RABAT: King Mohammed VI reacted angrily to international criticism of Morocco’s human rights record in the annexed Western Sahara on Wednesday, insisting the kingdom needed no lessons from anybody.
The king said the human rights situation was far worse in the small part of the former Spanish colony controlled by the pro-independence Polisario Front and in the refugee camps it runs in the Tindouf region of Algeria.
In a speech commemorating the so-called Green March of 1975 in which Morocco sent in tens of thousands of settlers to lay claim to the territory, the king reserved particular anger for Algiers, Rabat’s regional rival and the Polisario’s main backer.
Morocco would not be lectured to, “particularly by those who systematically trample on human rights,” he said, in a clear allusion to Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who sparked angry protests in the kingdom’s economic capital Casablanca last week with a speech hitting out at its policies in the Western Sahara.
“Anybody who takes issue with Morocco only has to go down to Tindouf and check the numerous human rights violations in the surrounding area,” he said in allusion to the Sahrawi refugee camps around the Algerian oasis town.
The king made veiled criticism of the US move in his speech, which came less than a week before a visit to Rabat by US Secretary of State John Kerry on a tour that will also take him to Algiers.
“Is there a crisis of confidence between Morocco and certain decision-makers in its strategic partners on the human rights issue,” he asked.
AFP
