Zwelivelile Mandela, grandson of the late South African leader, Nelson Mandela, began Tuesday a one-day visit to the Sahrawi refugee camps.
In a statement to the media after his meeting with the Secretary General of the Polisario Front, Brahim Ghali, Mr. Zwelivelile Mandela said that “the struggle of the Saharawi people has become a key basis for the policies of the South African government.I am here for the second time to express once again my deep solidarity with your struggle for freedom and independence,” he said, adding that the struggle of the Saharawi people was a source of inspiration for the South African people in their fight against apartheid.
Nelson Mandela’s grandson said that “the achievements and bravery of the Saharawis made it possible to seize the tanks of the apartheid regime, which were offered to the Moroccan regime,” adding that the “proof still exists for everyone to see, the proof that you keep in the Museum of Resistance, in addition to some tanks that still carry the apartheid flag.
He also deplored the fact that “no real concrete progress has been made towards the liberation of the last colony in Africa”.
“The United Nations has repeatedly extended the mandates of its mission in Western Sahara, the task of which is the completion of the liberation of the territory of the SADR, but Morocco still maintains its claims contrary to international legality and history, claiming sovereignty over the Sahrawi Republic, which is contrary to international law,” he argued.
Morocco ” still continues its repression and barbaric aggression against Sahrawi political detainees, in violation of the Geneva Convention, international conventions and international humanitarian law”, added Mr. Zwelivelile, who noted that some of these political detainees have been subjected to torture and harassment inside Moroccan prisons for more than two or three decades.
Mr Zwelivelile Mandela pledged to the Saharawi people to continue to support the Saharawi people’s struggle for freedom in all arenas, internally and externally.
For his part, the Sahrawi ambassador to South Africa, Mohamed Yeslem Beiset said in a statement to the press at the end of the meeting of the Secretary General of the Polisario Front, Brahim Ghali with Mr. Zwelivelile Mandela, that this meeting with the Sahrawi president was focused on the Sahrawi relations with the State of South Africa and the prospects of solidarity actions of this state to the benefit of the Sahrawi people.
The meeting was, according to the Saharawi official, “an opportunity for the Secretary General of the Polisario Front to update the grandson of the South African leader, Nelson Mandela, on the latest developments in the just struggle of the Saharawi people at the regional and international levels, and on the peace efforts undertaken by the UN.
