Algeria’s ambassador in Lisbon said today that his country supports the efforts of the UN secretary-general’s special envoy for Western Sahara and rejects “attempts to associate” it with the dispute between Morocco and the Polisario Front.
expressodasilhas.cv.- “The unbridled misleading propaganda, which tries by all means to involve Algeria in a conflict between an occupying state and a national liberation movement cannot make one forget that the territory of Western Sahara has been inscribed since 1963 on the United Nations list of non-self-governing territories, and that it is the last territory of the African continent not to have been granted a final status according to international law,” the new Algerian ambassador in Lisbon, Chakib Rachid Kaid, told Lusa.
“Algeria will continue to support the efforts of the Secretary-General’s special envoy for Western Sahara, Staffan de Mistura, in the search for a just and lasting solution that can restore peace and stability in that part of the world,” added Kaid, who recently replaced Abdelmadjid Naamoune in the post.
The diplomat was responding to earlier statements by Morocco’s ambassador in Portugal, Othmane Bahnini, alleging that the 16th congress of the Polisario Front, held from 13 to 22 January, aimed “essentially at feeding the propaganda of Polisario and its Algerian-backed militias”.
In the final communiqué of the congress, Polisario indicated that it had decided to “unconditionally support” the proposal of Brahim Ghali’s re-elected leadership to “resume the armed struggle” against Morocco, putting an end to the cease-fire agreements of 1991, pointing out that this is now the “political and operational framework for dealing with the peace process at the UN”.
In the reply sent to Lusa, the Algerian diplomat states that “the long struggle of the Saharawi people since 1975, led by its only representative, the Polisario Front, has as its ultimate goal respect for international law”.
This respect, he argued, “can only materialise through the organisation of a referendum of self-determination under the supervision of the United Nations supported by its mission for the organisation of a referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO), created by Security Council Resolution 690 on 29 April 1991, following the acceptance of the motions for resolution by Morocco and the Polisario Front on 30 August 1988”.
Since then, Kaid argued, all diplomatic initiatives within the United Nations and the OAU/AU have proved “in vain”, because of the “intransigence” of Morocco, which has since “tried to force its approval in order to impose its ‘autonomy plan’ as the only basis for resolving the question of Western Sahara”.
“This ‘autonomy plan’, which conceals the immense efforts that have been made by the international community to find a viable and equitable solution, leaves no room for the organisation of a referendum in Western Sahara under the supervision of the United Nations,” he maintained.
The former Spanish colony is considered as a “non-self-governing territory” by the UN, although Rabat has control of almost 80 per cent of this almost desert territory of 266,000 square kilometres.