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ALGIERS. — The leader of the Western Sahara’s Polisario Front, Mohamed Abdelaziz, who died on Tuesday, will be buried today in a Polisario-controlled part of the former Spanish colony, an official told AFP. “On Friday (yesterday) the population will take a final look at its leader and the burial will take place on Saturday at Bir Lahlou in the liberated territories,” said Mohamed Keddad of the movement’s Committee on Foreign Affairs.
President Abdelaziz had been secretary- general of the group for most of its decades-long struggle to win independence for the former Spanish colony, but succumbed to a “long illness,” said Brahim Ghali, another Polisario official.
His body was expected to be displayed yesterday in a camp for Sahraoui refugees in Tindouf, 1 800km south-west of the Algerian capital Algiers, to allow delegations and foreign dignitaries to pay homage.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon called Abdelaziz “a central figure in the search for a solution to the Western Sahara conflict,” in a message of condolence to the Polisario, which was published by Algeria’s APS news agency.
An “important delegation” from Algeria would be at the ceremony, said Ghali.
Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika decreed eight days of mourning and opened a meeting of the Council of Ministers on Tuesday with a minute of silence in homage to Abdelaziz, according to state television.
Abdelaziz, who was in his late 60s, had led the Algeria-backed Polisario since 1976, three years after the group was founded to struggle for independence for the territory, which was annexed by Morocco in 1975.
Keddad said Abdelaziz would be the first leader to be buried in Polisario-controlled parts of the territory, which are separated from Moroccan-administered areas by a 2 200km sand wall and minefield created by Morocco in the 1980s.
The other tombs there belong to those “who fell in the fields of honour,” said Keddad.
Abdelaziz’s successor will be selected at an extraordinary conference within 40 days. The President of the Sahraoui National Council, Khatri Addouh, will lead the group in the interim, according to Polisario sources. — AFP.
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