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Shunned by Algeria, the vote on the draft resolution on Western Sahara gave rise to the renewal of the mandate of the United Nations Mission for the organization of a referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO), but inflicting a flagrant violation of international law. The resolution, adopted this Friday in New York, obscured the right of the Sahrawi people to freely decide their future within the framework of the decolonization process endorsed by the UN.
It is with this in mind that the permanent representative to the United Nations, Amar Bendjama, delivered an unequivocal indictment of the drafters of the final version which constitutes a real usurpation of international legitimacy, mainly the right of colonized countries to aspire to independence, as recorded in the charter of the UN institution since 1945.
If the resolution extended for one year the reprieve of MINURSO designed to be the guarantor of the process of self-determination of the Sahrawi people, under Moroccan occupation since 1975, it excelled in its deviation from respect for the very essence of the conflict: decolonization.
For the representative of Algerian diplomacy within the UN hemicycle, the draft resolution proposed by the United States for voting in the Security Council constitutes a failure with serious consequences for the conflict in Western Sahara and for the Maghreb region.
Because “the narrow framework of the proposed negotiation, which highlights one option over the others, prevents the creativity and flexibility necessary to be deployed to bring about a freely agreed agreement.
in application of the UN doctrine on decolonization, according to Mr. Bendjama.
The Algerian diplomat thus asserts a truth which is unambiguous, that of identifying a bias that violates the rules of fairness and impartiality between two belligerents, namely Morocco and the Polisario Front, and which the Security Council had a duty to ensure.
“This text organizes an imbalance between the two parties in conflict by emphasizing only the territorial ambition of one and ignoring the aspirations of the other, in this case the Sahrawi people who demand freedom,” maintains Mr. Bendjama.
The United Nations made sustained efforts for years to put an end to the armed conflict which broke out in 1975. A ceasefire agreement was signed in 1991 by the two belligerents before they committed on the basis of resolution 907 of 1994 to realize the self-determination referendum.
Rabat’s successive about-faces and its compromises with Israel led it, to the detriment of the refusal of large sections of the Moroccan population, to sign, in December 2020, a villainous deal with the outgoing tenant of the White House Donald Trump, that of establishing diplomatic and commercial relations with the Hebrew state in exchange for recognition of the Moroccan nature of Western Sahara.
Returning to business in 2024, Trump is bringing his questionable arrangement up to date with a view to hanging a chimerical medallion on his Peace List supposed to lead him to the threshold of the Nobel House. Carried away by his electoral promise to resolve conflicts in the world, Trump activated his levers to achieve “peace” at the expense of vulnerable populations in Gaza and Western Sahara. The peace plan in the Gaza Strip is the subject of constant violations by the Israeli army, suggesting that this is an announcement rather than a desire for lasting peace.
However, the solution imposed by force and not mutually acceptable persuasion, makes the world’s leading power a State which makes lawlessness a de facto right. This posture risks setting a precedent in other conflicts around the world; like the regions of Donbass in Ukraine, the Argentinian territory of the Falklands, the Chinese island of Taiwan, or the nagging conflict in Cyprus.
“Imagine this framework being replicated in other conflict zones, in Europe, the Americas, Asia, and Africa. It is then one of the main pillars of the very structure of the international order which will find itself dangerously cracked,” warned the Algerian ambassador.
The UN resolution of October 31, 2025 certainly constitutes the validation of authorized predation of a territory under Moroccan occupation, but it opens the way to scenarios of recidivism through which force becomes the only doctrine in the settlement of conflicts in the world.
Concerned about respecting “the peaceful settlement of disputes”, Algeria, which is “faithful to the objectives and principles of the United Nations Charter”, does not hide its apprehensions about the dangers weighing on the Maghreb region following this UN failure.
In the eyes of Algerian diplomacy, “a just and lasting solution respecting the inalienable right of the people of Western Sahara to self-determination constitutes the only guarantee of true peace and lasting stability in the Maghreb region.