"THE SAHARAWI PEOPLE MUST DECIDE FOR HIMSELF" SAID MRS. RAMDAN

Madrid´s correspondent of Intermational Press Service (IPS) published these days an article about the situation in Western Sahara specially on occassion of the visit to the region of the United Nation Secretary General Special Representative, Christopher Ross.

and the journalist interviewed Mrs. Zahra Ramdán, Chair-person of the Association of Saharawi Women in Spain.

"The only solution for the conflict over Morocco's occupation of the Western Sahara is to do what the Saharawi people decide regarding their future" said Zahra Ramdan, President of the Association of Saharawi Women in Spain, told IPS.

Christopher Ross, United Nations envoy for the Western Sahara, expressed himself in similar terms this week after a tour that took him to Morocco, Algeria, Italy, France and Spain.

The aim of his visits, he said, was to reach a mutually accepted political solution that could lead to the holding of a referendum in the framework of the U.N. charter.

Western Sahara, a phosphate-rich disputed desert territory on the northwest coast of Africa bordered by Morocco, Algeria and Mauritania, was annexed by Morocco after Spain pulled out in 1975.

A political process aimed at determining the future of the territory has been at an impasse for many years. In 1991, the U.N. brokered a ceasefire to end the armed conflict between Morocco and the Polisario Front, the Algeria-based Sahrawi independence movement, which erupted in 1976.

But while a referendum on self-determination for Western Sahara, in which the Sahrawi people would choose between independence, autonomy and integration, was promised in the 1990s, Morocco has prevented the poll from taking place.

On Thursday, students grouped in the "university platform for support for the Sahara" organised a demonstration outside the foreign ministry in downtown Madrid, as part of a series of activities calling for the territory's self-determination that began Mar. 15.

The theme of the students' activities is "Camping for the Sahara: 35 years is enough; freedom for the Sahrawi people" - a reference to this year's anniversary of the withdrawal of Spanish troops from the Western Sahara and the occupation by Morocco.

Mrs. Ramdan pointed out to IPS that the Polisario Front has respected the ceasefire and sees the U.N.'s proposed solution as positive.

But, she added, "the problem still lies in Morocco, where the king is not in favour of allowing the Sahrawi people to decide by means of a referendum."

Ross, a U.S. diplomat who U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed as his personal envoy for Western Sahara in January 2009, said "the negotiations…have stalled and we are all called to think and find the best way out of this impasse."

But he also told reporters "I remain convinced that with good faith all will be reached soon to resolve this problem."

Ross met with Sahrawi president-in-exile Mohammed Abdelaziz at a Sahrawi refugee camp in Tindouf province, Algeria; Mauritania's President Mohammed Ould Abdel Aziz; Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika; and Morocco's King Mohammed VI.

Ramdan said that while the U.N. resolution for a referendum is positive, "Morocco has shown that it neither respects the U.N. nor complies with the Security Council resolutions."

She was referring to a 2003 resolution known as the Baker Plan II, which envisioned Sahrawi self-rule under a Western Sahara Authority for a period of five years, to be followed by a referendum on independence, and a later 2007 resolution.

The Sahrawi activist said it is indispensable for the U.N. to make Rabat live up to the Security Council resolutions on the Western Sahara, "especially given the fact that they are supported by all of the nations involved directly or indirectly, with the exception of Morocco."

Although the Western Sahara has rich phosphate deposits, fisheries and offshore oil reserves, it is an undeveloped, poverty-stricken territory.

Some 200,000 Sahrawi people live in the refugee camps in Tindouf province, Algeria, near the Moroccan border, where both jobs and water are scarce and summer temperatures soar to 50 degrees Celsius.

The refugee camps visited by Ross will receive another group of visitors between Mar. 28 and Apr. 3 - this time hundreds of mainly young activistsresponding to a call by two Spanish student groups, Voluntad y Determinación (Will and Determination) and Conciencia Saharaui (Sahrawi Conscience or Awareness).

The activists' trip to the camps, under the slogan "Column 2010: Let's knock down the wall and build freedom", is aimed at sending out the message that it is time to find a fair resolution to the conflict, to allow the Sahrawi people to return to their territory and live in freedom.

During the visit, the activists will march along part of the "Moroccan wall" or "wall of shame", a 2,500-km sand embankment built by Morocco in the 1980s, that separates the Moroccan-controlled areas and the Polisario-controlled section of Western Sahara.

INTERNATIOANL CONFERENCE OF SOLIDARITY WITH THE SAHARAWI WOMEN

The Second International Conference of solidarity with Saharawi Women held under the motto of " Woman and Resistance" which has taken place in the Saharawi Refugee Camps from March 20th to 22nd where a huge number of foreign delegations have participated mainly from Africa, Europe and both Americas has adopted important decitions among them the need of strenghthening the relationship among the whole women´s organizations and to help the saharawi women in all the fields mainly in the international arena.

Winnie Mandela was one off the participants in this historical event of solidarity with the saharawi women. In her intervention in the symposium the historial southafrican woman leader said that she will led the international support and solidarity with the women from the last african colony: Western sahara, and will deploy a great campaign all over the world on the saharawi people´s struggle for peace and justice.

The participants sent the following letter to the president of the Commission of the African Union.

Mr. President

We, the women participating in the Second Annual International meeting of Solidarity with the struggle of the Sahrawi women for their right to self-determination and independence, which takes place in the Sahrawi refugee camps under the theme "Women and resistance," in the presence of women from different continents, while expressing our support for the struggle of the Sahrawi women and people, we call upon the African Union to intervene to complete the liberation of the African continent by decolonizing one of its full fledged members, a found of the African Union and last African colony through the organization of a free, democratic and fair referendum to enable the Sahrawi people to exercise its inalienable right to self-determination, granted him by the international conventions, especially the Charters of the United Nations and African Union.

Mr. President

The meeting is held under deep concern to Sahrawis about the human rights situation in the occupied territories of Western Sahara and southern Morocco, in particular the deteriorating situation of human rights activists on hanger strike in Sale prison to demand their release or a fair trial.

We urge you to urgently intercede with the Moroccan state to release all those detained Sahrawi political prisoners in Moroccan prisons and unveil the fate of hundreds of missing persons and prisoners of war still unaccounted for.

We urge you and the international community to exert pressure on the Moroccan regime to comply with the international legitimacy and stop its ongoing human rights violations against Sahrawis, documented by credible international organizations and bodies, through expanding the mandate of the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara to include the monitoring and reporting on the situation of human rights in the region. We also demand the immediate cessation of the illegal looting of natural resources of Western Sahara and dismantlement of the wall of shame and humiliation, which divides the Saharawi people and its land and contaminates the environment with millions of anti-personnel mines, thus constituting a crime against humanity and nature.

Mr. President

The independence, stability and progress of the African continent is above all a responsibility of Africa, a requirement that can only be achieved through the contribution to solve the question of Western Sahara by decolonizing it, via the organization of a free and democratic referendum, where the Sahrawi people can choose their own future and thus turn the last page of the history of colonialism in our continent and contribute to its growth and its women work side by side with their sisters in Africa to erase the vestiges of colonialism and lead their peoples to a better future.