WEEKLY NEWS

WEEK 27, 01-07.07.1996

Headlines


 School partnership
 Manifestation in Las Palmas
 The Leeds Declaration
 Sharp Moroccan reaction
 President Mandela and the SADR
 Children's holidays

School partnership
Students from the Willy Graf gymnasium at Munchen visited for the 4th time their Sahrawi counterparts in the School of October 12th, situated in the refugee camps south from the Algerian oasis of Tindouf. The contacts between the two schools are existing since 1989, the students are travelling under their own responsibility and paying themselves the travel's cost.

28.06.96
Manifestation in Las Palmas
The Spanish Federation of the State Institutions of Solidaity with the Sahrawi People and the Association of the Friends of the Sahrawi People organized a manifestation in Las Palmas (Canary Island), which brought together in the streets more than 2'000 people. A letter was transmitted to the authorities, protesting against the last resolution of the UN Security council and requiring the implementation of the peace plan.

29.06.96
The Leeds Declaration
The 1996 AGM of the Western Sahara Campaign UK

  • reaffirms support for the POLISARIO in its struggle for self-determination of the Sahrawi people;
    notes the decision of the UN Security Council to halt the referendum process; that five years have been wasted trying to implement the peace plan whilst the international community falled to protect the Sahrawi people and did nothing to stop Moroccan sabotage of the referendum process;
    condemns the continuing illegal violations of Sahrawi human rights being perpetrated by Morocco;
    calls on the European Parliament to link the implementation of the Euro-Mediterranean association agreement with Moroccan withdrawal from its unlawful occupation of Western Sahara, and respect for human rights;

    recognizes that a decision by POLISARIO to return to military action will be a consequence of Moroccan obstruction to a peaceful and fair resolution of the conflict and a failure of the UN to administer a free and fair referendum for Western Saharan self-determination.
    •


    02.07.96
    Sharp Moroccan reaction
    Moroccan Prime Minister Abdellatif Filali blasted Ghana's leader for having asked the Security Council to reconsider a decision to suspend voter registration for a referendum in Western Sahara. Filali said President Rawlings's request denoted "an obvious bias as well as manifest negative intentions. (...) Worse still, this letter proceeds from a blatantly deceptive spirit that seeks to commit ECOWAS member states without their knowledge," Filali said in an unusually strongly worded letter to the council president. .

    02.07.96
    President Mandela and the SADR
    Receiving the French press at his home in Johannesburg, before his trip to France (from 13th to 16th July) President Mandela said that he was determined to gain recognition for the Polisario Front, in spite of the outcry which such a decision would cause in Arab countries. The secretary-general of the OAU (Organization of African Unity), Salim Ahmed Salim, and his counterpart in the UN, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, asked him to be patient. Since nothing is happening, stated Nelson Mandela, it is time to take measures, even more so because the majority of African countries have recognized the Polisario. "I am concerned with recognizing the Polisario. I certainly am going to discuss it, if not inside the plenary session then with individual heads of states".
    The South African president also indicated that he had proposed the convening of a summit of Maghreb countries. All the leaders had accepted it in principle apart from one who expressed his wish that the Polisario also be invited. Now if that was the case, then the Moroccan King Hassan II would refuse to participate in the summit, declared Nelson Mandela, who had preferred to temporarily renounce his plan.

    03.07.96
    According to EFE, the Spanish press agency, the Moroccan government contacted its South-African counterpart in order to know its official position about the recognition of the SADR.

    04.07.96
    250 Sahrawi children arrived in Murcia (Spain). They will be lodge during one month by families in 11 cities, under the direction of. the Association of the Friends of the Sahrawi People. In September this association will organize a trip to the refugee camps with the families, which sheltered the children.

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