Morocco deplores at HCR meeting limits to freedom of expression at Polisario camps

Sahrawi populations sequestered by the Polisario secessionists are in no position to freely express their will, said here Wednesday Morocco's delegate to the United Nations office in Geneva, Nacer Benjelloun-Touimi.

Talking at the 17th session of the permanent committee of the High Commissioner for Refugees' executive committee, the Moroccan diplomat denounced the "embargo" on "any objective and credible information on the situation in the Sahara."

He added that unlike Morocco, which has been fully cooperating with the United Nations to implement the settlement plan in the Sahara, the Polisario is hampering the sequestered population freedom of expression, and preventing contacts between members of the same family likely to build confidence needed for the settlement plan.

He cited in this regard the total security guaranteed by Moroccan authorities to the Polisario heads of tribes who are taking part in the identification operation and the continuous flow of Sahrawis who flee the camps, risking their life, to join Morocco. For Morocco, he went on, the population free repatriation to the territory offering the needed health and economic conditions for a decent life should be part of the lasting solutions that the High Commissioner for Refugees ought to be promoting. It is evident that these conditions are only met in the western regions of the Sahara at reasonable costs for the HCR and the international community, he insisted.

He also stressed Morocco's total adherence to the UN settlement plan, embodied by several gestures. He gave as instances Morocco's close collaboration with the UNHCR, last November's visit to Morocco by a HCR top delegation and Morocco's agreement to gradually open new branches of the HCR in the territory and to examine confidence-building measures with the aim of informing the population in the camps on the reality in the Sahara and the economic, political and social progress covered.

On Tuesday, the UN security council agreed to extend for an additional three months, until next May 31, the mandate of MINURSO (UN mission supervising the referendum in the Sahara).

The resolution was adopted after UN Secretary General Kofi Annan informed the council on the impossibility of setting with certainty a date for the referendum that has been put off several times since 1991.

The electorate identification is the major obstacle to the UN settlement plan. As many as 79,000 appeals have been lodged when the first part of the voter provisional lists was published and the MINURSO should expect an additional 60,000 appeals when the second list of persons eligible to vote would be finalized, said Annan's report.

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 in 1974 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 had been supervising arrangements for the referendum.