Paris, May 3, 2013 (SPS) - Security Council’s decision not to incorporate human rights monitoring in the United Nations Mission for a Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) is a "disavowal" to the UN secretary general who recommended an "independent monitoring" of those rights, a French NGO said.
According to the France-based Platform for solidarity with Western Sahara people, the adoption of Resolution 2099 on April 25 is a UN Security Council’s disavowal of its secretary general who, in his report of April 8, recommended an "independent, impartial and sustained monitoring of human rights in Western Sahara."
The Security Council has refused, once again, to incorporate human rights monitoring in MINURSO in spite of several calls by the European Parliament (EP) and many human rights groups, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Centre Robert Kennedy, AMDH, the French NGO bemoaned in a statement.
French government, "once again, sided with Moroccan authorities by working for the withdrawal of United States’ proposal to incorporate human rights monitoring in MINURSO and by backing Morocco’s autonomy project, which is a violation of peoples’ right to decide on their own future."
Such a situation is a hindrance to peaceful settlement of a thirty-eight year conflict relating to decolonization in Western Sahara, the French organization pointed out. (SPS)
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