THE JOURNAL OF MAGHREB
CULTURE

ALGIERS, Oct 3 (Reuters) - Algeria's President Abdelaziz Bouteflika said he was disappointed by the state of ties with Morocco and pledged to work with King Mohammed to mend the often rocky relationship between the two countries.

In a letter sent to the Moroccan king and reported by state media on Sunday, Bouteflika also said he had given the Algerian armed forces strict orders to respect the border with Morocco.

He said the Algerian people "were disappointed and despondent because of the barbaric massacre in Beni Ounif which came to revive old wounds."

Moslem guerrillas massacred 30 Algerians on August 15 near the border town of Beni Ounif, and Bouteflika said last month he had "categoric evidence" that they had used Moroccan territory as a base for their action.

The Moroccan authorities strongly denied allowing their territory to be used as a springboard for rebel attacks in Algeria.

"Objective problems exist between your dear country and Algeria," said Bouteflika, offering to work with King Mohammed to improve ties between the two and within the Maghreb region, and calling for "a new atmosphere and transparent relations."

"I reiterate to your majesty the determination of Algeria -- people and government -- to work without respite to promote relations of good neighbourhood, solidarity and cooperation between the two brother states," Bouteflika said.

Addressing a reported "excess" by Algerian troops in Morocco, Bouteflika said he had ordered an investigation and found that "what happened was absolutely not the work of our armed forces."

It was not clear what "excess" he was referring to, as neither country's government or media have reported any serious incident near the Moroccan border involving Algerian soldiers.

Bouteflika said he had issued strict orders to the armed forces to respect the border between the two countries.

Regional rivalry and mutual mistrust kept the two neighbours at loggerheads for years. Algeria closed the border in 1994 when Morocco began demanding entry visas for Algerians after an attack on a Moroccan hotel in which gunmen of Algerian origin took part.

Relations warmed after Bouteflika was elected president in April and vowed to improve ties with neighbouring countries and restore peace to his violence-torn country.

ALGIERS, Oct 3 (Reuters) - A Polisario leader on Sunday accused Moroccan security forces of "massacring" people in the disputed Western Sahara, Algerian state-run radio reported.

"People are being massacred, repressed and tortured openly and publicly with the United Nations knowledge," Mohamed Khaddar, member of the Polisario Front's leadership, the National Secretariat, was quoted by the radio as saying.

Khaddar also accused Morocco of imposing a state of emergency in the territory and said it was rushing more troops to the former Spanish colony, the radio added.

It gave no details on the number of those reported killed or tortured.

It was not immediately possible to confirm the report from Moroccan authorities or independent sources.

Polisario said earlier that Moroccan forces had killed or wounded hundreds of people in the territory.

In a statement on its website monitored by the British Broadcasting Corporation on Saturday, the independence-seeking Polisario called for international pressure on Morocco to force it to "bring to an end the carnage against the civilian population of the occupied Western Saharan territory."

The Algeria-backed Polisario said in the statement that a state of emergency had been in force since Wednesday.

Polisario said the crackdown was prompted by protest against what it called a delay in a U.N.sponsored-referendum to decide the future of the territory.

Moroccan and U.N officials have said that students and laid-off workers clashed with Moroccan police in Laayoune, the main town in the territory, last week.

The Moroccan officials said then that some people had been then injured, most of them police.

Polisario wants independence of the territory, which is claimed and largely controlled by Morocco.

A U.N-brokered ceasefire ended a long-running war in the territory in September 1991 and was due to be followed in January 1992 by a referendum giving people a choice between independence or integeration with Morocco.

RABAT, Oct 2 (Reuters) - Moroccan authorities are expected to free soon the country's most prominent Islamist leader, Sheikh Abdessalam Yassine, from 10 years of house arrest, a senior government official said on Saturday.

"Consultations are under way to free Yassine from house arrest soon. We are very optimistic in that regard," the official, who declined to be named, told Reuters.

Yassine, 71, spiritual leader of the outlawed al-Adl Wal Ihsane (Justice and Charity) movement, has been under house arrest at his home in Rabat's twin city Sale since December 1989.

"Yassine's release is imminent," the official said.

He was detained without trial for more than three years in the 1970s for sending a 114-page letter to the royal palace and the government, criticising them for not "observing Islamic precepts and for copying Western values."

In his book "La Revolution a L'Heure de L'Islam" (Revolution in the time of Islam), published in Paris in 1981, Yassine denounced Western civilisation as barbarous, materialistic and egoistic.

All Yassine's publications are banned in Morocco but last year his booklet "Islamiser la Modernisation" (Islamising the Modernisation) was allowed to be sold in selected shops.

The official said the royal palace was "currently in charge of handling the issue of Yassine as it was in the case of the dissident Abraham Serfaty."

Serfaty, head of the banned Marxist-Leninist Ila al-Amam group, was allowed by King Mohammed to return home on Thursday after eight years' exile in France.

Serfaty had spent 17 years in Moroccan jails for an attempt to overthrow the monarchy.

"The time is now ripe for the authorities to free Yassine after the return of Serfaty as a free man. Morocco should clean up its human rights record once and for all and make a new start under the leadership of the new king," a spokesman for the independent Moroccan Human Rights Association said.

"One is a radical leftist and the other is a Moslem fundamentalist militant. But the two men suffered from police repression and arbitrary decisions by the interior ministry."

Interior Minister Driss Basri has been in the post for 25 years.

The official said the royal palace was "currently in charge of handling the Yassine issue as it was in the case of dissident Abraham Serfaty."

A senior Western diplomat said Serfaty's return had unleashed a momentum for change in the kingdom.

RABAT, Oct 1 (Reuters) - A Moroccan human rights group on Friday hailed King Mohammed's decision to allow the return of a prominent dissident and called for a solution to Islamist leader Sheikh Abdessalam Yassine, under house arrest since 1989.

Abraham Serfaty, an strong foe of late King Hassan and head of the outlawed Marxist-Leninist "Illa al-Amam" movement, returned home on Thursday night at the end of eight years in exile in France.

"Now, the only logical thing is for Yassine's case to be resolved," said Abdelaziz Bennani, chairman of the independent Human Rights Organisation (OMDH) in reference to Yassine, leader of the banned al-Adl wal Ihssane (Justice and Charity) group.

"The two men are different -- one is a radical leftist and the other is an Islamist militant. But they were both subject to arbitrary and unfair decisions by the country's administration," Bennani said.

Like Serfaty, the 69-year-old Yassine had been excluded from general amnesties by King Hassan before the monarch died in July after a 38-year reign over the North African country.

But the new monarch agreed to allow the return of Serfaty, 73, after he wrote a letter in which he pledged to contribute in "building a modern and democratic Morocco" under Mohammed's leadership, royal palace spokesman Hassan Aourid said on Thursday.

"As long as the king does not intervene, Yassine will remain where he is, nobody will move a finger for his cause," he added.

"The king vowed to consolidate human rights in the country. We hope that Yassine will not be forgotten," Bennani said.

RABAT, Morocco (AP) -- Moroccan health authorities have seized 120 tons of mortadella sausage they think may be responsible for a wave of contamination deaths in Morocco since early September, health authorities said in a statement Saturday.

At least 10 people have died after eating contaminated food, officials said. Authorities suspect the mortadella may have been contaminated with botulism bacteria.

Of the 52 mortadella factories in Morocco, only 11 were approved by the sanitation department, according to a government health commission statement released Saturday.

The results of an analysis of the sausage, which has been collected from more than 3,000 stores and restaurants, will not be released for 10 days.

Officials suspect that other food products, including ice cream, may also be infected with the bacteria.

Botulism, caused by bacteria that produce a deadly toxin, usually occurs in food that has been preserved in some way.