 In a report to the United Nations General Assembly, covering the period from 2011 to 2020, the United Nations Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, highlighted the examining of the Moroccan Sahara issue by the Security Council, as a regional dispute, under Chapter VI of the United Nations Charter, relating to the peaceful settlement of disputes.
"During the period under review, the Security Council continued to examine the reports of the Secretary-General and adopted resolutions on the situation concerning the Sahara", underlined Guterres, adding that "the envoys and special representatives of the Secretary-General have continued to consult the parties on the means to remedy the situation".
In this context, Guterres recalled the organization, in Switzerland, on Dec. 5-6, 2018 and March 21-22, 2019, by the former Personal Envoy Horst Köhler, of two round tables between Morocco, Algeria, Mauritania and the "polisario", "which constituted the first face-to-face meetings within the framework of the political process, since 2012", once again reaffirming Algeria's role as the main party to the regional dispute over the Moroccan Sahara, as established by the Security Council, in particular in its resolutions 2440 (2018), 2468 (2019) and 2494 (2019).
In these three resolutions, the Security Council urged Algeria, which created and is maintaining this regional dispute for geopolitical reasons inherited from the Cold War, to work constructively with the Personal Envoy of the Secretary-General, in a spirit of compromise, throughout the duration of the political process, to ensure its success.
In addition, the Secretary-General of the United Nations highlighted, in this report, the adoption of resolution 2494, on October 30, 2019, by which the Security Council "decided to extend until October 31, 2020, the MINURSO's mandate and welcomed the new impetus given by the two round tables”. It should be noted that resolution 2494 is the only one mentioned in the Secretary-General's report, although it covers a period of 10 years, thus establishing it as being the reference and the basis of the political process, carried out under the exclusive auspices of the UN Secretary-General.
Resolution 2494 reaffirmed the preeminence of the Autonomy Initiative, under the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Morocco, and established the parameters of the solution for this regional dispute, which can only be political, realistic, pragmatic, sustainable and of compromise. It also established the round table process, with the full participation of Algeria, as the only way to lead the exclusively UN political process to its completion.
This resolution also required, like those which preceded it since 2011, the registration of the populations in captivity in the Tindouf camps, which Algeria refuses, in violation of its international obligations.
The absence of this registration favors, in particular, the embezzlement of humanitarian aid intended for the Tindouf camps by the leaders of the "Polisario" and local officials, for their personal enrichment, as confirmed in the inspection reports of the HCR, the WFP, the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF), as well as by the European Parliament.
The absence of this registration also contributes to the continuation of serious and systematic violations of human rights and international humanitarian law of the populations of these camps, directly implicating the responsibility of the host country, Algeria, as recently confirmed by the Human Rights Committee and the Human Rights Council's Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.
The UN Secretary General underlined, in this report, that the ultimate objective of the political process, as established by the Security Council, is to achieve a political solution to this regional dispute, specifying that this process must be based on efforts made since 2006 and new developments since”, and therefore on the Autonomy Initiative, which is and remains the only effort and new development made after 2006.
By exclusively mentioning the political solution, resolution 2494 and the round table process, the UN Secretary-General has completely ignored, as he has done for two decades, the settlement plan and the referendum, discarding, once again, the desperate and futile attempts by Algeria and its puppet, the armed separatist group of the "polisario", to resuscitate these obsolete plans, forgotten by the Security Council since 2001.
The Security Council and the international community have chosen the path of international law by irreversibly opting for a political solution that is realistic, pragmatic, durable and of compromise, embodied by the Autonomy Initiative, whose seriousness and credibility are reaffirmed in the 16 resolutions adopted by the Security Council since 2007.
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