The President of the Republic, Nicolás Maduro, granted this Monday the Francisco de Miranda order in its first class to the ambassador of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic, Mohamed Salem Daha Lehbib, who completed his diplomatic duties in the country.
The diplomat was received with honors at the Miraflores Palace in Caracas, where he highlighted the brotherhood and support of Venezuela in the fight of the Saharawi Arab Republic against the Spanish and Moroccan occupation.
In his speech, President Maduro thanked Salem Daha for his management as ambassador “in these hard and complex years that we have spent in battle for peace and dignity in Venezuela.”
«Thank you for your permanent presence, your solidarity, understanding, friendship, brotherhood. The cause of the Saharawi Arab Republic, of the Arab people of the desert, is a historical cause”, affirmed the Head of State.
He stressed that the first time he heard of the Polisario Front – the liberation movement against the Moroccan occupation – was between 1975 and 1976, when he denounced it Jorge Rodriguez Sr.who on Monday celebrated the 46th anniversary of being assassinated by security forces of the government of former President Carlos Andrés Pérez.
«The first person I heard in my life speak about the cause of the Saharawi people was Jorge Rodríguez Sr., who today, July 25, coincidentally, turns 46 years old after passing to immortal life, after being assassinated, one day as today, in the dungeons of the torture centers that operated in the fourth republic. They murdered the most prominent young man of an entire generation of revolutionaries,” he asserted.
He indicated that by then it was a time of liberation and struggle for Africa and the Caribbean, giving way to a process of decolonization that led to the “foundation of a good part of what today are our great friends in the world, in Africa, in Asia, in the Caribbean.
He stressed that in June when he visited Algeria and met with his counterpart Abdelmadjid Tebboune, at least an hour of the meeting was based on “reviewing the history of the Saharawi Arab people”, the decolonization process of Spain and “the aberrant abuses of Morocco” .
“And also reviewing our support, which we took there to North Africa, and which I expressed loudly at the press conference with President Tebboune, ratifying all the support of the people of Venezuela (…) to the government of the Saharawi Arab Republic and above all to the warrior Saharawi people who fight for their independence, for their territory, for peace and dignity”, he asserted.
He indicated that sooner rather than later “we will see the cause of independence of the Saharan Arab people victorious.”
He asked the diplomat to convey to the president of his country an invitation to Venezuelan soil to “receive him with honors” and, from Caracas, to “raise the flags of solidarity and unrestricted support for the cause of the Saharawi Arab people.”
“I will defend Venezuela wherever I am”
Ambassador Salem Daha Lehbib affirmed that it was an immense honor to have worked in Venezuela for nine years and to have “the possibility of learning from this process.”
“I met the beautiful hospitality of a generous, supportive and very rebellious people in the face of injustice (…) a people that I will defend and carry in my heart and soul wherever I am,” he said.
He indicated that in Venezuela there is a network of enthusiasts of the Saharawi struggle, with which he indicated he will continue to have contact in the future as well as having “the support of the Bolivarian government.”
He denounced that the Saharawi people have been fighting for 50 years against the Spanish empire and the Moroccan occupation, supported “by the most aggressive powers in the world” and subjecting the population to violence and poverty.
“Thus trying to break a people who decided to be free and sovereign, a people capable of giving everything for one thing: their dignity,” he stressed.
The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela recognized the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic as an independent State on August 3, 1980, and on December 8, 1982, both countries established diplomatic relations.
