UN set to renew Western Sahara force despite criticism

By Louis Charbonneau

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The U.N. Security Council has reached a deal on a draft resolution to

renew the mandate of the peacekeeping force in the disputed territory of Western Sahara this week, envoys said, but the

Polisario Front independence movement and South Africa are disappointed.

The renewal of the mandate of the peacekeeping force, known as MINURSO, marks an annual battle in the

council between Morocco, backed by France, and African nations supporting Polisario.

The African countries have

repeatedly called for U.N. peacekeepers to be given the task of monitoring alleged human rights abuses.

Morocco and

France, its former colonial master, have resisted the idea that the peacekeepers should report on rights abuses in Western

Sahara, a sparsely populated tract of desert that has phosphates, fisheries and, potentially, oil and gas.

Former

British diplomat Carne Ross, who heads the Independent Diplomat, a group that advises Polisario, wrote in the Guardian

newspaper last week that Western Sahara is the “forgotten first source of the Arab Spring.” He was referring to the Moroccan

authorities’ deadly crackdown on protests there by the Saharawi population in late 2010.

While the Security Council

has never formally assigned the peacekeepers the role of human rights monitoring, Morocco has faced pressure to allow

language on human rights in the resolutions on Western Sahara. Rabat insists the territory should come under its sovereignty,

but the Polisario contends it is a sovereign state.

The latest draft calls on both sides to respect human rights and

welcomes Morocco’s decision to set up a national council on rights and grant access to the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights

Council. Previous resolutions had made only a vague reference to the “human dimension” of the conflict.

The Polisario,

which represents the Saharawi people, waged a guerrilla war against Moroccan forces until the United Nations brokered a

ceasefire in 1991 with the understanding that a referendum would be held on the fate of the

territory.

 

The referendum was never held and attempts to reach a lasting deal have

floundered.

The new draft resolution has the council “stressing the importance of improving the human rights situation

in Western Sahara and the Tindouf camps, and encouraging the parties to … to ensure full respect for human

rights.”

U.N. BEEFED UP CRITICISM OF MOROCCO

The draft resolution, which would extend the peacekeepers’

mandate until April 2013, is scheduled to go to a vote on Tuesday, council diplomats say. Polisario and temporary council

member South Africa are disappointed with the text.

“Certainly, human rights have been once more sacrificed by the

Security Council in Western Sahara … as a result of France’s blind support to his client in the region, Morocco,” said

Polisario’s representative in New York, Ahmed Boukhari.

South Africa’s U.N. Ambassador Baso Sangqu told Reuters he

wanted tougher language on human rights and a demand that Morocco end its restrictions on, and monitoring of,

MINURSO.

A U.N. report to the 15-nation council on Western Sahara has been a focus of controversy this month. The

United Nations circulated three different drafts to the council before settling on what it said was the “final advance

copy.”

This elicited allegations from Polisario and several council delegations, above all South Africa, that the

secretariat had caved in to pressure from Rabat and Paris to soften the report’s criticism of Morocco. Sangqu said the

changes were “deplorable” and intended to “neutralize” its criticism.

An analysis of the first draft of the U.N.

report, obtained by Reuters, which was sent directly by the head of MINURSO, Hany Abdel-Aziz, to the U.N. Department of

Peacekeeping Operations shows that much of language most critical of Morocco was added by the United Nations in New

York.

That suggests allegations that the U.N. somehow tried to whitewash Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s report on

Western Sahara to the Security Council are unjustified.

Parts of the report added by the U.N. secretariat include

paragraphs suggesting Morocco has been spying on MINURSO and that the mission was forced to use Moroccan diplomatic license

plates on its vehicles. The report said that “raises doubts about the neutrality of the mission.”

Also added to the

original draft was a paragraph that says the U.N. force is “unable to exercise fully its peacekeeping monitoring, observation

and reporting functions, or avail of the authority to reverse the erosion” of its ability to function.

Although there

were some changes between the three versions of Ban’s report sent to the council, those revisions were minimal compared to

the criticisms of Morocco that were added after the first draft reached the peacekeeping department, which is headed by Herve

Ladsous of France.

Morocco, a temporary council member, has declined to comment on Ban’s report and the criticisms of

Rabat contained in it.