New York, June 15, 2011 (SPS)- Western Sahara issue was examined Monday by the UN Special Committee to study the situation regarding the implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, called "Committee of 24 ".
In its work for the first session of the third International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism (2011-2020), the Committee noted that the fundamental divergence between the Frente Polisario and Morocco lies in the question of the self-determination, the UN underlines.
"The Frente Polisario proposes a referendum considering several options, including independence, while Morocco likes a system of negotiated autonomy and a referendum to confirm a single option," the International Organization indicates.
During the debate, the representative of Cuba underlined that the people of Western Sahara has struggled for 40 years for its right to self determination. The Committee of 24''must play a central role,'' she stressed, hoping that the Saharawi people ''can freely decide its future.''
In his speech, the Polisario representative to the UN, Ahmed Boukhari, considered that twenty years after the creation of the UN Mission for the organization of a referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO), "Morocco has always taken advantage of its friendships within the Security Council to try, since 2007, selling its alleged autonomy proposal ".
He said that "this proposal is only asking the Saharawi people to forgo the possibility of independence and agree to join the occupying power."
He said he was "convinced that the Committee of 24 would recognize without difficulty that such a proposal negates the principle of self-determination as expressed in Resolution 1514 of the UN General Assembly in 1960.
The Saharawi representative regretted that the seventh informal meeting between the Polisario Front and Morocco, held last week in Manhasset (New York) under the auspices of the Personal Envoy of the Secretary-General, has not made progress "because of lack of Cooperation of Morocco."
He hoped that the Committee of 24 would be able to assume its responsibilities vis-à-vis "the last colony in Africa on its agenda."
Mr. Bukhari also asked the committee to send a fact-finding mission to Western Sahara and to follow also, very closely, the current process of negotiations.
The latest survey conducted by this committee in Western Sahara dated early 1970s when it was under Spanish occupation.
He said the question of Western Sahara is still on the agenda of the Committee of 24,''which has responsibilities under the UN Charter of ensuring the process of decolonization of occupied Saharawi territories.''
With 16 remaining territories on the UN list including Western Sahara, the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged last February the international community to "immediately and completely eliminate colonialism in all its forms."
The Committee of 24 was established by the UN General Assembly in 1961 to study and make proposals on the implementation of the Declaration on Decolonization, it should be recalled. (SPS)
062/TRA