New polisario defectors call UNHCR to speed repatriation of sequestered people

A new group of persons who defected the ranks of the Polisario separatist gang and returned to Morocco called Friday the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to speed up the repatriation of people forcefully held in the Polisario-controlled camps in Tindouf (southwestern Algeria).

The new group, comprising three former executives within the separatists administration, made at a press conference in Rabat moving testimonies on the tragic situation of the population sequestered in the camps and insisted most of them are eager to leave the camps to return to their home country.

They also condemned blatant human rights violations, torture and embezzlement of foreign humanitarian aid which have become daily practices.

"Hundreds of persons die of torture, others have disappeared and scores of others are cold-bloodedly killed," said Moulay M'hamed, who worked at the "security and repression service" of the Polisario. Others are killed by the Police officers on mere suspicion that they are opponents and their murder presented as "martyrdom of the armed struggle for independence."

Mouichane, posted in Germany to supervise actions by Polisario supporters, explained how the Polisario leadership systematically sells the humanitarian aid in southern Algeria and northern Mauritania. He added that donors know nothing of the whereabouts of aid packages initially extended for the population living in the camps.

Khatri Brahim, who served as coordinator of the internal situation, stressed that "the majority of the Tindouf camps population are eager to leave the camps the soonest" and revealed that he was ordered to travel end of 1998 to northern Mali to recruit mercenaries from among the local Azaouad tribes.

To a question on Algerian financial aid to the Polisario, they answered that the salaries of the armed mercenaries and of the phantom entity representatives in Europe and America are paid by the Algerian state. In addition, added Ahmed Chrif, the Algerian military security has been supervising for 25 years now, training for the Polisario intelligence agents. He went on that training also take place in Cuba and Yugoslavia and Algerian military officers participate in the torture of the sequestered populations.

Regarding the UN-sponsored identification operation, he explained that the Polisario is forcing the heads of tribes sitting in the identification commissions to deny registration to all persons who are not included in the 1974 Spanish census.

The three men held Algeria responsible for the fate of their families who are still held in the camps, located in Algerian territory.