segunda-feira, 20 de julho de 2009

Le président de la République félicite le président mauritanien à la suite de sa victoire aux élections présidentielles




Bir Lahlou (territoires libérés), Le président de la République, Secrétaire général du Front Polisario, M. Mohamed Abdelaziz, a dressé dimanche un message de félicitations au nouveau président de la République Islamique de Mauritanie (RIM), M. Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, à l'occasion de sa victoire aux élections présidentielles.

Le président de la République a exprimé ses félicitations à M. Mohamed Abdelaziz après son élection à la tête de la République sœur de Mauritanie, lui souhaitant bon succès dans sa noble mission, afin de conduire le peuple mauritanien vers plus de progrès et de prospérité.

"Votre victoire aux élections présidentielles et celle de la Mauritanie et son peuple est un grand acquis devant ouvrir les voies vers des perspectives prometteuses", a précisé la lettre du président de la République à son homologue mauritanien.

"Les élections présidentielles et l’atmosphère dans lequel s’est déroulé ces élections sont une grande victoire pour le peuple mauritanien frère, à travers laquelle il a exprimé son niveau exemplaire de démocratie et de patriotisme, afin de faire face aux défis des développements économiques et politiques ainsi qu’à la stabilité dan ce pays", a-t-il ajouté.

Le président de la République, s’est dit satisfait du niveau des relations de fraternité, d’amitié et de bon voisinage unissant les deux peuples frères, exprimant la volonté de la RASD à raffermir ces relations conformément aux aspirations légitimes des deux peuples, sahraoui et mauritanien.

President Abdelaziz’s presence at the festival reaffirms IUSY firm solidarity with the Saharawi people






The International Union of Socialist Youth (IUSY) considered that the presence of the President of the Republic, Mohamed Abdelaziz, as the guest of honour to the World Festival of the Union, as an expression of indestructible solidarity.

Here is the Statement made by the IUSY on the occasion of the President Mohamed Abdelaziz’s visit to the World Festival socialist Youth (15-19 July in Zanka, Hungary):
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Mohamed Abdelaziz, President of the Sahrawi Republic and Secretary-General of the POLISARIO Front, is the guest of honour at the world festival of IUSY from 15-19 July in Zanka, Hungary. This marks the IUSY’s reaffirmation of its indestructible solidarity with the Saharawi people and their legitimate struggle for self-determination, freedom and independence.

The efforts of the Saharawi people are fully aligned with the values and universal principles of peace, freedom, justice and democracy which IUSY defends.

IUSY notes that the presence of President Mohamed Abdelaziz at its festival is a reminder that the Western Sahara problem is a problem of decolonisation, which can be solved by the Saharawi people exercising their inalienable right to self-determination, consistently with the UN Charter and the practice of decolonisation in international law.

IUSY demands the implementation of the UN resolutions relating to the Western Sahara and to the will of the Saharawi people to live as a free and sovereign people on their own territory. IUSY also expresses its support to the UN, particularly to its Secretary-General and to his envoy Mr Christopher Ross, in their efforts to bring about a fifth round of direct negotiations between the Kingdom of Morocco and the POLISARIO Front, in order to reach a just, peaceful and definitive solution which will permit the people of the Western Sahara to exercise their right of self-determination.

The illegal occupation of the Western Sahara has resulted in the flight of thousands of Saharawi refugees who live in precarious conditions. Many IUSY delegations have visited the Saharawi refugee camps and have witnessed for themselves both the difficulty of the situation but also the depth of the Saharawi determination to resist and fight against occupation. IUSY salutes the progress made by the POLISARIO Front and by the Saharawi state in promoting education, health, development and democracy among the Saharawi people.

Recent reports by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the European Parliament’s ad hoc delegation agree on the grave human rights situation in the occupied Western Sahara. All of the aforementioned reports agree on the urgent need for the UN to shoulder the responsibility for monitoring and observing the human rights situation through the peace-keeping MINURSO mission in the Western Sahara.

The participants of the IUSY festival, deeply concerned and shocked by Morocco’s policy of oppression in the Western Sahara, vigorously condemn the violations of human rights of the Saharawi’s living under occupation. These abuses, which stem from the failure to respect the fundamental right of self-determination, must cease. Participants demand that the Moroccan government end immediately its repressive practices, which violate human dignity and integrity. They demand:

the release of all Saharawi prisoners of conscience;
the ending of unfair trials and of torture;
the respect of all fundamental rights in the Western Sahara, in particular freedom of expression, freedom of movement, and the right to assemble peacefully
Unrestricted access to the occupied territory for independent observers, the media and NGOS.
Participants emphasise the particular responsibilities of the international community towards protection of the Saharawi people. In particular, they insist on the urgent need for the UN to establish a reliable and effective means of observing and monitoring the situation with regard to human rights in the Western Sahara, notably by broadening the mandate of MINURSO.

In addition, IUSY condemns the illegal exploitation of Western Sahara’s natural resources, given that the UN-led decolonisation process is not yet complete. The theft of Western Sahara’s resources is contrary to international law, violates territorial integrity and strikes against the Saharawi people. Participants in particular call on the European Union to explicitly exclude the Western Sahara from the Advanced Status offered to Morocco, and to reconsider the terms of the EU-Morocco fisheries agreement so that it does not include Western Sahara waters.

THE IUSY of which the UJSARIO is member, will continue to reinforce their relations of friendship and cooperation with the Sahrawi youth organization. The IUSY is ready to campaign globally and internationally, raising awareness of the international opinion, for the rights of the Saharawi people and his legitimate struggle.

The speech of Mohamed Abdelaziz before the IUSY International Festival in Zanka






The President of the Saharawi Republic, Mohamed Abdelaziz, gave a speech before the pariticpants to a conference on Western Sahara organised by the IUSY international Festival, held in Zanka, Hungary, these days.

Here is the complete text of the sppech:


IUSY INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL,Zanka, Hungary, 15-21 July 2009

Conference ; Western Sahara, the last colony of Africa

Ladies and Gentlemen of IUSY leadership,

Dear Guests,

Dear young men and women,

We are very delighted to be guests representing the Sahrawi people at this great youth gathering, the IUSY Festival 2009.

We are very thankful to IUSY for the kind invitation to take part in the activities of the Festival, and we are grateful to Societas - New Movement from Hungary for hosting us in this great country and in this wonderful city of Zanka.

As you know, Western Sahara is the last decolonisation issue in Africa, and has been on the UN agenda since 1963 as a Non-Self-Governing Territory, an issue that can only be settled through the implementation of the right to self-determination as enshrined in the UN Charter.

This irrefutable fact was reaffirmed by the report of the UN Visiting Mission and the ruling of the International Court of Justice of 1975 and other subsequent resolutions including the ruling issued by the UN Legal Advisor in 2002. All these documents have also reaffirmed the historical and legal responsibility of the United Nations and Spain for the decolonisation of Western Sahara.

The Frente POLISARIO was created in 1973, as the sole and legitimate representative of the Sahrawi people and their vehicle to secure their sacred right to self-determination and independence. The position defended by the Frente POLISARIO is anchored in international legality and the fact that sovereignty over Western Sahara is an exclusive competence of the Sahrawi people, which cannot be determined by anyone in their stead. The Sahrawi people, therefore, should be given the chance to decide their destiny in a free, transparent and democratic manner.

On 31 October 1975, the Moroccan Kingdom militarily invaded Western Sahara and in the process committed heinous crimes including assassination, genocide and bombing civilians with internationally banned substances such as napalm and phosphorus. It then agreed with Mauritania, and with Spain’s blessing and collusion, to partition Western Sahara. All these acts represented a blatant violation of the letter and spirit of the dictates of international legality. They have also led to a painful tragedy with dire consequences for the peaceful Sahrawi people, the brotherly Moroccan people, and the peoples of the region at large.

It was the Moroccan Government that reneged on its international commitments. The Moroccan Government officially singed with the Sahrawi side the UN Settlement Plan in 1991, and the additional Houston Agreements in 1997, which all called for the holding of a self-determination referendum for the Sahrawi people. The Moroccan Government not only obstructed deliberately the UN successive efforts. In 2004, it also declared openly its utter rejection of the principle of self-determination and of any solution that would not legitimate, in advance, its illegal occupation of Western Sahara.

Therefore, the conflict in Western Sahara is between two forces. On the one hand, the Moroccan occupying power that keeps on violating the UN and international resolutions and trying to impose an illegal occupation. On the other, the Sahrawi people, under the leadership of the Frente POLISARIO, who are only demanding to exercise their internationally recognised, legitimate and fundamental human right, namely the right to self-determination.

With the support of some countries, especially France, Morocco persists in its defiance and its attempt to impose colonial solutions, and insists on the so-called “autonomy within Moroccan sovereignty” as the only solution to the conflict. Yet the Sahrawi people, together with all free people in the world, continue to struggle for a democratic, transparent and fair solution based on the self-determination referendum.

The Moroccan Government, which boasts of being democratic and open, seeks to impose on the Sahrawis only one option, to be determined first by it and then presented to be voted in the ballot. One cannot impose one single option on others, and then claims to be democratic.

The Frente POLISARIO has always demonstrated its readiness and cooperation for achieving a peaceful and just solution to the conflict. It has even accepted that the referendum would include autonomy, which is defended by Morocco, but in addition to the options of independence and integration that have been established by the UN and accepted by the two parties to the conflict. We look forward to seeing Morocco acting responsibly and showing genuine political will to ensure the success of the ongoing negotiations under the auspices of the UN Secretary-General and his personal envoy, which aim to implement international legality by enabling the Sahrawi people to exercise their right to self-determination and independence.

Unfortunately, we have not yet seen any move by Morocco in the right direction. Morocco persists in its defiance and disregard for international resolutions and conventions. Dozens of specialised international organisations, including the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, have demonstrated that Morocco continues to commit gross human rights violations against Sahrawi civilians, human rights activists and students in Western Sahara, Southern Morocco and at universities in Morocco, while keeping the territory under a tight security siege and a media blackout. Today, there are more than 30 Sahrawi prisoners of conscience in Moroccan prisons, more than 500 disappeared, and 151 prisoners of war held by Morocco.

There is a tremendous military wall erected by the Moroccan forces in Western Sahara. It is the only wall of its kind that still exits in the 21st century, and continues to divide the territory in two and to separate its land and people. It sprawls over more than 2400 kilometres inside the Sahrawi territory and is guarded by thousands of Moroccan soldiers and fortified by a myriad of weaponry, fortifications and millions of internationally banned antipersonnel mines, which continue to take a heavy toll on innocent civilians.

Morocco has been engaged in forced deportation of native Sahrawis and resettlement of Moroccans in the territory. It also persists in exploiting the Sahrawi natural resources in violation of the dictates of international legality that were affirmed by the former UN Legal Advisor, Mr Hans Corell, in 2002 and reaffirmed in 2008.

We cannot understand why the European Union signed a fisheries agreement with Morocco, which involves the territorial waters of the occupied Western Sahara. The agreement will allow the two parties to exploit greedily and illegally the Sahrawi fishing grounds.

We have nothing against the EU’s plan to grant Morocco an advanced status membership within the interracially recognised border of this country. However, we cannot understand why Europe, a symbol of civilisation and respect for law, decided to go ahead with this move without openly excluding the occupied Western Sahara, a territory on which Morocco exercises no sovereignty whatsoever, and which is pending decolonisation by the United Nations. It would be a blatant contradiction if Europe, an advocate of liberties and human rights, would make that move without conditioning the new status on Morocco’s immediate cession of its violations of Sahrawi human rights and its settlement policies as well as its pillage of the natural resources of the territory.

It is not possible at all to achieve a true and sustainable development in the Maghreb and North Africa and the Mediterranean without a just and lasting solution to the Western Sahara conflict. The attainment of genuine and lasting peace that guarantees stability, development and regional integration necessarily goes through the enabling of the Sahrawi people to exercise their inalienable right to self-determination and independence.

Ladies and Gentlemen of IUSY leadership,

Dear Guests,

Dear young men and women,

We come from Africa, from that great continent that for many decades had suffered and continue to endure all sorts of colonialism, injustice and exploitation. Yet it is Africa that has resolutely and valiantly defended and adopted the Sahrawi cause by defending its own principles of decolonisation and self-determination, and the principle of intangibility of borders inherited from colonialism. The Sahrawi Republic (SADR) is a founding member of our continental organisation, the African Union, and shares with its sister African countries the same deep concerns about the difficult situation prevailing in the continent politically, economically and socially.

Our continent is in a dire need for urgent assistance to get out of the vicious spiral of poverty, famine, diseases and armed conflicts that take a heavy toll on hundreds of thousands every year. With regard to IUSY Festival 2009, we are confident that Africa, as others continents, will be present and will participate actively in the workshops, conferences and forums organised during the Festival.

Ladies and Gentlemen of IUSY leadership,

Dear Guests,

Dear young men and women,

UJSARIO, the saharaui youth organisation, was among the first organisations to join IUSY, and participates actively in the activities of the latter and in the realisation of its programmes and decisions. The membership of the Frente POLISARIO in the Socialist International is a noble and valiant position taken by the SI, and is also a strong evidence of the consonance between the plans and political options of the Frente POLISARIO and the ideals and objectives of the SI.

We believe strongly, as you all do, that development cannot be achieved without peace and stability and that no stability is possible without the institution of security, justice and democracy, and that no democracy is achievable without freedom and respect for human dignity. We are struggling for realising the same goals defended by IUSY. For we also strive for building a world of peace, freedom, democracy, social justice, equality, respect for human rights and peoples’ rights to self-determination and free expression and international solidarity.

I would like to express our profound appreciation to the IUSY for its principled position regarding the struggle of the Sahrawi people for attaining their legitimate rights to freedom, self-determination and independence.

Your organisation has always and strongly been by the side of the Sahrawi youth. It has worked actively in various international fora to support their struggle for freedom, justice and peace in Western Sahara. The IUSY has sent high-level delegations to the Sahrawi refugee camps, where it singed friendship agreements and engaged in joint solidarity activities with UJSARIO.

You are witnesses, because you have been there, and have seen firsthand the suffering resulting from Morocco’s occupation of Western Sahara as well as the determination of the Sahrawi youth to face the hardships of exile and shortage of resources. You have also witnessed the efforts deployed by the Frente POLISARIO and the Government of the Sahrawi Republic for promoting and empowering the youth to play a leading role in the liberation and development of the country.

You are also setting a good example for the Sahrawi youth and people at large, because your steadfast struggle and defence of our just cause and the principle of self-determination and respect for human rights give a boost to our determination to defend our internationally recognised and legitimate rights.

The Sahrawi youth and people do need you. We need IUSY’s solidarity and support. Our struggle is part of your collective struggle against injustice and domination. It is shameful that there are still colonised peoples in the 21st century. Something must be done to address this situation. You are called on to work in Europe and other parts of the world to strengthen the solidarity work with a just cause of an oppressed people. We are confident that you will not let us down, and that you will continue to struggle to eradicate the last vestige of colonialism in Africa.

The youth represent the future. This huge group of young men and women gathered in Zanka, Hungary, for the IUSY Festival 2009, represents a source of great hope, confidence and inspiration for us. We are pound to be with you, and that UJSARIO is an active member of IUSY. You are with us and we are with you. And we all are for development and freedom, and for carrying on our struggle against injustice, domination, poverty, exclusion and all inhuman and degrading practices.

I wish you every success in your Festival!

Thank you!

Next informal meeting between parties important date in efforts of UN” (Ambassador)


The informal meeting in the coming days for the preparation of the 5th round of direct negotiations between the parties to the conflict, the Polisario Front and Morocco, is "an important appointment in the efforts of the international community for the decolonization of Western Sahara, in accordance with the charters and resolutions of the UN, "indicated Sahrawi Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr. Ubbi Bashir.

During a discussion panel on Friday at the headquarters of the Nigerian daily, The Guardian, the Saharawi Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr. Ubbi Bashir said that "the Moroccan occupation is now the greatest challenge to the values of Africa in the fight against colonialism, oppression and confiscation of the rights of peoples. "

"The so-called Moroccan proposal to grant autonomy to Western Sahara under Moroccan sovereignty, can not and will not constitute a vision of a just and definitive peace to the conflict" because, he said, "it is in the opposite direction of international law calling for a referendum on self-determination "to enable the Saharawi people to freely choose its future.

Regarding the chances of successful mediation by the Personal Envoy of the SG of the UN in Western Sahara, Mr. Christopher Ross, the Saharawi diplomat, said that "the door remains open to a just and definitive solution to the conflict, if Morocco shows a real political will towards the solution and honours its commitments to the international community to organize a free, democratic, just and transparent referendum, under United Nations auspices, to enable the Saharawi people to express its view on the future of Western Sahara."