WESTERN SAHARA

WEEKLY NEWS

 

WEEK 33

15.-21.08.1999

 

17.08.99
Security council
Ambassador Martin Andjaba (Namibia) declared the Security Council welcomes the progress in the implementation of the Peace Plan as mentioned in the last Report of the S.G. and reaffirms its support to the referendum.

02-27.08.99
51th session of the U.N. Subcommission on Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, Geneva
Intervention of Mohamed Ahmed Labeid, of Federación de Asociaciones de Defensa y Promocion de los Derechos Humanos. He said in the occupied territories of Western Sahara the Saharawis were a minority in their own country and asked for qualified observers be sent to the territory.
International Educational Development urges the Moroccan authorities to follow up with a detailed investigation of the remaining cases, said to number approximately 400 considered disappeared but possibly still detained and up to 70 others presumed dead.
OMCT, World organisation against torture hopes the Moroccan authorities will answer to the requests of he former "disappeared" and indemnise them.

19.08.99
Morocco-Algeria
Mohamed Benaïssa, Moroccan Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, on surprise visit in Algiers, transmitted to President Bouteflika a message from the King. An Algerian-Moroccan summit could be held at the end of the forty-day mourning period decreed in Morocco.

20.08.99
Human rights
King Mohammed VI has ordered the setting up of an independent arbitration commission that will set amounts of compensations to missing persons and victims of arbitrary detention, or their rightful claimants. Demands have to be presented before next December 31. A Moroccan human rights organisation, AMDH, states that the commission speaks only about 112 victims while more than 500 should be concerned.

20.08.99
Royal speeches
Mohammed VI presented his political programm in a speech on occasion of the 46th anniversary of the exile of his granfather and father. He mentioned 3 priorities: the territorial integrity, the reform of the educational system and a widening of the public liberties. Social problems, employment, agriculture, social disparity, school, respect of human rights will be the main subjects of the new political management.
On Auguts 14, in a message on the occasion of the 20th anniversary for the "recovery by Morocco of the Oued Eddahab Province" (south part of Western Sahara), a message of the King was read at a meeting at Dakhla: "Our souther provinces have been and will remain an integral part of our national territory". "We will have no respite until the siege imposed on our sequestered sons is lifted" and until "they can return home, in honor and dignity, to reunite with their families and cousins and contribute to the edification, development and modernization battle," said King Mohammed VI .

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