The UN pointed the finger at Western Sahara.
The separatists of the Polisario Front accused the United Nations, Saturday February 27, of being responsible for the "political blockage" in this territory disputed with Morocco for 30 years.
"Morocco could not have done what it did without the support of the international community, the support of the UN, the Security Council as well as the UN secretary general," said a senior official of the Polisario, Khatri Addouh, in the Sahrawi refugee camps of Tindouf in Algeria, on the occasion of the 45th anniversary of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).
After almost 30 years of ceasefire, tensions resurfaced in November 2020 when Morocco deployed its troops in the buffer zone of Guerguerat, in the extreme south of the territory, after a group of Sahrawi militants blocked the only road to neighboring Mauritania.
Since then, frustrated by the deadlock in the UN process, the Polisario has resumed hostilities and says it is "in a state of war of self-defense".
It remains very difficult to know from an independent source what is happening on the ground, difficult to access.
>> To read: Western Sahara: 45 years of conflicts and negotiations "at a standstill"
The quadripartite peace negotiations - Morocco, Polisario, Algeria and Mauritania - conducted under the aegis of the UN have stalled since March 2019.
"Laxity" in the face of Morocco
"The Polisario Front has tried for 29 years to avoid war by making concessions, but it has faced a total lack of cooperation from both the Moroccan side and the UN", criticized Khatri Addouh , quoted by the official Sahrawi agency SPS.
The Polisario official attributed to the UN the responsibility for the "political blockage" of the Sahrawi question because of its "laxity" towards Morocco.
During a meeting Thursday with the Algerian President, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, the Secretary General of the Polisario, Brahim Ghali, deplored "the silence of the international community".
He urged international human rights organizations to visit the former Spanish colony "to protect the defenseless Sahrawi citizens".
"The Saharawi people will continue their fight to impose justice and liberate the Saharawi territory from the Moroccan presence", promised Saturday Brahim Ghali, who is also president of the SADR, self-proclaimed on February 27, 1976, in a speech delivered at the refugee camp from Aousserd.
As on every anniversary, the Polisario presented its armed forces during a military parade in the presence of the Saharawi leaders.
Columns of soldiers, wearing sanitary masks, presented their arms, while a woman fully wrapped in the Sahrawi flag paraded in front of them.
Self-determination referendum versus Moroccan sovereignty
The question of the status of Western Sahara, considered as a "non-autonomous territory" by the UN in the absence of a definitive settlement, has been opposing the Polisario to Morocco for decades.
The Polisario, supported by Algeria, demands a self-determination referendum planned by the UN, while Morocco proposes an autonomy plan under its sovereignty.
Rabat controls about 80% of this vast desert territory, where major Moroccan development projects have been launched in recent years.
Shortly before his departure from the White House, Donald Trump recognized Moroccan sovereignty over the whole of Western Sahara in return for the normalization of Rabat's relations with Israel.
The Saharawis are now placing their hopes in the new Biden administration so that it can reverse this decision which "violates all decisions and resolutions of all international bodies".
"In reality, Trump is only adding problems to the administration that succeeds him, that is to say that of Biden," said Khatri Addouh, on the sidelines of the festivities in Tindouf.
Since then, the UN, which has on the spot a mission with limited prerogatives, the Minurso (United Nations Mission for the organization of a referendum in Western Sahara), indicated that its position was "unchanged", as several countries involved. in the file.
With AFP
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