El Fórum Canario Saharaui denuncia la actuación gubernamental española en torno a la acogida de Brahim Ghali

The Fórum Canario Saharaui issued a press release in which it makes clear its position on the controversial issue of the reception of Brahim Ghali, leader of the Polisario Front in Spain to be treated for a coronavirus.

The Forum criticised the secrecy with which the Spanish government acted in sheltering the Polisario leader, which provoked a diplomatic crisis with Morocco, and praised the perseverance of judge Rafael Lasala in shedding light on the whole process of the reception of Brahim Ghali.

The following is the communiqué of the Fórum Canario Saharaui:

In line with our previous communiqués, and in order to update our official position on the stay of Brahim Ghali in Spain and its consequences, after his internment in the San Pedro Hospital in Logroño for treatment of coronavirus, with the intention of being secretly sheltered by the Government of Spain, this Fórum Canario Saharaui states the following:

With regard to the current judicial developments in the case, we applaud the perseverance of the head of Zaragoza Court number 7, Rafael Lasala, who day after day allows us to learn more details of a case in which most of the actors involved acted in a shady way, behind the back of the law. In this sense, Judge Lasala's actions have not only exposed various high-ranking members of the central government, starting with the former Minister González Laya, as well as various foreign, defence and interior ministry officials, but the ramifications of this lamentable farce go much further.

In this sense, we welcome and believe it is absolutely essential that these actions of the judge should even involve the Regional Government of La Rioja, presided over by Concha Andreu, with Eliseo Sastre, head of the Presidency Office, having to testify on 5 November as a witness. Although, in fact, one of the lawyers for the private prosecution, Juan Carlos Navarro, has requested that the president herself, Concha Andreu, and the delegate of the Government in that community, María Marrodán, testify to know if they ordered the police control of the leader of the Polisario Front, and where the main question that arises is the probable direct implication as intermediaries or necessary collaborators, of high officials of the Government of La Rioja presided by the PSOE, as it seems to be the case. It seems to us equally necessary that the members of the Rioja health service who will shortly appear before the judge be called to testify, in order to scrutinise all the details of such a despicable affair with a view to determining who is responsible.

We would also like to highlight the praiseworthy attitude of this court in Zaragoza, diametrically opposed to that of the Audiencia Nacional, where the most serious crimes against Brahim Ghali and his entourage are being dealt with, and from where they acted with the most absolute opacity and neglect of their functions and ended up shelving the case. It should not be forgotten that Judge Lasala has, with commendable firmness and professionalism, exposed all kinds of national and local government bodies for trying to exempt the illustrious Ghali from the usual identification procedures, in order to circumvent the controls and evade the corresponding legal action derived from proceedings that were open in the Audiencia Nacional (National High Court). Proof of this is the false Algerian passport issued to Ghali in Algeria (and not exactly by chance on the same day of his arrival on 18 April 2021) in the name of Mohamed Benbatouche. 

The latest to appear before the judge were none other than Grande-Marlaska's chief of staff and Carmen Calvo's former chief of staff, whose statements have not exactly left the Minister of the Interior in a very good place, which makes clear the veiled forms of this government during the course of this case.

In short, the Fórum Canario Saharaui welcomes these actions and the independence of a judge with capital letters, Rafael Lasala, who believes that the government knowingly violated the border code to bring Ghali into Spain, a complete violation of the Schengen regulations. This Fórum Canario Saharaui also believes this, from which we hope the corresponding judicial consequences will be drawn.

Another of the consequences of Ghali's presence in Spain, thanks to the governmental support he received both in Madrid and La Rioja, is the media springboard his case has provided within our borders, but which he has skilfully used outside them. The issue of the Sahara, which has generally received little coverage in the general media over the years, has gained special relevance with Ghali's illegal presence in Spain. Ghali, by means of 'self-promotion' and the bathing of the masses thanks to his renewed popularity, as if he were a rock star, organised various events and press conferences a few days ago in Tindouf, inviting the Spanish media, something unprecedented and which would hardly have happened under normal conditions. All of this was done to glorify the cause, not of the Sahrawi people, but of the Polisario itself, tending to perpetuate its leadership without leaving room for the growing number of critical voices or dissent within its own population, who live under the risk of reprisals. An example of the latter is the various cases, which we have repeatedly discussed, in the Audiencia Nacional with Ghali as the protagonist.

In this sense, one of the aims of these meetings was to make visible an alleged war against Morocco, which has been going on for almost a year now, and of which hardly anything is known, if it really exists. There are no images, no information except a handful of brief, almost indistinguishable war reports issued daily by the Polisario. Victory or martyrdom' read one of the slogans present in these acts of blatant propaganda. These almost nineteenth-century slogans reflect what Ghali's Polisario is aiming for today. No peace, no dialogue, no agreements, only war, whether it exists or not. All this with the presence of the usual political supporters of the Polisario in Spain, especially in the field of independence or Canarian nationalism, the usual 'palmeros' of the Polisario.