No headway for Western Sahara

2004-10-19 10:39

United Nations - Western Sahara's hopes for an independence referendum for the phosphate-rich region received a setback when the majority of nations sitting on a key United Nations General Assembly committee abstained from voting on the issue - a move that signaled disapproval with the plan.

The decolonisation committee voted 52 to 0 with 89 abstentions on Monday to endorse a plan by former United States Secretary of State James A Baker III for autonomy and a referendum to decide whether the desert territory on Africa's Atlantic coast should become independent or part of Morocco.

Usually, such resolutions in the committee are adopted by consensus. But this time, the document did not have the support of Morocco, and it had to be put to a vote.

Morocco abstained, as did all the members of the European Union. Morocco said the number of abstentions showed the plan should be revised.

War broke out

Western Sahara's Spanish colonisers left the territory in 1975, and Morocco and Mauritania split it. 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 US-equipped army, ended in 1991 with a UN-negotiated ceasefire that called for a referendum on the region's future.

But UN efforts to arrange a vote have been frustrated by disputes over who should be allowed to vote.

Morocco said it did not accept Monday's resolution because it did not mention the new special UN envoy to Western Sahara Alvaro de Soto who has been negotiating with the parties. De Soto succeeded Baker as mediator when the former US diplomat resigned in June.

"The approval of the resolution is a categoric rejection of the colonialist policy of Morocco in the Sahara," said Mohammed Salem Ould-Salek, the foreign minister for the Polisario rebel government.

- AP