Morocco is denounced for manipulating the III World Forum on Human Rights to justify the illegal occupation of Western Sahara

Denuncian a Marruecos por manipular III Foro Mundial de DDHH para justificar ocupación ilegal del Sáhara Occidental

Latin America and the Caribbean, February 15, 2023

ETHICAL, POLITICAL AND LEGAL CONTRADICTIONS OF A PRE-FORUM ON HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE HUMAN RIGHTS PRE-FORUM IN THE KINGDOM OF MOROCCO

INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC STATEMENT OF THE LATIN AMERICAN AND CARIBBEAN PLATFORM OF SOLIDARITY WITH THE SAHARAWI PEOPLE. (PLACSO)

Considering:

That a Pre-Forum will be held in Rabat, Morocco, on 17 and 18 February, in the framework of the 3rd World Forum on Human Rights, which will take place in Buenos Aires, Argentina, from 20 to 24 March 2023.

That we understand that the Human Rights Forums and Pre-Forums are spaces for civil society organisations, including associations and committees of friendship and solidarity with the Saharawi people, to expose our causes and weave alliances for the promotion and defence of human rights, regionally and globally.

We denounce:

That the Kingdom of Morocco maintains an invasion of the territory of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic, SADR, since 1975, in open violation of international law as expressed in the Charter of the United Nations and the Statute of the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

That this monarchic, feudal and authoritarian regime has maintained a policy of serious and systematic violations of the human rights of the Saharawi people denounced in the Security Council, the General Assembly and its Fourth Committee, the Special Committee on Decolonisation and the Human Rights Council of the United Nations, as well as in the organs of the African Union and the European Union, and that it is still today resisting the usurpation of the territories that have been dispossessed.

That under the same condition of invader, the Kingdom of Morocco maintains a daily plundering of the natural resources of Western Sahara for its own benefit, without the consent of the Saharawi people, depriving them of the means to sustain a life in dignity.

That the Kingdom of Morocco is in open contempt of around eighty resolutions of the United Nations, the African Union and the European Union, international bodies which have demanded that the process of decolonisation of Western Sahara, the last colony in Africa, be completed and that the Saharawi people be allowed to decide on their self-determination and independence, with the holding of a referendum that should have been held in 1992, the implementation of which has been obstructed and boycotted constantly by the feudal Moroccan regime.

That the Kingdom of Morocco has built what is known as the “Wall of Shame”, a wall of more than 2,700 km across Western Sahara, preventing the Saharawi people from recovering their territories, as well as dividing their families for decades.

That the “Wall of Shame” contains more than eight million anti-personnel mines along its entire length, a military infrastructure that violates international human rights treaties and international humanitarian law, as more than two and a half thousand people have been injured, maimed or killed since 1975.

That currently the Kingdom of Morocco maintains an irrational military offensive against the POLISARIO Front, the national liberation movement fighting for self-determination and independence of Western Sahara, which few media analyse and report on, due to the silence imposed by the Moroccan feudal monarchy, using for this purpose the natural resources plundered from the Saharawi people.

That the war of the Moroccan feudal monarchy against Western Sahara is not only fought in the military sphere, but also in the economic, political, social and symbolic spheres, preventing the Saharawi people from having access to work, health and education, outlawing their customs and practices and establishing settlers in the Occupied Territories in Western Sahara.

That the attitude of the International Centre for the Promotion of Human Rights (ICPDH) in organising a Pre-Forum in a country that has never respected human rights, not only in Western Sahara illegally occupied by this feudal monarchy, but in the Kingdom of Morocco itself, is not only an aberration and international political blunder, but becomes a defiant attempt to whitewash the image of this feudal monarchy and its international responsibility for gross and systematic human rights violations.

That the Argentine Republic, which is a member of the Human Rights Council and which attaches significant importance and priority to the work of the United Nations Special Committee on Decolonisation, cannot and should not, under any circumstances, promote and/or accept the holding of events for the promotion and defence of human rights in countries that systematically violate them, as is the case of the Moroccan regime.

Antonio Velázquez Abdallahy
Amigos por un Sáhara Libre, México

Esteban Silva Cuadra
Asociación Chilena de Amistad con la RASD, Chile

Katheryne Aldana Villalobos
Asociación Colombiana de Amistad con el Pueblo Saharaui, Colombia

María José Maninha
Associação de Solidariedade e pela Autodeterminação do Povo Saaraui (ASAARAUI), Brasil

Susana Peñafiel Acosta
Asociación Ecuatoriana de Amistad con el Pueblo Saharaui (AEAPS), Ecuador

Erick Romero
Asociación Hondureña de Amistad con la RASD, Honduras

Magdalena Enríquez Beitler
Asociación Nicaragüense de Solidaridad y Amistad con el Pueblo Saharaui (ANSAPS), Nicaragua

Gloria Esther Castillo
Asociación Panameña de Solidaridad con la Causa Saharaui (APASOCASA), Panamá

Ricardo Fuentes Gómez
Asociación Mexicana de Amistad con la RASD, México

Emiliano Gómez López
Asociación Uruguaya de Amistad con la República Saharaui, Uruguay

Marisol Formoso
Asociación Venezolana de Solidaridad con el Sáhara (ASOVESSA), Venezuela

Nora Podesta
Comité de Amistad con el Pueblo Saharaui, Argentina

Néstor A. Suleiman
Comité de Cooperación Latinoamericano Saharaui, Argentina

José Manuel Félix
Comité Dominicano de Amistad con el Pueblo Saharaui, República Dominicana

Lirio Reyes De Lorza
Fundación Sáhara Libre-Venezuela

Aida García Naranjo M.
Grupo Impulsor de la Asociación Peruana de Amistad con la RASD, Perú

Ximena Flores Castro
Red Ciudadana Bolivia con el Sáhara, Bolivia

Adhesiones Organizaciones:

Simplicio del Rosario García
Asociación Canaria de Juristas por la Paz y los Derechos Humanos (JUPADEHU), España

Mariano Vázquez
Asociación Federico García Lorca, Argentina

Ma. Inés Miranda Navarro
Asociación Internacional de Juristas por el Sáhara Occidental (IAJUWS), España

Pablo A. de la Vega M.
Asociación Internacional de Juristas por el Sáhara Occidental (IAJUWS), Ecuador

Rosa Salazar
Asociación Nela Martínez (Federación Democrática Internacional de Mujeres,
FDIM Ecuador), Ecuador

Efrén Mantilla
Canal Digital Hechos Ecuador, Ecuador

Yolanda Soruco
Casa de la Amistad Revolucionaria Bolivia-Venezuela, Venezuela

Penélope Alsina
Cátedra Libre de la Mujer María León Gibory de la Universidad Nacional Experimental Simón Rodríguez, Venezuela

Ramón López
Central Clasista de Trabajadores de Chile, Chile

Fito Aguirre
Central de Trabajadores de la Argentina, CTA-Autónoma, Argentina

Ricardo Klapp
Centro Cultural de Derechos Humanos Salvador Allende, Chile

Tania Zabala Penafiel
Centro de Documentación en Derechos Humanos “Segundo Montes Mozo S.J.” (CSMM), Ecuador

Horacio Nobúa
Centro de Estudios y Pensamiento Comunitario, Óscar Goyena, Argentina

Rey Castillo
Círculo de Profesionales Demóstenes Rodríguez (CPDR), Panamá

Vladimir Andocilla R.
Colectivo de Derechos Humanos Kintyñan, Ecuador

Adriana López
Colectivo Espisahara, España

Manuel Mercedes Medina
Comisión Nacional de los Derechos Humanos – República Dominicana

Billy Navarrete
Comité Permanente por la Defensa de los Derechos Humanos (CDH), Ecuador

José Quinteros
Comité Salvador Allende, Venezuela

Mesías Tatamuez Moreno
Confederación Ecuatoriana de Organizaciones Clasistas Unitarias de Trabajadores (CEDOCUT), Ecuador

Edwin Bedoya
CEDOCUT Pichincha, Ecuador

Julio Fuentes
Confederación Latinoamericana y del caribe de Trabajadores Estatales, Argentina

Yumac Ortiz
Coordinadora por la Paz, la Soberanía, la Integración y la No Injerencia (CPAZ), Ecuador

Federico Andrés Lopardo
Corriente Nuestra Patria, Argentina

Diana Esperanza Gambelli
Dabeekah Danza y Tuiza Danza Saharaui, Argentina

Isabel Bandrés Gallego
Federación Andaluza de Asociaciones Solidarias con el Sáhara, España

Nery Padilla
Federación de Estudiantes Universitarios del Ecuador (FEUE), Ecuador

Stella Maris Tati Vuillermet
Foro de Géneros, Argentina

Rosalinda Chanagá
Foro Itinerante, Venezuela

Nelson Erazo
Frente Popular, Ecuador
Confederación Unitaria de Comerciantes Minoristas y Trabajadores Autónomos del Ecuador (CUCOMITAE)
Federación de Estudiantes Secundarios del Ecuador (FESE)
Federación de Estudiantes Universitarios del Ecuador (FEUE)
Federación Única de Afiliados al Seguro Social Campesino (FEUNASSC)
Juventud Revolucionaria del Ecuador (JRE)
Mujeres por el Cambio
Unión General de Trabajadores del Ecuador (UGTE)
Unión Nacional de Educadores del Ecuador (UNE)

Diana Fernández Romero
Frontera Cero, España

Claudia Iriarte R.
Fundación Constituyente XXI, Chile

Virginia King
Fundación Latinoamericana por la Defensa de los Derechos Humanos y el Desarrollo Social, FUNDALATIN, Capítulo Argentina

Pablo Sepúlveda Allende
Fundación Latinoamericana Dr. Salvador Allende, Chile

Hugo Sergio Loschacoff
Grupo Por Soberanía (GPS)-Línea Fundadora, Argentina

Iris Avellaneda
Liga Argentina por los Derechos Humanos, Argentina

Luis Enrique Gavazut
Movimiento de Batalla Social Punta de Lanza, Venezuela

Milagros Sefair
Movimiento Internacional de Escritoras y Escritores por la Libertad, MIEL, Argentina

Paola Gallo y Andrea Vlahusik
Movimiento por la Paz, la Soberanía y la Solidaridad (MOPASSOL), Argentina

Clara Merino
Movimiento Nacional de Mujeres de Sectores Populares Luna Creciente, Ecuador

Florangel Valdez
Mujeres por la Verdad y la Justicia (MUVERJUST), Venezuela

Iván Prado
Pallasos en Rebeldía, España

Conrado Cuevas
Partido Comunista de Panamá, Panamá

Irina Santesteban
Partido de la Liberación (PL) de Argentina

Fabián Saldavia
Partido Igualar, Argentina

Darío Iza
Pueblo Kitu Kara, ECUARUNARI (Filial CONAIE), Ecuador

Carlos Aznárez
Resumen Latinoamericano, Argentina

Mulay Ahmed
Sahrawi Association in the USA (SAUSA), Estados Unidos

Manuel Soli
Solidaridad Internacional, España

Fernanda Pereyra
Unión de Trabajadores de la Economía Popular (UTEP), Argentina

Edwin Sánchez
Universidad de la Tierra, Ecuador

Patricio Guzmán
Werken Rojo, Chile

Adhesiones Individuales:

1. Adriana Bruno, periodista, Argentina
2. Alicia Bustamante, artista, Argentina
3. Annabell Guerrero Pita, abogada, Ecuador
4. Atilio Borón, politólogo y escritor, Argentina
5. Fernando Cabascango Collaguazo, asambleísta por la Provincia de Pichincha, Ecuador
6. Fernando Cebamanos Md., Panamá
7. Gustavo Daniel Pescetta, Programa “S.O.S Señal de Radio”, Radio Futura 90.5, La Plata, Argentina
8. Javier Surasky, profesor de Derecho Internacional Público, Argentina
9. José Leonar Botero Martínez, académico, Colombia
10. Juan Contreras, Radio Al Son del 23 y Ex Diputado del PSUV, Venezuela
11. Juan Ramón Guzmán, poeta, editor y articulista político, Venezuela
12. Karina Silvana Krenn, escritora, Argentina
13. Ketty Erazo, activista y defensora de derechos humanos, Ecuador
14. Luis Ávila Linzán, abogado, Ecuador
15. Luz Marina Mateo, abogada internacionalista y docente universitaria, Argentina
16. María Alejandra Korstanje, profesora de la Universidad Nacional de Tucumán e investigadora del CONICET, Argentina
17. María Florencia Ronco, contadora pública nacional, Argentina
18. María Torrellas, documentalista, Argentina
19. Mariadela Villanueva, socióloga y comunicadora, Venezuela
20. Mariano Ali, periodista y antropólogo, Argentina
21. Maribel Lacave, escritora, Argentina
22. Mariel Luján Fernández, abogada, La Plata, Argentina
23. Mireya Pazmiño Arregui, asambleísta por la Provincia de Bolívar, Ecuador
24. Miriam Catan, obrera, Argentina
25. Natalia Köhler, trabajadora autónoma y estudiante universitaria, Argentina
26. Nora Cortiñas, Madre de Plaza de Mayo L.F., Argentina
27. Norman Briski, actor y dramaturgo, Argentina
28. Piedad Córdoba Ruiz, senadora, Colombia
29. Rosana Palacios Barriga, educadora y dirigente sindical, Ecuador
30. Sebastián Salgado, periodista, Argentina
31. Stella Calloni, periodista y escritora, Argentina
32. Teresa Perri Pelle, poeta, Argentina
33. Verónica Raffaelli, fotoperiodista y docente universitaria, Argentina