|
WEEKS 21-22 : 16.-29.05.2004 |
17.05.04
The National Secretariat (SN) of the Polisario Front called on the
Security Council to make Morocco "accept and implement UN decisions".
In a meeting chaired by the Head of State, Mohamed Abdelaziz, the SN
considered that "only when the peace plan endorsed by the Security
Council in resolution 1495 is fully implemented will there be a
peaceful end to the process of decolonization in Western Sahara and
peace and stability restored to the Maghreb region."
After denouncing the current situation in the occupied territories,
the SN called on the UN and all international bodies to dispatch a
"special reporter" there and welcomed the operation of exchange
visits between Saharawi families, condemning however, the Moroccan
policy aiming to "limit the number of people who could take advantage
of the scheme as well as putting pressure and constraints on the
freedom of those concerned to circulate".
The SN finally deplored "the alignment of France with the Moroccan
line of argument" and reminded Spain of its responsibilities in the
tragedy which the Saharawi people have been experiencing since 1975".
(SPS)
18-21.05.04
5th UGTSARIO Congress
Mohamed Abdelziz, in his opening speech, again expressed the
willingness of his country to continue cooperating with the UN and
his Special Envoy, underlining that he "totally rejects any approach
or solution which doesn't have as its basis the principle of
self-determination, in accordance with the United Nations
Charter".
In its final declaration, the 5th UGTSARIO congress called on the
international community to do whatever it can to dismantle the
Moroccan wall, erected to protect colonialism and its interests in
Western Sahara. The retiring secretary general, Mohamed Cheikh
Mohamed Lebib, was re-elected to his post. The European and African
unions present signed a declaration, strongly denouncing "the
impediments and equivocations put up by the Moroccan government to
prevent the implementation of the agreements which it has made with
the Polisario Front under the auspices of the United
Nations".(SPS)
22-23.05.04
Official visit
The President of the Algerian Movement of Society for Peace (MSP,
ex-Hamas), Abou Jara Soultani, paid a visit to the Saharawi refugees.
A member of the coalition at present in power, Soultani's party
supported President Bouteflika during the presidential election last
April beside the FLN and the RND. A big meeting was organised in his
honour. Soultani, who had last visited the camps in 1996, laid the
foundation stone of a school, named Mahfoud Nahnah, who was the
founder of the MSP.(SPS)
26.05.04
African Union
In the course of the first session of the African Union's Council of
Peace and Security, the Saharawi Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ould
Salek tabled the instruments of ratification of the protocol relating
to the creation of this new body. Composed of 15 elected member
states, the Council of Peace and Security is a permanent body,
charged with the promotion of peace, security and stability in
Africa, of preventive diplomacy, and the re-establishment of peace.
It is also concerned with the management of catastrophes,
humanitarian actions and reconstruction after conflicts.
(Press
statement
of SADR 26.05.04.French + Spanish, Sahara-Info )
Oil
Exploration
The company Wessex Exploration Limited, based in Great Britain and
Houston USA, "is currently undertaking a comprehensive technical
analysis of the Aaiun Basin in order to facilitate further
hydrocarbon exploration in this very underexplored area", quoting
directly from its website in which this activity is presented under
Morocco. After the big companies such as TotalFinaElf and Kerr McGee,
in this case it is a small business which has obtained a contract
with Morocco. Questioned on the legality of the procedure by the
Western Sahara Campaign UK, the management of Wessex did not deign to
reply on the fundamental problem. The British NGO then launched on
17.05.04, jointly with other organisations in the solidarity movement
with the Saharawi people, a campaign aiming to make Wessex aware of
what is at stake with their activities and asking them to enter into
contact with the Polisario Front, as representative of the Saharawi
people, or to withdraw from the territory considered by the UN as a
non-self-governing territory, whose natural resources cannot be
exploited, as stated in the legal opinion of H. Corell in 2002,
except with the agreement and to the benefit of the indigenous
population. A letter-writing campaign met with great success and a
consortium of European NGOs has asked the management of the company
for a meeting very soon.
The solidarity campaign is also targeting the activities of the Dutch
group Fugro, which has taken up seismic tests off-shore from
Boujdour, tests which the Norwegian company TGS-Nopec did not
continue with following a protest campaign in Norway.
(Press
Release WSC
)( Letters, medias, documentation. >> Campaign
Page
)
16.05.04
Disappeared Saharawis
A committee of the body Equité et Réconciliation
(official body charged with settling human rights abuses in Morocco)
visited Laayoune, Smara, Tan-Tan and Lamsaied from 25-30 April 2004,
to meet families of disappeared Saharawis. On this occasion, the
Committee of Disappeared Saharawis in a statement
(French ), expresses its firm attachment to its claims, "a prelude
to any equitable, just and systematic approach of the cause of
serious abuses of human rights in the Sahara". These claims are: to
clarify the fate of the disappeared, to liberate those still alive,
to return the remains of the dead and issue death certificates, to
transport the remains to places chosen by the families, to reveal the
truth on the tragedy suffered by the disappeared, to pursue all those
responsible for abusing human rights. (see also the Memorandum
(French) presented to the body Equité et
Réconciliation, Laayoune 23.04.04, signed by nine Saharawi
human rights NGOs, which can be downloaded in Word
format
- in PDF
format
)
18.05.04
Suspicious
death
of a Saharawi prisoner
Hadi Hassan Ali Aswaydi, a Saharawi born in 1966, in prison for two
and a half months for a common law offence in El Ayoun's black
prison, prisoner number 24 882, died suddenly in suspicious
circumstances. His family, who had visited him the same day, lodged a
complaint with the prosecutor and asked for an inquiry into the
circumstances of the tragedy. The next day the detainees refused to
go back into their cells after their walk in the courtyard to protest
and to demand the truth about the affair. The body was taken on 23
May to Casablanca for an autopsy.(Letter
of
protest of the family of 19.05.04,in Arabic with Spanish and French
translation )
Reminder: In November 2002 the death of the prisoner Boucetta Mohamed Barka, known as Chaybani, following maltreatment by a guard and fellow detainees, caused a stir. On 02.07.03 El Ayoun Appeal Tribunal judged the prison guard and the 2 Saharawi fellow-detainees accused of having caused his death. Contrary to the results of the inquiry, the prison guard was acquitted while the two fellow detainees were sentenced to 2 years in prison.
27.05.04
Exchange of family visits - Intimidation and threats
Visits between Saharawi families from both sides of the wall
separating Western Sahara, organised by the UNHCR, are continuing at
present between the camps and the town on Smara.
We are informed that the human rights activist and former political
detainee Ali Salem Tamek was the target of attempts at intimidation
on the part of the Moroccan authorities, who tried to prevent him
meeting families coming from Tindouf. On 23 May a car with
registration number 15-alif-23725 followed all his movements. The
families of Lmami ould Azzat, Ahmad ould Omar ould Blaila, Mohammad
Bouya Mantallah, Lhbada Ammah, who were receiving visits from the
camps, were also pestered by police, while others were threatened and
humiliated. Police officers surrounded the homes being visited by
Tamek and those of Saharawi human rights defenders. In one case,
Lbouihi Fkko was insulted on 25 May by a policeman called Karroum and
called in the next day by the superintendant who threatened him in
public. (corr.)
19.05.04
Spain
Replying to the questions of several parliamentarians on the policy
of the new Spanish government towards the Sahara, the Spanish
Minister of Foreign Affairs repeated before the parliament, the
Senate and the Foreign Affairs Committee the support of his
government for the UN peace plan. "There is however a change",
Moratinos declared. The government will commit itself to finding a
lasting, just, consensual political solution which should satisfy all
the parties, and which would be favourable to the stability of the
Maghreb and to Europe-Maghreb relations.
26.05.04
Spanish diplomatic offensive
Moratinos revealed before the Senate that the government will be
involved in a series of contacts with members of the Group of
Countries Friendly with Western Sahara (ad hoc group created at the
level of the Security Council, made up of France, United States,
United Kingdom and Russia), in order to help the parties in conflict
to find a satisfactory solution.
25.05.04
Surprise visit of the Moroccan Minister of Foreign Affairs to Madrid,
who brings a message from the King of Morocco to the Spanish Prime
Minister, Zapatero.
29.05.04
The Moroccan Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mohamed Benaissa, is
awaited on 29.05. in Algiers. This surprise visit is devoted
principally to bilateral relations, an Algerian source
indicated.
30-31.05.04
The French Minister for Foreign Affairs, Michel Barnier, pays an
official visit to Morocco, where he will meet the King, the Prime
Minister and his counterpart, Mohamed Benaïssa. The aim of this
visit is to reaffirm the "exemplary dimension of the Franco-Moroccan
partnership". The situation in Iraq and the Middle East, the coming
G8 in Sea Island, as well as the integration of the Maghreb and
developments in Western Sahara, were due to be raised in the course
of the minister's talks. (Statement by a Quai d'Orsay
spokesman)
27.05.04
The European Commission will release in the coming weeks an allocation of about 8 million euros of humanitarian aid to the Saharawi refugees. This decision follows an agreement concluded between Brussels and the Polisario Front on the means of access and the movements of ECHO officials, the European Union's Office of Humanitarian Aid, in the Saharawi camps. Let us recall that ECHO has an annual budget of 14 million euros for the Saharawi refugees, 3.75 million were made available to the World Food Program in February 2004 out of the 5.14 allocated to ECHO in January.
27.05.04
Protracted Relief and Recovery Operations (WFP)
The proposal for protracted relief and recovery (IPSR) for the
refugees in Western Sahara was unanimously approved by the Council of
Administration of the World Food Program, during its second ordinary
session. This proposal, amounting to nearly 40 million dollars,
spread over two years (September 2004-August 2006), will benefit
158,000 Saharawi refugees.
Mr K. Adly, director of the regional bureau of WFP for the Middle
East, Central Asia and Eastern Europe, confirmed the number of
158,000 refugees and emphasised the very difficult living conditions
of the refugees. Broaching the question relating to possible
misappropriation of this aid and its disposal on local markets, Mr
Adly was categoric: "the aid given by WFP to Saharawi refugees is not
subject to any misappropriation and reaches the beneficiaries. The
systematic and regular controls carried out up until now have not
uncovered any anomaly of this kind."
Mr Mahaman Balla, the representative of WFP in Algiers, and the
American attaché for humanitarian affairs, Mr Timothy Lavelle,
who was part of the joint mission (WFP-UNHCR) of evaluation which
traveled on 20 January last to the refugee camps, underlined that WFP
is putting in place monitoring and a rigorous control after
distribution of the provisions and that nothing indicates there has
been any misappropriation of this aid.
According to APS the European Union had decided to grant aid of 20
million euros for the period 2004-2006. Finland has more than doubled
its contribution from 114,000 to 300,000 euros. (APS) (Proposal for
aid to the refugees of Western Sahara, document WFP/EB.2/2004/4-B/4
of 5 May 2004:
English
- arabic
28.05.04
Conference
The 2nd international conference on information in Western Sahara
opened in Toledo in the presence of a large Saharawi delegation
comprising Mohamed Sidati, Minister Counsellor to the President,
Batal Sid'Ahmed, Minister of Information, Khalil Sidi M'Hamed,
Minister of the Occupied Territories as well as Mohamed Yeslem
Beissat, Ambassador of SADR in Algiers and Mohamed Lemhamid, director
of the Sahara Press Service, SPS. With the theme "Let's speak about
the Sahara - break the information blockade" (Hablemos del
Sahara - Rompemos el bloqueo informativo) media professionals,
politicians, activists from the solidarity movement in small
workshops discussed how to put into practice better ways of
publishing information about the conflict in the Sahara. Talks and
films were also expected.(
web site
)
4 y 5 de junio
de 2004
Jornadas sobre DERECHOS HUMANOS
Será la tarde del viernes en cáceres y el sábado
entero en Badajoz. Está previsto que participen mujeres
saharauis que han estado 15 años en una prisión
marroquí y juristas españoles y extremeños que
han viajado al Sáhara ocupado por Marruecos y han presenciado
juicios a saharauis y la situación de la población que
lleva 30 años resistiendo en condiciones más duras
aún que la población saharaui que sobrevive en lso
campamentos de refugiados argelinos.
Ya os enviaremos más información con el programa pero
podeis ya ampliar información en los tefnos 924 25 70 74 y 629
68 92 23 AAPSEX
OPINION
Nouveaux web sites en arabe:
DOCUMENTS
Mémorandum
soumis à l'Instance Equité et Réconciliation,
Laayoune 23.04.04, signé par 9 ONG sahraouies de
défense des droits humains au Sahara Occidental à
télécharger en format
Word
-
en format PDF
NEW
PUBLICATIONS
[External
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servers are restarted]
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Nuevo
libro
Las voces del desierto. Una escritora saharaui, residente en
Galdakao, recopila en un libro la tradición oral,
fábulas y cuentos de su país de origen. Fátima
El Ghalia recoge en su libro historias que le contaban sus mayores,
M. Atrio, El
Correo digital,
23.05.04.
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