Western Sahara conflict

[Al-khiyal]

La police marocaine poursuit ses atteintes aux droits de l’homme :
Une rencontre entre journalistes espagnols et sahraouis interrompue

Mercredi 23 Décembre 2009 -- Les autorités marocaines persistent dans les atteintes aux droits de l’homme commises contre le peuple sahraoui, innovant, à chaque fois, dans ces comportements hostiles. Lautorités marocaines ont interrompu, samedi 20 décembre, vers 16h, la rencontre organisée entre un groupe de journalistes représentant des médias espagnols avec des défenseurs sahraouis des droits de l’homme, laquelle se tenait dans la maison de M. Ahmed Sbaii, membre de l’Association sahraouie des victimes des violations graves des droits de l’homme commises par le Maroc. Les services de répression du palais royal marocain ont usé de la force et obligé les journalistes à sortir de la maison, prétextant l’interdiction de parler aux militants sahraouis. La délégation espagnole, empêchée de rencontrer ces activistes des droits de l’homme sahraouis, était composée de MM. Enrique Rabec, de l’agence de presse espagnole «EFE», Trinitad Deribus du journal Diario Publico, Paola Rosas du réseau «El Coreo» et d’Irina Calvo de la station de radio «Cadena Ser». Le lendemain, les forces de sécurité marocaines, dirigées par Abdelhaq Rabiâ, un des visages connus de la police marocaine, impliquées dans plusieurs séries de violations commises contre les citoyens sahraouis depuis les années 1980, ont interdit au correspondant du journal ABC, Louis Devega, ainsi qu’à Irina Calvo et Nicholas de la station de radio «Cadena Ser» de continuer leur rencontre avec le militant des droits humains Hammad Hammad, vice-président du comité pour la défense du droit du peuple sahraoui à l’autodétermination. Ces derniers avaient, pourtant, une autorisation de filmer, fournie par les autorités marocaines, afin de couvrir l’arrivée de l’activiste Aminatou Haider. Des autorités qui ne respectent donc même pas une autorisation fournie par elles-mêmes. Les membres de cette délégation espagnole ont été ainsi contraints de quitter la maison du militant sous la surveillance de la police.

[Al-khiyal]

Western Sahara informal talks could resume in January

December 23, 2009 -- UN Western Sahara envoy Christopher Ross is trying to organise a second round of informal talks early next year, MAP quoted a UN spokesperson as saying at a press briefing on Monday (December 21st). Morocco and the Polisario held their first informal meeting last August in Austria. As parties to the 34-year-old conflict, Algeria and Mauritania also sent delegations to the "restricted" session.

[Al-khiyal]

Western Sahara activist says she is under Moroccan house arrest

RABAT/TINDOUF, December 24, 2009 (Reuters) - Western Sahara independence activist Aminatou Haidar said Moroccan police had surrounded her house and kept her under house arrest since her return to her desert homeland after a hunger strike in Spain. She vowed to step up her struggle for human rights in the former Spanish territory despite what she called Moroccan repression. Moroccan officials said Rabat was committed to respecting human rights in Western Sahara and elsewhere in the country. They declined to comment further on Haidar's case. A tract of desert the size of Britain which has lucrative phosphate reserves and potentially offshore oil, Western Sahara is the scene of Africa's longest-running territorial dispute. Last week, Haidar, a 43-year-old mother-of-two ended a month-long hunger strike in a Spanish airport in protest at Rabat's refusal to let her back into Western Sahara unless she declared her loyalty to the Moroccan king. Morocco let her return home after the United States, Spain and other countries intervened.

Haidar's fasting focused international attention on Western Sahara's dispute in a way rarely seen in the 35 years since Morocco annexed the territory after Spain pulled out. "The siege in continuing. I'm under house arrest. Family members and neighbours have problems visiting me. Shops in my neighbourhood are suffering from the siege," Haidar told Reuters by telephone from Rabat late on Wednesday. Reuters reporters travelled to Laayoune, Western Sahara's main city, to interview her at her home but security forces blocked access. Other journalists have also been prevented from meeting Haidar. "I have the courage of my conviction to carry on with the defence of the cause of self-determination of the Sahrawi people. I will never waver despite the threats of jail, abduction, torture and exile," she added. She accused Morocco of having a "carrot-and-the stick" policy towards Algeria-based Polisario Front and the Sahrawis in the territory. "Morocco represses the Sahrawi population while it is negotiating with the Polisario Front," added Haidar.

Morocco said it is ready to resume negotiations with the Polisario on a deal on the future of the territory. Rabat has offered autonomy. The Polisario, which seeks an independent state in the territory, also wants the talks to resume but it insists that Rabat halts what it called its widespread abuses of human rights in Western Sahara. Haidar has become of "symbol of a nation" for Sahrawis in Western Sahara as well as in refugee camps in the Algerian southwestern area of Tindouf. "She is our Mandela, our Gandhi," 37-year-old Gani Minatou told Reuters while she was making sweet tea inside her tent in a refugee camp. Many Sahrawis see her hunger strike as breathing a new life into their cause. "Before Aminatou, the cause reached a deadlock. There was no hope for a solution. But Aminatou's action put back the Western Sahara's issue at the top of the international agenda," Sahrawi journalist based in Tindouf El Bachir El Dhif told Reuters.

[Al-khiyal]

Sahara occidental :
Aminatou Haider assignée à résidence par les forces d’occupation marocaines

Vendredi 25 Décembre 2009 -- Après avoir gagné une première bataille contre le Maroc en l’obligeant à l’autoriser à rentrer chez elle à Laâyoune occupée, Aminatou Haider entame un deuxième bras de fer avec Rabat. Depuis son arrivée, le 18 décembre, dans sa ville natale après un mois de grève de la faim à l’aéroport de Lanzarote (Iles Canaries), la militante sahraouie des droits de l’homme, a été assignée à résidence par les forces d’occupation marocaine. « Le siège continue », a affirmé au téléphone, Mme Haidar, à des agences de presse internationales. La militante sahraouie, a indiqué que le siège de son domicile dure depuis une semaine et que des proches et des militants trouvent des difficultés à lui rendre visite.

[Al-khiyal]

Des propos insultants ont été mis en ligne par des hackers marocains :
Le site de l’agence de presse sahraouie piraté de nouveau

Samedi 26 Décembre 2009 -- Le site Internet de l’agence de presse sahraouie (SPS) a été de nouveau piraté par des hackers, indique un communiqué de l’agence, précisant que les hackers «sont des Marocains, compte tenu de la nature des propos insultants qu’ils ont mis sur le site». «Ces attaques répétées sont la preuve que l’agence SPS dérange sérieusement le gouvernement marocain, sa politique coloniale et expansionniste au Sahara occidental et ses pratiques répressives dans le territoire sahraoui qu’il occupe militairement depuis 1975», souligne la même source. L’agence de presse sahraouie, «qui s’attache à remédier à cette attaque», informe ses lecteurs qu’«ils recevront les dépêches de la SPS dans les quatre langues à travers la liste des abonnés actualisée». Pour sa part, le président sahraoui, M. Mohamed Abdelaziz, a, encore une fois, attiré l’attention du SG de l’ONU, Ban Ki-moon, sur la situation de l’activiste sahraouie Dakja Lashgar, détenue dans une prison marocaine, a indique mardi dernier l’agence SPS. Cette détenue politique sahraouie «vit dans des conditions de détention inhumaines dans une cellule individuelle sous haute surveillance et est interdite de tout contact avec le monde extérieur, de moyens de communication et privée de son droit aux soins médicaux et à la nourriture», a souligné M. Abdelaziz. Le président sahraoui a appelé le SG de l’ONU, soulignant la nécessité d’une «intervention rapide du responsable onusien auprès de l’Etat du Maroc pour sauver la vie de la militante des droits de l’homme Dakja Lashgar». Il lui a aussi fait part de la répression et du blocus auxquels était soumis le domicile de l’activiste sahraouie Aminatou Haïder après son retour à El Ayoun occupée. Ces pratiques, a poursuivi le président sahraoui, «traduisent une tendance répressive alimentée et encadrée par le discours du roi du Maroc le 6 novembre dernier contre les citoyens, les étudiants et les militants des droits de l’homme sahraouis, défenseurs du droit du peuple sahraoui à l’autodétermination consacré par les décisions et la charte des Nations unies». Le président sahraoui a aussi demandé au secrétaire général de l’ONU d’intervenir pour «la libération des sept militants des droits de l’homme et tous les détenus sahraouis et de lever le blocus imposé à la militante Aminatou Haïder». D’un autre côté, des partis politiques espagnols ont dénoncé le double langage de l’Espagne à l’égard de la question sahraouie ainsi que les concessions au Maroc pour permettre le retour à El Ayoun de la militante Aminatou Haïder, selon toujours SPS.

[Al-khiyal]

MINURSO chief visits Morocco

December 27, 2009 -- The newly appointed UN Special Representative for the Sahara, Hany Abdel-Aziz of Egypt, met with Moroccan Interior Minister Chakib Benmoussa in Rabat on Thursday (December 24th), MAP reported. Following the meeting, Abdel-Aziz hailed Morocco's commitment to co-operating with the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO). For his part, Benmoussa voiced support for the family-visit exchanges, supervised by of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), between the Tindouf camps and Morocco. In mid-October, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon named Abdel-Aziz as his Special Representative for Western Sahara and the Head of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO).

[Al-khiyal]

Morocco, Polisario amenable to new Western Sahara talks

December 28, 2009 -- Morocco and the Polisario Front are prepared to participate in a new round of UN-brokered talks on the fate of the Western Sahara. "Morocco reiterates its willingness to co-operate with [UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon] and [UN Western Sahara Envoy Christopher Ross] in implementing the relevant Security Council resolutions pertaining to … intensive and substantive negotiations on the basis of reality and agreement", Moroccan Foreign Minister Taieb Fassi-Fihri said at a December 23rd parliamentary session. That same day, Polisario leader Mohamed Abdelaziz told wakteldjazair.com, "We are prepared to take part in the negotiations proposed by the UN, the framework of which has been clearly set; that is, direct negotiations, with no preset conditions, aimed at finding a just solution that ensures the right of self-determination to the Saharan people." Martin Nesirky, the spokesperson for the UN secretary-general, said in a December 22nd press conference in New York that Ross was planning a second meeting for informal negotiations early next year.

Both Morocco and the Polisario outlined their concerns about the proposed talks. Fassi-Fihri told Moroccan parliamentarians that the talks must "take into consideration the efforts exerted by our country, after submitting our proposal, which is a milestone on the road of the UN handling of our legitimate cause, in order to arrive at a final political solution, that agrees with our constant principles and pillars of sovereignty". The minister said that he and Ban Ki-moon had spoken on December 10th about how to launch the new round of talks. The negotiations would "underscore Morocco's commitment to the option of political negotiations as the best means of resolving the conflict, as well as the need for the UN to act to push negotiations out of their stalemate and create the right atmosphere for the fifth series [of talks]", Fassi-Fihri added.

Meanwhile, Abdelaziz said a "free, just and transparent referendum is the only democratic solution that enables the people of the Sahara to make a choice". "That is the core of the Sahara proposal submitted in 2007, which is aligned with international laws and legitimacy, on the one hand, and the strategic, economic and security interests of Morocco, on the other hand, should the Saharan people opt for independence," the Polisario leader added. Moreover, he said, while the Polisario "has repeatedly announced that it is willing to pursue direct negotiations, and stressed the need to create the right conditions for that", Morocco was "not willing to realize those conditions, since it is persisting in its grave violations of human rights in the Western Sahara and the south of Morocco".

Fassi-Fihri denied Abdelaziz' accusations that Morocco has been cracking down on the Saharan people, saying, "As the official diplomatic moves of the enemies of Morocco's territorial integrity have run out of steam within the UN and elsewhere, and as demands for recognising that illusory existence have died out, the strategy of the enemies is now focused on cheap exploitation of what they call violations of human rights in the southern territories."

Yet even as the diplomatic sparring between the two sides continues, other countries are adding their voce to the calls for renewed talks. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on December 18th that she seconded Ban Ki-moon's call for a fifth round of direct negotiations as soon as possible, and that she supports Ross' efforts to resolve the Western Sahara issue. In a statement released on December 17th, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said his country hoped to see all parties back at the table as soon as possible so as to find an "acceptable, just and final political solution to the problem". The Spanish government shares the concerns of the international community concerning meeting all the conditions for holding new rounds of talks, Zapatero added. Last August, an informal meeting was held in Austria to prepare for the fifth round of negotiations. The meeting included Algeria and Mauritania, as well as representatives of Morocco and the Polisario Front.