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UN's Legitimacy at Stake in WS, Must

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Suzanne Scholte

Sahara-update
October 4, 2001

Hearing of Petitioners on Western Sahara by the Special Political and Decolonization Committee, (Fourth Committee), United Nations.


I wish to express my gratitude to Chairman Graham Maitland and the Members of the Fourth Committee for allowing me the opportunity to speak to you today regarding the Western Sahara.

While the United Nations has successfully kept the peace between the Kingdom of Morocco and the Sahrawi forces these past 27 years, it has failed miserably to follow through on its promise for a referendum on self-determination for the Sahrawi people.

It is that failure which I will address.In February, 2000, after an exhaustive and extensive voter identification process, the U.N. published a list of 86,381 eligible voters to participate in the referendum on self-determination on Western Sahara.

These 86,381 voters had proven to the Identification Commission that they were indeed eligible to participate in the referendum. Never before in the history of this conflict had the hope and promise of the referendum been so close. Yet, the Kingdom of Morocco feared that they would lose a free, fair, and transparent vote. So, they purposefully overwhelmed the process by submitting 130,000 challenges to the Identification Commission.

These challenges were all names of potential voters that the Identification Commission had determined had no right to participate in the referendum because they did not meet the criteria agreed upon by both the Kingdom of Morocco and the Polisario.

Rather than examining these voters under the plan agreed upon by both parties, the U.N. simply stopped the process.U.N. officials have acknowledged that had these voter challenges been examined, the referendum could have occurred by this time. MINURSO officials and staff have repeatedly told Americans who have visited them in the region that they are very dedicated to the referendum and continue to believe in its viability.

Six years of effort and $500 million had been expended at that point to identify eligible voters and make good on the U.N.'s promised referendum.Not only did the U.N. allow Morocco to stop the process towards the referendum, it lost tremendous ground and wasted two years of time by not following through on the agreed upon framework and examining these voter challenges.

Now, two years have been wasted at great expense to the U.N. and at great sacrifice to the Sahrawi refugees who must continue to live in the harsh desert conditions waiting for the U.N. to fulfill its promise and its mission.What happened next was further travesty. To complicate the situation even more, Kofi Annan's Special Envoy James Baker began trumpeting four options rather than the one that all had viewed as the legitimate way to resolve this conflict: the referendum.

The latest plan discussed by the U.N. Security Council, which James Baker is associated with although he denies he supported it, was the autonomy plan which goes against everything the U.N. claims it stands for. Fortunately, it was resoundingly defeated by the U.N. Security Council in July.It is critically important that the U.N. get back on track and follow through on the promised referendum as soon as reasonably possible. Otherwise, there will be no resolution to this conflict.

Instability and disharmony will continue in the region undermining efforts to develop economic progress in the Maghreb. The U.N.'s legitimacy and integrity will be questioned. The tragic human cost of this conflict will continue to rise for both Moroccans and Sahrawis.

The Moroccan people will continue to suffer as their government expends tremendous resources on its military, rather than on its people, solely to keep the Sahrawis out of their home land.

The Sahrawi refugees will continue to suffer in their desert refugee camps experiencing chronic food shortages, malnutrition and the heartbreak of being separated from their families for over a quarter of a century.The holding of the referendum on self-determination on Western Sahara is long overdue. Please use your influence to de-colonize Africa's last colony through the holding of a free, fair, and transparent referendum on Western Sahara.


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FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Global Policy Forum distributes this material without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. We believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C § 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.