AFAPREDESA
The Association for the Families of Saharawi Prisoners and the Disappeared
SA to support Western Saharans
SOUTH Africa has promised to support the Sahrawi people's right to self-determination, a spokesperson for the separatist Western Sahara region said yesterday after talks with the government.
Sapa-AFP 22. February 2007
M'Hamed Khadad, the Sahrawi's chief negotiator, met with Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma on the latest leg of a tour designed to build opposition to a new Moroccan autonomy plan.
"South Africa understands that viability of international law and the credibility of the United Nations is at stake in the Western Sahara, which is Africa's last colonial question," M'Hamed Khadad told reporters.
"It understands it is in the interests of international peace and security that the Sahrawi people are allowed the right to self-determination in conformity with the decisions of the African Union, UN and international law."
Earlier this month, Morocco's Prime Minister Driss Jettou unveiled the first draft of a plan to grant self-rule to the region which should be presented to the United Nations in April that emphasises Rabat's continued sovereignty.
Khadad said Morocco had effectively reneged on its undertaking to allow a referendum of the Sahrawi people.
"Morocco is now proposing a so-called alternative plan for partial autonomy for Western Sahara.
But as an occupying country it has no right to do this," he said.
"Morocco simply has to abide by resolutions of the United Nations and African Union and it is up to (the) international community to ensure that this happens."
The chief negotiator is due to meet other key players, including current African Union president Ghana and Britain to try to build opposition to the Moroccan plan.
Morocco annexed the desolate but phosphate-rich northwest African territory after the withdrawal of the region's former colonial power, Spain, and neighbour, Mauritania, in the 1970s.
A war ensued with the armed Polisario Front independence movement which was set up in 1973 and established itself as the sole representative of the nomadic Saharan or Saharawi people.
The conflict ended in 1991 with a UN-brokered ceasefire.
— Sapa-AFP