General Abdelaziz Bennan, Commander of the Moroccan Armed Forces in the occupied Western Sahara, with the leader of the Monarchy, King Mohammed VI. WikiLeaks revealed U.S. support for the North African state.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos
ALGIERS, ALGERIA Dec 14 2010 07:35
The head of the Western Sahara's pro-independence force says the group will attend indirect talks with Morocco in December with a "hand extended for peace".
Mohamed Abdelaziz, leader of the Polisario Front, says he hopes Morocco will remove all obstacles to progress in negotiations at the informal U.N.-sponsored meeting Dec. 16-18 in Manhasset, in New York.
Abdelaziz spoke to reporters Monday outside a conference in Algiers.
Polisario refugee camps are located in southern Algeria.
Morocco wants autonomy for the Western Sahara which it annexed in 1975. But the Polisario chief reiterated his hope for a referendum on independence for Western Sahara.
A third round of negotiations was held in November.
Clashes and raids
The raid on a camp near Laayoune housing thousands of Sahrawis, who moved there to protest against their living conditions, was carried out on November 8, a few hours before a new round of talks between the Polisario, the main Western Sahara rebel group, and the Moroccan government started near New York.
Morocco said that 12 people died in clashes between protesters and the police, including 10 members of the security forces.
But the pro-independence Polisario said dozens of people died and more than 4 500 were wounded in the violence.
Cherkaoui said some Sahrawi protesters, whom he described as criminal gangs, "deliberately killed members of the security forces, used knives, Molotov cocktails and gas canisters" to start fires.
Morocco annexed the Western Sahara following the hasty withdrawal of colonial power Spain in the dying days of the regime of right-wing dictator Francisco Franco in 1975, sparking a war with the Polisario Front.
The two sides agreed on a ceasefire in 1991, but United Nations-sponsored talks on its future have since made no headway. -- Sapa-AP
Source: Mail & Guardian Online
Web Address: http://www.mg.co.za/article/2010-12-14-polisario-chief-extends-hand-to-morocco
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