Columbian paper unveils human rights violations in Polisario-controled camps
Morocco-Colombia, Politics, 12/31/2004

Columbian mass circulation paper "El Nuevo Siglo," has recently published an article unveiling the human rights violations and sufferings sustained by Moroccans sequestered by the Polisario in the Tindouf camps, southern Algeria.

In a story titled "human rights violations against sequestered persons in Tindouf," the story author Gonzalo Arbolida, a renowned journalist, recalls the successful recent visit to his country of a group of elected officials from Moroccan southern provinces and the meetings they held with top Columbian officials.

He also denounces the human rights violations practiced by the Algeria-backed Polisario separatists against Moroccans it is sequestering in the camps.

The paper also ascribes to Algeria's stubbornness the protraction of the conflict in the Sahara, a former Spanish colony retrieved by Morocco in 1975 under the Madrid accord with Spain and Mauritania.

Since the cold war and since the start of decolonization, Algeria has been stubbornly striving to systematically frustrate Morocco's right over its territory, writes the journalist who also recalls the visit to the camps by French Ngo "France LibertŽs" where it reported blatant abuses against civilian and military Moroccans.

The daily also reports how the French ngo interviewed some 340 prisoners in the camps, quoting the testimony of Saadi El Kali Salek, prisonnier of war between 1975 and 1995, who relates how he was arrested with 15 other solders, including one who was immediately executed while himself was beaten, handcuffed and thrown in a dark cave.

In the night, he went on, members of the Polisario beat prisoners for several hours before dancing on their exhausted bodies.

Part of the horrors he experienced in the Polisario jails, Salek recounts how prisoners were tied to a truck and dragged in a long distance under a scorching sun.

The Columbian journalist further reveals how prisoners are transferred from one jail to another under threats and are beaten with truncheons, stressing that few prisoners survive the tortures.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was one of the few international organizations to ring the alarm bell over the inhuman conditions experienced by Moroccans sequestered in the camps, goes on the paper which also affirms that Morocco's efforts to end this plight were fruitless, as a result of the stubbornness of the enemies of its territorial integrity.

Tracing the history of the conflict, the journalist recalls that the Moroccan southern regions were occupied by Spain, until 1975 when the Kingdom retrieved them. Since then, it goes, Algeria has not ceased its support to the separatist Polisario front.

"The Sahara issue is similar to the situation of Columbia which suffers from the interference of a foreign power or a neighbour country which are supporting projects by separatist or rebel groups, says the author who wonders on the decision made by Columbia which has friendship ties with Morocco but voted in the UN general assembly against the Kingdom instead of supporting it in its struggle for territorial integrity.

For the journalist, Columbian president, Alvaro Uribe, surely does not know about the strange and totally-unacceptable stand taken by the foreign ministry which voted against principles upheld by himself in the fight against terrorism.

Previous Stories:
  Moroccan delegation sheds light on Sahara question in Colombia   (12/21/2004)
  Colombian deputy-speaker announces reopening of Colombian embassy in Rabat   (7/3/2003)
  Moroccan-Colombian cultural cooperation probed in Rabat   (6/28/2001)

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