Geneva, 16 February 2024 (SPS) - The Polisario Front condemned, on Tuesday, the invitation by the Moroccan occupation of 14 ambassadors accredited to the United Nations in Geneva to visit occupied Western Sahara, which constitutes a flagrant violation of international law and the UN Charter, which considers the Sahrawi territory as non-self-governing until decolonization.
As soon as Morocco took control over the Human Rights Council, "it began to promote its national agenda for the colonization of Western Sahara," the Polisario Front's representative in Switzerland and at the United Nations and international organisations in Geneva, Oubi Bouchraya Bachir, said in a statement.
The Sahrawi diplomat said that the invitation to 14 ambassadors to visit the occupied Sahrawi territories had been used as a "large-scale media propaganda manoeuvre" by Morocco.
According to him, the aim of this campaign was to "mislead public opinion and misuse the Council Presidency to promote Morocco's illegal military occupation of Western Sahara."
In addition to being a flagrant violation of international law and the United Nations Charter, which considers Western Sahara to be a Non-Self-Governing Territory awaiting decolonization, this visit is also contrary to the mandate of the President and to the Council's mission as defined at the time of its creation by a resolution which emphasizes the paramount importance of the principle of equal rights and the self-determination of peoples."
The resolution stresses the crucial need "to ensure universality, objectivity and non-selectivity in the consideration of human rights issues, and the elimination of double standards and politicization," recalled the Saharawi representative.
Morocco's use of its position as President of the Council as an instrument will not help it to improve its tarnished image following the "MoroccoGate" and "Pegasus" scandals and the massacre committed against African migrants at the border between Nador and Melilla in June 2022, nor will it cover up the siege imposed on the Sahrawi territories, the systematic expulsion of international observers and the flagrant human rights violations committed in occupied Western Sahara, which have been well documented by international organizations, concluded the Polisario Front representative.