Sahara Press Service
20 June 2001
press release
Brussels — Representation for Europe of the Polisario Front: On 5th May 2001, Mr James Baker, the personal envoy for Western Sahara of the UN Secretary General Mr Kofi Annan, came to show us the Moroccan proposals about a "plan for autonomy" in Western Sahara, and asked us to accept them.
What is it exactly and what is the content of such proposals?
It is said, among other things, that the currency, the flag, the customs, foreign affairs, internal affairs, communications, defense, the police and the justice system, are all coming under the competency and the authority of the Moroccan state. As for the judiciary, Moroccan law would be the rule. Added to this, there is a semblance of "executive and legislative" power in the form of an assembly which, for technical reasons, would be mainly composed of Moroccan citizens completely submitted to the orders of the occupying power. At the end of 4 years of a policy of assimilation, it is planned that Morocco could organise, if it wishes to, a consultation aiming at consecrating the announced integration of Western Sahara- something which, by then, would anyhow be almost completed. The electors called for voting would be, in their majority, Moroccan citizens sent in the territory during the previous years in order to help colonising Western Sahara, and the Saharawis would therefore be reduced to a minority.
Such is the sinister content of this "plan of autonomy" which amounts to a forced integration of the Saharawi people into the state of an occupying power which, after having failed in its military genocide since 1975, is now trying to wipe out the Saharawis by political and administrative means.
The irony is that the principle of an autonomy actually corresponds to one of the two possible results of the referendum of self-determination where the Saharawis must choose between the independence of Western Sahara and the integration to Morocco. But by seeking to impose one of these two options, Morocco, and the countries which support it, in particular France which has ruthlessly and scandalously used its position in the Security Council to influence this question, are trying to justify in an unprecedented and iniquitous manner, the injustice of a violent occupation which is totally unacceptable and has been violating international legality and human rights, as well as all the resolutions adopted by international institutions over the past 25 years.
It is therefore totally logical that the Polisario Front expressed to Mr James Baker its total and definitive rejection of the Moroccan proposals. This is also why the Polisario Front sent an emissary to Mr James Baker, in order to hand him serious proposals, worked out within the framework of the UN Peace Plan and aiming at overcoming the obstacles of the implementation of the referendum of self-determination.
We call on the international community to put an end to this on-going instance of falsification which tramples the law, and only seeks to consecrate the injustice of over 25 years of illegal occupation in Western Sahara. We call on the entire world to denounce the repetition of a history which in 1975 already deprived the Saharawi people of its legitimate right to freedom and independence on the eve of the referendum of self-determination. We call on all those who care about the respect of justice and the law, to denounce with us the shameful game played by Morocco and its ally France, and to help saving international legality and peace while there is still time to do so.
-- Sahara Press Service, Agence de presse de la République Arabe sahraouie Démocratique. e-mail: spsrasd@wissal.dz Site: http://www.citeweb.net/spsinfo/
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