Members of the Parliamentary Intergroup of the Assembly of Extremadura have attended the XXI Conference ‘Peace and Freedom with the Sahrawi People’ which was held in Vitoria. Representatives from all the autonomous communities participated in it except Catalonia, Andalusia and Asturias.
The parliamentarians have seen how the president of the Saharawi Parliament, Jatri Aduh, has demanded greater “forcefulness and clarity” from the UN in its positions and actions regarding a definitive solution to the situation in Western Sahara.
The session, in which the delegate of the Polisario Front in SpainJira Bulahi Bad, has begun with a minute of silence for the death in May last year of the president of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, Mohamed Abdelaziz.
The president of the Sahrawi Parliament has shown the willingness of the institutions and people he represents to collaborate with the new UN envoy for the Sahara, former German president Horst Köhler.
He wished him “success” in his work, but he called on the United Nations to be more forceful and pressure Morocco to “cooperate” in the solution.
After insisting that the UN must “assume its responsibility” on this issue, he has demanded that France “stop fueling Morocco’s rebellion against international legality” and that Spain “get involved” more so that the Sahrawi people can exercise their right to self-determination.
He has insisted that the “will” to advance of the Polisario Front and envoy Köhler will not be “sufficient” to advance if the UN Security Council does not get involved and if there is no change in the position of countries like France.
Aduh thanked the parliamentary intergroups for their work and support and concluded that “the difficulties along the way are stimuli for the Sahrawis” to reach “the final point which will be none other than independence.”
The president of the Basque Parliament, Bakartxo Tejeria, recalled that 41 years have already passed since on February 26, 1976, Spain put an end to its presence in Western Sahara, “leaving unfinished the decolonization process that was underway within the framework from the ONU”.
“An abandonment that transfers to the Spanish State a historical, legal and moral responsibility towards the Sahrawi people,” said Tejeria.
He has denounced that during these more than four decades “the violations of the rights of the Sahrawi population have been a constant in the occupied territories” and that in contrast to this violation “of the most basic rights by the Kingdom of Morocco” that people has made an “exemplary peaceful defense of their rights.”
The president of the Basque Parliament has vindicated the right of the Sahrawis to self-determination through a referendum, as established by United Nations resolutions.