Morocco deplores Algeria's truth 'falsification' over sahara
Morocco-Algeria, Politics, 3/23/2004

Morocco has strongly denounced Algeria's truth "falsification" over the Sahara issue, deploring the neighboring country's attitude and "obsession" about this dispute.

Morocco's reaction came in response to a speech delivered, in Geneva Friday, by Algeria's delegate to the 60th session of the UN Human Rights Commission during which he denounced "Morocco's occupation of the western Sahara."

This territory has been the main cause of the dispute between the two North African countries for more than 20 years because of Algeria's backing to the separatist movement Polisario which claims the independence of this former Spanish colony retrieved by Morocco in 1975 under the Madrid Accords signed with Spain and Mauritania.

Morocco's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Omar Hilale, said Algeria, as usual, resorts to amalgam and falsification when it comes to the Sahara issue, underlining that "Algeria's Sahara obsession blinds it and make it unable to assess matters objectively."

The Algerian delegate made a selective reading of UN Declaration 1514 related to country's independence, the Moroccan diplomat argued, adding that this same document stipulates that any attempt to destroy the national unity and territorial integrity of a country is a breach to United Nations charter.

Hilale insisted that his country "does not occupy the Moroccan Sahara." This territory was retrieved under an international accord endorsed by a UN resolution, he stressed.

Furthermore, the Moroccan official evoked the right of the population in Tindouf camps (southern Algeria) to self-determination which would be materialized through giving this population the right to move freely and chose whether to stay in the camps or return to their homeland, Morocco. He added that the "sequestered population was moved by force from the Moroccan Sahara and has been held hostage in Tindouf for 29 years."

Fortunately, some of these people could meet their families owing to the assistance of the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), he said, deploring that Algeria uses the populations in Tindouf as a 'political card.'

Hilale added that the Sahara issue is a bilateral issue that concerns Morocco and Algeria, hence, according to the Moroccan official, settling the conflict can only be at a bilateral level.

Previous Stories:
  Attajdid: fa8mily visit exchange must not go beyond humanitarian framework, official   (3/20/2004)
  UNHCR launches 2nd visit-exchange between families in Morocco and in southern Algeria   (3/13/2004)
  First family visit-exchange operation ends   (3/11/2004)

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