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Appeal made to save Saharawis
2005-05-29 07:39:45
By Correspondent Michael Haonga
The United Nations Security Council has been asked to intervene in the Western Sahara conflict immediately, to save the lives of the people there, who are allegedly subjected to repression and brutal treatment by military occupation of the Moroccan Government in defiance of the UN stand.
The appeal to that end is contained in four- page letter addressed to the President of the UN Security Council, Ambassador Ellen Margrethe loj by the President of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic, Mohammed Abdelaziz.
In the letter dated May 26th, 2005, a copy of which has been availed to the Sunday Observer, President Abdelaziz appeals for the UN to exert all necessary pressure on the Moroccan Government to abide by the UN on the Saharawi people right to exercise their inalienable right to self-determination and independence.
He reminds the Security Council that the question of Western Sahara has been, since the sixties, on the agenda of the United Nations as a question of decolonisation.
``All resolutions adopted successively by the General Assembly and the Security Council regarding Western Sahara, including the latest one approved on 28th April 2005, called for its resolution on this basis through the exercise by the Saharawi people of their inalienable right to self-determination and independence, ” notes President Abdelaziz.
The atrocities allegedly committed by the Moroccan Government military forces include landing heavily on peaceful demonstration by the Saharawi people on 24th and 25th May,2005 beating them with truncheons and wounding them after subjecting them to tear gas treatment.
Apart from landing heavily on the demonstrators, the Moroccan military also allegedly took pride in property confiscation and ``assaulting women and children as well as arresting and kidnapping them.``
``As the Saharawi civilians cannot, under whatever circumstances, be deprived of their right to demonstrate and express their opinions peacefully, we energetically denounce this brutal repression to which many of our citizens in the occupied El Aaium have been subjected…`` says President Abdelaziz in the letter.
In the letter, he has also listed over fifty names of victims of the military repression and untold torture and calls for, among other things, two timely UN Security Council actions including timely intervention to save lives of the people and to “exert all necessary pressure on the Moroccan Government in order to abide by international legality…``
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