Western Sahara
Great danger of the ceasefire breaking down in Sahara

afrol.com, 28 September - This night, the UN Decolonisation Committee resumed its work and strong protests to the declining UN commitment to the Western Sahara issue were heard. Margot Kessler of the European Parliament, said the danger of the ceasefire breaking down now was real if the referendum process was further delayed. Morocco had renewed its military installations on the wall and had been recruiting more troops. It had used its extra time to bring in Moroccans to create a 7 to 1 majority against the Sahrawis. 

Kessler said that since December 1999 the reports of the Secretary-General on Western Sahara underlined difficulties more than progress, and in July there were suggestions that the conflict could be settled by other means than the referendum of self- determination. Those developments suggested that the United Nations might withdraw from its obligations in the region. That possibility, as well as the Moroccan obstructions to the peace plan, had caused deep concern in the European Union. The United Nations must uphold respect for international law. In 1975, the International Court of Justice had already ruled that Morocco had no legal claim on the territory of Western Sahara. 

In addition, she said, living conditions had become desperate. The bloody events of September 1999, with its participation of Moroccan settlers supported by armed militia, presented parallels to East Timor. The refugees in the four camps, despite claims by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), were malnourished and lacked essential supplies. She also drew attention to the plight of Moroccan prisoners of war and called for the earliest repatriation of all remaining prisoners of war. Finally, Kessler reminded the Committee of the large investment the UN had made in ending the conflict in Western Sahara, and the strong support pledged by the European Parliament for efforts to complete the process. Only a solution respecting the rights of the Saharawi people to self-determination would allow for the people of the region, including the Moroccan people, to create a future of peace and stability. 

Werner Ruf, from the German University of Kassel, noted that the process of identifying prospective voters for the referendum was blocking the peace process, because Morocco was repeatedly trying to introduce new groups of applicants. In September 1997, a basic agreement had seemed to be reached on the basis of negotiations mediated by James Baker III, Personal Envoy of the UN Secretary-General. But, by the end of 1999, Morocco had presented some 139.000 appeals against the findings of the Identification Commission. 

Ruf said that a decisive new element in the UN report of 31 May 2000 was the proposal that the two parties negotiate a political solution, a proposal that had been taken up in the latest resolution of the Security Council on the Western Sahara issue. Should a people’s right to self-determination, one of the basic elements of the United Nations Charter, be handed over to two parties without a mandate from the people concerned? he asked. That abandonment of responsibility by the United Nations was a blow to the principles of international law and to the Organization itself, Ruf said. 

Julio Bonis Alvárez, Councilor of the Government of the Spanish Canary Islands, off the Sahrawi coast, confirmed that further destabilization would be dangerous. The ceasefire, he said, could break down for many reasons, which would have disastrous consequences. The only solution, he said, was the one that had been established by the United Nations before hostilities began; that is, a referendum of self- determination and the completion of the United Nations Settlement Plan. 

Source: UN 

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