The international association “Almohagir”, settling in Europe and present in ten European countries, with an association basket gathering over 60 active associations, has recently launched, an international call in favor of the Sahrawi children sequestered in Tindouf camps, Algeria.
The international Call entitled « no to oblivion and indifference!” has been spred in the local press of different European countries and in the websites of the international association “Almohagir” and affiliated associations, as well as in those of the NGOs and associations working in the human and mainly child rights field. It has also been sent to different international institutions in charge of child and human rights protection throughout the world, to the media and to NGOs representing the national public opinions.
The Call follows other similar calls launched by other human rights and child rights NGO urging the international community, the HCR, the Red Cross and other human rights bodies and leagues to act jointly to end up the agony of innocent children, retained by force in the Polisario camps in Tindouf. The tragedy also touches their families sequestered by the armed militia of the Polisario and the Algerian Military Security, who do not benefit like the rest of the population in camps, from the “refugee” status, which gives right to its benefactor to freely move from one territory to another.

In a historical speech delivered in Marrakesh, the Moroccan sovereign has announced the launching of the work on regionalization in Morocco, as well as the creation of an ad-hoc committee – the Advisory Committee for Regionalization- (ACR)- which will have six months to hand over its working document to the Head of the State. It is more than a change, it is a real upheaval of the region and of the decentralized management that is announced, the Moroccan sovereign having clearly showed the way to be followed “ It concerns, firstly, the advent of full regions sustainable and stable in time, founded on rational and realistic criteria, relating to a new regionalization system”.
The imitation of the foreign decentralized management systems is not an option retained by Mohammed VI, who wishes to see the emergence of a “Moroccan-Moroccan” model, which is called to become “an avant-gardist regionalization model for developing countries”, the sovereign adding “We would like thus to consolidate the privileged position of our country, as a role model, when it concerns taking daring national positions and to bring creative Moroccan answers to major Moroccan issues.”

In an interview published, on December 15th, by the francophone daily, L’Opinion, the Ambassador of Bangladesh in Morocco has reaffirmed the excellent political, diplomatic and human relationship, as a sign of friendship and honesty, uniting Morocco and Bangladesh, since the Independence, in 1971, of this big country of the Southern Asia. The latter has then become, and upon an invitation from His Majesty the Late King Hassan II, a founding member of Al Qods Committee, in charge of defending and preserving the spiritual capital of the Palestinians and the Muslims.
As for the territorial integrity of Morocco, Bangladesh is sensitive to the issue and supports the Moroccan proposal of autonomy for the Sahara called Western. “Bangladesh, the diplomat considers, has been all the time sensitive to the Sahara issue and its ‘people’ and has been pleased with the decision of the government of His Majesty to offer a wider autonomy to this region”. He has added that “a decision in this regard has also been unanimously adopted last year, by the UNO concerned commission”, a state of things which consolidates the fair and realistic position of the Kingdom.

At the end of the audience granted, on Thursday, by the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, to the Moroccan Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation Taïeb Fassi Fihri, in New York, the latter has underlined that “the Aminatou Haidar issue constitutes a new attempt of the Algerian government to derail the negotiation process about the Moroccan Sahara”. The head of the Moroccan diplomacy, accompanied during this audience by Mohamed Yassine Mansouri, the Director General of the General Department for Studies and Documentation (DGED), has then affirmed with conviction that “neither Algeria, nor the Polisario want to negotiate”. In order to better support his point, Taïeb Fassi Fihri considers that “the other parties try their best to fabricate problems in order to divert the attention of the international public opinion, instead of concentrating on the main issue and taking commitment to carry on negotiations”.  This declaration launched from the United Nations Palace sounds as an interpellation. It mainly reminds of Morocco’s determination not to cede to blackmail and to resist to disinformation campaigns in which the Algerian government and the Polisario are indulged.

In the wake of the call of many associations of the Moroccan community settling in Catalonia, in Spain, supported by some Spanish and Sahrawi associations set in the Catalan region, an important manifestation has taken place, last Saturday evening, in the famous Place of The Cathedral, a symbol of the Catalan capital, in order to bring an unconditional support to the Moroccan project of the Sahara’s local autonomy, in the presence of the presidents of associations representing the Spanish, European and Maghreb civil society.
This manifestation supporting the Sahara region’s autonomy project, under Morocco’s sovereignty and national unity, organized under the rallying slogan of “Yes to the Autonomy status to the Moroccan Sahara”, comes in line with the thirty forth anniversary of the Green March commemoration, which has been distinguished by a strong and striking speech of the King Mohammed VI calling to Moroccans’ mobilization for the success of the broad autonomy project of the Southern provinces, a project involved in a large-scale context, that of the advanced regionalization, with new roles and new responsibilities within the good governance and within a good democracy mindful of equilibrium, equality and equity among its different components.

By refusing to present her passport and to tell her nationality during the control on borders, Aminatou Haïdar, a pro-polisario militant but paid from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has just set a precedent which is harmful to the relations -already in tension- between Morocco and Algeria. There is, as a matter of course, no doubt that Algeria who has commended this operation to Mme Haïdar, appointing two foreign journalists with her in order to try to get covered by the media an act constituting an obvious violation of all the international laws concerning the crossing of air-land-sea borders. In fact, by refusing to tell her nationality as well as her destination, the pro-polisario activist has voluntarily violated the sovereignty of the Sherifian Kingdom. Yet, the sovereignty, as everybody knows that, is on the basis of the international legal order, a concept that even the most officious law professor in the Algerian regime cannot contradict . It is precisely here that lays the problem, as beyond a simple quarrel about the refusal to tell her identity and nationality, the precedent created by Aminatou Haïdar raises the problem of the behaviour to be adopted in front of this kind of  provocation. Morocco has just sent a strong signal: we can not compromise one’s maroccanity.

Within its constant and sustainable effort to expand the economic tissue of the Saharan provinces, Morocco has allocated the amount of 1,2 billion dollars of , direct and indirect,  investments, relating to the basic infrastructure and the economic and social activities generating incomes for the people of the Saharan provinces, of the big Moroccan South. Hence, the economic, urban, cultural and social growth of the Saharan cities has become a concrete reality seen, touched and taken part in by everybody. Saharan cities are endowed with strong and performing infrastructure in terms of urban standard, ports and airports, pavements, roads and bridges, schools, colleges, high schools and training centers, dispensaries, hospitals and private hospitals, stadiums, fields and sport rooms, show and hobbies rooms, etc. Indeed, Southern cities enjoy the same conditions as their North homologues. This enormous effort made, within the framework of the South provinces development Agency, exceeds by far what Spain, the occupying power, has invested since 1884.
We are beyond the initial vision of the Sahara of 1975, seen, felt and lived, by the nomad people as well as by those who have chosen to live their as a wide infinite range of   desert, intersected of ill-assorted and badly equipped agglomerations and of water points spread along the Saharan roads taken by the dromedaries and camels.

During the 64th working session of the UN General Assembly held in New York, many Heads of State and delegations have renewed, before the UN floor, their permanent support to the Kingdom of Morocco concerning the country’s territorial integrity and its efforts to reach a fair political solution to the conflict of the Sahara called the Western Sahara.
Hence, the Gambian President, Mr. Al Hadji Yahya Jammeh, has been seen in the official stand, strongly reasserting, Thursday evening, in New York, his “total support” to Morocco’s territorial integrity.
« My delegation, he emphasized, during his speech at the general debate of the 64th UN General Assembly session, renews its total support to the Kingdom of Morocco’s territorial integrity and sovereignty”. Concerning the Sahara issue, “ we will remain, he added, convinced that the Moroccan government’s proposal to grant a wide autonomy to the Sahara region based on the negotiations initiated by the UN Security Council, conducted and agreed upon by the parties, will lead to a final and peaceful solution of the conflict”.

The return of Sheïkh  Ahmadou Ould Souilem, Head of Oulad Dlim Tribe and founding member of the Polisario Front, is itself an important event as it concerns the return of the child prodigy to his homeland. The event is still more important, taking into consideration the place he occupies and his being a public figure on the Polisario leading and tribal scene and also taking into consideration the international context and the invitation of the Special Envoy of the UN Secretary General, Mr. Christopher Ross for an informal meeting in Vienna between the parties in conflict, in the presence of the different parties affected by the regional importance of the Saharan conflict.
The rallying of this figurehead of the Polisario, independent and respected by all for his strictness and integrity, is the logical result of a long series of the rallying of leaders, senior executives and high ranked militaries of the Polisario to the Sherifian Kingdom, the forgiving and merciful. It confirms one and a unique truth: the Morracanity of the Sahara and the permanent existence of historical, religious, cultural and socio-economic links between the historical Morocco and the Moroccan Sahrawi tribes.

Minister-Counsellor to Mohammed Abdelaziz and Founding member of the Polisario, Ahmeddou Ould Souilem has sent an unequivocal  message to the world: the Polisario Front, one of the only guerrilla movements still existing in the world, ersatz of the cold war, is going to its end. In fact, while the whole Moroccan people was celebrating the ten years of His Majesty the King Mohammed VI accession to the throne, on Thursday 30th July, the celebration was crowned with the audience granted by His Majesty to Ahmeddou Ould Souilem, confirming the latter’s attachment to his King and his mother country, and showing clearly that the Sahara artificial conflict, fuelled by Algeria in order to establish its strategy of regional domination, is undergoing its last moments, final jumps of a history which roots go back to the pinnacle of the Marxist and Leninist movements, during and at the end of the sixties. In fact, the Polisario Front has just known the bitter side which has left speechless the very voluble press agency of the movement.

In response to Mr. Christopher Ross’s call, the UN Mediator, Morocco has expressed, via its Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, its availability to « positively join » the informal negotiations, set forth with the Polisario Front, based on the Sahara autonomy plan, proposed by the Kingdom, since April 2007.
It should be reminded that Morocco had expressed, last May, its « keen satisfaction »about the 1871 Resolution of the UN Security Council about the Sahara, unanimously adopted by all the members of the Council. Consequently, it is estimated in Rabat, that the UN emissary’s mission is part of a « well defined mission » aiming at the implementation of the last Security Council Resolution. An assertion reiterated by the head of the Moroccan diplomacy, Mr. Taib Fassi-Fihri, during a joint press meeting in Rabat with the UN Mediator.
« The Security Council, as underlined by the Moroccan diplomacy source, has confirmed the centralization of the negotiations process and has refused to yield to the political blackmail methods, to the unscrupulous practices of harassment and instrumentalization accompanying them and to the attempts to distort negotiations’ fundamental way”.

Based upon the last report of the UN Secretary General, the Security Council has prolonged, Thursday April 30, 2009, with a year, the mandate of the United Nations Mission organizing a referendum in the Western Sahara (Minurso), in charge mainly of organizing a self-determination referendum and monitoring the cease fire between Morocco and the Polisario Front.
In this unanimously adopted resolution, the Council calls once more the involved parties “to continue to show a political will and to work within a favorable dialogue atmosphere in order to start more intense and more substantial negotiations.” It considers that “realism and compromise spirit” should motivate negotiations to reach a final settlement for the Western Sahara issue. For its part and while reaffirming that its sovereignty over the Western Sahara should be recognized, Morocco is ready to dialogue with the other party, based upon the internal autonomy plan it has presented and which has been welcomed by the international community, while the Polisario Front persists in opting for a final status of the territory that has to be decided during a hypothetical referendum including independence as an option.
This irredentist and unrealistic position, head on supported by Algeria, is not based on any historical or legal basis, as the self-determination principle is not exclusive to the unique right of peoples to decide by their own, beyond the obligation of the nations’ territory integrity, recognized by the international community.