Morocco calls UN to allow return of sequestered Sahrawi population
Morocco, Politics, 2/29/2000

Morocco has officially asked the United Nations to allow the Sahrawi population sequestered by the Polisario secessionists to return home where all arrangements have been taken to cater for their needs.

The UN Security Council published Monday a letter of Morocco's permanent delegate to the UN, Ahmed Snoussi, in which he asserts that Morocco wants the issue of sequestered population to be taken into account and their right to be repatriated guaranteed since they have already been covered by the identification operation and registered by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

Morocco says it is unfair and inhumane to prevent the sequestered population from going back home.

Morocco also calls the UN to repair what it sees as the injustice done to candidates of registration in the referendum voter lists before it starts the appeals procedure, renewing adherence to the UN-projected referendum, a voting proposed and supported by Morocco.

Morocco still adheres to the UN settlement plan and renews its request that all candidates to registration who were unfairly or by error rejected by the UN identification commission enjoy the right to appeal the decision without resorting to the opinion of heads of tribes of the other party, in keeping with the agreement reached with the UN secretary general.

Last week, the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, informed the Security Council of the impossibility to establish with certainty a date for the referendum that has been put off several times since 1991, due to the electorate identification.

The Algeria-backed Polisario secessionist movement is trying to shrink the electorate by insisting that only persons who were included in a population census conducted by the Spanish colonial authorities should be entitled to vote, while Morocco says all persons of Sahrawi origin, an essentially nomadic population, should be allowed to vote.

The Sahara is a former Spanish colony retrieved by Morocco in 1975 under the Madrid accord. After a cease-fire observed in the region since 1991, the MINURSO, French acronym for the UN mission in the Sahara, had been supervising arrangements for the referendum.

Previous Stories:
  Moroccan papers criticize UN policy in sahara as pro-secessionists   (2/22/2000)
  Spain promoted separatists' so-called national feeling for colonial purposes   (2/21/2000)
  Nineteen Moroccan Sahrawis flee Tindouf camps, return to Morocco   (2/17/2000)

Please add a link on your webiste pointing to ArabicNews.com and bookmark ArabicNews.com & subscribe to our daily email news bulletin.

Search