Moroccan Bar Association denounces identification results in Sahara
Morocco, Politics, 2/4/2000

The Moroccan Bar Association denounced the latest results of the UN identification operation which found only 4% of three Sahrawi tribes eligible to vote in the UN-projected referendum.

The association called the UN secretary general to allow all the Sahrawi population to take part in the referendum and respect the local traditions and the social and family links within Sahrawi tribes. The association also called all attorneys to bring their legal support to persons wishing to appeal the commission decision.

Out of the 51,220 persons belonging to the three tribes, the UN identification commission only retained 2,130 persons as eligible to vote.

Last January, the United Nations released results of the identification and said the new list of 2,130 eligible voters will be added to the 84,251 eligible voters.

The newly admitted voters belong to what the UN calls "contested tribes" that Morocco considers as Sahrawis, and therefore eligible to vote, and to whom the Algeria-backed Polisario denies this right.

Morocco insists that all Sahrawis should be entitled to say whether the Sahara, a former Spanish colony retrieved by Morocco in 1975 under the Madrid accords, should remain Moroccan territory or set up on its own. It also argues that the electorate should not be restricted to a census conducted in 1974 by the Spanish colonial authorities and which ignored nomadic populations and other groups who fled the territory to northern Morocco and southward to Mauritania to escape Spanish repression.

Previous Stories:
  Sahrawi league in Europe says Polisario maneuvers doomed to failure   (1/26/2000)
  Istiqlal party rejects results of UN identification operation in Sahara   (1/25/2000)
  Moroccan representatives worried over results of UN identification in sahar   (1/20/2000)

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