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UN has "failed in its obligations" towards Sahrawi people

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Algiers, 15 November 2020 (SPS) - The United Nations has "failed in its obligations" towards the Sahrawi people, said Thursday evening Saharawi activist, Aminatou Haidar, amid tensions in El Guerguarat in south-western Western Sahara, where Morocco launched Friday a military aggression against peaceful Sahrawi demonstrators.
"29 years after the cease-fire (September 6, 1991), the UN has failed in its obligations to the Sahrawi people and especially the Security Council, which is supposed to be the guarantor of conflict resolution," supported the Saharawi activist, in an intervention by video-conference, on the channel "Canal Algeria."
Referring to the status quo in Western Sahara, Aminatou Haidar, alternative Nobel Prize winner 2019, deplored the complicity within the Security Council and especially France "which are at the root of the obstinacy and manifest refusal" of Morocco to comply with international law.
"The latest UN resolution has not left hope for the Sahrawi people to continue their peaceful struggle," she noted, stressing that the return to armed struggle could become an option for the Sahrawi people, as long as the UN has left no choice to the Sahrawi and their legitimate representative, the Polisario Front.
Aminatou Haidar also denounced "the complicity of the Minurso" which has shown "partiality" towards the Sahrawis who demand respect for the fundamental rights of the Sahrawi people, namely the right of self-determination and stop the illegal plundering of natural resources of Western Sahara."
She underlined that the Polisario Front and the Sahrawi activists have "always been under pressure from the Sahrawi people, especially the young people, who no longer believe in peaceful resistance. Our patience must be taken into account", referring to the recourse to weapons.
Morocco "has never stopped systematic violation of the human rights in the occupied territories of Western Sahara," she added.
"Anyone who dares to claim their right will be the victim of reprisals, intimidation or arbitrary detention", she denounced, stressing that "all peaceful Sahrawi demonstrations are repressed and we are permanently under police surveillance".
On Friday, Morocco launched a military assault in the buffer zone of El-Guerguerat by opening three new illegal breaches in violation of the ceasefire agreement signed in 1991 by the two parties (Morocco and Polisario Front), under the aegis of the UN. (SPS)
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