Baker's peace plan will lead to tribal wars in the Sahara, warns Sahrawi dignitary

The latest settlement plan, mooted by James Baker, the UN secretary general's personal envoy for the Sahara, will lead to tribal wars in the Sahara (south of Morocco) and will destabilize the whole region, warned a Sahrawi dignitary, member of the Moroccan Consultative Council for Saharan Affairs.

Khalil Dkhil, also a former member of the J'maa (sahrawi Assembly), told the Spanish daily "El Pais" on Thursday, that the peace plan of the former US Secretary Of State and personal envoy of the UN Secretary General, is a source of instability and insecurity for the whole north African region.

"We totally reject the Baker plan which guarantees neither the integrity, nor the sovereignty of Morocco and will only lead to instability and to tribal wars" in these southern Moroccan provinces, formerly under Spanish rule, said Dkhil who insisted that "the safeguard of the territorial integrity (of the Kingdom) is the only guarantor of democracy, peace and progress in the Sahara."

He said the latest version of the Baker plan excludes entire tribes and provides the opportunity to vote to a minority only, a fact which, according to this dignitary, will push those prevented from voting (in a referendum on the future of this region) to resort to all means to defend their rights, including the use of violence. He gave as an example the conflicts in Africa and the Balkans

He was echoed by other members of the Sahrawi delegation currently visiting Spain, who opposed and denounced what Mrs Kalthoum Khayat, a former member of the Polisario (an Algeria-backed guerrilla movement claiming independence of this territory) called "the Dictatorship" exerted by a "minority of separatists on the Polisario apparatus which terrorizes and marginalizes other components of the (sahrawi) population held against their will in the Tindouf camps, southern Algeria." Kalthoum, former head of the Diplomatic Action and of the Women's Union of the Polisario, insisted, in statements to the Spanish media, that "there is no Sahrawi prisoner of opinion in Morocco while the Polisario still holds 900 Moroccan prisoners in its prisons."

The delegation, representing the populations of the Moroccan southern provinces, was received by Spanish Secretary of state for foreign affairs, Ramon Gil-Casares and held meetings with leaders of the socialist party (opposition) and the Popular party (in power).