The Guardian, Friday 12 June 2009
Today a high-level delegation will deliver a letter to Downing Street urging Gordon Brown to take immediate steps to resolve the crisis in Western Sahara, now in its 33rd year. The letter, from President Mohamed Abdelaziz, asks that Britain act immediately to help end the continuing occupation of Western Sahara by Morocco in defiance of UN security council resolutions and the judgment of the international court of justice. The occupation has left 165,000 indigenous Saharawi refugees to languish in camps in the Algerian desert for over three decades.
The delegation will comprise MPs and MEPs, representatives of the Polisario Front - Western Sahara’s legitimate government - and several ambassadors, including Lindiew Mabuza, the South African high commissioner. A new awareness-raising campaign will also be launched in the Commons.
The plight of the Saharawi people is a forgotten struggle. Our collective failure to address Morocco’s violation of countless UN resolutions, to stop the illegal plundering of Western Sahara’s natural resources and to allow human rights abuses to be committed with impunity diminishes Britain and the UN, and it is an affront to all those with a belief in justice. Gordon Brown must take a lead to make the UN fulfil its obligation to ensure the referendum on self-determination that was agreed under the terms of the UN ceasefire agreement in 1991.
Jeremy Corbyn MP
Chair, All-party parliamentary group on Western Sahara
Mohamed Liman Ali Ami
Polisario Front
Mark Leutchford
President, Western Sahara Campaign UK
Mark Thomas
Ruth Tanner
War on Want
and eight others
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário