Spain promoted separatists' so-called national feeling for colonial purposes
Morocco-Spain, Politics, 2/21/2000

Experts attending a conference held in Madrid recently have stated that the so-called "national feeling" was promoted by Spain for colonial purposes.

Spain promoted the so-called "national feeling" to perpetuate its occupation of the Moroccan Sahara, Spanish and Moroccan experts said at the conference, held under the theme "the national Sahrawi Identity."

Spanish sociologist Angela Hernandez demonstrated that the Sahrawi nomadic tribes did not have a notion of this kind and that Spain tried to promote this feeling to maintain its grip over the territory.

Morocco retrieved the Sahara in 1975 under an accord concluded with Spain. The Polisario, which consequently sprang out of the blue with Algeria's help, claimed sovereignty over the territory.

Bachir D'Khil, a former Polisario representative in Barcelona, and Hussein Bentaleb, who participated in the 1974 Spanish census, denied to the Polisario the legitimacy to represent the Sahrawi population who have never mandated it.

They decried the systematic repression against the Moroccan Sahrawis, sequestered in Tindouf, and urged the Spanish public opinion to no longer heed the pro-Polisario NGOs and to look for truth regarding the fate of the people reported missing in the detention camps, located in Lahmada, southwestern Algeria.

They also appealed to human rights bodies and Amnesty International to reveal to international public opinion the reality prevailing in the camps.

The two expounded various crimes committed by the Polisario leaders against all those who voice opposition to the separatists' ideas.

Previous Stories:
  Moroccan parliamentary delegation in Strasbourg   (2/15/2000)
  Morocco conveys U.N. secretary general memorandum on Sahara   (2/14/2000)
  Morocco astonished and disappointed about identification in sahara   (1/18/2000)

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