Collectif des Défenseurs Sahraouis des droits
de l'homme
El Aaiun / Sahara Occidental
collectif.shrd@gmail.com
November 29th, 2007.
Statement
Recently, there has been information about the digging of a mass grave,
which was found accidentally by the Moroccan authorities, near the
Carcel Negra (the Black Prison) in El Aaiun, Western Sahara on November
20th, 2007.
On Wednesday, November 28th, 2007, the Moroccan T.V. channels RTM and
2M broadcast the information, and presented some old people to say that
the graveyard goes back to the 1930s and the remaining bones are of
their ancestors.
The Collective of the Saharawi Human Rights Defenders, CODESA, sheds
light on the following observations,
The process of extracting the dead people‚s remains was not
compatible with the normal legal processes, but it was a surprising
event that the Moroccan authorities had to cope with after it was
discovered while digging for completely different purposes.
The Moroccan authorities kept silent for about a week without
mentioning the event.
They relied on the testimony of ordinary people in a matter that
requires very precise and sophisticated scientific methods to know the
truth,
Thus, we in the CODESA, question the conclusions that the Moroccan
authorities are trying to market after a complete secrecy of the issue
for more than a week.
Believing that the collective grave is very likely to be related to the
Sahrawi disappeared whose fate is still unknown, and who were victims
of massive killing by the Moroccan regime in the Western Sahara during
the 1970s and 1980s,
Taking into account the Sahrawi abducted who passed through the Carcel
Negra during the years 1976,1977,1978,1979, of whom those who escaped
death still confirm that many of them had lost their lives there.
Considering that the unveiling of the fate of all the Sahrawi
disappeared and the opening of an investigation on the collective
graves of the Sahrawis, victims of the flagrant violations of human
rights, is the struggle of all the human rights and democracy
defenders, we
1. Denounce the hastiness in making ready-made judgements on the
identity and age of the remains of these dead Sahrawis found in the
same grave.
2. Call the Moroccan state to open a serious scientific investigation
and publish a detailed report on the nature of this collective grave.
3. Call the Moroccan authorities to re-bury the remaining bones in a
known graveyard after being sure of their identity.
