The United Nations has begun dismantling its 35-year peacekeeping mission in Western Sahara following Friday’s failure by the Security Council to renew its mandate.
But Secretary-General António Guterres has stressed that the withdrawal of UN peacekeepers does not diminish the Sahrawi people’s right to self-determination.
The mission’s closure follows a diplomatic confrontation between the United States and Russia over the future of the disputed territory, raising fresh questions about the prospects for a negotiated political settlement.
The United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara, known as MINURSO, has formally ceased operations after the Security Council failed to renew its mandate.
Established in 1991, the mission was intended to monitor a ceasefire between Morocco and the Polisario Front and help create conditions for a referendum on the territory’s political future.
That referendum was never held.
Following Friday’s Security Council vote, the UN has entered what it calls a liquidation period that began on November 1st.
Russia vetoed the US-drafted resolution, arguing that it prejudged Western Sahara’s future by favouring Morocco’s autonomy plan over the Sahrawi people’s right to self-determination.
Moscow also opposed removing the reference to a referendum from the UN mission’s name, accusing Washington of abandoning its neutrality.
Moscow’s envoy, Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia says, “We proceed from the understanding that the final modalities for settlement need to be acceptable, both to the Moroccans and the Polisario Front. The imposition of one-sided solutions, without preliminary, painstaking discussions with receptivity with the other side, is something which we view as leading to a dead end.”
Russia sought an extension of the existing peacekeeping mandate without changing its political foundations, but its alternative resolution failed to secure sufficient support.
US Ambassador, Mike Waltz says, “We cannot perpetuate a mission whose very name does not reflect the reality on the ground and chooses status quo for the Sahrawis in Tindouf — all while a very real opportunity for peace is on the table.”
Morocco has welcomed the Council’s failure to renew the mandate while its Royal Palace called for the withdrawal of UN personnel and equipment arguing also that the dispute be removed from the Council agenda all together.
Rabat’s envoy, Omar Hilale says, “In any camp, in any situation, is supposed to be temporary. It’s supposed to allow for people to go home eventually so that these women, children and men can go back to their families and villages. That is what is supposed to happen, and that is what the negotiations want to achieve, to allow these people to go home and not to remain in camps indefinitely, and not to remain hostages to an Algerian political agenda and the hostages of an armed separatist group that has links with international terrorism.”
Algeria, which hosts a large Sahrawi refugee population at Tindouf, expressed regret at the Council’s failure to renew the mandate while the Polisario Front called the decision unacceptable even though it expressed satisfaction that the US text was blocked.
It’s Representative in New York Ambassador, Sidi Omar says, “The Polisario Front expresses its satisfaction that the Security Council has not adopted this draft resolution presented by the United States of America as a pen holder. And we will not definitely engage in any process that goes against the rights of our people.”
The territory remains disputed between Morocco, which controls most of Western Sahara and proposes autonomy under its sovereignty, and the Polisario Front, which seeks independence.
A smaller team, reporting to the UN Department of Operational Support, will now oversee the withdrawal of equipment belonging to troop-contributing countries and the disposal of United Nations assets.
Secretary-General António Guterres has called on all parties to cooperate with the process while paying tribute to the twenty UN personnel who lost their lives during the mission’s 35-year deployment.
Guterres has emphasised that MINURSO was established to help the people of Western Sahara realise their inalienable right to self-determination and that the mission’s departure did not extinguish those rights.