New York (United Nations) 16 September 2021 (SPS)- Frente Polisario Representative to the UN and Saharawi Coodinator with the MINURSO, Ambassador Sidi M. Omar, stressed in a press release yesterday, that the Moroccan acceptance of Staffan De Mistura as the Personal Envoy of the UN Secretary General for Western Sahara, is the result of pressures exerted by powerful members of the Security Council on rabat.
“The Frente POLISARIO considers the statement made by the representative of the occupying state of Morocco as merely a shameless and futile attempt to give the impression that his regime is cooperating with the UN efforts at a time when the Secretariat itself and all members of the Security Council are aware that it was the occupying state itself that officially rejected Mr Staffan de Mistura in May as part of its continued rejection of the numerous proposals made by the UN Secretary-General since the resignation of President Horst Köhler in May 2019,” Dr. Sidi M. Omar said.
He recalled however that “the Frente POLISARIO recalls that the UN peace process in Western Sahara has been completely torpedoed by the serious violation of the ceasefire and related military agreements perpetrated on 13 November 2020 by the occupying state of Morocco and its act of aggression on the Liberated Territories of the Sahrawi Republic, which continues as the United Nations remains deafeningly silent.”
Following is the full text of the Press Release as received by SPS:
FRENTE POLISARIO REPRESENTATION AT THE UNITED NATIONS
PRESS STATEMENT
The acceptance by the occupying state of Morocco of Mr Staffan de Mistura as PESG for Western Sahara is due to the pressure exerted by some influential powers within the Security Council
[New York, 15 September 2021] The news agency of the occupying state of Morocco reported today that Morocco’s UN representative stated that his country had given its approval to the UN Secretary-General for the appointment of Mr Staffan de Mistura as Personal Envoy of the Secretary-General for Western Sahara.
The Frente POLISARIO considers the statement made by the representative of the occupying state of Morocco as merely a shameless and futile attempt to give the impression that his regime is cooperating with the UN efforts at a time when the Secretariat itself and all members of the Security Council are aware that it was the occupying state itself that officially rejected Mr Staffan de Mistura in May as part of its continued rejection of the numerous proposals made by the UN Secretary-General since the resignation of President Horst Köhler in May 2019.
The UN Secretariat, all members of the Security Council and other international and regional stakeholders are also well aware of the positive response given by the Frente POLISARIO on 29 April 2021 regarding the proposal of Mr Staffan de Mistura to serve as Personal Envoy of the Secretary-General for Western Sahara. The position exhibited by the Frente POLISARIO was widely welcomed as a sign of its good faith and support for the Secretary-General’s efforts.
Moreover, everyone is aware of the attempts and manoeuvres carried out by the occupying state of Morocco to influence the efforts of the UN Secretary-General to appoint a new personal envoy for Western Sahara through the set of preconditions put by the occupying state that arbitrarily exclude citizens of a group of UN Member States including Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, Scandinavian Countries, Switzerland and the five permanent members of the Security Council, among others.
Thus, the fact that the representative of the occupying state of Morocco has tried to conceal is that his country’s acceptance of Mr Staffan de Mistura as Personal Envoy of the Secretary-General for Western Sahara was the result of the pressure exerted on his regime by some influential powers within the Security Council, which could no longer tolerate Morocco’s continued obstruction of the Secretary-General’s efforts to relaunch the peace process in Western Sahara.
In this context, the Frente POLISARIO recalls that the UN peace process in Western Sahara has been completely torpedoed by the serious violation of the ceasefire and related military agreements perpetrated on 13 November 2020 by the occupying state of Morocco and its act of aggression on the Liberated Territories of the Sahrawi Republic, which continues as the United Nations remains deafeningly silent.
The representative of the occupying state of Morocco refers to the return to the “peace process” and to some of the related procedural issues. This is merely an illusion because the Sahrawi people already said the final word on this matter on 13 November 2020, when they resumed their legitimate armed struggle and declared loud and clear a clean break with a “peace process” that the Security Council itself had not been able to enforce for nearly 30 years. The representative of the occupying state of Morocco also refers to some unviable formulas that he falsely claims to have been established by the Security Council in its resolutions. This is an absurd attempt to pre-justify the procrastination and obstructionism characteristic of the occupying state of Morocco.
The Frente POLISARIO, who has demonstrated through concrete actions its genuine commitment to the peaceful solution to the decolonisation of Western Sahara, underscores again that no genuine, credible, and viable peace process will ever be possible as long as the occupying state of Morocco persists, with complete impunity, in its unlawful actions and attempts to forcibly impose a fait accompli in the Occupied Territories of the Sahrawi Republic.
The Frente POLISARIO therefore reaffirms that the only way forward to achieve a peaceful, just, and enduring solution to the decolonisation of Western Sahara is to enable the Sahrawi people to exercise freely and democratically their inalienable and non-negotiable right to self-determination and independence in accordance with the precepts of international legality and relevant resolutions of the United Nations and the African Union (AU).
The occupying state of Morocco, which continues to enjoy protection and patronage by some members of the Security Council, and despite its much-trumpeted commitment to UN resolutions, has clearly demonstrated that it has no genuine political will to achieve a peaceful and lasting solution to the decolonisation of Western Sahara, and that its sole objective is to maintain the status quo to normalise and legitimise its illegal occupation of parts of the Sahrawi Republic.
The Security Council should therefore abandon its typical inaction and realise that the inability of MINURSO to fully fulfil its mandate and the collapse of the peace process in Western Sahara is primarily due to the failure of the Council to use all the powers conferred upon it by the UN Charter to ensure the full implementation of MINURSO’s mandate and to compel the occupying state of Morocco to engage seriously and responsibly in the peace process and to end its illegal occupation of parts of the Sahrawi Republic.
Dr Sidi M. Omar
Representative of the Frente POLISARIO at the United Nations
Responsible for Coordination with MINURSO.” (SPS)
090/500/60 (SPS)