|
WEEKLY NEWS |
original french
19.05.-01-06.2002
SADR
OCCUPIED TERRITORIES
CONFERENCE
REFERENDUM
MOROCCO
UAM
SOLIDARITY
INTERNET
NEW PUBLICATIONS
SADR
20.-23.05.02
SADR - East Timor
The Saharawi President carried out a three-day official visit in East
Timor and took part in festivities for the proclamation of
independence. He was greeted at the airport by José Ramos
Horta, Nobel Peace Prize winner and Minister of Foreign Affairs in
the new state. Mohamed Abdelaziz had talks in Dili with his
counterpart Xanana Gusmao on subjects of common interest. Speaking
before the Timorese Parliament meeting in his honour, he declared
that "the people of East Timor and the people of Western Sahara are
twin peoples", who have "endured the same suffering, made enormous
sacrifices, resisted and struggled side by side for their rights to
be respected by expansionist neighbours, who have little respect for
peoples, blinded as they are by their desire for potentially rich
territories". The Government of East Timor met in an extraordinary
session to receive President Abdelaziz. The Prime Minister of the
first Timorese government, Mr Marti Alkatiri, expressed, in the name
of his team, his conviction that the Saharawi people, like their
Timorese brothers, "would acieve their goal" whatever obstacles are
placed before them. He expressed the determination of the government
of East Timor to continue its unfailing support for the United
Nations peace plan, which should lead to a referendum of
self-determination for the Saharawi people. In a joint statement the
two governments announced the establishment of diplomatic
relations.(Joint
statement
)
27.05.02
Oil agreement
The Saharawi Republic announced that it had concluded, after three
years of talks, a Technical Agreement Contract with the
Anglo-Australian oil exploration company, Fusion Oil & Gas plc
(Fusion), to evaluate the presence of offshore oil and gas in the
whole of the territorial waters off Western Sahara, the zone for
which Morocco signed prospecting contracts with a French and an
American company. Fusion will study for 16 months all the available
geological and geophysical research available and will obtain in
exchange exploration licences in three zones. These permits will be
granted within six months of SADR joining the UN.
(Press
release
)
Fusion discovered in 2001 the first deep water oil deposit in the
region (Chinguetti-1, off Mauritania).
27.05.02
Socialist International
In a letter sent to the current president of the Socialist
International, the secretary general of the Polisario Front
vigorously protested about the fact that the Polisario Front had not
been invited to the meeting, which was held in Casablanca from 31.05
to 01.06.02. The Polisario Front is regularly invited to IS
meetings.
OCCUPIED TERRITORIES
17.05.02
The six activists from Smara, sentenced to 6 months in prison (see
week 18/02),
have served their sentences and been
released.
17.05.02
On the occasion of the anniversary of the proclamation of the
Saharawi Republic, about twenty young Saharawis, in hoods and
carrying torches and Molotov cocktails, met briefly in the Skikima
area of El Ayoun. Brandishing SADR flags they distributed leaflets
and chanted slogans, set tyres alight and threw the petrol bombs on
the road. They dispersed before the arrival of the police. The
leaflets were signed "Forces vives sahraouies" and "Organisation des
cagoulés sahraouis (Organisation of hooded Saharawis)".
(corr.)
18.05.02
The Sahara branch of the Forum of Truth and Justice (FVJ), an
organisation for victims of the Moroccan regime and their families,
has appointed its delegates for the FVJ congress, to be held from 16
to 18 June in Casablanca.
22.05.02
The Moroccan police proceeded at 11pm to the arrest in the middle of
the street of a mentally handicapped Saharawi citizen, Driss Bilal
Khatri Sidi Barra, punching him in the face and stomach. The next day
they took him to the Ben El Mehdi Hospital in El Ayoun. At the time
of his arrest, Driss wore tatoos on his hands in favour of the
Polisario Front. (AFAPREDESA)
24.05.02
Taher Saâd Bouh Abderrahman ould Abbad was the victim of an
anti-personnel mine near the Algerian-Moroccan border. He is believed
to have had a leg amputated. Arrested by the army, he was taken to
the Royal Gendarmerie, who locked him up in a military barracks near
Agadir. Despite his state of health, members of his family, who live
in El Ayoun, were prevented from visiting him.
(AFAPREDESA,
French,Spanish
)
24.05.02
During a press conference in El Ayoun, the national federation of
teaching and the autonomous federation of teaching, El Ayoun brances,
revealed that several teachers, who are active in the field of human
rights, would be forcibly transferred to Morocco. (Le Reporter,
Morocco)
25.05.02
Having broken no rule in the highway code, the Saharawi human rights
activist, Aminatou Haydar was arrested at 22.00 hours by a traffic
policeman, near the Maâtallah in El Ayoun. After checking her
papers, the policeman called on the walkie talkie the judicial
police, saying they were carrying out orders. The judicial police
then proceeded to a routine interrogatation for an hour. The papers
for Aminatou's car had already been confiscated by the authorities on
10 May, on the occasion of the Prayer for the Absent One for Fadel
Ismail, and then returned on the 13. Aminatou was member of the
Daddach committee. She had "disappeared" for four years in the secret
prison of the CMI in El Ayoun, including nine months of solitary
confinement. (corr.)
29.05.02
Having confiscated his car, the Moroccan authorities arrested in
Smara the Saharawi citizen Elghawt Bachri Mohamed, known as Haddi,
and moved him to El Ayoun. The authorities suspected that his car was
used for the demonstration of the young hooded Saharawis on 17 May.
(corr.)
29.05.02
Leaflets on which one could read : "independence through peace or
war", "the whole country or martyrdom" and SADR flags were
distributed in the village of Asrir. A long banner made
of white material had been put up on a wall so as to be highly
visible with the words : "Saharawi masses celebrate the anniversary
of 20 May with the theme 'despite repression we are a people who do
not die' and we congratulate Saharawi human rights defenders,
particularly Sidi Mohamed Daddach". The village of Asrir is 10 km
south of Goulimine (Southern Morocco), on 29 May it celebrates an
annual religious moussem, in the memory of a local marabout known by
the name of Lemaaylil. This moussem draws big crowds coming from
Western Sahara and Morocco. It is in this same village that in
October 2001 a public protest was severely repressed. (see week
41/01).
(corr.)
01.06.02: Last
minute
A delegation of fifteen Spanish politicians and journalists, who
arrived by aircraft to the El Ayoun airport from the Canaray Islands,
was not allowed to enter the territory by Morrocan authorities and
had to turn back after a few hours. The group was on a three days
information trip and several meetings with the MINURSO staff, local
officials and NGOs were scheduled during the visit. >>
more Spanish
CONFERENCE
24.05.02
Brussels: International conference on the protection of the natural
resources of Western Sahara.
The European Coordination of committees of support for the Saharawi
people and the Belgian committee of support for the Saharawi people
invited many specialists in legal and technical questions in the
fields of fishing and hydro-carbons to attend an information day, in
which 50 people from 12 countries took part.
Various speakers described the inventory of natural resources and
tried to define the legal means to protect them from illegal
exploitation by the Moroccan occupier and how to plan for a
sustainable management of them. The Canadian lawyer Jeffrey J. Smith
brilliantly expounded the legal norms regulating the off shore
extraction of hydrocarbons. The Spanish lawyers Juan Soroeta and Juan
Miguel Ortega emphasised that any newly independent state has the
right to cancel exploitation contracts made during colonisation. A
worrying account was presented of the over-exploitation of the
fishing resources by Pierre Gillet. The participants worked in small
groups to draw up international campaigns for the protection of
natural resources.
A group of lawyers, specialists in international law from European
countries and Canada, met alongside the conference on 23 May. They
sent an urgent message to the UN secretary general in which they
express their keenest preoccupations concerning the proposals for
political solutions presented to the Security Council. They announce
that they will send in the near future a memorandum pointing out the
essential legal points on Western Sahara's case, but they wish to
draw the secretary general's attention firmly and immediately to the
fact that "outside a referendum of self-determination and without the
consent of the Saharawi people, there is no alternative way forward
in conformity with the right to independence".
(Letter
French)
REFERENDUM
17-19.05.02
Congress of Green Parties
During its third congress in Berlin, the Federation of European Green
Parties adopted a resolution on Western Sahara, in which it notes
that the solution to this conflict of decolonisation must include the
exercise of the right to self-determination and calls for a more
active engagement in favour of the peace plan.
(Resolution)
24.05.02
European Union
Isidoro Sánchez García, MEP, considers in an amendment
on the draft report "on the relations between the European Union and
the Union of the Arab Maghreb : implementation of a privileged
partnership" (Morillon and Cohn-Bendit) that, following the spirit of
the Declaration of Barcelona, it is the duty of the European Union to
help through dialogue and mediation the resolution of conflicts which
could concern the Mediterranean partners of the European Union, such
as that of Western Sahara, in conformity with the resolutions of the
United Nations and the demands expressed by the European Parliament
in its resolution of 16 March 2000 and in keeping with the
declarations made by the German presidency of the Council in June
1999.
MOROCCO
23.05.02
According the the Moroccan press, the Dominican Republic is alleged
to have decided to freeze its recognition of SADR after the official
visit to Morocco of its president.
24.05.02
Fishing
"Since the end of the fishing agreement which linked Morocco and the
EU, in November 1999, the fishing sector has developed to a marked
extent. In 2001 production rose to 1.12 million tonnes, passing the
million mark for the first time, which is an increase of 22% in
respect of 2000. Between 1999 and 2000 the increase in production was
20%." (La vie économique, Maroc) [NB the part fished
from off Western Sahara in 2001 exceeds 500,000 tonnes, see week
11/02]
01-02.06.02
A caravan of truth, organised by the Truth and Justice Forum and
supported by all the human rights organisations in Morocco, went to
Kalaat Mgouna secret detention centre to demand the whole truth be
made known on the fate of the disappeared and survivors from the
torture centres over nearly 40 years. Many Saharawis have been
imprisoned and have died in this jail.
UAM
UAM Summit
The Algerian minister of foreign affairs, Abdelaziz Belkhadem
went to
Nouakchott and Rabat in order to invite the heads of the Mauritanian
and Moroccan states to the summit of the heads of state of the Union
of the Arab Maghreb, due to be held on 21 and 22 June 2002 in
Algiers. (APS)
SOLIDARITY
- Sydney, Australie: On the occasion of 20 May, anniversary of start of the Polisario Front's struggle, the Australian associations Western Sahara Alliance and Australia Western Sahara Association organised a gathering in front of the UN building. They sent letters to the UN secretary general and to the director of the UN Bureau in Australia, in which they asked the international body not to "betray the Western Sahara by abandoning the referendum of self-determination". They drew attention to the similarities with the situation in East Timor and hoped that the Western Sahara will soon also be independent. (Communiqué engl.)
- Enramadas Arbúcies-2002. Espectacular alfombra de flores de 36 metros de longitud dedicado al arte rupestre de Sluguilla (Sahara Occidental), Acto organizado por Associació d'Amics del Poble Saharaui de Arbúcies (Girona, España) con la colaboración de Development Rock Art Association. Sahara News Papers
INTERNET
Nuevo en OPINION
NEW PUBLICATIONS
[External
links to newspapers may not be valid after some days because the
servers are restarted]
Français
English
Castellano
Portugais
[Summary
Weekly News,]
[Western
Sahara Homepage]