Physical Address
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International law torpedoed.
There is excitement in the corridors of the Security Council. The Sahrawi question dominates the debates and arouses great tensions within the members of this Council. The crisis that has been brewing for several weeks was triggered by the frenzied lobbying of the United States and France, who wanted to pass a resolution legitimizing the military occupation and the pure and simple annexation of the Sahrawi territory by Morocco.
This draft text is at the heart of intense consultations within the United Nations. Some observers even speak of signs of a bitter diplomatic confrontation. While Washington wants to impose a colonial fait accompli, countries refuse this diktat and denounce an attempt to use a UN body to endorse colonization and blatant expropriation.
In this draft resolution, it is clearly stated that the mandate of the UN Mission responsible for organizing a referendum in Western Sahara will be reduced by three quarters, or only three months. Thus, next January, this mission will be dissolved if the document is adopted. In other words, Minurso is no longer mandated to organize this referendum in the future, eliminating the Sahrawi people’s right to self-determination.
For diplomats, this is a real torpedoing of international law and a clear setback for the entire process initiated by the international community. The American text excels in distorting the legal and historical reality of the conflict, based since the sixties of the last century on the principle of decolonization of a non-autonomous territory.
According to certain diplomatic sources, Moscow does not seem ready to endorse this draft resolution, rejecting it in substance and form. The Russian representative to the UN would have demanded the immediate revision of paragraph 4 of this draft text, recalling that Western Sahara remains on the list of colonial territories to be decolonized, and reaffirming its attachment to the self-determination referendum under UN supervision.
Thus, it is clear that the divisions are palpable within this UN body, three days before the vote on this draft resolution: on one side, three permanent members of the Council, while on the other side, there is Russia, but also African, Asian or Latin American countries, non-permanent members.
Faced with these abuses with serious consequences, 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 a letter addressed to the President of the United Nations Security Council, Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia, permanent representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations, the Sahrawi representative to the United Nations and coordinator with Minurso, Dr. Sidi Mohamed Omar, stressed 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 Western Sahara.
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 to create 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.