UN mission in Western Sahara should remain for 6 more months – Annan

Citing the need for diplomatic efforts to break the impasse over Western Sahara Secretary-General Kofi Annan has called for a six-month extension of the United Nations mission (MINURSO) deployed in the disputed territory which is claimed by Morocco.

In a new report to the Security Council, the Secretary-General says MINURSO, which has been monitoring a ceasefire between the two sides, “continues to play a key stabilizing and ceasefire monitoring role.”

Recommending that MINURSO’s mandate be extended until 31 October, he voices hope that from now until then “the parties will reflect on the prolonged period that has elapsed since the start of this conflict and on the need for both to take actions that may lead to a just, lasting and mutually acceptable solution.”

MINURSO was established in 1991 to organize a self-determination referendum in the former Spanish colony which Morocco has claimed as its own, and where the POLISARIO has been fighting for independence.

In April 2004, Morocco said it could not accept a referendum that included independence as an option. This led the Secretary-General’s Personal Envoy, Peter van Walsum, to warn that any new plan “would be doomed from the outset to be rejected by Morocco unless it excluded the provision for a referendum with independence as an option,” the report notes.

For its part, the UN “could not endorse a plan that excluded a genuine referendum while claiming to provide for the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara,” Mr. Annan points out.

As long as “no one was going to force Morocco to give up its claim of sovereignty over Western Sahara,” two options remained: indefinite prolongation of the current deadlock in anticipation of a different political reality; or direct negotiations between the parties, he says.

Mr. van Walsum has warned that a continuation of the current impasse is “a recipe for violence” likely to likely condemn another generation of Western Saharans to growing up in the camps of Tindouf.

Direct negotiations held without preconditions could strive for a “compromise between international legality and political reality that would produce a just, lasting and mutually acceptable political solution, which would provide for the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara,” the Secretary-General says.

While differences between the parties are obstructing the process, he cautions that the main obstacle may come from forces outside the region that “militate against the option for negotiations.” While no country would admit to favouring a continuation of the impasse, Western Sahara is not high on the local political agenda. Adding to that, continuing good relations with both Morocco and Algeria are held in great importance.

These two factors combine to constitute a powerful temptation to acquiesce to the continuation of the impasse, the Secretary-General states. “As long as Western Sahara does not advance on their political agendas, many countries will find the status quo to be more tolerable than any of the possible solutions.”

But he warns that the Security Council cannot afford this attitude. “It cannot wait for the question of Western Sahara to deteriorate from being a source of potential instability in the region to becoming a threat to international peace and security.

“Instead, both the Council and its individual member States should now rise to the occasion and do all in their power to help negotiations get off the ground.”