Re: Aid child POWs

So, I take it you STILL have nothing from any mainstream human rights groups
to support this bullshit -- absolutely nothing from Amnesty International,
Human Rights Watch or the UNHRC. It seems they won't touch it with the
provervbial ten-foot pole! Why is that, Mr. Lobbyist?

Dan
Visit my CUBA: Issues & Answers website at
http://www.netcom.ca/~dchris/CubaFAQ.html




"PL" <pl.nospam@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:4TRYe.2529$ss5.171072@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> Aid child POWs
> Published September 21, 2005
>
> In Miami on Monday, several congressmen met with a delegation of Western
> Sahrawi refugees who had spent years in Cuba as unwilling students of
> Fidel Castro's totalitarian regime. They had been sent there as children
> for Communist indoctrination by the Polisario Front, a left-leaning
> separatist group which has had a decades-long dispute with Morocco over
> the Western Sahara region and only just recently released 400 Moroccan
> POWs who had been held in captivity, some since the outbreak of
> hostilities in 1976. During the war, which ended in 1991, the Sahrawi
> refugees were forced to settle in Polisario-controlled camps in Tindouf,
> Algeria. The Miami delegation, which also met with the Editorial Board of
> this paper last week, represents those few who were able to escape the
> camps.
> Their life stories are worth recounting, if only in brief. Saadani Ma
> Oulainie was sent to Cuba when she was 8 after witnessing the torture of
> her father, a political prisoner. She remained in Cuba for 14 years on the
> Isle of Youth, where the Sahrawi students are held. When she was finally
> returned to the Polisario-controlled camps in 2003, she learned of the
> death of her father, whom she hadn't spoken with since her deportation. At
> age 10, Ghalli Bentaleb was separated from her father, who was a former
> Polisario member, and sent to study in Cuba for 13 years. She was returned
> to the Tindouf camps in 2002, from where she managed to escape with the
> help of her father. Tahar El Aoud was sent to Cuba when he was 15 and
> remained there for nine years, indoctrinated by the Cuban authorities in
> Marxist ideology and a healthy dose of anti-Americanism. "We were taught
> to hate America," he recounted. Many of the boys sent to Cuba were also
> forced to undergo military training.
> Estimates vary, but the Moroccan American Center for Policy, which is
> sponsored by the Moroccan government, says 3,000 Sahrawi children are
> still being held in Cuba and 350 to 400 more are sent there every year. By
> separating the families, the Algeria-backed Polisario maintains effective
> control of the Tindouf camps. For instance, should a father escape, he is
> almost guaranteed never to see his son or daughter again. All other
> political options are denied. As a 2002 State Department report said, "The
> Polisario reportedly restricts freedom of expression, peaceful assembly,
> association, and movement in its camps near Tindouf."
> The Polisario's release of the Moroccan POWs shows that it is sensitive
> to international pressure, especially when that pressure comes from
> Washington. Making it very clear to the Polisario that the forced
> deportation and indoctrination of children is unacceptable could go a long
> way toward obtaining their release and bringing an end to this abhorrent
> practice.
>
> Copyright © 2005 News World Communications, Inc.
>
> http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20050920-100459-8338r.htm
>
>



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