Tindouf camps : Mustapha Salma says to be victim of the Algerian arbitrary authority

After six months of stand-by in Nouakchott, the Sahrawi militant, Mustapha Salma Ould Sidi Mouloud comes back up to the surface. He has started on Wednesday 1st June, an open sit-in in front of the United Nations Agency for refugees (HCR). He wants thus to protest against the “arbitrary” decision of the Algerian authority forbidding him to return home in Tindouf camps. Settled temporarily by the HCR in the Mauritanian capital, the former police executive of the Polisario has ended by cracking up after having waited for long months without any slightest hope to be able to rejoin his wife and his five children who are waiting for him in Tindouf camps in the South-West of Algeria. At present, he requires that HCR in Geneva puts an end to his painful agony by putting pressure on Algiers authorities so that he may be allowed to see his family. The day following the announcement of Mustapha Salma sit-in, the Forum for the support of Tindouf autonomists (Forsatin) has made a press conference in Rabat, during which the members of the Forum have expressed their total solidarity with the Sahrawi militant. Frosatin reiterates its call to the humanitarian associations and human rights international NGOs to support Mustapha Salma’s right to return home and to be with his children and family in Tindouf camps.

Kidnapped by the Polisario separatists militia while he was on his way to Tindouf, returning from a travel to the Moroccan city Smara, in August 2010, Mustapha Salma Ould Sidi Mouloud was imprisoned in the Algerian desert, blindfolfed with tied up hands during 71 days. His only fault is to have announced publicly his approval of the Moroccan autonomy proposal and his willingness to defend it when he returns to the camps. The Sahrawi militant has stated that his destiny is between the hands of the HCR, knowing that the latter, till this date, has shown all weakness in front of the Polisario dictate and the generals, its protectors and advisers within the Algerian regime. It was unable to reach a solution to this humanitarian case. One month after his release on 21st September 2010, Mustapha Salma has reiterated in his declarations to the press, his determination to continue holding on to his right to return to Tindouf to meet his family. “My children, has he declared, are in Tindouf camps and as they do not have passports, they can not join me”. The inhabitants of these camps, he supports, live under a double authority, an Algerian one and that of the Polisario which is imposed to them by Algiers authority. They do not have the right to move, travel or express themselves freely.

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