The UN official who, last month, dismissed the Sahara independence as unrealistic, claimed in an interview with the Dutch paper, NRC Handelsblad, his right to express his opinion at the UN Security Council.

   "I deemed that if I don't express my opinion today, I'll feel incredibly taken advantage of in a year time," he told the paper. "I risk to be discredited."

   Mr. Walsum said he had the feeling he was appointed as UN envoy to perpetrate the dispute ad infinitum, adding that, in the absence of any perspective, he was encouraged in his mission, especially from Algeria, which provides full support to the Sahara.

   Polisario and Morocco have been disputing the control of the Sahara, since 1975, when the former Spanish colonizer pulled out and ceded the desert territory to Morocco under the Madrid Accord.

   My conviction, van Walsum said, was totally different, and things didn’t go right.

   The official also deemed immoral that the populations remain in camps since 33 years ago. “Is it morally acceptable to leave a generation of children of the Polisario live in camps?” he wondered.

   Van Walsum recalled his decision to urge the Polisario to “engage in tense negotiations in order to reach a guaranteed form of autonomy under the Moroccan flag.”

Source: MAP
News and events on Western Sahara issue / Corcas