SAHARA PRESSE SERVICE

Fidji, 30/11/2006 (SPS) Polisario Front called on the UN to assume "its responsibilities" towards the Saharawi people "with regard to the exercise of their inalienable right to self-determination and independence through a self/determination referendum".

During a seminar organised by the UN Special Committee for Decolonisation (the Committee of the 24), in Yanuca Fidji, from the 28 to the 30th November, within the framework of the UN’s second decade for the elimination of colonialism, the Saharawi Representative to Australia, Kamal Fadel, regretted that the UN "closes the eyes on the Moroccan abuses, its violations of the UN resolutions and its rejection of the peace plan".

Mr. Fadel stressed, in a press release, that the solution Morocco would like to impose to end the Saharawi question is "a unilateral project meant to manipulate and mess up the process of the self-determination in the Western Sahara".

Reconstituting the historical context that introduced the current situation, the Saharawi official recalled that the "question of the decolonisation of the Western Sahara is in the agenda of the UN since more than 40 years and the International Court of Justice has established that there were no ties of sovereignty between Morocco and the Western Sahara and that the Saharawis must be granted their right to self-determination".

Mr. Fadel drew the attention of the participants on the different reports of the human rights organisations and the UN, especially the last report issued by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, "which denounced Morocco for the reprisal it exercises against the Saharawi people in the occupied territories".

He asked the Bureau of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights "to publicise its report of September 2006 on the Western Sahara", and let the MINURSO’s mandate include the "supervision of the situation of the human rights in the occupied territories so as to protect the Saharawis".

Polisario Front, he recalled, launches on the occasion "an urgent appeal to the UN and to the international community to stop the illegal exploitation of the natural resources of the Western Sahara".

He further asked the UN’s Special Committee for Decolonisation to "send a delegation to the Western Sahara so as to report the facts observed on the progress of the decolonisation process".

The seminar is organised within the framework of the UN’s second decade for the elimination of colonialism (2001-2010). The participants listened to a message from the UN Secretary General and will discuss the actions undertaken by the international community and the parties concerned with the progress of the decolonisation process of the remaining 16 Non-Self-Governing territories, including the Western Sahara. (SPS)

010/090/700/TRD 301014 NOV SPS

SPS
SADR/SOUTH AFRICA/MBEIKI

Mbeiki: "South Africa will support the Saharawi people whose cause is among the priorities of our Foreign policy"

Pretoria 30/11/2006, (SPS) The President of the Republic of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, declared, on Wednesday in Pretoria, that his country supports the Saharawi people whose cause is among the priorities of his Foreign Affairs’ policy, reported a press release issued by the Saharawi Embassy in Pretoria on Thursday.

Mr. Mbeiki, whose statement was reported by the South African Deputy Minister for Foreign Affair, Mrs. Sue Van De Merwe, during her reception of the Saharawi human rights activist, Ali Salem Tamek, added that the "indefectible and principled support will remain as long as the Saharawi people do not enjoy their right to freedom and independence".

"On behalf of President Thabo Mbeki I ensure you of the support of South Africa to the Saharawi people’s cause that is a priority in our foreign affairs policy", Mrs. De Merwe affirmed during this reception with the presence of high officials in her Ministry and the Saharawi Ambassador in Pretoria, Ubbi Bechraya.

Mr. Ali Salem Tamek, member of the Collective of Saharawi Human Rights Defenders, informed his interlocutor about the serious human rights situation in the occupied territories of the Western Sahara and unveiled "the crimes daily perpetrated by the Moroccan State against the Saharawi civilians who are only peacefully claiming for their people’s right to self-determination via a referendum".

"We feel more frustrated because all these crimes are committed before the eyes of the UN’s mission, MINURSO", the Saharawi human rights activist said, asking the UN to "promptly organise the self-determination referendum for the Saharawi people", to "implement the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights’ recommendations and to create mechanisms for the protection of the defenceless Saharawi people". (SPS)

010/090/000/TRD 301030 nov 06 SPS

SPS
SADR/SOUTH AFRICA/ANC

ANC Youth League expresses solidarity with the Saharawi civilians in the occupied territories of the Western Sahara

Pretoria, 30/11/2006 (SPS) The President of the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) and current Secretary General of the International Socialist Youth Union (ISYU), Fikele Mbalula declared that his organisation is about "to start a dynamic movement of coordination so as to reinforce the solidarity with the Saharawi people who are suffering the martyrdom in the occupied territories of the Western Sahara", reported a source from the Saharawi Embassy in Pretoria.

Mr. Fikele Mbalula, who was receiving the Saharawi human rights activist and member of the Collective of Saharawi Human Rights Defenders, Ali Salem Tamek, affirmed that "what is happening in the occupied territories of the Western Sahara, mainly the peaceful Intifada of Independence, the barbarous reprisal, tortures and daily oppression perpetrated by the Moroccan regime against helpless Saharawi civilians remind us of the darkest and bloodiest pages of Apartheid".

"To be faithful to the memory of the martyrs of Apartheid imposes to the ANCYL to mobilise side by side with the Saharawi people and youth so as deliver our continent of a colonial and racial situation that is not less violent than the situation our people lived for so long under the odious regime of Apartheid", Mr. Mbalula said, according to the same source.

The ANCYL’s leader, who was accompanied by the Secretary General of the organisation, Mr. Sihle Zikalala, listened with deep concern to the testimony of the Saharawi human rights activist who described "the horrors of the Moroccan occupation in the occupied territories of the Western Sahara which saved none, children and old persons included, who are submitted to indescribable atrocities", only because they advocate their people’s right to self-determination.

Ali Salem Tamek affirmed that "this colonial policy aims to empty the occupied territories of the Western Sahara from its young forces pushing them to illegal migration towards the Spanish Canaries Islands to be victim to a certain and tragic death drowned as we saw last Sunday with the death of more than 20 Saharawi youngsters in the Atlantic ocean", the same source added.

Mr. Fikele Mbalula stressed that his organisation "closely coordinate with the Saharawi diplomatic mission in Pretoria and started establishing a policy to largely raise awareness in South Africa", underlining that "been President of the ISYU also enables us in bringing out the Saharawi cause within the organisation to adopt important decisions in this respect, including the dispatch of a delegation to the Western Sahara n the beginning of this month". (SPS)

020/090/000/TRD 301410 Nov 06 SPS

SPS
OCCUPIED TERRITORIES/SPAIN

CEAS-Sahara calls on the Spanish Government to denounce human rights violations in the Western Sahara

Madrid, 30/11/2006 (SPS) The Coordination of the Associations of solidarity with the Saharawi people (CEAS-Sahara) called on the Spanish Socialist Government to denounce, before the international bodies, the human rights violations committed by Morocco in the occupied territories of the Western Sahara and demand the "immediate" holding of a self-determination referendum for the Saharawi people.

In a letter addressed to the President of the Spanish Government, José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, publicised on Thursday, the CEAS-Sahara denounced the policy of ethnical massacre adopted by Morocco, referring to the death of more than 14 Saharawi youth and the disappearance of 26 others last Sunday in the coasts of Bojador, while they were trying to escape Moroccan repression in the occupied territories of the Western Sahara.

"The regime of the Moroccan occupation tries to depopulate the Western Sahara from its legitimate inhabitants and brings Moroccan settlers", the Coordination stressed.

The text noted that there are "proofs" that the Saharawi youngsters in the occupied territories are "threatened of imprisonment and assassination if they do not leave the country", and this because Morocco wants to break "the peaceful resistance waged b the Saharawi population since May 2005".

The Coordination also noted that these 14 victims are added to hundreds dead victims and reported missing Saharawis registered these last months in the territorial waters between Western Sahara and the Canaries Islands.

The Coordination recalled that the Saharawi citizens in the occupied territories of the Western Sahara are daily subjected "to arbitrary detentions, tortures and disappearance of human rights activists". "It is a tragedy that languishes for more than 30 years, since the Spanish Government relinquished the territory to the Moroccan army", it further recalled.

CEAS-Sahara affirmed that "to support the so-called Moroccan democracy, to turn away the eyes from the constant human rights violations, to abstain from denouncing these violations" is an complicity attitude and a position of "co-responsibility in the genocide the Saharawi population is currently subjected to in the occupied territories of the Western Sahara". (SPS)

010/090/700/TRD 301618 NOV 06 SPS

SPS
SPAIN/SADR/SOLIDARITY

Hundreds Spanish families expected to visit the Saharawi refugee camps

Madrid, 30/11/2006 (SPS) Some 3.000 members of Spanish families, who receive Saharawi refugees’ children during the summer vacations within the framework of "vacations in peace" programme, will visit the Saharawi Republic during this month of December in solidarity with the Saharawi cause, Polisario Front’s representation to Spain indicated, according to the Algerian Press Service.

14 charter and regular flights are planed for from December the 1st to the 14th to transport the families coming from 11 Spanish regions, including Madrid, Andalusia, Catalonia, Valencia, Castilla-la Mancha, Castilla-Leon, Basque Country, Galicia, Extremadura, Aragon and Murcia.

Organised by the Spanish associative movement, this annual visits contribute to the strengthening of the deep ties of friendship and solidarity between the Saharawi and the Spanish peoples, it was underlined.

On another hand, around 9.000 Saharawi children spend their summer vacations every year in Spain within Spanish families. (SPS)

010/090/700/TRD 301611 NOV 06 SPS