NGO's call for EU intervention to end slavery in Tindouf camps in western Sahara

5/17/2007

an NGOs action group urged the European Union (EU) to step in to implement urgent and necessary measures to end slavery practices that smear the Polisario-run camps of Tindouf, southwestern Algeria.

In letters addressed to several EU bodies (EU Presidency, European Commission (EC) and European Parliament), the action group said "it has learnt with stupefaction that this practice still prevails, in complete impunity and behind the scene, in the camps of Tindouf."

The action group, which musters the "Union des Associations Sahraouies en Europe", the "Association pour l'Union et les Droits des Sahraouis", the NGOs "House of Peace" and "Freedom", expressed its deep dismay and decried these practices that add to the inhumane conditions endured by the populations held against their will in these camps".

Thousands of Moroccan civilians are held against their will on the Algerian soil by the Algeria-backed Polisario separatists after having been lured to join the movement in the late 70s.

The Polisario claim the independence of Morocco's Southern Provinces, The Sahara, from the rest of the country. The former Spanish colony was ceded to Morocco under the Madrid Accord signed in 1976 between Morocco, Spain and Mauritania.

In a bid to solve the three-decade old dispute over the control of the Sahara, Morocco submitted, on April 11, a proposal to the UN Security Council that suggests launching negotiations between the parties. On April 30, the UN Security Council passed a resolution calling on the parties to enter into direct negotiations to solve the problem.

In a related issue, the "comité special chargé du Sahara marocain en Europe" (CSCSME), decried, in a letter addressed to the EP Committee in charge of human rights, the humiliating treatment endured by the sequestrated populations of Tindouf and the embezzlement by the separatists of humanitarian aid destined to these people.

The NGO also called for an urgent intervention of the EC to end these populations’ plight, to stop the injustice which caused so many pain to dismembered Sahrawi families and to confront any abuse of human rights and people’s dignity, which became a common practice in these camps of shame.