Western Sahara
Morocco accused of genocide

afrol News, 3 June - The outspoken Moroccan weekly 'Demain Magazine', distancing itself from its contents, has published wide extracts of a report by the Sahara branch of the Forum of Truth and Justice (FVJ), which notably accuses the Moroccan State of having committed a "genocide" in Western Sahara. 

'Demain Magazine' published these extracts this weekend, breaking with Moroccan press practices of ignoring such reports. The report, according to the newspaper, was handed over by its authors to a delegation of the European Parliament during its visit, last February, to Western Sahara. 

The text was also, allegedly, distributed in UN Geneva's offices. It denounces the "atrocious repression" exercised since 1975 by the Moroccan State against "Saharawis suspected of supporting the Polisario Front."

- By exercising this policy, the state of Morocco committed a collective genocide against a whole people, estimates the report which assures that "hundreds of Saharawis are still reported missing." 

The report reviews the forced disappearances, the arbitrary detentions and the tortures carried out by the security services. The report further denounces, besides, the "military, security and media block out in Western Sahara" and "a wild and not rational exploitation by the Moroccan State of the territory's maritime resources."

On the political plan, the text recommends "the organisation, under the UN supervision, of a referendum of self-determination allowing Saharawis to pronounce freely on the definitive status of Western Sahara." 

'Demain Magazine' is one of the most independent publications in Morocco. Its editor, Alí Lmrabet, several times has had to pay a high price for the magazine's frank reporting, latest in December 2001, when he was sentenced to four months prison for having reported on the royal family's possible sale of a palace. 

Sources: Based on Norw. Sahara Committee and afrol archives.

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