06:25 a.m. Nov 30, 1997 Eastern

By John Baggaley

RABAT, Nov 30 (Reuters) - Nearly 18 months after abandoning work of identifying voters for a referendum on the fate of the Western Sahara, the United Nations this week will open two centres to restart the process, key to ending a two-decade old conflict.

It is a faltering start to getting back on track a peace plan already five years late.

``For the first week, we will have two centres -- one in Laayoune and one in Smara camp in Tindouf,'' a spokesman for the U.N. referendum force MINURSO said on Sunday.

According to the timetable drawn up by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, identification should start on December 1 at four centres. It should then be expanded quickly to a maximum of nine.

Logistics are blamed for the delay both in opening on Monday and for not having four centres operating then.

``The first identifications will take place on Wednesday,'' the spokesman said. ``It was impossible even for the parties to be ready for Monday, they agreed to postpone it until Wednesday.''

Laayoune is the capital of the Western Sahara and lies in the four-fifths of the former Spanish colony controlled by Morocco.

Tindouf, in Algeria, is home to thousands of Saharan refugees in camps run by the Polisario Front.

The Algerian-backed front seeks independence for the phosphate-rich Western Sahara, with valuable fishing off its long coastline. Morocco claims the 259,000 sq km (100,000 sq mile) territory.

The dispute has soured regional relations, helped keep the five-nation Arab Maghreb Union largely paralysed, and upset links between Morocco and several African countries.

The hiccup in getting the centres working is not seen as serious. It was caused ``because of the constant arrival of members and displacements,'' the U.N. spokesman said.

One of the arrivals in Laayoune is Robert Kinloch, chairman of the identification commission, which faces heavy responsibility.

It was the row over who is eligible to vote in the referendum that derailed the U.N. peace plan originally and led to the voter identification centres being closed last time.

And if the modalities of the renewed process have been laid out at talks with U.N. special envoy James Baker, there's no guarantee all will go smoothly.

Annan plans a six month process to sort out electoral lists with a transitional period starting on June 7 to lead to the vote being held on December 7, 1998. He admits this is a best-case scenario, dependant on Morocco and the Front totally cooperating.

Both have pledged to do everything that is needed to help the referendum go ahead, but as Baker said: ``The proof of the pudding will be in the eating.''

The cash-strapped U.N. wants to end this rumbling conflict desert war to five years of uneasy peace after a ceasefire on September 6, 1991 and the failure to hold the referendum as planned in January 1992.

Monitoring and ensuring maintenance of the ceasefire has been expensive, keeping a force of now just over 200 people in the territory. The U.N. set aside just over $30 million for this for the year July 1997 to end June 1998.

And in September, Annan told the Security Council he needed another $20.8 million to complete the identification process, with a total of 72 identification staff and 81 civilian police.

Polisario maintains that identification should be on the basis of a Spanish census of 1974 while Morocco says thousands of people who fled fighting in the Western Sahara should be included.

The Baker talks brought compromise and also agreement over the reduction of troops, release of prisoners of war and Saharan political detainees, and voluntary repatriation of all Saharans eligible to vote and their immediate families.

Copyright 1997 Reuters Limited.