The United States and Morocco have defended this Tuesday before the UN General Assembly their support for an autonomy plan driven by Rabat as the only viable way out of the Western Sahara conflict, against the “illusions” that, according to Washington, dominate within the United Nations and in light of Algeria’s insistence, according to the Moroccan delegation, on “deliberately” “perpetuating” a humanitarian crisis.
The Assembly session was held ten days after the exchange of vetoes between Russia and the United States, on October 30, in the Security Council regarding the Western Sahara; a blockade that led to the expiration of the mandate of the UN peacekeeping mission in the area, MINURSO.
The U.S. ambassador to the UN, Mike Waltz, has reiterated that Washington’s unconditional support for the Moroccan plan, which rules out any path to self-determination for the Sahrawi population, responds to a logic of pragmatism in light of the inability shown by the United Nations to resolve a dispute that has dragged on since the Spanish withdrawal 50 years ago.
“Hope is not a strategy for peace, and the issue of the Western Sahara, here at the United Nations, has been dominated by illusions—an alliterative of broken promises repackaged as hope—that has ended up freezing this conflict for half a century,” Waltz has said.
The U.S. representative has criticized that Moscow’s veto amounts to “a step back” that only maintains an “inhumane status quo” for the Sahrawis, clinging to a self-determination referendum that it now considers “impracticable and impossible to achieve on the ground.”
The diplomatic standoff between Morocco and Algeria
For Morocco’s permanent representative to the UN, Omar Hilale, the historical debate makes no sense: the Western Sahara will be Moroccan “until the end of time,” and in his view, the person responsible for the blockade has only one name: Algeria.
“Algeria is the main party responsible for the perpetuation of this regional postponement, but especially for the perpetuation of the humanitarian drama,” Hilale has stated, who has claimed Rabat’s pragmatic approach by presenting “a developed and detailed autonomy plan” as a way to close the crisis.
"The blockade resides in Algiers. An observer, as Algeria claims to be, does not propose the partition of a territory while ignoring the populations it says it is defending," he added, "nor does it threaten the member States of the Security Council with withdrawing from the political process if they vote in favor of the U.S. resolution."
The Moroccan ambassador has also taken aim at the Polisario Front, the political arm of the Sahrawi self-determination movement, which had warned of its possible withdrawal from the negotiating process if the U.S. draft submitted to the Security Council on October 30 were to succeed.
In the words of the diplomat, the Polisario is an organization that subsists "on borrowed terms" thanks to Algeria, something which, as he pointed out, is reflected in "the Tindouf camps, located on Algerian soil, the arms, financial resources, the campaign and diplomatic support" and "when it says 'no', it is Algiers it listens to".
Lastly, Hilale has again held Algeria responsible, which he accuses of rejecting any political way out because "it fears the disappearance of the camps through the voluntary and chosen departure of the refugees, either by returning to their homeland, Morocco -- although I don't think Algeria will allow their integration --, or by choosing a third country as the destination"; a "diplomatic business" which, in his view, resembles "a hostage-taking" in the face of a Moroccan plan that "remains the only solution for the definitive settlement of this regional dispute".