, "rejected the preposition of autonomy declared by Morocco and all other solutions that do not respect the Saharawi people’s right to self-determination".
They finally interpellated all international organisations to "exercise pressures on Morocco, so as to conform to the international legality and respect the Human rights in the Western Sahara". (SPS)
020/090/110/TRD 251050 Avr 06 SPS
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SPS At least one person arrested in the occupied city of Smara
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Smara (occupied territories), 25/04/2006 (SPS) The Saharawi citizens, Nafi Lebatt, was arrested on Sunday evening by the Moroccan colonial forces in the occupied city of Smara, during a demonstration organised in the Saharawi cultural capital, calling to "the immediate withdrawal" of the Moroccan occupation of the Western Sahara, SPS’s correspondent on the ground reported.
The demonstrators raised the national flags of the Saharawi Republic and chanted slogans asking for "the self-determination of the Saharawi people and independence", the same source indicated.
The Moroccan repressive forces immediately intervened making excessive use of force to disperse the demonstrators claiming for the "unconditional release" of the political prisoners in Moroccan custody.
On another hand, the young Saharawi citizen, Ahmed Taleb Oumar, was victim of aggression by 4 Moroccan GUS’s agent, on Monday, according to eye witnesses.
The victim was "badly tortured before been transported to the hospital of the city where he was ill-treated anew by the Moroccan doctors", the same sources added.
Moreover, the Saharawi unemployed graduate in Moroccan southern city, Mhamid El Ghizlan, organised a demonstration "denouncing their forcible recruiting in the Moroccan army. (SPS)
020/090/110/TRD 251200 Avr 06 SPS
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SPS Annan’s Report: Polisario writes to the UN’s Security Council
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Washington, 25/04/2006 (SPS) Polisario Front’s Representative to the UN, Mr. Boukhari Ahmed, sent a letter, on Monday on behalf of the Saharawi authorities, to the UN’s Security Council, on the eve of a meeting the Council is to hold to discuss the report presented to it by the UN’s Secretary General (SG), Mr. Kofi Annan, on the situation in the Western Sahara.
The Security Council, chaired by the Permanent Representative of China in the UN, Ambassador Wang Guangya, is to engage discussions on Annan’s report on Tuesday in New York. The members of the council will have to take a decision on the subject and issue a resolution that will be presented to adoption on April the 28th.
Saharawi people hoped to see a renewal of the commitment of the UN to end the last African case of decolonisation, Mr. Boukhari wrote in his letter, in which he recalled the different UN’s resolutions the UN adopted since 1990 supporting a self-determination referendum that was so far jeopardized by the Moroccan lack of commitment.
To the Saharawi representative also underlined "the errors of judgment or interpretation", in the report of Mr. Annan.
If the last document is recalling the principles behind the self-determination in the Western Sahara "and gives an image of what is happening actually", he estimated, then the "real raison d'être of the UN is to participate to the process of decolonisation of the Western Sahara by imposing the respect of the existing resolutions and not to get stuck in new and dangerous approaches".
"The UN should not accept a plan that excludes the organisation o a real self-determination referendum that answers the claims of the Saharawi people", the Saharawi diplomat writes, indicating that "the so called sovereignty Morocco is claiming on the occupied territories of the Western Sahara has so far not been recognised by any member of the UN".
Noting that the SG’s report has "drawn the light on one of the tragic consequences of the illegal occupation by Morocco, mainly the human rights violations in the occupied territories", Mr. Boukhari invited the UN’s Security Council "to take into consideration the different resolutions adopted by the UN and the international community, all of which are supporting the principle of finishing the decolonisation process in the Western Sahara".
After he denounced "Moroccan manoeuvres" to delay the implementation of the international community’s resolutions, Mr. Boukhari stressed that this new approach, "if taken into consideration by the UN, can but be contrary to the principles the organisation is defending all over the world".
"To ignore the International Court of Justice’s rule and those of the UN’s different bodies regarding the Western Sahara, in particular the principle o self-determination enshrined in the UN’s Charter, is a betrayal to this same Charter", the Saharawi representative underlines, denouncing by the same occasion the countries and Governments that are "trying to support the new Moroccan approach aimed to perpetuate the Moroccan illegal occupation of the Western Sahara".
The Saharawi diplomat, who reiterated the position of Polisario Front for the organisation o a self-determination referendum, emphasised that negotiations between the two parties to the conflict, Morocco and Polisario Front, "can only be within the framework that was established since 1990 by the different UN’s resolutions, including the Baker Plan, the Settlement Plan and the Houston Accords".
The Security Council has got a "new opportunity" to re-launch the peace process through forcing Morocco to fully subscribe to the implementation of the decisions for the organisation of a self-determination referendum under the auspices of the Minurso, and thus "put an end to an occupation that languishes since 1975 denying Saharawi people’s right to independence". (SPS)
010/090/700/TRD 251023 Avr 06 SPS
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SPS The President of the Saharawi Parliament in a visit to Mexico
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Mexico, 25/04/2006 (SPS) The President of the Saharawi Parliament, Mahfoud Ali Beiba, finished a 7 days visit to the United States of Mexico, where he had meetings with many Mexican politicians, according to Saharawi diplomatic source..
During his sojourn, the Saharawi official met with the President of the Congress of te United States of Mexico, Mrs. Marcella González Salsa, in company of the President of the Congress’ Committee for Foreign Affairs, Adriana González Carrillo, the same source added.
Mr. Ali Beiba also received by the Committee of Foreign Affairs of the Mexican Senate and its President, Mrs. Laura Alicia Garza Galindo, as well as the political groups represented in the Senate in addition to the President of the Mexican Association of the friends of the Saharawi Republic, Mrs. Víctor Hugo Rascón Banda, it was indicated.
The President of the Saharawi Parliament to inform his interlocutors about the last developments of the struggle of the Saharawi people on the light of the UN’s Secretary General especially «the degrading situation» of the human rights in the occupied zones of the Western Sahara, the same source concluded. (SPS)
020/090/000/ TRD 251833 Avr 06 SPS
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SPS "The question of the Western Sahara is a direct responsibility of the UN", recalls the Algerian Ambassador to the UN
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New York (United Nations), 25/04/2006 (SPS) The Ambassador, and Permanent Representative of Algeria to the United Nations, Youcef Yousfi, addressed a letter to the UN’s Secretary General, on Monday, regarding the position of Algeria on the subject of the Western Sahara, publicised the same day by the Algerian Press Agency, APS.
Here is the text of the letter, of which a copy was addressed to the President and members of the UN’s Security Council as well as to the President of the UN’s General Assembly.
"Mister Secretary General,
On the order of my Government, I have got the honour to share with you the following observations regarding the report n° S/2006/249, of the 19th of April 2006, the UN’s Secretary General has just submitted to the Security Council on the question of the Western Sahara:
1. It is necessary to recall that the question o the Western Sahara is a decolonisation question that falls under the resolution 1514 (XV) on the ''Declaration of the granting of independence to colonial peoples and territories''. That is to say that it is under the direct responsibility of the UN, which has, following its Charter, doctrine and procedures on the matter, the obligation to finish the process of the decolonisation of this territory.
Any other approach, which aims to deprive this people to exercise this imprescriptible right, is a serious violation of the international law and will be contrary to the spirit and content of the UN’s Charter and pertinent resolutions adopted by the organisation since 1965, which consecrated this right confirmed by the International Court of Justice.
2. The UN’s Settlement plan, negotiated and accepted by the two parties to the conflict, the Moroccan kingdom and Polisario in August 1988, and approved by the Security Council in its resolutions 658 (1990) of June the 27, 1990 and 690 (1991) of April 29, 1991, in addition to the Houston Accords negotiated between the two parties under the aegis of Mr. James Baker III, UN’s Secretary General Personal Envoy, accepted and signed by the two parties in September 1997 in Houston, and finally the Peace Plan for the self-determination of the Saharawi people, elaborated under the request of the Security Council by Mr. James Baker III and approved by the Council in its resolution 1495 (2003) of July the31, 2003, clearly rule that the settlement of the conflict of the Western Sahara can only be through the expression of the will of the people of the Western Sahara, the only to decide on their future through a free and regular self-determination referendum.
3. In this case, after they showed correctness in the search of a definitive solution to this conflict, the United Nations showed more and more softness towards the occupying force, adapting to its tergiversations and delays.
4. Now, under the excuse that the plans elaborated by the United Nations or negotiated, by the parties to the conflict, under its intermediation and approved by the Security Council, ere rejected by one of the parties, the UN proposes to break up its engagement to the process of settlement of a decolonisation issue, of which it is accountable at a political, legal land moral levels.
The approach recommended by the UN’s Personal Envoy the Secretary general adopted, is a distortion Algeria can not and would not support, under any circumstances.
5. Algeria also regrets that the United Nations, which vocation and raison d'être are to defend the law and justice, is now putting the real politic in the opposition to the international legality and is opting for the first over the second.
6. As a State concerned with the respect of the international legality and the stability of the region, Algeria has always supported a just and definitive settlement of the question of the Western Sahara, in strict conformity to the Security Council’s and General Assembly’s pertinent resolutions.
It considers the only valid negotiations those limited to Morocco and Polisario Front, which are the two parties to the conflict, and those which tackle the modalities of the implementation of the peace plan for the self-determination of the people of the Western Sahara, the UN’s Security Council approved in its resolution 1495 (2003).
In this respect, Algeria regrets that its position on the question expressed in a letter addressed by the President of the Republic to the UN’s Secretary General, was not reflected in the SG report, as it is accustomed.
7. Algeria would like finally to reaffirm its conviction that it is only with the implementation of the plan for the self-determination of the people of the Western Sahara, approved by the Security Council as an optimum political solution to this conflict, as it is a compromise between the position of the two parties, and is to enable a just an definitive settlement of the question in strict conformity to the UN’s Charter and international legality". (SPS)
010/090/700/TRD 251040 Avr 06 SPS
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