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Western Sahara wins more time
31/01/2003 14:05 - (SA)
Irwin Arieff
New York - The United Nations security council voted on Thursday to give another two months to UN-backed efforts to resolve a decades-old dispute about the future status of Western Sahara.
A resolution adopted unanimously by the 15-nation council said the extra time would give the parties a chance to consider a new proposal put forward by former US secretary of state James Baker, the UN special envoy for the sparsely populated northwest African desert territory.
Baker has not publicly disclosed his latest plan, but diplomats who have seen it say it would make Western Sahara a semi-autonomous part of Morocco for a transitional period of four to five years.
After that, a referendum would give residents a choice between independence or remaining a part of Morocco.
Diplomats say the plan's voter eligibility rules are likely to spell its doom, much as they did an earlier Baker proposal first put forward in June 2001.
While the previous plan would have required only a year of residency in the territory for voters to be eligible, the latest plan would require a quarter of a century of residency.
But that would give the edge in a referendum to Morocco, which moved hundreds of thousands of its nationals into the territory after annexing it in 1975 - more than a quarter of a century ago.
There are only about 86 000 indigenous Western Sahara residents, according to the Polisario Front independence movement.
The territory, which is rich in phosphates and may also have offshore oil deposits, was a Spanish colony prior to 1975. Morocco seized it right after independence.
That prompted the Polisario to wage a sporadic guerrilla war that ended in a 1991 cease-fire.
Subsequent UN efforts to stage a referendum on self-rule have bogged down in bickering about who was eligible to vote, with the Polisario accusing Morocco of trying to pad voter rolls.
Morocco and the Polisario Front last year signed with foreign firms to explore for oil off the territory's long Atlantic coastline, although the Polisario deal is contingent on the territory winning independence in a UN referendum.
The resolution approved by the council on Thursday also extended through March 31 the UN mission for the referendum in Western Sahara, which numbers 211 military observers and troops and 26 police officers.
The mission's mandate had been due to expire on Friday.
- Reuters
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