Algiers, Jan 5, 2014 (SPS) - The Security Council must add a human rights monitoring mechanism to the MINURSO mission (United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara) for 2014, president of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights Kerry Kennedy stressed.
“Such a move would be historic, but by no means revolutionary. We are simply calling on the United Nations to extend to the mission in Western Sahara the same international human rights standards it has applied to every other peace-keeping operation since 1991,” Kerry Kennedy said in an article entitled “A forgotten human rights tragedy” and published on CNN news channel website.
“During my visits to the Sahrawi occupied territories, I interviewed hundreds of victims and witnesses of brutality and intimidations which are common to thousands of Sahrawi people living under the brutal grip of a Moroccan occupying force that believes no one is watching,” she added.
Among these scenes of violences, Kerry Kennedy gave the example of “Aminatou Haidar who was pulled from her vehicle by a mob, shoved to the ground and repeatedly assaulted in a four hour public attack that left her severely beaten.”
“Haidar, a Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award laureate, was heading home from a meeting with United Nations officials in Western Sahara,” she stated.
“Most terrifying of all, witnesses and victims tell us about friends and family members who simply vanish, or else turn up in mass graves like the eight bodies unearthed this summer, two of which seemed to be the skeletons of children,” she deplored.
“Last year alone, the RFK Center reported violations by Morocco against freedoms of speech and peaceful assembly, and right to due process. Between May and September 2013, four prisoners died from conditions at Ait Melloul prison,” she recalled.
“These violations have continued with impunity because few people – especially in the United States – have even heard of Western Sahara.
Currently, the U.N. Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) is the only modern peacekeeping mission that does not include a mandate to track and report violations of human rights,” said Kerry Kennedy, adding that “international community must act.” (SPS)
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