Polisario, main obstacle to Maghreb project (debate)
The separatist movement 'Polisario,' that is claiming the secession of Morocco's southern provinces (known as the Sahara), and the political instrumentalization of the Sahara question are the main obstacle hampering the edification of the Maghreb project, deplored, in Geneva Tuesday, participants in a debate animated by former Polisario officials.
The meeting, held on the fringes of the 56th session of the Sub-committee for human rights (July 26-August 13), was organized to discuss the role of the Maghreban economic space in stability and prosperity in the Mediterranean basin and Sub-Saharan Africa.
Launched in 1989, the Maghreb project is mustering five countries namely Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia. However, this regional grouping faced many obstacles mainly because of Algeria's backing of the Polisario separatists.
The setting up of a Maghreban space would guarantee a stable environment, a permanent security and a promising market, noted Ennajem Ould Mohamed Salem, a former Polisario representative in Paris. Nonetheless, he insisted, the success of this project cannot be achieved unless the "Polisario" disappears.
Polisario, he underscored, is dictated by a totalitarian ideology that is disconnected of reality. To guarantee its survival, this entity is obliged to make all kinds of repressions and manipulations, which makes the sequestered populations in the Polisario camps in Tindouf (southern Algeria) live a real tragedy, explained the former Polisario official.
Several participants in the debate gave their testimonies about their suffering in Polisario camps in Algeria.
Houceine Baida, a former Polisario official, currently chairing the Association of families of Sahrawi Victims of repression in the Polisario camps, also denounced the tragedy of Moroccan prisoners of war who are still detained in Polisario prisons, in violation of international conventions and international law. Some of these prisoners have been in detention for over 25 years.
On his part, Ramdan Masaoud, president of the Barcelona-based Sahrawi association for the defense of human rights, deplored that some NGOs and international institutions, that are manipulated by the Polisario, have rallied behind the slogans of the separatist group, turning a blind eye on the fate of victims of the secessionists' repression.
Other participants drew attention to the breaches perpetrated by Polisario leaders, most importantly the embezzlement of international humanitarian aid.
They also pointed out that children are the major victims of Polisario, underlining that hundreds of them are deported each year to Cuba under the cloak of "ideological training," while the real goal is to maintain pressure on their parents to prevent them from fleeing the camps.
