Please contact Martin Hughes for further details.
The United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO), was set up by the United Nations to provide a comprehensive settlement for the last remaining colony in Africa. Occupied in 1975 by Morocco in clear contravention of international law, the Western Sahara remains a closed territory with a massive Moroccan military and secret service presence. The people of Western Sahara - the Saharawis - have consistently demanded independence under the leadership of their national liberation movement, the Polisario Front.
The Moroccan invasion led to the forced exile of thousands of Saharawis into the Sahara desert in south west Algeria. They have remained there for over twenty years, living in extremely hostile conditions in tented refugee camps. The refugees, friends and families left behind in the occupied territory have to contend with an oppressive military and secret service which denies basic democratic and human rights.
MINURSO was created to honour the long-standing promise to all Saharawis that they would be able to exercise their inalienable right to self-determination. It has spent almost five years attempting to organise a referendum on the future of the occupied territory of Western Sahara at a cost of some $250 million. The Mission now appears to be inexorably moving towards failure. This is demonstrated by the latest recommendation of the UN Secretary General (8.5.96) to withdraw the referendum voter identification team and leave a token UN presence.
From the very beginning of the MINURSO operation, Morocco has used every possible manoeuvre to prevent the holding of a free and fair referendum. Unfortunately, in the face of Moroccan intransigence and frustration of the United Nations operation, the United Nations Security Council has consistently failed to react.
There have been many examples of accommodation of the wishes of the occupying power or failure to act against fundamental challenges to the operation of MINURSO. These have included:
* the decision in 1991 to ignore the clear breach of the Settlement Plan by Morocco when it decided to transfer around 40,000 people en masse into the territory (a violation of paragraphs 71 and 72 of the Settlement Plan). The objective of the implantation of these settlers was to 'pack' the electoral register with Moroccan citizens;
* allowing the parties to the conflict (and not the UN itself) to distribute voting application forms to prospective voters;
* allowing Morocco to completely control access to voter registration centres in the occupied territory and ignoring intimidation of voters and tribal leaders;
* failing to make proper provision for independent observation of the voter identification process;
* refusing to announce in a transparent way the rules which will be used to actually draw up the final voting list. When the UN finally decided early in 1996 by to publish the voting list, this never happened after Morocco told the UN that this was not acceptable;
* the creation of conditions which enabled Morocco to introduce some 100,000 voting applications en bloc on behalf of its own citizens, which the Secretary General in his own report of 8th September 1995 notes could not have been resident in or could not have been connected to the territory.
Senior United Nations officials have spoken out about the way in which Morocco has been allowed to control what was supposed to be an impartial and independent process. Former Special Representative for the Western Sahara, Johannes Manz resigned because of the failure to confront Morocco’s destablisation of the peace plan. Jean Luc-Held, formerly part of MINURSO's medical unit said in 1994 that the UN was "in a position of structural submission, unable to react ... the UN is frightened, those who work there are frightened."
Three months ago, the US diplomat Frank Ruddy, who was appointed by the UN to be MINURSO's Deputy Chairman of the Voter Identification Commission said:
"During my time in Western Sahara, Morocco conducted ... a campaign of terror against the Saharan people. I had not seen the likes of it since I observed the apartheid government in South Africa in action against blacks ... Morocco did not simply influence the referendum; they controlled it, down to what days the mission worked. Morocco tapped UN phones, intercepted UN mail and searched the living quarters of UN staff, with impunity. More importantly, the Moroccan authorities disenfranchised Saharan voters right and left and substituted Moroccan ringers in place of bona fide Saharan voters."
Rather than challenge Morocco's behaviour, the UN has been inclined towards appeasement. Nowhere has this been more evident in relation to Morocco’s demands over who should be entitled to vote in the referendum.
The original basis of eligibility for participation in the referendum was clearly established in UN reports and agreed by both Morocco and Polisario in 1990 and 1991. The UN chose the 1974 census of the Western Saharan population which had been carried out by Spain, the territory's previous colonists.
Morocco's tactic was to argue that it has tens of thousands of its own citizens not featured in the 1974 census who should be allowed to vote. It has relocated many of these people to camps in Western Sahara. Morocco has taken this action because it knows that if the question of independence were left to real Saharawis, then the vote would be conclusively for independence.
Instead of insisting on the 1974 census as the only reliable core list for voter identification, the UN has bowed to pressure from Morocco to broaden voter eligibility. For its part, Polisario has maintained that it could not accept a fundamental expansion of the electorate as this will lead to a manipulated referendum. Under these conditions, the future of Western Sahara would be decided by populations entirely unconnected with the territory.
The stalemate over voter eligibility and the inability of the UN to resolve it has inevitably led to a situation where the Secretary General is now advocating the withdrawal of the voter identification team of MINURSO. The Secretary General is unconvincingly expressing the hope that this action will create pressure on Morocco and the Polisario to resolve their differences, and that within the next six months, the voter identification operation can begin again. However, few observers believe that this is anything else than going through the motions and that the UN's prime concern is to avoid the blame for the failure of MINURSO. US Ambassador to the UN, Madelaine Albright admitted as much in her recent testimony before a Congressional Committee.
Although the Secretary General has recommended the retention of a reduced contingent of some 230 military observers, the reality is that this is nothing more than a token force and is in no way able to maintain the cease-fire. The irony is that the Secretary General claims the maintenance of the cease-fire as one of the real achievements of MINURSO, but the UN Mission neither created the cease-fire nor was its primary role to maintain it.
The raison d'etre of MINURSO was the organisation of a referendum and the inability of the UN to achieve this can only lead to the conclusion that MINURSO has failed. The likely outcome of this failure is a return to hostilities, as Polisario has made it clear that a situation of "No war, no referendum" is completely unacceptable. The Secretary General of Polisario, Mohamed Abdelaziz has said recently that the failure of the political solution to the conflict can only have serious and unpredictable consequences. He has also said that if necessary the Polisario is ready and able return to arms to press its claim for the right to self determination.
The Western Sahara Campaign believes that the only objective assessment which can be made if the current recommendations of the Secretary General are followed through by the Security Council is that MINURSO has failed. The only obvious future for MINURSO under these conditions, is for it to become an observation exercise which has no hope of resolving the conflict and enabling the Saharawi people to exercise their rights to self-determination. MINURSO would become another UNIFIL (Lebanon) or UNFICYP (Cyprus) and effectively legitimise the continued Moroccan occupation.
The Western Sahara Campaign therefore would make the following points:
+ Nothing can change the central issue at stake: the Moroccan occupation is illegal and has been allowed to continue for too long. To use the words of a recent leading article in the Economist magazine, Morocco's brutal invasion in 1975 was an ugly little colonialist theft.
+ The failure of MINURSO is a big setback for the UN. This is the first comprehensive mission to fail since the end of the Cold War. Western Sahara may not be the top of the international community's agenda, but it shows that high hopes for peace-keeping and conflict resolution under the 'New World Order' have been somewhat unfounded. Compared to many other conflicts, the issues at stake in Western Sahara are relatively straightforward. If the UN can't deal with Western Sahara, what hope is there for other more complex conflicts?
+ The UN is failing to keep its promises to the Saharawi people. If the UN cannot defend the weak against the strong then it has little reason for existence. If the conflict resumes, it is the UN and its leading member states which should be held accountable for the destablisation of the region which will follow.
+ If Polisario decides to recommence its military operations, then it is entirely justified in doing so. Its action will be no different to that pursued by Kuwait and the Allied powers against Iraq, the United Kingdom against Argentina or the French Resistance against the Nazis. Polisario has shown in recent years that it wants to choose the path of peace, but in the absence of a political solution it is now left with no choice but to fight for the rights of the Saharawi people.
+ The Western Sahara Campaign will give its full support to any military action taken by Polisario. The only other alternative to war is direct negotiations between Morocco and Polisario. The Western Sahara Campaign has called for direct negotiations between the two parties for the last three years, but the UN has been unwilling or unable to convince Morocco to engage in such negotiations. Polisario has consistently indicated its willingness to enter into direct dialogue. The very minimum the UN can now do given the failure of MINURSO is to bring pressure on Morocco to negotiate with Polisario.
+ MINURSO has been beset by allegations of electoral malpractice, incompetence and dishonesty. The occupying power was allowed to completely control the UN operation, and the UN did little to keep Morocco under control. When UN officials spoke out about what was really going on, they were gagged. It is a travesty that 4 years and more than $250 million have been wasted and that the people of Western Sahara are no nearer exercising their inalienable right to self-determination.
+ The only winner in this situation is the occupying power, which is entrenching itself in the territory and relentlessly exploiting valuable indigenous resources such as phosphates and fisheries stocks. Unfortunately, the European Union has encouraged Morocco in this regard by concluding a new fisheries agreement which includes the coastal waters of occupied Western Sahara. The withdrawal of the voter identification team of MINURSO gives encouragement to the occupying power.
+ Morocco is continuing to operate a police state in Western Sahara which ruthlessly murders, disappears and imprisons anybody who opposes the occupation. Hundreds of “disappeared” Saharawis remain unaccounted for. Prolonged secret detention is routine practice, and the civilian population is subject to intense surveillance and restrictions on freedom of movement, expression and association. Moreover, despite assurances made by the UN Secretary General in 1993, "MINURSO has been a silent witness to the blatant human rights violations in Western Sahara, and has failed to ensure the protection of the most basic human rights" (Human Rights Violations in Western Sahara, Amnesty International, April, 1996).
The outlook is not optimistic, but as the Western Sahara Campaign has maintained from the beginning of the MINURSO operation, the principal problem is that the main players in international diplomacy are not putting the required pressure on Morocco. The only positive hope is that instead of allowing MINURSO to run down and stagnate, with a likely return to hostilities and consequent further instability in the region, the opportunity will be taken to launch a new initiative. The only obvious way forward is for direct negotiations between Morocco and Polisario. It may be that an Oslo-type round of negotiations brokered by a state acceptable to both parties would deliver far more prospects of a resolution to the conflict than a stagnated and meaningless UN operation.
Author: Martin Hughes on behalf of the Western Sahara Campaign - 23.5.96
This page was published in May 1996, and updated on 14 October, 1996