WE CONDEMN ENERGETICALLY THE EUROPEAN´S KIDNAPING IN THE SAHARAWI REFUGEE CAMPS

On behalf of the whole people of Western Sahara and particularly on their Women, we condemn energetically the week-end´s kidnaping of three european aid-workers in the peaceful refugee camps in sothern- algeria.

The Saharawi Women want to express their total solidarity with the families and friends of the aid workers kidnaped by the terrorists:Ms AINOA FERNADEZ DE RINCÓN, Spanish and member of the Association of Friends of the Sahrawi people in Extremadura, Spain, Mr. ENRIC GONYALONS, Spanish from the NGO, MUNDUBAT, Spain, and Ms. ROSSELLA URRU, Italian from the NGO, CISP, from Italy .

We underlines that such terrorist attack is not  aiming to terrorize the hundreds of foreigners and aid workers  but also for jeopardizing the international solidarity with the refugee people of Western sahara and their just struggle for peace and justice in the Africa´s last colony.

 “Since the treacherous kidnapping carried out by a terrorist group on three European cooperators working in the humanitarian field in the Saharawi refugee camps on Saturday October 22, the government of the Saharawi Republic and Polisario Front quickly made intensive efforts and contacted with countries of the Region to coordination and cooperation,” indicated a new statement issued Monday by the Saharawi Ministry of Information.

“While the Sahrawi Government reaffirms its strong condemnation to the cowardly abduction, it calls on states of the region and the world to continue and intensify the coordination, cooperation and working together in order to end this tragedy, as soon as possible,” the statement wrote.

Saharawi women launch an urgent appeal to the UN and the European Government to put pressure on the moroccan regime to implement the international resolutions on the problem of decolonization of Western Sahara which call for a free and fair referendum in Western Sahara.

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SAHARAWI PEOPLE CELEBRATES THE NATIONAL UNITY DAY

Saharawi Women express their deepest congratulations to the whole people of the Africa´s last colony for the celebration of the Saharawi National Day.

As every year, on October 12th, the whole people of Western Sahara has conmemorated yesterday one of his most important holidays: the National Unity Day.

The Saharawi people has celebrated Wednesday the double anniversaries 36th of the Declaration of National Unity in 1975 and first of the establishment of Gdeim Izik camp on 2010, in the presence of the President of the Republic, Mr. Mohamed Abdelaziz, along with members of the National Secretariat and SADR government, in addition to national and foreign delegations.

In his speech on the occasion, Mr. Babia Shia, minister of transport and chairman of the preparatory committee, stressed that the celebration of the National Unity Day “is an opportunity to evoke the sacrifices of the parents in order to close ranks and abort the colonial attempts to split the Saharawi society, as well as to meet the legitimate demands of our people for freedom and independence.”

The ceremony was marked by presenting testimonies of eyewitnesses who attended the historic meeting in Ein Bentili on October 12, 1975. These testimonies confirmed the importance of the event in formulating the unity and cohesion of the Saharawi people in face of the colonial attempts aiming to suppress the Saharawi identity, reaffirming adherence of the Saharawis to the Frente Polisario “as a sole and legitimate representative of the Saharawi people.”

The event, which was held Wednesday morning at the February 27th School (Saharawi refugee camps), was attended by foreign delegations participating in the annual International Encounter of Art in Western Sahara (acronym ARTIFARITI), delegation comprising 40 human rights activists from the occupied Western Sahara and representatives of national, Algerian and Spanish media. (SPS)

It is important to remember that on October 12, 1975, the national liberation movement, Polisario Front gathered a large number of Saharawi tribal elders in a conference in Ain Ben Tili to rally the tribes against impending Moroccan and Mauritanian invasion. The timing was intended to predate the October 16 Green March that staked Morocco's claim to what was then Spanish Sahara. The meeting resulted in a declaration of support from the tribes to Polisario, including by many from the pro-Spanish PUNS party and the Djema'a. As a result of the Ain Ben Tili gathering, a conference by the Djema'a was organized in Guelta Zemmur on November 28, where the Djema'a dissolved itself after declaring support to Polisario.

Since 1976, the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic celebrates October 12 as National Unity Day.

A delegation of 40 Sahrawi human rights activists representing the Sahrawi occupied territories, south of Morocco and university arrived Tuesday in the Saharawi refugee camps to take part in the festivities commemorating the double anniversary of National Unity Day and the establishment of Gdeim Izik camp .

“This anniversary is being held this year under exceptional circumstances on the light of regional and international developments, which reiterated the adherence of the Saharawi people to the national unity and to the Polisario Front as “a sole legitimate representative of the Saharawi people,” the human rights activist and former Saharawi political prisoner, Hamadi Nasiri, told SPS.

“Our presence here is to reaffirm commitment to our people and their struggle for national liberation and to abort the Moroccan attempts aiming to divide the Sahrawi people,” added Nasiri.

The Saharawi female activist, Ghalia Joumani, noted that coincidence of the anniversary of National Unity and Gdeim Izik camp “is a strong message to the international community that there are people still determined to recover their usurped rights.”

THREE WOMEN WIN THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE

The Women from the Africa´s last colony: Western Sahara, express their warmest congratulations to the three women from developing countries for wining the Peace Nobel Prize 2011 and also would like to express  their deepest gratitude to the tnternational jury for chossing these three prominent women from developing countries, Liberia and Yemen.

The Nobel Peace Prize for 2011 was awarded on Friday, ocotber 7th, to three women from Africa and the Arab world in acknowledgment of their non-violent role in promoting peace, democracy and gender equality. The winners were President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia — the first woman to be elected president in modern Africa — her compatriot, the peace activist Leymah Gbowee, and Tawakkol Karman of Yemen, a pro-democracy campaigner.

 ELLEN JOHNSON SIRLEAF: -- Johnson-Sirleaf earned the nickname "Iron Lady" by challenging warlord Charles Taylor for the presidency in 1997 during Liberia's brutal civil war. She lost by a landslide, but that never shook her resolve.
-- She won the 2005 presidential runoff against soccer icon George Weah, who alleged fraud although the polls received a clean bill of health from observers. She was sworn in as Africa's first elected female head of state in January 2006.
-- Johnson-Sirleaf vowed to create a "government of inclusion" to heal the wounds of war and toured the streets to win over Liberia's poor youth, many of them former child soldiers who believe Weah was cheated.
-- In January 2010, she went back on her campaign promise to be president for only one term when she announced she would contest the 2011 presidential election, to be held on October 11.
-- She has won widespread international praise for her work rebuilding Liberia, but is still struggling to convince many in the country that change is coming fast enough.
-- Born Ellen Euphemia Johnson in October 1938, she grew up in Monrovia and attended Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government where she obtained a Master's Degree in Public Administration in 1971.
* LEYMAH GBOWEE:
-- Leymah Gbowee, 39, mobilized and organized women across ethnic and religious divides to help bring an end to the war in Liberia and to ensure women's participation in elections.
-- Following the 2003 peace treaty, her network mobilized women to vote and was instrumental in the victory of Johnson-Sirleaf.
-- Since 2004, Gbowee has served as a commissioner on Liberia's Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
-- Since 2006, Gbowee has been executive director of Women in Peace and Security Network - Africa, an organization that works with women in Liberia, the Ivory Coast, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone to promote peace, literacy, and electoral politics.
* TAWAKUL KARMAN:
-- Both before and during the "Arab Spring," Tawakul Karman, 32, has played a leading part in the struggle for women's rights and for democracy and peace in Yemen, the prize committee said.
-- Founder in 2005 and chairwoman of Women Journalists without Chains, Tawakul Karman is a Yemeni journalist and activist who has devoted herself to the fight for media freedom. She is also a member of the Islamist party Islah Was.
-- A thorn in the side of the government, she was briefly arrested early this year after leading protests against autocratic Arab rulers.
-- She vowed in February to galvanize a youth-led uprising against President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has ruled Yemen for 33 years.
-- "We started rallies before Tunisia's revolution and were demanding reforms and other rights. But after Tunisia, we realized the solution is for this regime to go," Karman said.
Sources: Reuters/
It is also very important to remember that the people of Western Sahara was the first arab and african people to begin the so-called now as the "Arab Spring", when more than 20.000 saharawis organized a peaceful camps near the Wesgtern Sahara´s capital, the occupied Laayoune (El-AAiun), for demanding their socual, economic and political rights and protesting against the illegal occupation of the moroccan troops in their country: Western sahara and they also ask to implement the United Nations´s resolution forWestern Sahara mainly demanding a free and fair referendum for the people of Western Sahara.