Madam, – In response to the article “At least 16 die in Western Sahara camps clashes”, by your correspondent in Madrid, Jane Walker (November 10th), I would like to bring to your kind attention the following clarification of the matter.
On November 8th, the camp of Gdim Izik, near Laayoun (El Aaiún) was the scene of legal intervention of security forces to dismantle tents established by citizens as part of their expression of social and economic claims.
After two weeks of negotiations, many of the claims were satisfied. A verbal process was established and was awaiting final formalisation by the signatures of the representatives of the authorities and the people of the camp. But, as the dialogue was reaching a positive outcome, a group of people composed of criminals, traffickers and separatists – in connivance with Algeria and Polisario – tried to take hostage those remaining in the camp.
Moroccan authorities drew the attention of the international community to the criminal profile of most members of this faction. During the intervention, law enforcement officers tried to disperse the gathering without resorting to force in accordance with conventional standards.
Simply equipped with shields and batons, they conducted the usual summation. They used truck pumps in order to disperse recalcitrant people and extinguish fires deliberately lit to create a diversion and to sow panic among the residents.
Security forces have, since the beginning, excluded the use of firearms during the intervention. Thus, no shots were fired. However, it was clear that the militia members, who have military training, deployed intense violence and extreme aggressiveness against members of the security forces, using knives and incendiary gas cylinders. The intervention also aimed at avoiding the deterioration of the situation, which could have led to incommensurable threats to the security of the people in the camp. Contrary to Ms Walker’s account, no civilian has been killed while dismantling the camp.
Militia members have turned their attention to some neighbourhoods of Laayoun, perpetrating several violent acts and committing a heinous crime. The result of these acts was the death of 11 agents of security forces and the injury of 74 people, four of whom were civilians. Under this operation, 77 people were arrested. Seven have been released, six have been brought before court and 64 are under judicial investigation.
The unprecedented methods used by the faction backed by Algeria, which were incredibly violent and totally foreign to the traditions of Morocco and of the Sahara region (slaying of police officers), are not those of simple offenders. They are, in fact, very similar to the modus operandi used by the criminal gangs operating in the Sahelian-Saharan region.
Also, Ms Walker states “the Western Sahara . . . a Spanish colony (which) Spain abandoned . . . and was annexed by Morocco when King Hassan II invaded in the “Green March”.
Actually, upon the announcement by Madrid in 1974 of holding a referendum for integration with Spain or independence of the territory, Morocco called on the United Nations General Assembly to refer the issue to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) which ruled that the territory was not “Terra Nullius” and that legal ties existed between Morocco and Sahara at the time of Spanish colonisation of this area in 1884. When Spain refused to be bound by the ICJ verdict, Morocco decided to launch the Green March to the territory on November 6th, 1975, in the wake of which the Madrid Tripartite Agreement was signed. It put end to Spain’s occupation of the territory, and provided for the withdrawal of Spanish troops by 1976.
However, the treaty was condemned by the Algerian government which proclaimed the Saharan Arab Democratic Republic on its territory and attempted through guerrilla attacks by the Polisario to enlist opposition to Morocco’s claims to the Saharan territory. It was Morocco that took the initiative in 1986 to call for a referendum under the auspices of the UN, a process which took hold in the wake of 1991 ceasefire but which broke down in 1995 due to differences on who should vote, what criteria to apply and who should be able to identify eligible voters as most of Sahrawis had no fixed abode. – Yours, etc,