AFAPREDESA
The Association for the Families of Saharawi Prisoners and the Disappeared
UN Chief: Step Back From Sahara Conflict
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The deadlock over Western Sahara has become so
intractable that the only way out is for Morocco to negotiate directly
with the region's rebels, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a
report Friday..
Saturday April 22, 2006 4:01 AM
By NICK WADHAMS
Associated Press Writer
The report acknowledged that after 15 years and more than $600
million, the U.N. has been unable to resolve the standoff between the
Moroccan government and Frente Polisaro rebels in the phosphate-rich
West African territory.
Annan told the Security Council that it must recognize that efforts to
revive a peace plan put forward by former Secretary of State James
Baker III have no chance.
Any new plan would be ``doomed from the outset,'' Annan wrote, because
Morocco refuses to allow any proposal that would give Western Sahara's
estimated 273,000 people the option to choose full independence. Yet
the rebels refuse to agree to any autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty.
``All that therefore remained was recourse to direct negotiations,''
the report said.
Morocco and Mauritania split Western Sahara after its Spanish
colonizers left the territory in 1975. Full-scale war broke out the
following year, and Morocco took over the whole of Western Sahara
after Mauritania pulled out in 1979.
The fighting, which pitted 15,000 Polisario guerrillas against
Morocco's U.S.-equipped army, ended in 1991 with a U.N.-negotiated
cease-fire that called for a referendum on the region's future. But
the vote has never happened.
Despite the standoff, Annan urged the council not to give up on
Western Sahara, saying it must now focus on pushing the two sides to
negotiate.
He said Western Sahara is low on their political agenda of most
nations, which are reluctant to take sides because they don't want to
upset either Algeria, where most of the rebels are based, or Morocco.
``These two factors combined constitute a powerful temptation to
acquiesce in the continuation of the impasse, at least for another
number of years,'' the report said.
Many of the report's recommendations were put forward by Annan's envoy
for Western Sahara, Peter van Walsum. He took the post after Baker
resigned in frustration about the lack of progress.