In a letter addressed to the Secretary General's Personal Envoy for the Sahara, Peter Van Walsum on the eve of his visit to the Maghreb region (from February 6 to February 14), the US NGO stressed that "responsibility for these violations must be clearly and legally established, and the responsible ones must stand trial,'' affirming that the International community has the obligation to preserve the rights of the sequestrated people in Tindouf.
On Algeria's involvement in the Sahara issue, the NGO maintained that this country is "part in the conflict" and should "assume its moral and legal responsibility for war crimes and other human rights violations perpetrated on its territory and under its full sovereignty."
Algeria, the letter went on, has played a key role in the creation and persistence of the Sahara conflict and should, therefore, be invited to the negotiating table as a stakeholder in this conflict and not as a neutral +observer+," calling on the UN official to notify Algeria that it is "unacceptable and irresponsible on their part to host in their land an armed group and use it to undermine the peace and the stability of their neighbor Morocco".
The US body also called on the international community to end Algeria’s game and compel Algiers to place the Polisario-run Tindouf camps under international control until these camps’ dwellers are allowed to return to their home country with dignity.
The Algeria-backed Polisario is laying claims to Morocco's Southern Provinces, known as The Sahara, which the North African kingdom has retrieved from Spanish rule under the Madrid Accord, signed in 1976.
The two parties have so far held three rounds of negotiations at the invitation of the United Nations in a bid to reach a solution to the dispute. A fourth round is due in the second week of next month.
On the same vein, Moroccan and Peruvian NGOs "Association d'amitié maroco-latine" and "Alianza para el desarrollo” (TUMI) decried these human rights breaches.
This came at the signing ceremony of a joint cooperation agreement that is meant to join efforts to decry such practices and draw attention of the public opinion to the plight of the Sahrawi Moroccans, held against their will in Tindouf.
Source: Map
News and events concerning Western Sahara issue