19.02.96
Arms supplies for Morocco
Since the cease-fire in september 91 following countries delivered
arms to Morocco: France, Spain, USA, Danmark, Italy, according to
SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute). First of
all the USA sent 320 tanks.
19.02.96
Morocco starts an anti-corruption campaign. More than 200 persons
have been arrested according to "Le Monde". The Moroccan Human Rights
Organisation OMDH is worried about this operation and speaks of
"severe presumption of brutality and violence during police
interrogations".
20.02.96
The Moroccan Human Rights Association AMDH denounces in its annual
report the deterioration of the human rights in Morocco, where
"torture" and "misuse of power" are still usual. The AMDH counted in
1995 thirteen "suspect deaths" which occured "during preventive
detention". 58 political detainees, beyond them some partisans of the
Sahrawi cause, would still be imprisonned and the case of several
dozen of people who disappeared in the seventies "is not yet cleared
up" (for remember: we have no news from more than 800 disappeared
Sahrawi, ARSO.)
21.02.96
No date for the constitutionnal referendum announced for 1996 by
Hassan II. It would establish a two chambers parlamentary system and
after legislative elections there should be a government of
alternation.
22.02.96
Morocco prepares a great diplomatic campaign after the signature on
february 26th in Bruxelles of association and fishing accords with
the European Union. According to AFP the Western Sahara conflict will
also be evoked.
23.02.96
Publication in Paris of the book "Sahara occidental: La confiance
perdue" by Martine de Froberville, who follows the problem of Western
Sahara and especially the U.N peace plan since several years.This
book is available at: Editions L'Harmattan, 7, rue de l'Ecole
polytechnique, F-75005 Paris (price: 190 FF). (phone ++(1) 43 54 79
10, fax ++(1) 43 25 82 03)
24.02.96
While Morocco is one of the major producers of cannabis, Morocco
"does not appear on this list since I have determined that the
illicit cannabis is either consumed locally or exported to countries
other than the USA" (letter of President Clinton to the Senate
Committee of Foreign Relations).
24-26.02.96
Third Congress of the Sahrawi Women
The Congress will take stock of the long way of the struggle of the
Sahrawi people for independance and of the place of the
Sahrawi women in it. This meeting
will examine the work done by the Sahrawi women in the past, in order
to help them to play a more important role in the future. The
Congress will also reinforce the National Union of Sahrawi Women's
structures and renew its programme. The Congress is dedicated to El
Batoul Sidi Ali, who was emprisonned in 1976 in a Moroccan jail with
her husband and two daughters and died one year after because of the
bad conditions in jail and the tortures.