Bir Lehlou (Saharawi Republic) 07 December 2021 (SPS)- The President of the Saharawi Republic, Secretary general of the Frente Polisario, Mr. Brahim Ghali, affirmed in a letter he addressed Yesterday to the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, that Polisario will not engage in any peace process while the Moroccan state of occupation continues imposing its reign of terror on the Saharawi civilians in the occupied territories of Western Sahara.
The President of the Republic stressed on denouncing the Moroccan repeated attacks against Saharawi human rights defender, Ms. Sultana Sid Brahim Jaya, considering these abuses as an act of terror and a heinous crimes, deploring at the same time the silence of the UN Secretariat and Security Council in the face of such crimes against humanity.
following is the full text of the letter as received by SPS:
Letter from the President of the Sahrawi Republic and Secretary General of the Frente Popular para la Liberación de Saguía el-Hamra y de Río de Oro (Frente POLISARIO) addressed to the Secretary-General of the United Nations
Bir Lehlou, 6 December 2021
Mr Secretary-General,
It is with great concern that I am writing to you again to urgently draw your attention and that of the Security Council to the ongoing acts of terror perpetrated by the occupying state of Morocco against human rights activist Sultana Sid Brahim Jaya and her family in the city of Bojador in the Sahrawi Territories under Moroccan illegal occupation.
In our letter addressed to you on 16 November 2021, we expressed our strong condemnation of the heinous crime committed, on 15 November 2021, against human rights activist Sultana Sid Brahim Jaya and her family when masked agents of the Moroccan security forces stormed their house subjecting all family members to unspeakable brutality, inhuman and degrading practices.
Early on 5 December 2021 at around 4:00 am, masked agents of the Moroccan security forces stormed the house again and subjected all members of the family to a new wave of physical and psychological terror and cruel, inhuman, and degrading practices. Sultana and her sister El Waara and their old mother were savagely beaten, sexually harassed and raped.
After forcing Sultana to inhale an unknown substance, the Moroccan security agents dropped a chemical substance into the water tank, the main source of water for the family. As they frequently do, the security agents destroyed the belongings of the family and sprayed foul-smelling substances all over the house. They also sealed the access door to the rooftop to prevent Sultana and her sister El Waara from carrying out their daily protest by raising the national flag of the Sahrawi Republic as an act of peaceful resistance against the Moroccan illegal occupation.
We strongly condemn this new heinous crime against human rights activist Sultana Sid Brahim Jaya and her family. We again deplore the silence of the UN Secretariat and the Security Council in the face of the crimes perpetrated against Sahrawi civilians and human rights activists by the occupying state of Morocco and its continued violations of the rules of international law and international humanitarian law in the Occupied Western Sahara.
Mr Secretary-General,
As we have stressed in our abovementioned letter, the persistence by the occupying state of Morocco in its heinous crimes against Sahrawi civilians, without being held accountable or punished for that, seriously undermines the prospects of the UN peace process, and closes the door on the desired peaceful solution to the decolonisation of Western Sahara.
The Frente POLISARIO underlines that talking about relaunching the peace process at a time when Sahrawi civilians and human rights activists are terrorised and subjected to acts of unspeakable cruelty is meaningless. No one therefore should expect the Frente POLISARIO to engage in any peace process while the occupying state of Morocco continues to impose its reign of terror on the Sahrawi Occupied Territories as the United Nations maintains its deafening and unjustified silence.
We call upon you, Mr Secretary-General, and upon the Security Council to act urgently to end the brutality and terror to which human rights activist Sultana Sid Brahim Jaya and her family are subjected daily at the hands of the occupying state of Morocco, provide protection to Sahrawi human rights activists, and ensure the immediate and unconditional release of Sahrawi political prisoners, including Gdeim Izik Group, who are being held in the prisons of the occupying state.
In this regard, the Frente POLISARIO warns that the failure of the United Nations and other stakeholders to ensure the immediate cessation of the terrorising and humiliating practices pursued daily against the family of Sid Brahim Jaya and other Sahrawi human rights activists will leave the Frente POLISARIO no option but to take the appropriate decisions regarding its engagement in the “political process” as well as its cooperation with the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO).
It is this direction of events, towards which the occupying state of Morocco is pushing, that will leave us with no other choice unless it is reversed by the United Nations, particularly the Security Council and the Secretariat.
I would be grateful if you would bring this letter to the attention of the Members of the Security Council.
Please accept, Mr Secretary-General, the assurances of my highest consideration.
Brahim Ghali
President of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic
Secretary-General of the Frente POLISARIO
H.E. Mr António Guterres
United Nations Secretary-General
United Nations, New York
Copies to:
H.E. Mr Staffan de Mistura,
Personal Envoy of the UN Secretary-General for Western Sahara
H.E. Mr Abdou Abarry
Permanent Representative of Niger to the United Nations
President of the Security Council.” (SPS)
090/500/60 (SPS)