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WEEKLY NEWS |
original french
18. - 24.11.2001
09-11.11.01
Congress
The congress of the International Union of Socialist Youth, meeting
in Johannesburg adopted a resolution demanding that Morocco
should put an end to its occupation of Western Sahara and to human
rights abuses, as well as allowing the referendum to be held
without delay.
Abraham Serfaty, in a statement, pointed out that he did not renounce
his position on Western Sahara expressed during his trial in 1977 and
that he had never adhered to Moroccan chauvinism. He made an appeal
to young people, both Saharawi and Moroccan, to start a dialogue
under the auspices of the IUSY. The officer responsible for external
relations in UJSARIO immediately declared himself ready to talk. He
also asked Serfaty, who is working for the Moroccan Office of Oil
Exploration to denounce the illegal exploitation of the Saharawi
sub-soil. (SPS)
10-16.11.01
(see week
46)
56e session of the UN General Assembly
Among the interventions we have to add those of Tanzania: "With
regard to Western Sahara, Tanzania reiterates her long held position
that this is a question of colonialism and the Saharawi people have a
right to decide on their future through a referendum as stipulated in
the relevant Security Council resolutions. We fear abandoning that
path may lead to untoward events" and Lesotho: "We are however
saddened by lack of progress in the implementation of agreements
related to the settlement, once and for all, of some of the oldest
running conflicts in both Angola and the Sahara Arab Democratic
Republic (SADR). We in Lesotho are convinced that the Houston Accord
on SADR remains the foundation stone for self-determination of
Sahara".
A Saharawi delegation led by the Minister for Foreign Affairs,
Mohamed Salem Ould Salek, had numerous meetings with the heads of
delegations taking part in the session. The Security Council will
examine the Saharawi question on the 26th of this month.
15.11.01
Europe
The Canarian MEP Isidoro Sánchez proposed that the EU Council
should examine the UN proposals regarding Western Sahara at its
mid-December meeting in Laeken, in Belgium.
15.11.01
Dakar rally
The leftist Spanish party Izquierda Unida criticized the financial
support to the Paris- Dakar rally given by the municipality of
Madrid, stop-over place in the next rally.
16.11.01
Human rights
Laroussi Mohamed, Laroussi Bachir and Tounsi Bachir Brahim, three of
the recently liberated political prinoners, had been forced to write
a thank-you letter to King Mohammed VI on the occasion of their
release.
17.11.01
Smara
Violent confrontations took place as the police forces broke up a
sit-in taking place in front of the regional administration office.
Dozens of people were injured, some seriously, about 60 demonstrators
were arrested of whom 16 were transferred to El Ayoun to be referred
to the court accused of destruction of public property, attacks on
agents of the authority and theft. During searches many houses in the
Cité Tan Tan de Smara were ransacked, their occupants
beaten. The Moroccan forces of order even invaded a mosque where
children had taken refuge.
Numerous oppressive demands made by extortion have been reported.
(BERDHSO statement french,
AFAPREDESA statement (Spanish)
The protest movement has been going on in Smara for several weeks,
starting from social demands (respecting promises made concerning
employment) it spread to human rights (petitions for the political
prisoners) and took on independentist colours. Recently the visit of
the King to the holy town of the Sahara had to be cancelled for this
reason.
18.11.01: Mohamed Abdelaziz, sent an urgent message to the president of the Security Council, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and his special envoy James Baker, in which he informed them about the repugnant acts perpetrated by the Moroccan occupation forces against the Saharan people, including women, children, the elderly and defenceless youth. Moreover, he called on the Security Council president, the UN secretary-general and his special envoy to intervene urgently and effectively to protect the Saharan people.
19.11.01: In a communiqué Mohamed Sidati, minister delegate for Europe denounced with strongest indignation the brutalities of unprecedented magnitude perpetrated by Moroccan security forces, particularly against women, children, elderly people which were beaten up. He deplored the passivity of the MINURSO in front of the exactions committed against the Saharawi civil population asking the European Union and its institutions to use all their influence in order to bring Morocco to put an end to these exactions.engl.
19.11.01: Saharawi student from the universities of Rabat and Casablanca condemn in a communiqué the police's brutality and all the forms of terrorism practised by the Moroccan state against Saharawi citizens, such as: " extra-judicial executions, arbitrary detentions, draconian restrictions on the rights to freedom of expression, association, assembly, and the destruction of privatye property. They express particularly their moral support and solidarity with their compatriots in Smara and state their readiness to resort to all ways and means to thwart these systematic acts of terrorism.engl.
Other
protest statements:
- Press
statement
from the EP intergroup "Peace for the Saharawi People"
- Comunicato stampa: Fermare la repressione contro il popolo sharawi
de L'Associazione nazionale di solidarietà con il popolo
sahrawi (ANSPS), Roma. (italiano)
- Communiqué le l'AARASD, France. (français)
21.11.01
Morocco
The agitation in the occupied territories, which includes social
demands, campaigns for human rights and aspirations of Saharawi
identity - and the recent repressive reactions (Smara etc) provoked
lively reactions in political circles in Morocco. The Truth and
Justice Forum (Sahara Section) is accused of being responsible for
the troubles and the uprising in Smara, its contact with Danielle
Mitterrand is criticised. The PPS (Party of Progress and Socialism),
in a statement, affirms that certain statements made when Mohamed
Daddach and the other prisoners were liberated are close to
"separatist" claims, evoking "the combat of Saharawi masses of
resistence" and mentioning only "Western Sahara" without allusion to
its "Moroccan character". The Secetary General of the PPS adds that
the Forum for Truth and Justice (Sahara) refers to conventions in the
field of human rights and international humanitarian law which make
it understood that the Sahara is occupied by a foreign power. These
pressures on the Saharawi human rights movement are intensifying, the
parliament may even be questioned shortly.
21.11.01
In a
letter
addressed to the Moroccan Minister of the Interior, Driss Jettou,
Reporters without borders (RSF) protested against the arrest and the
maltreatment of Nourredine Darif, correspondent in Smara in the
Western Sahara, of the weekly magazine Al Amal Addimocrati. The
journalist is currently in the civil prison of El Aïoun, charged
by the public prosecutors´s office with "collusion with a
foreign party". He is not allowed to receive visitors. Shortly after
its arrest his house was ransacked by the police.
The Sahara section of OADP, a party participating to the
governemental coalition, protests against the arrest of its member
Nourredine Darif and announces it suspends its activities until
conditions are better.
22.11.01
Goulimine, South of Morocco
A peaceful demonstration organised by hundreds of Saharawis, calling
for the respect of their most basic rights : employment and the end
to repression and arbitrary justice, was violently repressed. At
least 17 people were imprisoned and tortured according to a statement
(french)
from the SADR Ministry of Information.
Spain - Campaign in favour of the referendum
17.
-21.11.01
Spanish opposition parties and more than two-hundred associations
demand the holding of the referendum in Western Sahara
Representatives from all the Spanish parliamentary groups, with the
exception of the PP [Partido Popular, in power], and
spokepersons of more than 200 associations of solidarity and
friendship with the Saharawi people met in the Congress to deliver
more than 300,000 signatures collected during the last two months in
favor of the self-determination referendum in the former Spanish
colony, Western Sahara. The signers asked the Government to get in an
unequivocal way involved in the process of decolonization of Western
Sahara, to intervene to the European Union in favor of the referendum
and the respect of human rights in Western Sahara, to grant
humanitarian aid to the refugees and a diplomatic status to the
Polisario representation to Spain.
22.11.01
Oil
The Spanish government will study the question of oil concessions
situated in Western Sahara and ceded recently by Morocco to foreign
companies, the Minister of Foreign Affairs announced in response to a
question by a member of parliament from the Canary Islands. It is the
extent of these concessions to practically the whole territory
of Western Sahara, it would appear, and the reserved attitude of the
US Ambassador in Rabat which set this initiative off.
23.11.01
Declaration of Mohamed Abdelaziz
Saharan President Mohamed Abdelaziz proposed in Madrid to hold a
meeting with the Moroccan monarch, King Mohammed VI, in a neutral
country to examine the conflict in Western Sahara. During a news
conference in Madrid, Spain, the Saharan president expressed the
Saharan side's readiness to cooperate in order to find a peaceful
solution. He warned Rabat of the consequences of continuing its
obstruction of the self-determination referendum in Western Sahara.
(ABC)
23.11.01
27th
European Conference of Support to the Saharawi
People
The annual meeting of solidarity opened in Seville in the presence of
over 400 participants of all the continents, including in particular
President Abdelaziz, Rigoberta Menchu, Nobel Peace Prize winner,
Danielle Mitterrand, president of the Fondation France
Libertés, a delegation from the OAU and the European
parliamentary intergroup. The organisers of the conference facing the
threat of the abandonment of the UN/OAU peace plan want to reaffirm
the necessity of organising the referendum on self-determination as
quickly as possible, in fair and democratic conditions, as the only
way to avoid a renewal of hostilities and to ensure respect for the
fundamental rights of the people of the region.
For 2 days the delegates worked in small groups to develop a plan of
action on both political and humanitarian levels.
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