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Spain “must honor its historical responsibilities”

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Moscow, 25 July 2020 (SPS) - Spain “must honor its historical responsibilities by putting an end to the injustice committed” against the Sahrawi people, said Russian media outlet Pravda, pointing out that the time has come to decolonize Africa’s last colony.
Columnist Luis Portillo Pasqual del Riquelma published in the Russian paper Pravda that “Spain, like Portugal did in East Timor, must do the same in the case of Western Sahara, honoring its historical responsibilities and putting an end to the enormous injustice committed against the Sahrawi people.”
Former professor of international economy at the Autonomous University of Madrid, affirmed in his article entitled “Western Sahara must be decolonized now,” that “the time has come to decolonize this territory, as declared by those who have more power to do it, UN Secretary General , as well as Hans Corell, John Bolton, James Baker, Thabo Mbeki and others.”
In his analysis, the expert said that UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called, in his speech on the occasion of the opening of 2020 session of the UN Special Committee on Decolonization on 21 February, for the eradication of colonialism once and for all.”
For Luis Portillo, “there is no coercion for today’s democratic Spain, a social State governed by the rule of law, to assume the heavy burden inherited from the last government of Franco dictatorship,” pointing out that “the Madrid’s tripartite agreements (1975) are ignominious, illegal and illegitimate, as recognized by Felipe Gonzalez himself-Secretary general of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) at the time- in his speech on the Sahrawi refugees camps of Tindouf on 14 November 1976, the first anniversary of the inking of agreements.”
“Because of their nature, content and their objectives, the tripartite agreements of Madrid constitute a blatant violation of the fundamental principle of the United Nations Charter: the peoples’ right to self-determination,” he said. (SPS)
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