Exclusive interview with Polisario leader THE BITTER WAR IN THE

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PART Is France still intervening directly in the struggle?

France has had a very retrograde, a very negative attitude towards the Saharoui people, given that it was one of the countries which voted for the principle of self determination for the Saharoui peopie.

We see not only the negative attitude of France towards ourselves, but we can characterise its whole policy in Africa as an aggressive policy of recolonisation of Africa. That is very dangerous.

We don't want to dictate to France what policy it should follow in Africa or anywhere else, but we do want to tell them how to behave with respect to ourselves.

Regrettably its position up to now has been to stimulate the aggression against Saharoui people and to intervene directly in this effort at physical extermination of our people.

Thanks to the determination of our people these plans have failed. France's links with Morocco and Mauritania are plain for everyone to see. It has an important influence with both regimes.

Up to now, since the Mauritanian coup d'etat, France has not intervened again militarily or upset the cease-fire.

In the case of Morocco, France has contracts for the sale of arms and these are still in force.

France is a country which could help to maintain peace, could offer co-operation and contribute to understanding between the countries of the region and France.

What countries have recognised the Sahara Republic?

There are great pressures from Mauritania and Morocco and from imperialism behind them, not to recognise our republic.

In spite of this up to now, there are about fifteen countries -twelve in Africa, two in Asia and one in Latin America. They are Madagascar, Mozambique, Angola, Sao Tome, GuineBissau, Benin, Togo, CongoBrazzaville, Algeria, Seychelles, Ruanda and Burundi. Also North Korea, the Democratic Republic of South Yemen, and finally Panama.

We hope now that more Latin American countries will recognise the republic, given the struggle of the Saharoui people and the fact that the aggression against us has been condemned throughout the world.

And the position of the Soviet Union and its allies, and China?

The Socialist bloc and China have always supported the self-determination of the Saharoui people-they have always supported the UN resolutions.

If up to now they haven't taken a clear position of recognising the republic, that is perhaps for tactical reasons; but up to now they have not recognised us.

Could you say something about the social composition of the Saharoui people?

Historically the Saharoui people has been a nomadic people, a poor people, an TWO oppressed people rights.

And it has never had privileged classes. There was never any of the economic development which could have produced layers with competing interests.

In Sahara we have had what we call the "council of the forty" composed of all the trbal chiefs and notables.

This was a democratically elected assembly which directed the policy of the whole Sahara. In the old times before the arrival of colonialism the tribal chiefs were elected democratically.

As a result of this heritage, a system which is democratic and egalitarian is nothing new in the Sahara.

This council led the various wars against tribes which tried to invade the Sahara and the sharing out of grazing land and of the agricultural zones when there was rain.

This institution was broken up by colonialism, because of its popular and just character. And the imperialists put in its place a system based on tribal divisions which benefitted some and disadvantaged others.

Polisario Front Revolutiona:

When the present struggie began the Saharoui people had no difficulty in regaining its national unity and regaining the democratic model which existed in Saharoui history.

What has happened is a very great evolution in this aspect and we can now say that our people today is no longer the people of nomads and tribes or the people which was subjected to colonialism and which was not conscious of its own reality.

The total number of our people is between 750,000 and 1 million.

How are the liberated areas organised?

Using the democratic heritage of the Saharoui people, we apply even during wartime policy of basic peoples congresses in which the whole people participate. Council What is the cities?

These discuss all problems of life, both national questions and day to day problems and elect their representatives. This is one of the most significant experiments of the Front in this field.

This experience is not only at the theoretical but also at the practical level.

Given the non existence of supplies, the people, depending on its own resources, provides building of study centres, supply of furniture and many items of traditional artisan There is a very great change in this field. In the organisational and administrative field also.

The role of Saharoui women was important in the struggle against Spanish colonialism.

This role has gone on expanding up to the point of direct participation in the armed struggle and complete management of the camps, where it's the women who carry out the administration, manage the hospitals, the teaching and the peoples' militias. That is to say women are now playing a vanguard role in the struggle of the Saharoui people.

situation of the No point in which the enemy lurks escapes the attention of our combatants. But the enemy still controls the most important cities, but we attack them constantly. There are also liberated cities under the control of the Polisario Front. And the phosphate mines?

We have made the installations of the mines of Bokra completely unusable, destroyed. After liberation will you nationalise the mines?

The only people who can decide what to do with the national wealth of the Sahara are the Saharoui people. This is true what ever aid comes from outside.

As to the future, at the moment the fundamental task for us is national liberation and Rosas nada afterwards the policies will be decided which start from the reality after independence.

For now we do not know exactly what this policy will be, except in general terms the demand that everyone respect the national sovereignty of our people over its territory and its territorial waters.

Aside from the question national liberation, what included in the programme the Polisario Front?

We say, that there should be a democratic republican form of government, the policy of non-alignment, the membership of the third world and the African family, the Islamic character of the Saharoui people and the policies which meet the social and economic needs of the Saharoui people, with guarantees of freedom of speech, right of political exile, the policy of free and universal education, the guarantee of the inalienable rights of every citizen and the material satisfaction of the needs of our citizens.

So our programme touches on all aspects of national life. Do you define the Front as a socialist organisation?

Our people has always lived a practical form of socialism where those who had more than others gave it away voluntarily and not because of a law. This has been linked to a just application of Islam.

How do you explain that so many of the regimes claiming to adhere to Islam are extrmemly reactionary?

I think Islam has been enormously mystified. It's been mortified. If we look at some of the reactionary regimes which practise Islam, it may look like a retrograde social systemdogmatic and so on.

I think everything depends on its applications. For instance, countries like Saudi Arabia or Morocco claim to be centres of Islam. In such countries there is a reactionary feudal social layer which oppresses the people and which uses Islam to protect its interests.

That is a twisting of what Islam really represents as a social system.

Real Islam is totally different. It defends the interests of all; it supports equality: it's against slavery, against exploitation, against all kinds of social degradation. What message would you give to workers in Europe?

We especially want the support of organisations in the same situation as ourselvesorganisations of workersbecause our people have always been and continue to be workers.

We are a people who have been deprived of our most elementary rights.

Our request to the workers of Great Britain is that they support and carry on supporting the struggle of the Saharoui people, above all morally, and that they should support us not momentarily but at every opportunity.

And I would like to send the militant and revolutionary greetings of the Saharout people and the certainty that through our struggle we will gain independence and sovereignty.

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its own needs in many things, such as hospital construction,