Algiers, March 31, 2018 (SPS) - The international community should not stop upholding Sahrawi people's inalienable right of to self-determination, said the president of the U.S. non-profit organization Defense Forum Foundation, Suzanne Scholte.
"We must continue to press for an end to the crimes the Moroccan regime is committing against the people of Western Sahara, as well as uphold the Sahrawis' right to self-determination," Suzanne Scholte told APS on the eve of her participation in the International Conference on the Right of Peoples to Resistance, held in Algiers on 30 and 31 March.
"This is a very inspiring event for me because it brings together people from many countries with different backgrounds but who all have the same heart as mine for the people of Western Sahara," added Scholte, who also chairs the U.S. Western Sahara Foundation.
The 2008 Seoul Peace Prize winner underlined that she shares, with the participants in the conference, "a common bond in the belief in the inalienable right to self-determination, which has been denied to the Sahrawi people," adding that this situation "cannot be tolerated."
"My fervent hope is that this conference will hasten the day that the brutal occupation of Western Sahara will end and those Sahrawis living in refugee camps since Morocco's illegal invasion can return their homeland," she added, expressing indignation at the violations against Sahrawi people under King Mohammed VI's regime.
The two U.S. NPOs Defense Forum Foundation and Kennedy Foundation are participating in the two-day conference, which will bring together over one hundred participants from 53 countries.
The conference, co-organized by the Algerian National Committee of Solidarity with Sahrawi People (CNASPS) and the Embassy of Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) in Algiers, aims at breaking the media blockade imposed by Morocco on the occupied Sahrawi territories and providing a platform for exchange between the participants to reaffirm the right of Sahrawi people to resist the Moroccan occupation. (SPS)
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