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Friday, March 29, 2024
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Morocco's ambassador and permanent representative to the UN, Omar Hilale has addressed, in letters, the Security Council and the Secretary-General of the UN, on Algeria's silence, lies and obstructions on the issue of the Moroccan Sahara.


Hilale's statement came as a reaction to a letter sent by the Algerian ambassador to the UN, Nadir Larbaoui, to the Security Council, which was itself a reaction to the letter that Morocco had sent to the members of the Council on the separatist activist, so-called Sultana Khaya, who advocates armed violence in the Moroccan Sahara.
Hilale pointed out that the missive was not a response to the letter sent by the Algerian ambassador to the UN, stressing that the missive of the Algerian diplomat "sins outrageously by its guilty silence, its questionable denials, its indecent denigration of the United Nations, and its false allegations."

"As usual, the Algerian ambassador never responds to the acts that are attributed to his country. He preferred to pour in propaganda rather than provide tangible answers to concrete elements, facts and dates presented, directly incriminating Algeria," said Ambassador Hilale.

He noted that the Algerian diplomat's silence is proof of the veracity of the facts listed in Morocco's letter about the case of Sultana Khaya, including her 13 trips, since March 2010, to Algeria and the Tindouf camps, the numerous participations of this instigator of armed violence in the "congresses of the polisario, the training sessions of Sultana Khaya by Algerian experts in the techniques of media propaganda, instrumentalization of various facts for political purposes, incitement to violence, falsification of photographic and video evidence and instrumentalization of appeals to UN mechanisms."

The Moroccan ambassador also cited the military training of the so-called Sultana Khaya, during each of its multiple trips to Algeria and its training in combat techniques, use and handling of weapons, as well as the transfer by Algeria of a monthly subsidy in the order of 4,300 euros to the separatist activist, for the financing of its activities in the southern provinces of Morocco.

Hilale also noted that the Algerian ambassador "commits, in his missive, the unforgivable error of underestimating the intelligence of the members of the Security Council, about the primary responsibility of his country in this regional dispute.

Unless he misunderstands the position of his own country, the observer status he claims is flagrantly contested by nearly half a century of diplomatic adversity and armed hostility by its proxy the "polisario", as well as by countless acts, writings and decisions of his government," argued Hilale.

He cited, in this context, "non-limitative" examples that are the illustration of the status of Algeria as a major party to the regional dispute on the Moroccan Sahara, including the letter sent by the Permanent Representative of Algeria to the UN, November 19, 1975, to the UN Secretary General.

This letter, which was sent the day after the signing of the Madrid Agreement, stated: "In addition to Spain as the administering power, the parties concerned and interested in the Western Sahara affair are Algeria, Morocco and Mauritania."

He also recalled the creation of the armed separatist group "polisario" in the Algerian capital, the training of the armed hordes of this group on Algerian soil, the armed attacks launched against Morocco, from 1975 to 1991, from Algerian territory and the creation of the ghostly polisario "state" in a hotel in Algeria, with its headquarters in Tindouf, Algeria.

Hilale further recalled that Algeria's former President Abdelaziz Bouteflika had proposed to former UN Secretary-General Personal Envoy James Baker, during his visit to Houston (Texas) on November 2, 2001, the partition of the Moroccan Sahara as a so-called solution to this regional dispute.

Hilale said that in his report to the Security Council in 2002, the UN Secretary General indicated that "Algeria and the polisario front would be willing to discuss or negotiate a division of the territory as a political solution to the dispute over the Sahara."

He noted that Algeria is mentioned five times, along with Morocco, in the latest Security Council resolutions: 2468, 2494, 2548 and 2602. He also noted that Algeria reacts vehemently to each recognition of the Sahara's Moroccanness of the Sahara, by third states.

"Algeria is the only country in the world to allow itself to challenge, with virulence, the sovereign decision of countries that open Consulates General in Laayoune and Dakhla," noted the ambassador.

Algeria is also the only country in the world to recall its ambassador and then suspend its friendship treaty with a third state, in retaliation for its support to the autonomy initiative in the Moroccan Sahara, he further added.

Algeria refuses, since 1975, to allow the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees to proceed to the registration and census of the populations sequestered in the camps of Tindouf, he said, pointing out that these camps are the only ones in the world whose populations are not registered.

The Moroccan ambassador also noted that the resignation of Algeria from its international responsibilities in the Tindouf camps, to the benefit of the separatist group "polisario" is denounced by the committees and bodies of the United Nations Human Rights.

"In its concluding observations on the fourth periodic report of Algeria, adopted in August 2018, the Human Rights Committee, expressed its concerns about Algeria's de facto devolution of powers to the polisario front," said the Moroccan diplomat.

Algeria should, in accordance with its obligations under Article 2, Paragraph 1, of the Covenant, "ensure the freedom and security of persons as well as access to effective remedies to any person in its territory, including in the camps of Tindouf, alleging a violation of the provisions of the Covenant."

These concerns were reiterated by the Human Rights Committee in its report, adopted June 2, 2022, concerning the complaint filed by M'Rabih Ahmed Mahmoud Adda, a former polisario element, who managed to flee his torturers and leave Algeria, Hilale maintained.

In his missives, the ambassador permanent representative of Morocco to the UN stressed that the letter of the Algerian ambassador "pours in an indecent anti-UN rhetoric", denouncing a "low maneuver" aimed at diverting the attention of the international community from the direct responsibility of Algeria in the current blockage of the process of round tables, whose resumption is requested in the last four resolutions of the Security Council - namely resolutions 2468, 2494, 2548 and 2602.

"The manifestations of this Algerian obstruction are indisputable," said the diplomat, citing the letter addressed to the Security Council and the Secretary-General of the United Nations, October 21, 2021, in which Algeria has firmly rejected any reference to any commitment on its part to participate in the round-table discussions.

He also cited the communiqué released by the Algerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, following the Security Council's adoption of Resolution 2602, clearly announcing that Algeria "will not support this resolution", in addition to the denunciation of the ceasefire and military agreements by the "polisario" at the instigation of Algeria, in violation of the resolutions of the Security Council and in defiance to the international community.

Hilale also exposed the Algerian ambassador's false and baseless accusations on alleged human rights violations in the Moroccan Sahara, stressing that Nadir Larbaoui "is surely unaware that the Security Council has adopted 13 resolutions since 2011.

These resolutions welcome the measures and initiatives taken by Morocco, the role played by the commissions of the National Council for Human Rights in Dakhla and Laayoune and the interaction between Morocco and the mechanisms of the special procedures of the United Nations Human Rights Council".

"Regardless of the Algerian ambassador, the human rights situation in the Moroccan Sahara is far better than that in Algeria, where people suffer, according to the United Nations bodies, the worst abuses," he said, noting that these violations have raised the concern and condemnation of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

He noted that the OHCHR has indicated, in its communiqué of March 5 and May 11, 2021, to be "very concerned about the deterioration of the human rights situation in Algeria and the continued and increasing repression against members of the pro-democracy movement of Hirak.

The High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, also stated in her annual report to the Human Rights Council on March 8, 2022: "In Algeria, I am concerned about the increasing restrictions on fundamental freedoms, including the growing number of arrests of human rights defenders, members of civil society and political opponents. I call on the government to change course and take all necessary measures to guarantee the people's right to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly," the Moroccan diplomat said.

In his letters, Hilale debunked the lies of the Algerian diplomat who "pushes the outrage to the point of lying to those who create peace operations and define their mandates, claiming that MINURSO is the only UN peace operation without a human rights component.

"He may not know it, but MINURSO shares this characteristic with seven other PKOs out of the twelve that exist. MINURSO is indeed a traditional PKO with the sole mandate of supervising the ceasefire," he concluded.

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