US-based NGO calls for including Polisario in Terrorist Exclusion List
"The American Council for Moroccan POWs" has called US authorities to include the Polisario separatist group in the Terrorist Exclusion List (TEL), following the Algeria-backed movement's recent threats of terrorist attacks.
In a letter to US Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, the NGO asked for including the Polisario, which claims the separation of the Moroccan Sahara from the rest of the Kingdom, in the list and to act to revoke the visas of any Polisario official who might have threatened the security and stability of the region or who might have engaged in human rights violations or in human trafficking.
The Terrorist Exclusion List (TEL), created by the USA Patriot Act of 2001, entitles the secretary of state, in consultation with the attorney general, to identify terrorist groups whose members may be excluded from immigrating to the United States or who may be asked to leave the country.
The ACMP, based in Gardena, California, also voices "grave concern" over the 400 Moroccan prisoners still held in the Polisario-run camps in Tindouf, southwestern Algeria. It is further worried by "the recent declarations of the polisario leadership threatening war against Morocco and therefore endangering the stability and security of the whole North African region." The prisoners, it went on, "are in a very grave risk of bodily harm and possibly death."
The organization deplores the Polisario's continuing defiance of the will of the international community by holding hundreds of Moroccans in "the camps of shame while it enjoys the protection and impunity that are afforded to it by the Algerian intelligence services and security forces."
It also reports on the atrocities taking place in the camps against helpless prisoners, ranging from forced labor, torture, beatings, medical experimentation and summary executions. ACMP recalls how French Ngo "France-Libertes" had documented these abuses and how the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) warned of a serious degradation of the health of detainees.
The letter draws the US official attention to the deportation of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of children from the camps to Cuba to work in plantations, cigar factories and prostitution.
The ACMP is a non-profit organization which acts in order to free and defend the rights of the Moroccan POW's (civilian and military) held by the Polisario Front in Tindouf and other locations in Algeria.
