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The former national security advisor of the White House under Donald Trump and former American representative at the UN, John Bolton returns to the file of Western Sahara, occupied by Morocco since 1975.
In an interview broadcast by the “Western Sahara Revolution”, John Bolton delivered a pointed and very instructive analysis on the failure of the Baker II plan in 2003, which was almost very close to arriving at a final solution to the Sahraoui file. According to the American diplomat, the reasons for the failure of the regulation are attributed directly to Rabat, who was uncompromising.
It must be said that the Baker plan was at its second version, somewhat revamped after several rounds of negotiations between the Polisario front and the Makhzen in the United States under its direction. The plan proposed a limited autonomy followed by a self -determination referendum for the Sahrawi people some time later.
According to Bolton, the failure of the second version of the Baker plan is inseparably linked to the “refusal of the Moroccan government to guarantee” this democratic sequence.
“We have been working to organize this referendum since 1991, when James Baker proposed several orientations,” recalled Mr. Bolton, stressing that “the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council were clear and transparent, with the organization of a self -determination referendum for the Sahrawi people, allowing them to join Morocco, or to access independence, which Morocco has refused. »»
In the process, the former ambassador recalled that in “1997, Baker had attempted a different approach and, despite the agreement of Morocco and the Polisario, nothing has happened”.
More explicit on the reasons for this buoyancy, Mr. Bolton said that “despite the announcement at certain times of his desire to study different alternatives, Morocco has continued its colonial fait policy”. At that time, it must be said that Rabat was supported militarily and diplomatically by France. It was Paris who issued a final colonization proposal, namely the famous annexed plan in 2007, which sabotaged the efforts of all the special envoys of the UN.
Moreover, the expansionist policy of Morocco has completely paralyzed the role and missions of Minurso, the UN mission created in 1991 to carry out the referendum according to a legal and controlled process. This mission was taken hostage by Rabat, in order to save time and set up its strategy of total occupation of the Saharawi territory and the exploitation of its natural wealth.
“When we created Minurso, there was the conviction that the UN may have found its credibility and its ability to achieve what its founders hoped in 1945,” said Bolton, evoking the optimism that reigned after the Gulf War.
“We thought that organizing a referendum was possible, all the more with a small population and a consensus about it, but Morocco has managed to hinder the process for more than 30 years,” said John Bolton.
For Trump’s former advisor, Minurso should be purely and simply dissolved if the self -determination referendum is not organized, deeming its maintenance in these conditions.
Going further in his analysis, Mr. Bolton stressed that beyond the Sahrawi conflict, there are interconnections of regional crises, establishing a direct link between the decolonization of the Sahrawi territory and the stability of the whole region of the Sahel.
In this sense, he firmly denounced the “expansionist policy of the makhzen regime” and his “territorial claims targeting areas in Algeria and Mauritania”, illustrated, according to him, by certain Moroccan cards, a particularly sensitive point in the context of Algerian-Moroccan relations.
In the same vein, he spoke of France’s troubled and unhealthy game in the Sahrawi issue, calling on European countries to give “greater attention” to the question of Western Sahara, because of its geographic proximity to the continent.
For Mr. Bolton, if African populations are increasingly rejecting French influence, “France, through its Moroccan ally, fights to maintain its position in this part of the world”. According to him, “the loss of Morocco means the loss of French influence in Africa”.
After having estimated that “no country claiming to be democracy should oppose the right of the Sahrawis to vote”, Mr. Bolton wanted to salute the “excellent work” of the Polisario Front, which knew how to “maintain Western governments and the African Union informed of the colonial policy of Morocco and its refusal to apply the resolutions of the UN and to comply with international law”.
He also said that “Morocco has failed to distort the image and reputation of the Polisario Front, the sole and legitimate representative of the Sahrawi people”, adding that “all Moroccan attempts to undermine the credibility of the front fell in front of the rigorous international control of the UN observers”.
The Polisario Front has always participated “in good faith” in the negotiations, aimed at putting an end to a conflict that has lasted for half a century, he said, judging “unacceptable to maintain the status quo”.