Sydney (Australia) 28 February 2020 (SPS)- Polisario Representative to Australia and New Zealand, Mr. Kamal Fadel, expressed gratitude on behalf of the Saharawi people and Government to members of the Pacific Islands Forum for rejecting a meeting organised by the Moroccan authorities in the illegally occupied Western Sahara deceitfully using the name of Pacific Islands.
Kamal Fade said “The meeting organised by Morocco in the occupied city of El Aauin is a cynical PR stunt by the Moroccan regime to manufacture a sense of legitimacy for Morocco’s decades’ long occupation of Western Sahara.”
He added, “The Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat has declared that it is not supporting the meeting and that any Pacific Islands countries attending are not representing the Pacific Islands Forum.”
“Morocco’s attempts to use the time-honoured trick of luring national representatives to conferences to lay a cloak of acceptance over an unjust situation clearly hasn’t worked and has been a total failure,” Kamal Fadel said.
“This latest meeting is just another sleight of hand being ignored by many international leaders. We are pleased that Pacific Island Forum leaders have seen through the ruse and have rightly rejected the Moroccan fake meeting,” the Saharawi representative added.
Morocco managed to entice only very few officials and ex-civil servants of some of the Pacific Island countries who ignored the location of the venue and the real purpose of the meeting while the majority of Pacific Islands countries refused to be part of this event.
This latest Moroccan stunt is a Moroccan comedy of errors as countries participating in the meeting have not been named, names of those attending were kept as a secret and the delegations forced to wear Saharawi attire to disguise them in order not to show the lack of attendance at the meeting.
“We continue to call on all foreign officials to refrain from attending meetings or conferences organised by Morocco in the occupied area of Western Sahara until the Saharawi people achieve their right to self-determination” said Mr. Fadel. (SPS)
090/500/60 (SPS)