New York (UN), April 18, 2012 (SPS) - The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon denounced in a report Tuesday to the Security Council, the obstacles posed by Morocco to the United Nations Mission for the organization Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO).
In his report, he regretted that the "barriers" still prevent Minurso to fulfill its mission and fulfill rightly its mandate in the occupied Saharawi territories.
"The MINURSO is neither in the ability to fully exercise its oversight of peacekeeping and observation, nor has any authority to counteract the erosion" of his role, he lamented.
Recalling that the main purpose of the establishment of MINURSO was to organize and supervise a referendum on self-determination of the Saharawi people, he explained that "blocking the political process did not allow that body to implement this referendum, de facto limited to monitoring the ceasefire ".
It is further noted in the document that "it seems that the confidentiality of communications between the headquarters of MINURSO (located in an area under Moroccan control) and New York has been compromised at least once."
The UN secretary general also denounced "the Moroccan police presence outside the complex (which) discourages visitors to attend the MINURSO on their own", and the obligation to impose on MINURSO vehicles license plate instead of Moroccan diplomatic license plate of the UN.
"The deployment of Moroccan flags around the MINURSO headquarters creates an appearance that raises doubts about the neutrality of the UN," he reported.
The draft Security Council resolution on Western Sahara will be developed as a tradition by the "Group of Friends of Western Sahara" before submitting it to other members of the Security Council for adoption before April 30.
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