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Mohamed Abdelaziz (محمد عبد العزيز) (born 1947, in Smara) is the Secretary General of the Polisario Front and the exiled President of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic.
Background
Mohamed Abdelaziz was one of the initial leaders in the mid-1970's of Polisario, a Sahrawi nationalist movement in Western Sahara. He was elected Secretary-General of the group in 1976, replacing Mahfoud Ali Beiba, who had taken the post as interim Secretary-General at the death of El-Ouali Mustapha Sayed. Since the occupation of Western Sahara by Morocco and Mauritania, he has been elected to the presidency of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), whose first constitution he was involved in drafting. He lives in exile in the Sahrawi refugee camps in Tindouf, Algeria.
Political profile
He is considered a secular nationalist and has steered the Polisario and the Sahrawi republic towards political compromise, notably in backing the United Nations' Baker Plan in 2003. Under his leadership, Polisario also abandoned its early Arab socialist orientation, in favor of a Western Sahara organized along liberal democratic lines, including expressly committing it to multi-party democracy and a market economy. He has consistently sought backing from Western states, notably the United States of America and the European Union, but so far with little success.
There is some criticism against him from within the Polisario for preventing reforms inside the movement, and for insisting on a diplomatic course that has so far gained few concessions from Morocco, rather than re-launching the armed struggle favored by many within the movement.
He has condemned terrorism, insisting the Polisario's guerrilla war was to be a "clean struggle" (that is, not targeting private citizens' safety or property). He sent formal condolences to the afflicted governments after the terrorist attacks in New York City, Madrid, London and notably also to the Moroccan kingdom after the al-Qaida strikes in Casablanca.
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