The representative of the Frente Polisario before the United Nations, Sido Mohamed Omar, highlighted this Friday in New York the veto exercised by Russia in the Security Council against the latest draft resolution promoted by the United States on Western Sahara, favorable to the Moroccan autonomy plan, and celebrated that it is "a historic day for the Sahrawi people".
Omar underscored the role of the recent mobilizations of the Sahrawi population, which have served to "frustrate the attempts of the Moroccan occupying State and of all those who support it" by ensuring that their message and their claims reached clearly the UN headquarters in New York.
In this context, he once again emphasized the "inalienable right of the Sahrawi people to a free and sovereign existence" as a "red line that is not negotiated, a red line marked by the caravans of the martyrs and by the blood shed".
As a result of this pressure and with the support of like-minded countries, "a conspiracy that was being plotted against the free existence of the Sahrawi people has been stopped," he said, expressing in particular his "gratitude" to the Russian Federation for the use of its veto power. He also highlighted that China, Pakistan and Somalia opted for abstention in the vote.
The Frente Polisario maintains that the draft presented by Washington moved away from the principles established by international law and distorted the nature of the conflict as a decolonization process, which in practice would mean legitimizing the Moroccan "illegal occupation" of Western Sahara and establishing a "dangerous precedent" for stability and security in the regional and international sphere.
The former Spanish colony of Western Sahara came under the control of Morocco in 1975, despite the armed resistance of the Frente Polisario. Both sides faced each other in a war that lasted until 1991, the year in which a ceasefire was agreed with the commitment to organize a self-determination referendum. However, the discrepancies over the preparation of the census and over the possible participation of Moroccan settlers have prevented its holding to this day.
The United States initiative contemplated the extension of the mandate of the International Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO), which expires this very Saturday. At the same time, Moscow registered its own draft resolution, in which the autonomy plan defended by Rabat was not mentioned, but this text was likewise blocked through the veto of the United States.