Early start to Sahara march

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33978, 20 October 1975, Page 17

Early start to Sahara march

(New Zealand Press Association-—Copyright) RABAT, October 19. The first contingent of people taking part in a “peace march” from Morocco into Spanish Sahara will set out on Tuesday for the border area rallying point, it was reported last night according to Agence France-Presse.

Some 20,000 people, including 2000 women, will set out from Ksar es Souk, a town to the south of Marrakesh. They expect to reach the Atlantic coast town of Tarfaya, close to the border with Spanish Sahara, three days later. Altogether, some 350,000 unarmed people, a tenth of them to be women, are supposed to gather at Tarfaya to march into the Spanish [territory.

The procession, also being called the “green march,” has been proposed by King Hassan. No date has yet been given for when the marchers will cross the frontier.

N.Z.P.A.-Reuter reported that a Saharan political leader today said that the people of the disputed territory would use force if necessary to block the march of Moroccans into the Spanish Sahara, according to the Spanish news agency, Europa Press, in Madrid. The president of the teriritory’s General Assembly, a local representative body, said that his people would meet the Moroccans at the frontier, the agency said in a dispatch from the Saharan capital of El Aaiun. “From the moment they got news of the call from King Hassan the people of the Sahara have been calling on me and we have been asking the Spanish Government for arms to defend our frontiers,” President Jatri told the agency.

“The Saharans will never stand idle with their arms crossed in the face of our only enemy, the Moroccans. We will fight to the death for our objective, which is independence,” he said.