Front Polisario Khat Al-Shahid - Mahjoub Salek Affair

Mahjoub Salek Affair

In 2006, at an interview with the Moroccan weekly TelQuel, the supposed Khat al-Shahid leader, Mahjoub Salek, declared that negotiations were the only way to resolve the conflict, and that all it needs was a signal from King Mohamed VI. He further called on the Moroccan king Mohamed VI to open the doors of his palace to Sahrawis and listen to them, to end the conflict.

The Coordination Commission of Khat al-Shahid first reacted issuing a communiqué explaining that Salek was not the spokesman of the movement, and that the ideas he brought forth in the Tel Quel interview did not represent Khat al-Shahid. It later issued another communiqué, proceededing to expel Salek, saying that he had repeateadly broken the internal rules of the organization, despite from the advisories he had received. It decried what it called the "berserker" media campaigns of the Moroccan regime, and reaffirmed that, even if it seeks reforms of its practices, Khat al-Shahid still considers the Polisario Front to be the legitimate representative of the Sahrawi people.

Despite his expulsion from Khat al-Shahid, Mahjoub Salek (who resides in Mauritania) had continued to act as the spokesperson of the movement on different interviews, mostly on Moroccan media, reiterating his declarations in favour of the dialogue with Morocco and against the POLISARIO. This had splitted Khat al-Shahid in two factions, with two different webpages. The official Coordination Commission of Khat al-Shahid had denounced Salek as a puppet of the secret services of the Moroccan regime, that tried to divert the movement. The communiqué stated that Salek's web aint a Khat al-Shahid webpage and its content only concerns Salek, remembered the expulsion of Salek from the movement in 2006 and his posterior acting as spokesman, leader or founder of the movement, despite the expulsion. It also accused Salek of appropriating by theft the name, simbols, programmes of Khat al-Shahid, and of negotiating himself the Moroccan proposal, trying to supplant the Polisario Front. Finally, the communique reiterated that despite the "weakness, incompetence or corruption" of the Polisario Front leadership, Khat al-Shadid remain as a reformist movement within POLISARIO.

In 2011, Mahjoub Salek made a call to the Sahrawi refugees to boycott the XIII POLISARIO General Congress, inviting them to "express their solidarity with the "Libyan revolution" and their firm support to the NTC", criticized the absence of mentions to Libya's situation by the POLISARIO leadership, and reafirming his support to the Moroccan autonomy plan.