Physical Address
Indirizzo: Via Mario Greco 60, Buttigliera Alta, 10090, Torino, Italy
Fifteen member countries of the UN Security Council are faced with their historical and moral responsibilities. On the eve of the vote on the controversial draft resolution on Western Sahara, led by the United States and France, a heated debate is expected by observers.
While the Americans, the French and the British are trying to pass an unjust, biased and reprehensible text, justifying the pure and simple annexation of a territory and the enslavement of a people fighting for their independence, the other members of the Security Council are under great pressure and infernal lobbying to follow the first camp.
Behind the pretext of renewing the mandate of the UN Mission responsible for organizing a self-determination referendum, this text sneakily introduces paragraphs unacceptable under international law. It squarely establishes the “so-called autonomy plan” as the only basis for negotiation, or even as the “most appropriate” solution, ignoring all the UN resolutions voted on and adopted for more than five decades. Furthermore, this text ignores the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice, initialed in 1975, as well as all other consecutive judgments of the Court of Justice of the European Union.
According to diplomatic sources, the text must receive 9 votes out of 15. Washington, Paris and London managed without difficulty to obtain the support of Panama and Sierra Leone. They will still need four votes to win from the other member countries: Greece, South Korea, Pakistan, Somalia and Guyana, Slovenia and Denmark. The same sources believe that China and Russia should abstain in the vote.
Moscow has already expressed its position by supporting two principles, firstly respect for the right of the Sahrawi people to freely choose their future and then recognition of the colonial status of Western Sahara, as stipulated in numerous UN resolutions and of which the creation of Minurso is only further proof.
This Western text has already been denounced by several capitals, who believe that the UN risks, through this, legitimizing old and future colonizations, further discrediting international institutions, already weakened, and above all trampling on the rights of peoples in the face of a military fait accompli.
The incomprehensible silence of the AU
In this context, observers are wondering about the complicit and incomprehensible silence of another organization, no less important, that of the African Union. The latter has remained curiously speechless, paralyzed, even though it should accompany and support a founding member state of the AU, whose sovereignty and right to freedom are threatened. Will the AU confine itself to neutrality, refusing to speak out in the face of these Western maneuvers in its own continent? Will it accept such a denial from some members of the Security Council, while the right of existence of a member state of the AU (SADR) is violated and despised?
Faced with these abuses with serious consequences for regional and international geopolitical balances, the Polisario Front, legitimate representative of the Sahrawi people, announced that it would boycott any political process if the American text were to be adopted.
He affirmed his rejection of “any solution imposed or against the will of the Sahrawi people”, whose right to self-determination is recognized by the international community and all the resolutions of the Security Council and the General Assembly of the United Nations.
In this regard, the Sahrawi representative to the United Nations and coordinator with Minurso, Dr Sidi Mohamed Omar, recently underlined that the draft resolution constitutes a “very dangerous and unprecedented” deviation, not only in relation to the principles of international law recognizing Western Sahara as a matter of decolonization, but also in relation to the basis on which the Security Council addressed the Sahara. Western.
For the Polisario Front, “any approach which establishes a pre-fixed framework for the negotiations or predetermines their outcome, limits the free exercise by the Sahrawi people of their right to self-determination or imposes a solution against their will is completely unacceptable”.
Finally, the Polisario launched an urgent appeal to all stakeholders to use their efforts constructively with a view to creating the necessary conditions for both parties, the Polisario Front and Morocco, to engage in serious and credible negotiations, without preconditions and in good faith, under the auspices of the UN, with a view to achieving a just, lasting and mutually acceptable political solution, which should guarantee the self-determination of the people of the Western Sahara and peace throughout the region.