SAHARA PRESSE SERVICE

Oslo, 29/09/2005 (SPS) The Norwegian Support Committee for Western Sahara (NSCWS) calls on its future government to build Norwegian policy in Western Sahara, "on United Nations' efforts and International Law", and to recognise SADR as an independent State, requesting that Norway bans "all Norwegian investments in the country as long as it's occupied" by Morocco, reported a press release publicised Tuesday by the Committee.

"NSCWS recommends, through six points, a more vigorous Norwegian policy in Western Sahara, based on United Nations' efforts and International Law. It recommends that the new "red-green" government should give a more active support to the Saharawis' rights under occupation and in exile, including the Saharawis' right to self-determination", the text wrote.

The Norwegian Parliamentary elections, held last September 12^th, ended with a victory for a coalition consisting of the Labour Party, the Socialist Left Party and the Centre Party. The Three parties, who are about negotiating the formation of the future government, received a document regarding the Western Sahara, in which the NSCWS asks the negotiating delegations from each party that the coming government step up the efforts to solve the Western Sahara conflict.

Norway should "recognise the Western Sahara as an independent republic, following the example of the African Union and South Africa", the press release said, underlining that it must also "increase the humanitarian aid to the 165.000 refugees living in refugee camps in Algeria".

"We expect that a government consisting of parties with such a strong focus on international solidarity tells the occupying power Morocco that enough is enough. Western Sahara is the last colony in Africa, according to the UN, with oppression and social structures resembling Apartheid. Norway can no longer accept this, eleven years after Apartheid was abolished at the other end of Africa", says Ronny Hansen, chairman of the Norwegian Support Committee for Western Sahara.

On another hand, the Committee also exhorted the Government to "stop all imports of products from Western Sahara, as well as banning Norwegian investments in the country as long as it's occupied".

"Defending Western Sahara is also defending Norway's global interests through the UN", the Committee estimated, adding that "If the new Norwegian government would fail to defend Western Sahara and the UN's credibility as conflict solver, Norway would tacitly accept international unilateralism and the undermining of International Law", Hansen concludes. (SPS)

SPS
SADR/UN

Mr. Khadad recalls the UN its responsibilities in the protection of the civil population in the Western Sahara

Chahid El Hafed, 29/09/2005 (SPS) Mr. Mhamed Khadad, Member of the National Secretariat and Coordinator with the Minurso, recalled the UN’s Secretary General’s Special Representative for Western Sahara, the Italian, Franseco Bastagli, who is undertaking a visit to SADR, o the responsibilities of the international organisation in the protection of the Saharawi citizens who are daily submitted to repression in the occupied territories of Western Sahara and in the south of Morocco.

"We expressed our preoccupation, which are largely shared by the international community, about the protection of the Saharawi civil against the human rights’ violations in Western Sahara perpetrated by Morocco who blocks all the perspectives of solution", declared Mr. Khadad to SPS after his meeting with the Head of the Minurso, Thursday in Chahid Tamek residence.

During his conversation with the UN’s official, who replaced Mr. Alvaro de Soto, Mr. Khadad criticised "the blockage by the Moroccan Government of the visit exchange programme between the Saharawi families separated for 30 years by a military building of more than 2000 Kms long, filled by millions mines and more than 120.000 Moroccan soldiers".

"We renewed to the UN’s official our determination to cooperate with the UN within the framework of the enforcement of the Peace Plan for the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara, which is unanimously adopted by the Security Council", he added.

Asked about the recent statements by Moroccan officials that talk about a wide autonomy for the Western Sahara under Moroccan sovereignty, Mr. Khadad underlined that "this is an old suggestion", adding that it is just "excuses that can not hide the blockage and intransigence of Morocco and its disdain of the international legality ".

"There will be no solution outside the democratic framework that is internationally recognised the self-determination for the Saharawi people", he said, adding that "it is only within this framework Polisario is ready to go forwards".

Arrived this Thursday or a visit of wok to SADR, the Head of the Minurso, attended a popular meeting in the wilaya of El Aaiun and had meetings with the assistants of the Wali and with the Representatives of the notables (who work with the Minurso for the identification of voters).

Coming from Rabat, Mr. Bastagli will be received this afternoon by the President of the Republic, Mohamed Abdelaziz, before he will head to Algeria and Mauritania within the framework of undertaking first contact with the parties interested in the conflict.

Mr. Bastagli, who worked in Kosovo for 3 years as the UN’s SG’ assistant Special Representative for the Administration, has started his international career in the seat of the UN in 1974, as a Special assistant of the under-Secretary General for the services of the personnel. (SPS)

010/090/100/TRD 291655 sept 05 SPS

SPS
SADR/UN

The President of the Republic receives the new Head of the Minurso

Chahid El Hafed, 29/09/2005 (SPS) The President of the Republic, Mohamed Abdelaziz, received the new UN’s Secretary General’s Special Representative for Western Sahara, the Italian, Franseco Bastagli, this Thursday at the seat of the presidency.

The meeting between the two parties discussed "the necessity of advancing in the process of decolonisation of Western Sahara through the mechanisms already decided, mainly the pace plan unanimously adopted by the UN’s Security Council, and a UN’s mission (Minurso) present on the ground since 1991to enforce it", indicated a Saharawi Governmental source to SPS.

The Saharawi political direction also expressed, Mr. Bastagli its "deep preoccupation about the situation of the Saharawi civil populations in the territories under Moroccan occupation and the need to impose the respect of the fundamental liberties, human rights and to open the territory to the independent foreign observers", stressing on efforts the UN must deploys to "release Sahara political prisoners, the 151 Saharawi prisoners of war and to draw the light on the fate of more than 500 Saharawi 'disappeareds', who are clearly listed by their families since the military invasion of the territory and its annexation in 1975", the same source added.

A special concern was given to the necessity of "restarting the visits between the Saharawi families who are separated for 30 years by a military wall, defended by millions mines and soldiers, a wall, which is a shame for the whole humanity, that parts these families in its two sides", the same source added.

Finally, the conditions of living of the Saharawi refugees, who are living thanks to the humanitarian aid in the land of exile, were also mentioned during this meeting. "The Saharawi political direction underlined that it will be better that the UN’s organisms and agencies in charge for the humanitarian aid fulfil this duty that is necessary for the survival of the refugees".

The meeting was attend by the Saharawi Prime Minister, Abdelkader Taleb Oumar, The Minister of Defence, Mohamed Lemine Bouhali, the Coordinator with the Minurso, Mhamed Khadad and the person in charge or the Polisario Front political orientation, Khatri Addouh. (SPS)

010/090100/TRD 291957 sept 05 SPS

SPS
OCCUPIED TERRITORIES/PRISONERS T

he 37 Saharawi political prisoners suspended their hunger strike

El Aaiun (occupied territories), 29/09/2005 (SPS) The 37 Saharawi political prisoners, in hunger strike, declared that they suspend their action that started last August the 8 to claim for the respect of the human rights in Western Sahara and the self-determination for their people, indicted a press release by the hunger-striking this Thursday in El Aaiun.

"The Saharawi political prisoners decide to "suspend their hunger strike starting from Thursday, 29 September 2005, without prejudice to their legitimate demands ", the text underlined.

The political prisoners, who suffered a lot from this struggle, renewed their "attachment to the right of the Saharawi people to self-determination and call upon the United Nations to expedite the implementation of this right", as well as their appreciation of "the massive solidarity movement with the hunger strikers that involved all the Saharawi population everywhere as well as significant international organisations".

"The open-ended hunger strike and the risks it involved in terms of the risk of death and attendant disabilities was only waged in response to the persistence by the Moroccan State in abusing human rights, engaging in sacrilegious practices, and attempting to subdue the Saharawis through its ongoing policies of repression, detention, torture, unfair court trials and abduction even from within prisons, which all is reminiscent of its military invasion and annexation by force of the Saharawi territory at the end of 1975", the text added.

Here is the complete text of the press release, originally in Arabic:

«Press Release

Following 51 days of hunger strike during which the Saharawi prisoners of conscience, detained at the Dark Prison in La Aaiún and the penitentiaries in both Ait Meloul and Oukahsa in Casablanca, have had agonising time bringing some of them to the threshold of death and converting them in veritable human ghosts, which all was coupled with sheer lack of medical care, and total indifference and arrogance by the Ministry of Justice that paid no heed to the grief of the families of the detainees and the persistent demands by many voices advocating human dignity.

Believing that the battle of the open-ended hunger strike and the risks it involved in terms of the risk of death and attendant disabilities was only waged in response to the persistence by the Moroccan State in abusing human rights, engaging in sacrilegious practices, and attempting to subdue the Saharawis through its ongoing policies of repression, detention, torture, unfair court trials and abduction even from within prisons, which all is reminiscent of its military invasion and annexation by force of the Saharawi territory at the end of 1975.

The Saharawi prisoners of conscience, while recalling the sacred principles and convictions in which they have believed and advocated in front of interrogators in Moroccan courts:

- Declare their attachment to the right of the Saharawi people to self-determination and call upon the United Nations to expedite the implementation of this right;

- Applaud the massive solidarity movement with the hunger strikers that involved all the Saharawi population everywhere as well as significant international organisations and bodies, political parties, media, parliamentarians and clerics, including: Amnesty International, the International Organisation Against Torture, the Frontline of Defenders of Human Rights, Moroccan Association for Human Rights, Democratic Path, Algerian civil society and media, International Office for the Respect for Human Rights in Western Sahara, French Association of Friendship with African Peoples, French Communist Party, European Parliament, Spanish Parliament, Spanish regional parliaments, Swedish Parliament, Rafto Organisation in Norway, associations of solidarity with the Saharawi people around the world, US Congress, Spanish pastors, Spanish Council of Lawyers, Spanish civil society and media, legal and political bodies in Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, Portugal, Scandinavia, Australia, and Latin America, the Arab Committee for Solidarity with the Saharawi people, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the French Commission on Western Sahara, the European Coordination of Support for the Saharawi People, all governments, organisations, associations and personalities that intervened and supported the hunger strikers, in addition to the laudable work conducted by the Association of the Families of Saharawi Prisoners and Disappeared, the Saharawi Union of Lawyers, The Spanish committee of follow-up of the hunger strike, and the group of lawyers who were delegated to defend the Saharawi prisoners of conscience.

- Applaud the efforts deployed by the Moroccan human rights bodies (Follow-up Association, Moroccan Watch for the Protection of Prisoners) in order to ensure the satisfaction of the demands of the hunger strikers;

- Call for the lifting of the security siege and media blackout imposed on the cities of Western Sahara, and opening them for international independent observers;

- Finally, acting in response to the families’ call, indicate that, though the battle of hunger strike has drawn unprecedented attention, it will remain the solid guarantee of satisfying the demands of the Saharawi prisoners of conscience that consist in putting an end to the unjust and oppressive practices including arbitrary detention, unfair court trials, torture, abduction, forced deportation and the attendant inhuman and degrading practices.

- Draw attention to the seriousness of the consequences of 51 days of hunger strike in terms of their health situation that necessitates urgent intervention to safeguard their physical integrity and mental wellbeing;

- They suspend their hunger strike starting from Thursday, 29 September 2005, without prejudice to their legitimate demands. -

For the 37 political prisoners Saharawis in hunger strike,

the prisoner of conscience Saharawi Ali Salem TAMEK

Spokesman of the Saharawi political prisoners

September 29, 2005". (SPS)

010/090/110 292101 sept 05 SPS