Is it possible to cure cancer with aspirin? Can we do justice in a murder by relentlessly "assaulting" the victim's body looking for excuses to the murderer?
It may sound strange, yet it seems to be the remedy recommended by the UN, some powerful governments and "experts" when it comes to the question of Western Sahara.
How many times have we heard about the "need to find new ideas" to resolve the conflict or "a solution of no winner no looser"? And so, instead of applying international law, we are advised to tolerate abuses committed by powerful states or "protected" regimes, such as the Moroccan and the Israeli, so that they can get away with their crimes and get on top of it some benefit in hand.
In an analysis of the latest report of Ban Ki-Moon, published on the website "Affaires stratégiques.Info", dated May 29, the researcher Khadija Mohsen-Finan believes that "Morocco is deprived of the benevolence of the UN". She presented in effect the criticism this report addressed to the Moroccan position, accusing Rabat of being the source of obstacles hindering the resolution of the last conflict of decolonization in Africa.
The report indicated in fact that Rabat spies on the UN mission in Western Sahara, MINURSO; hinders the work of the UN mission and puts administrative constraints in front of its efforts; continues to violate human rights and maintains MINURSO in a position of incapacity to fulfil its initial mandate.
The report said Mrs. Mohsen-Finan "rightly wonders what is legitimate and what is legal in the action of Morocco in the Sahara, as it challenges us on the credibility of the UN mission..."
All this is true, and one can even say that this "sudden awareness" of the UN is very late, if we take into account the statements and criticism made since the 1990s by US Ambassador Frank Ruddy, Mr. Johans Manz (cited in the analysis of Khadija Mohsen-Finan) or Mr. Francisco Bastagli and other ex-officials and soldiers of MINURSO, who denounced those obstacles put by Morocco but fail to get any kind of response or reaction from the international organisation.
But this is not the purpose of this article. What seems really vague, just to avoid saying "fishy", is this new tendency of developing "new ideas" and introducing new "terminology" and "propositions", which certainly do not help to find the solution of the conflict, or may even make it more complicated, because they are turning attention away from real problems and seek to heal a "cancer of occupation" with "aspirin" that aim to calm the claims of an occupied and oppressed people.
BOUNDARIES OF THE MANDATE OF THE POLISARIO
The first of these ideas that began to appear in analysis and even in UN reports is nothing less than the attempt to propagate that the question of Western Sahara is a "sovereignty issue". This is a misconception, if at all innocent, since sovereignty over Western Sahara is "the exclusive competence of its people."
International law has recognized the people's exclusive right to exercise sovereignty over their territories and recognized them as the ultimate authority holding this competence. Since 1963, Western Sahara was recognized as a "Non-Self-Governing territory" where the "people of Western Sahara" alone have this right to sovereignty over their land. Furthermore, all the claims of Morocco in Western Sahara have been denied by the International Court of Justice in The Hague in 1975, by the General Assembly of the UN and by other international bodies when all of them recognized to the Sahrawis the "inalienable right to self-determination".
On the other hand, we should remember the legal opinion of the Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs and UN Legal Counsel, Hans Corell, according to whom Morocco "does not even have the status of administering power in Western Sahara". That is to say that the Moroccan presence in this territory is a simple and bold act of illegal occupation following a military aggression.
Normally, the Saharawi question should be treated under Chapter Seven of the UN Charter, if it was not the opposition of France that is keeping it debated under Chapter Six.
The second dangerous idea is nothing other than proposing "to associate the components of the Saharawi people in the negotiations" on the future of Western Sahara! This is a very attractive idea, as attractive as the repeated quote of "Arab Spring" in current UN documents, in the Security Council or the Council of Human Rights; even dictatorships start talking about Arab Spring!! The idea of associating "other components of Saharawi people" with negotiation was first proposed by Van Walsum, and then used by Ban Ki-moon in his latest reports, but also by Morocco, which is the last to be concerned about enabling peoples' participatory democracy.
The aim of this idea is nothing more than trying to question the legitimacy of representativeness of the Polisario Front to the Saharawi people.
Moreover, it seems that the UN is not very "comfortable" in its mediation because Polisario refuses to give up defending the right of the Saharawi people to self-determination. The liberation movement is even accused of being rigid in this position! But the real question should normally be whether it can be less rigid when it comes to defending a people's right to freedom.
The Polisario Front was created by the Saharawi people in 1973 as their legitimate representative and was mandated (by this people) to struggle by all possible and legitimate means for the liberation of the Saharawi territory. It is not mandated to ensure that the aggressor gets out of this expansionist "adventure" with a part of the cake, to simplify the so-called "realist" analysis of "experts" who keep advising the Sahrawis to be reasonable, pragmatic and play by the rules of "realpolitik".
The task of the Polisario Front is not just to exercise a political mandate on behalf of its people, but also, and most difficult, to focus on the defense of international law and legality, and to fight for the respect of international humanitarian law. Because in the end, the right to self-determination is initially "a human right" and a constituting principle of the UN Charter, and if Polisario looses this fight, other people will loose it tomorrow when stronger regimes decide to break international law and invade smaller peoples, as Morocco is doing now in total impunity.
Malainin Lakhal is a Sahrawi journalist in exile in Algeria. He is the Secretary General of UPES: Sahrawi Journalists and Writers Union.
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"It must first be pointed out that the Advisory Opinion has left out of account, or has misinterpreted, certain relevant treaties. An analysis of these instruments points to the existence of a Moroccan political or State authority extending as far as Cabo Bojador and embracing the Sakiet El Hamra."
"In itself, allegiance to the sovereign is of a political and constitutional character, as in certain countries that were subject to a military feudal system. Furthermore, at the time of colonization by Spain, that is to say towards the end of the nineteenth century, the Sultan combined in his person the legislative and executive powers, to which was added the spiritual power. He exercised those powers by means of dahirs, which were issued - a significant fact - under his sole signature. Does this not mean that the Sultan at that time personified the State, all of whose powers he exercised? Therefore allegiance to the Sultan, or sovereign, was equivalent to allegiance to the State. This entails acknowledging that the legal ties between Morocco and Western Sahara recognized by the Court took the form of political ties, indeed ties of sovereignty."
"As for Morocco, it fought for centuries to maintain its independence and the integrity of its territory in the face of a coalition of the mighty ones of the day; and when the State had to give way to superior force, the people, in the felicitous phrase of Professor Dupuy, took over from the State, continuing the fight on all fronts until the final victory, which showed, better than any referendum, the irresistible will of the nation. Going back through history, one can mention instances of liberation without a referendum through the legitimate struggle of numerous countries. The struggle is still being untiringly pursued for the liberation of the peoples of Namibia and Arab Palestine. Among the grounds put forward by Spain to convince the Court that it should refuse to answer the General Assembly's request for an advisory opinion, it mentions the fact that the Assembly has already decided that a referendum should be carried out, and that it cannot go back on that decision which is binding on it; the Advisory Opinion would, it is alleged, in those circumstances only be of academic interest. That argument was rightly rejected by the Court."
Former Vice-President of the ICJ, Judge Ammoun http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/61/6205.pdf ______________________
"When the NW African populations were grouped according to cultural or linguistic differences, the partition was not associated with genetic differentiation. Thus, it is likely that Arabisation was mainly a cultural process. ... No significant genetic differences were found between Arabs and non-Arabs (ie Berbers and Saharawis)." http://www.nature.com/ejhg/journal/v8/n5/pdf/5200464a.pdf ______________________
"For more than 30 years, the Polisario Front and Algeria have systematically and categorically turned down requests of the High Commission on Refugees (HCR) to carry out a census of the Sahrawi population in the refugee camps of Tindouf province, in Southwest Algeria. While the unjustifiable refusal of Algeria can be easily understood in the context of its relations with Morocco and its need for political propaganda over the issue of refugees living on its soil, the refusal of the Polisario is primarily motivated by the profit which the separatist Front gains from an overestimation of the number of refugees and, as a result, larger amounts of humanitarian assistance flowing in. This is, among others, reflected in a confidential report of the European Union we were able to browse through. ... Many European deputies have tried in vain to demand that it either be made public or that access be given to members of the concerned Commissions and Delegations in the European Parliament. Unfortunately the refusal can be easily understood. Indeed, the highest European authorities are aware of the disastrous consequences which publication of the report would have for relations between Algeria and Europe, whereas Algeria is one of the main suppliers of natural gas and oil to the European Union." http://www.esisc.net/TEWN/pdf/419598541_EN8.pdf ______________________
Video proof of the embezzlement of humantarian aid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mlLwikS1uA ______________________
"Algeria today has stood by the claims made by France during the years 1956-1962; and, fully in accordance with the policy statement relating to colonial boundaries that was put forth by the Organization of African Unity, has stated simply that Algeria's rightful boundaries are those that were inherited from the French colonial regime. Insofar as the portion of the common frontier region that is being examined here is concerned -- the Guir-Zousfana river basin area -- the Algerian criterion for legitimacy is not well founded. It can be proven that during the period 1956-1962 the French presented a case for their claim that was distorted by their failure to make known some of the most relevant documentation bearing on the issue. ... Morocco today can legitimately claim the right to a territorial boundary at the 1901 line." (Morocco's Boundary in the Guir-Zousfana River Basin, African Historical Studies) ______________________
The map of Algeria before France annexed large parts of Morocco's Sahara, attaching it to French-Algeria: http://thecivilisingmission.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/algerie_fr.jpg ______________________
"Let us keep wearing these uniforms until we have completed our task and secured our socialist revolution" - First President of Algeria, Ben Bella http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1xGzcPNgHE ______________________
"The definitive study of Morocco's borders with its neighbours was produced in 1969 by Frank Trout in his work, Morocco's Saharan Frontiers. He argues convincingly that Morocco was very much the victim of French administrative intrigue." - George Joffe http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzVZIFvkE68 ______________________
"The polisario was born in Rabat, not in the Sahara, says ex-member" http://www.arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/031025/2003102518.html ______________________
"The present work proposes to show that the Western Sahara, like Mauritania and the frontier regions of Algeria has never ceased to be under the political, economic and cultural influence of Morocco and that it would be absurd to create a new pseudo state when a state of indisputably ancient origin and modern structure is ready to welcome a regions that has, in reality, never ceased being integrated in it." (The Western Sahara and the frontiers of Morocco, Robert Rezette) ______________________
"Polisario compromise in abduction cases shows the true face of separatists (UK expert)" http://www.corcas.com/eng/WesternSaharaPoliticalAffairs/tabid/486/ctl/Detai ls/mid/1358/ItemID/16340/Default.aspx ______________________
"TINDOUF: AMNESTY SLAMS POLISARIO FOR HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES" http://polisario-thinktwice.org/news/1/188-tindouf-amnesty-slams-polisario- for-human-rights-abuses.html ____________________________________________
"Who really bombed Paris?" http://www.redpepper.org.uk/Who-really-bombed-Paris/ ______________________
"Algerian intelligence agents routinely bribe European police, journalists and MPs" (‘Yussuf-Joseph’ – a defected secret service agent of Algeria) ______________________
"I want to liberate Sahrawis from separatists' servitude" - Mustapha Salma Ould Sidi Mouloud http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKzTuZcWJTI