United Nations, December 28, 2015 (SPS) - The year 2015 did not see the “turning point” hoped for by the Secretary General of the United Nations (UN), Ban Ki-moon, in his 2014 report for the settlement of the Western Sahara conflict.
For a year, Morocco continued to block all initiatives aimed at a peaceful solution allowing the self-determination of the Sahrawi people through the organization of a just and regular referendum.
Morocco’s intention in wanting to perpetuate its occupation in the Sahrawi occupied territories appears clearly through the visit of King Mohamed VI, last November, to occupied El Aaiun and Dakhla, duped by Sahrawi President Mohamed Abdelaziz “a dangerous escalation.”
Morocco’s obstinacy to block all peaceful settlement was further accompanied by violations of human rights in the Sahrawi territories, according to many reports published by international organization and specialized United Nations agencies.
Its refusal of “serious and direct” negotiations, requested by the UN Secretary General, and its stubbornness to “only discuss the details of its autonomy plan,” shows that Rabat definitely turned its back on international law, according to the Sahrawi leadership.
The Special Envoy of the UN Secretary General for Western Sahara, Christopher Ross said, in December, in his briefing at the Security Council, that his attempts to relaunch the UN process were unsuccessful because of the Moroccan attitude to perpetuate the status quo.
Ross tried, since Manhasset (U.S.A.) where the latest talks between the Polisario Front and Morocco took place in 2012, to bring Morocco to the negotiating table.
This year, he unsuccessfully made three trips to the region: in February, in September and the latest one was in November, date on which Morocco banned him from travelling to the Western Sahara territories.
This decision was rejected by the United Nations, which referred to the right of the Personnel Envoy of the Secretary General to visit Western Sahara in accordance to the mandate assigned by the Security Council. In addition, the United Nations formally said that the Western Sahara “was under the decolonization process.” (SPS)
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