[News] Polisario Front Blames UN for “Political Deadlock” in Western Sahara Negotiations

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://orinocotribune.com/polisario-front-blames-un-for-political-deadlock-in-western-sahara-negotiations/ 
<https://orinocotribune.com/polisario-front-blames-un-for-political-deadlock-in-western-sahara-negotiations/> 



  Polisario Front Blames UN for “Political Deadlock” in Western
  Sahara Negotiations

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*The pro-independence Polisario Front fighting Morocco for control over 
Western Sahara has blamed the United Nations for a “political 
deadlock” in the decades-long conflict.*

February 28, 2021.-  The organization, which represents the indigenous 
Sahrawi people fighting for the independence of the resource-rich 
Western Sahara region, urged the UN on Saturday to help end the conflict 
in the former Spanish colony.

“We ask the United Nations to urgently fulfill its promises: that of 
ridding Western Sahara of colonization, in accordance with its Charter 
and its resolutions,” Polisario Front leader Brahim Ghali said in a 
speech at a refugee camp in Western Sahara.

/“The Sahrawi people will keep up their struggle for justice and to 
liberate Sahrawi territory from the Moroccan presence,” Ghali said as 
Polisario armed forces marched in a military parade to mark the 45th 
anniversary of their unilateral declaration of independence./

The United Nations brokered a truce between the warring sides in 1991 
and promised that a referendum would be held on independence, which has 
yet to take place.

/“The Polisario Front tried for 29 years to avoid war by making 
concessions, but it has faced a total absence of cooperation both from 
the Moroccan side and the UN,” senior Polisario official Khatri Addouh 
was quoted as saying by official Sahrawi news agency SPS./

RELATED CONTENT: African Solidarity Conference Calls on UN and AU to 
Speed Up the Total Liberation of Western Sahara 
<https://orinocotribune.com/african-solidarity-conference-calls-on-un-and-au-to-speed-up-the-total-liberation-of-western-sahara/>

The UN is responsible for the “political deadlock” on the Sahrawi 
question due to its “laxity” in the face of Morocco, Addouh added.

UN-led negotiations involving Morocco and the Polisario, with Algeria 
and Mauritania as observers, have been suspended since March 2019.

The Western Sahara’s push for independence against Spanish colonial 
rule was led by the Polisario Front in 1973.

After the colonial forces left in 1975, the Polisario Front backed by 
Libya and Algeria went to war against Morocco and Mauritania, which 
later pulled its forces out of the region.

Since the ceasefire agreement in 1991, most of the disputed Western 
Sahara territory has remained under Moroccan control.

The pro-independence forces now control one-fifth of Western Sahara with 
additional pockets of control in the Sahrawi refugee camps that have 
been set up along the Algerian border.

RELATED CONTENT: Sahrawis Condemn US Recognition of Morocco’s 
Sovereignty Over Western Sahara 
<https://orinocotribune.com/sahrawis-condemn-us-recognition-of-moroccos-sovereignty-over-western-sahara/>

Despite the ceasefire, the two sides regularly exchange fire along the 
demarcation line.

The Sahrawi movement aims to gain fully recognized independence for 
Western Sahara.

The situation has become more complicated since the administration of 
former US president Donald Trump brokered a normalization deal between 
Morocco and the Israeli regime late last year.

As part of the deal, the US agreed to recognize Morocco’s claim over 
“the entire Western Sahara territory,” disregarding the fact that 
the region is an internationally recognized disputed area.

In recent years, Morocco has been able to win the recognition of its 
claim to sovereignty over the disputed territory from numerous 
countries, which have opened consulates in Western Sahara.

The Polisario considers the opening of the missions a “violation of 
international law and an attack on the legal status of Western Sahara as 
a non-autonomous territory.”

*Western Sahara returns to European Court of Justice*

Next week, the European Court of Justice will discuss EU-Morocco accords 
allowing Rabat to export goods from Western Sahara that are contested by 
the pro-independence forces.

It is to hold two sessions on Tuesday and Wednesday but a ruling will 
take “several months,” a spokesman for the Luxembourg-based court 
told AFP.

For the Polisario, Moroccan exports from the disputed territory amount 
to “looting of its natural resources,” notably agricultural goods, 
phosphates and fish, according to the movement’s French lawyer Gilles 
Devers.

/Featured image: Sahrawi soldiers parade during the celebrations marking 
the 45th anniversary of the declaration of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic 
Republic (SDAR), at a refugee camp on the outskirts of the southwestern 
Algerian city of Tindouf, on February 27, 2021. (Photo by AFP)/

(PressTV 
<https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2021/02/28/646221/Western-Sahara-UN-Negotiation-Polisario-Front>)


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