Malaga (Spain) 26 November 2021 (SPS)- UJSARIO’s Officer in Charge of International Relations, Mr. Hamdi Aomar Taubali, urged the participants in the Second Edition of the International Youth Forum for Solidarity with Western Sahara (IYFSWS), currently being held in Malaga, Spain, to stand firmly in the face of the Moroccan occupation, and in the face of countries and parties that obstruct the eradication of colonialism from Western Sahara, by adopting concrete initiatives and measures.
In his opening speech to this second edition, Taubali expressed the existence of an overwhelming anger within Saharawi people, especially youth, because of the international community’s betrayal of its promises to organize a referendum for self-determination, and its tolerance of Moroccan violations of Saarpwis people’s rights.
Hamdi added that like the rest of the youth organisations participating in the forum, Sahara youth refuse to stand idly by in the face of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Morocco against Saharawi civilians, giving as an example the case of the Saharawi human rights defender, Ms. Sultana Jaya and her family, or Saharawi political detainees, and calling on the international youth organisations to act and come up with concrete initiatives to change this unacceptable reality.
“We would like you to know that time has come for all of us to speak out our minds honestly, and frankly. And the keyword in my opinion is that now is time for action. Now is the time for deeds. Now is the time to speak with one voice as a progressive youth to the whole world to say, enough is enough! We do not want to see Western Sahara under military occupation for one single year more,” Hamdi Aomar Taubali said.
In this context, he pointed out that “as Saharawi youth, we are fed up with the international community ignorance of our suffering. That we are fed up with the UN failure to implement its own resolutions, fed up with international human rights mechanisms failure to protect our people. In fact the UN and all international organization can’t even monitor and report about the human rights violations, because Morocco, the colonizer, is not allowing them to visit the occupied territory.”
“We also hold the International Committee of the Red Cross accountable for the ordeals of Saharawi civilians in the occupied territories of Western Sahara. The ICRC was very quick putting pressures on Polisario Front to release more than 3000 Moroccan prisoners of war, all of which were Moroccan soldiers captured during battles, while this same ICRC never visited Saharawi political prisoners, and never helped release more than 150 Saharawi prisoners of war of whom we have no information,” Hamdi lamented.
He added that “ICRC, which is supposed to be the custodian of the four Geneva Conventions related to the protection of civilians in war zones and in war time, is turning a blind eye to Saharawi civilians in a colonized, occupied and abused territory. This must stop,” he said.
“This are just few hints of how we feel as young Saharawis. Fed up, angry, willing to fight to the last drop of our blood for our rights and for our people, but also open to peace, open to reason and to all concrete actions that would give our people their dignity and freedom back,” he concluded.
The organization of this second edition of the forum is supervised by the members of the the foreign department of the Saharawi Youth organization, UJSARIO, in cooperation with the Spanish Youth Council (CJE), and the European-Latin American Youth Center (CEULAJ) where the forum is organized.
The opening session listened to official speeches by Polisario Front’s Representative, UJSARIO’s, CEULAJ’s and CJE’s, followed by statements by representatives of the participating International Organizations and heads of delegations of youth organizations.
The work of the forum continue this morning in four workshops take place tomorrow in the form of workshops discussing several issues related to the conflict in Western Sahara.
The first groups of participating delegations arrived this morning in Malaga, where the Forum will take place a few hours later this evening.
The Sahrawi youth chose to organize the second edition of the forum in Spain to remind Madrid of its historical and legal responsibility in the conflict in Western Sahara, and to hold the Spanish and European youth in general the task of correcting the historical mistake made by the Spanish government in 1975 when it abandoned its responsibility in the decolonization of the Western Sahara. (SPS)
090/500/60 (SPS)