Moroccan home minister traces before Algerian journalists history of Sahara issue
Morocco-Algeria, Politics, 2/26/2001

Moroccan home minister, Ahmed El Midaoui, who visited Algiers this Feb.22-23, traced at a joint press conference with Algerian peer -Noureddine Yazid Zerhouni-the history of Morocco's recovery of its southern provinces.

The minister first insisted it was Morocco which proposed the holding of a referendum, on the basis of the internationally accepted principle of self-determination. However, he went on, Morocco wants all people of Sahrawi descent to participate.

Historically, he explained the Sahara problem does not date back to the Polisario's birth in 1975. Members of Sahrawi tribes took part in the Moroccan liberation war which also freed the Sahara. However, as Algeria was still under French colonization, the French and Spanish colonizers agreed to put the Sahara under Spanish administration, fearing that the Algerian liberation army would be conducting its operations against the French from the Moroccan southern regions. As a result, thousands of people moved to Morocco's northern provinces.

Meanwhile, as Spain was aware of Morocco's plans to ask the International Court of Justice to say whether it considered the Sahara as a Terra Nulus, as claimed by Spain, or whether it had links with Morocco, rushed to conduct a census which covered families that supported Spain, in a way that would consecrate Spanish sovereignty over the territory. Even the officer who has supervised the census admitted that the census documents were falsified. The region was also populated by nomadic merchants who conducted trade with Mali and Nouakchott and subsequently moved a lot and, therefore, could not be covered by the census. In addition, Shioukh (heads of tribe) to whom the census resorted denied to any persons who had a link with Morocco the quality of Sahrawi.

Consequently, the census only comprised 30% of people.

That is why, El Midaoui went on, Morocco insists that all persons of Sahrawi descent have to take part in the referendum, since the principle of self-determination applies to each individual.

The official also refused allegations that Morocco entered the territory by force of arms, arguing that by virtue of an international agreement, registered at the United Nations, signed with Spain, the Moroccan flag was hoisted on the territory.

For Morocco, he said, the Sahara issue is a problem of separatism and the Sahara is the property of all Moroccans and not only to persons of Sahrawi descent. Furthermore, Spain's retrocession of the Sahara to Morocco was part of a process under which the kingdom recovered separately Sidi Ifni, then Tarfaya and the Sahara but Spain is still retaining Sebta, Melilia and the Jaafarine Islands.

El Midaoui renewed that Morocco considers the Sahara issue as a problem between brothers, explaining that relations with Algeria are brotherly ones and nobody can change geography, nor origin nor the future.

He went on that the Sahara issue is a sequel of the cold war and Morocco does not want the territory to become a spot of "hot war," but a starting point for economic and civilizational construction for countries of the region.

Previous Stories:
  For Morocco, Sahara is a national cause   (2/24/2001)
  Moroccan - Algerian talks to resolve differences: We are brothers   (2/23/2001)
  Moroccan home minister pays work visit to Algeria   (2/21/2001)

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