Moroccans in Tunisia denounce Algerian president hostile statements

The Moroccan community living in Tunisia vehemently denounced the statements Algerian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika made to the Tunisian weekly "Realites" harming the territorial integrity of Morocco.

In a communique, president of the Moroccan workers and traders association in Tunisia, Mohamed Achbar said the Algerian president statements hurt the patriotic feelings of all Moroccans attached to the Moroccanity of the Sahara.

Algeria has been backing the separatist "Polisario" movement that claims the separation of the Moroccan Southern provinces know as the Sahara, from the motherland.

The movement and Algeria have lured out of the Sahara thousands of Sahrawis into camps in Southern-West Algeria where they are kept sequestrated since 1975 when Morocco retrieved its Southern provinces under the Madrid accords.

The statements contain falsehoods and the Sahara will remain Moroccan, the communiquŽ said, adding the statements undermine the efforts made to build the Arab Maghreb Union (UMA - that muster Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya), as well as relations between Morocco and Algeria.

In the interview to "Realites," the Algerian president said the Sahara conflict is as old as that of East Timor and Brunei, "all of them falling under decolonisation" and "the Maghreban process has nothing to do with this conflict that opposes Morocco and the 'Polisario' front."

Meanwhile, reliable sources said thousands of Sahrawis in Tindouf camps continue demonstrations to protest repression and famine in the camps that are circled by the Algerian armed forces.

The witnesses, who arrived in the Mauritanian capital, Nouakchott, said demonstrators have been chanting slogans against "Polisario" leaders and the intervention of the Algerian forces.

The demonstrators are asking for an immediate solution to the Sahara issue and the stepping down of several "Polisario" leaders they accuse of misappropriating the humanitarian aid destined to the camps inhabitants.

TAP