(SPS) – The member of the National Secretariat, Polisario Front representative to the United Nations and coordinator to MINURSO, Dr. Sidi Mohamed Omar, affirmed that the repeated failure of the Security Council Directorate to assume its responsibility is what led the UN-sponsored peace process in Western Sahara to the current deviations and to a state of complete stalemate.
This assertion was made in an article published on Saturday in the Algerian newspaper Al-Khobar in which the Saharawi diplomat addressed the content of the recent Security Council resolution and the underlying reason why MINURSO was unable to fully implement its mandate, to state in conclusion that the Saharawi people will never renounce their inalienable right to self-determination and independence and will continue to use all legitimate means, including armed struggle, to defend their rights and restore sovereignty over the entire territory of the Saharawi Republic.
Full text of the article published by the Algerian newspaper “El Khobar”:
It is the inaction of the Security Council that has brought the peace process to a state of total stalemate.
Ambassador Sidi Mohamed Omar
Representative of the POLISARIO Front to the United Nations and coordinator with MINURSO
On 27 October 2022, the UN Security Council adopted its resolution 2654 (2022), in which it decided to extend the mandate of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) for a further year, until 31 October 2023.
In essence, this resolution does not differ much from previous resolutions in which the Security Council reiterates and reaffirms all its previous resolutions on Western Sahara while reaffirming its commitment to assist the parties, the POLISARIO Front and Morocco, to reach a just and lasting solution that will guarantee the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara. The Security Council also reiterates its recognition of the need for MINURSO to fully implement its mandate, notes with grave concern the failure of the ceasefire and underlines the need to improve the human rights situation in Western Sahara.
However, once again, the Security Council has failed to empower MINURSO through practical measures to ensure the full implementation of its mandate as defined in Security Council resolution 690 (1991) of 29 April 1991.
The reason why MINURSO has not been able to fully implement its mandate, namely to hold a free and fair referendum to enable the people of Western Sahara to exercise their inalienable right to self-determination and independence, is very clear and is reflected in the following two facts.
First, the Moroccan occupying Power’s lack of political will to move towards a peaceful and just solution to the conflict, including its failure to honour its commitments and its refusal to fully implement the joint United Nations/Organisation of African Unity settlement plan for the years 1990-1991, which is the basis for MINURSO’s mandate and the reason for MINURSO’s deployment in the region. At the same time, the occupying power continues to gamble, completely free of any punishment or responsibility, on the enshrinement and “legislation” of the colonial reality imposed by force on the occupied territory of the Saharawi Republic.
Secondly, some active members of the Security Council lack the will to use the Council’s diplomatic and other instruments to compel the Moroccan occupying power to fulfil its obligations under the UN settlement plan for Africa, which remains the only agreement accepted by the parties, the Frente POLISARIO and Morocco. In addition to being the principal organ responsible for the maintenance of international peace and security under the UN Charter, the Security Council is therefore fully responsible for MINURSO, which it established under its authority, and for ensuring the full implementation of the Mission’s mandate, which it has not yet done.
The Security Council’s repeated inaction has resulted in the UN-sponsored peace process in Western Sahara being derailed from its original course and entering into the labyrinths of “destructive ambiguity” and related expressions such as “political solution”, “realism”, “process” and other terms that hide behind them the attempt to “adapt” to the status quo at the expense of respect for international legitimacy and the inalienable rights of peoples to self-determination and independence.
This situation led the Polisario Front to take its decision on 30 October 2019 to reconsider its participation in the entire peace process as an expression of total rejection of a path whose aim was and remains to maintain the status quo instead of activating the legal reference that frames the Saharawi question as a decolonisation issue and translates it into concrete actions to enable MINURSO to fully implement its mandate.
Therefore, progress in the peace process is hardly expected to be achieved unless effective pressure is exerted on the Moroccan occupying power to abandon the sterile logic of force and to realise the need for a serious and responsible engagement in the peace process in order to achieve a peaceful and lasting solution to the conflict based on the principles of international legitimacy and to ensure peace and security in the region.
Morocco’s act of aggression in the liberated Saharawi territory on 13 November 2020 resulted in the violation and torpedoing of the ceasefire that MINURSO had monitored since 1991. The Security Council is therefore called upon to be fully aware of the gravity of the developments on the ground and to take practical steps to address them, for it is the Council’s failure to assume its responsibility that has brought the peace process as a whole to its state of drift and stalemate.
The Security Council is also urgently called upon to recognise the dire consequences of the “business as usual” policy, which is largely based on the premise that the politically least costly solution to the conflict, due to certain geopolitical considerations, is to maintain the status quo and leave the parties to resolve the dispute themselves on the basis of their power relations – a very dangerous assumption due to its very serious implications for peace and security in the entire region.
The Saharawi people are not in favour of war, and have long been patient and have done their utmost to achieve a just and lasting peace in our region. The Saharawi side also remains ready to cooperate with the efforts of the United Nations and the African Union to achieve a peaceful and lasting solution to the conflict between the Saharawi Republic and the Moroccan occupying Power in accordance with the principles of international legitimacy and the objectives and principles of the Constitutive Act of the African Union.
Until the desired solution is reached, the Saharawi people will never renounce their inalienable right to self-determination and independence and will continue to use all legitimate means, including armed struggle, to defend their sacred rights and restore sovereignty over the entire territory of the Saharawi Republic.
