Spanish official's acknowledgment of incomplete census confirms Morocco's legitimate claims, Spanish daily
Morocco-Spain, Politics, 4/1/1999

Spanish mass circulation daily "El Mundo" wrote that the acknowledgement of former Spanish official, Emilio Cuevas, that the census of the Sahara population that he supervised in 1974, was incomplete confirms Morocco's legitimate claims.

Morocco argues that the census conducted in 1974 by Spain, former colonial power in the territory cannot be used as a basis to draw the list of persons eligible to vote in the UN-projected referendum in the Sahara.

The Spanish official acknowledged that the census was "incomplete," explaining that his team was pressed by the United Nations to conduct the job in one month and, therefore, was not able to cover a population spread over a vast territory and that was not very willing to cooperate with the colonizers.

He also explained the shortcomings of the census by the nomadic nature of the Sahara population.

The referendum in the Sahara has been repeatedly postponed because of the maneuvers of the polisario which tries to shrink the electorate.

Previous Stories:
  Spanish census in Sahara was incomplete, the census author says   (2/8/1999)

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