Press Releases Letter to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Diplomatic Visit to Morocco November 7, 2013 Secretary of State John Kerry U.S. Department of State 2201 C Street NW Washington, DC 20520 Dear Secretary Kerry: We write you concerning your diplomatic visit to Morocco on November 7th as well as the forthcoming visit of King Mohammed VI to Washington on November 13th. We believe it is imperative for the human rights record of the Moroccan government to be a top diplomatic priority for the U.S. government. As you know, Western Sahara has been occupied by Morocco since 1975, despite the fact that the United Nations and the large majority of countries have never recognized Morocco’s sovereignty over the area. The referendum allowing the Sahrawi people the opportunity to exercise their right to self-determination was promised in 1991 by Morocco and the international community and to this day that promise has not been fulfilled. We have both visited Western Sahara and the refugee camps in Algeria where thousands of Sahrawi live in exile. We have listened to first-hand accounts of numerous human rights violations perpetrated by the Moroccan state. We heard direct reports of enforced disappearances, torture, arbitrary arrests, police brutality, intimidation, surveillance, and beatings from many Sahrawi victims. These abuses continue unabated, in part, because there is no international group or mechanism on the ground to monitor violations. In addition to current violations of the rights of the Sahrawi, many crimes of the past remain unsolved. Recently mass graves of victims of the Moroccan occupation in the 1970s were discovered in Western Sahara by Spanish anthropologists. These mass graves are of great importance to the families of the disappeared. It is extremely important for Morocco to protect the mass graves in order to preserve the rights of these family members and in order for proper investigations to be carried out. The United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) is the only UN peacekeeping mission created since 1978 that does not include a mandate to track and report violations of human rights. Morocco has continuously blocked the creation of such a mechanism. This past spring the U.S. government played a critical role in the protection of the human rights of the Sahrawi by proposing a human rights monitoring mechanism be added to the MINURSO mandate. This proposal did not pass, but the chance will come up again, as the mandate is renewed annually. We thank you for the State Department’s ongoing commitment to addressing the human rights abuses Sahrawi people face, and ask you to urge the Moroccan government to accept a human rights mandate for MINURSO and to accede to the long-promised referendum to allow the Sahrawi people to exercise their right to self-determination. Sincerely, Kerry Kennedy President Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights Santiago Canton Director RFK Partners for Human Rights Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights
Posted on: Fri, 08 Nov 2013 13:18:20 +0000