By: Hana Saada
ALGIERS- The Saharawi President of the Republic, Secretary-General of the Polisario Front, Mr. Brahim Ghali, began, Sunday, a state visit to the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, at the invitation of its President, Mr. Nicolás Maduro.
The Saharawi President and his accompanying delegation were received at Simon Bolivar International Airport in Caracas, by the Venezuelan Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yvan Gil and Deputy Minister for Africa of at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Yuri Pimentel Moura.
The visit, which comes within the framework of the commemoration of forty years of diplomatic relations between the Republic of Venezuela and the Sahrawi Republic, as an embodiment of the strength of brotherhood, friendship and solidarity between the two peoples and countries, will be an opportunity to strengthen relations of cooperation, consultation and joint coordination on various issues of common interest.
The visit of the Saharawi President to the Latin American country also consecrates the status of the two countries and the role required of them in the context of defending a just world order based on respect for international legitimacy and the rights of peoples to sovereignty, self-determination and independence.
The Saharawi President of the Republic is accompanied by an important delegation comprising members of the National Secretariat of the Polisario Front, Mohamed Sidati and Fatima al-Mahdi, respectively Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of Cooperation, as well as the Adviser to the Presidency of the Republic, Abdati Breirika, the Ambassador in charge of Latin America and the Caribbean, Mohamed Zroug and ambassador to Venezuela, Mohamed Salem Rgueibi.
Sneak peek into Saharawi-Venezuelan relations
Venezuela recognized the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) as an independent state in August 1980, and in 1982 during Luis Herrera Campins government, formal diplomatic relations were established. A Sahrawi embassy was opened in Caracas in 1982, and the Venezuelan embassy in Algiers was accredited to the SADR.
On 5 October 2004, an Integral Cooperation Convention was signed by Venezuelan Minister of Energy and Mines Rafael Ramírez and Sahrawi Cooperation Minister Salek Baba. On 31 January 2007, eleven Sahrawi students arrived in Venezuela to make oil refining studies in Cumaná, within the scope of the International Scholarship Program of Venezuela. In April 2010, the Venezuelan Foreign Affairs Viceminister for Africa Reinaldo Bolívar met in the framework of the convention with Sahrawi ambassador Omar Emboirik Ahmed, reviewing the possibilities of educational cooperation. On 27 October 2011, the complementary accord to the Integral Water Resources Cooperation Convention was signed by Viceminister of Water of the Venezuelan Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources Cristóbal Francisco Ortiz and the Sahrawi ambassador.
More recently, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela reiterated its full solidarity and firm support for the Saharawi people “in their struggle for the exercise of their inalienable right to self-determination, by virtue of what is established by international law and the Charter of the United Nations, and ratified in multiple resolutions of the Security Council, the General Assembly and the African Union.”
In his statement before the UN substantive Session of the Special Committee on Decolonization (C-24) 76th Session of the UN General Assembly, held on Monday 13 June, 2022 in New – York, Alternate Permanent Representative of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to the United Nations, Ambassador Joaquín Pérez, called for reactivating the political process in Western Sahara through direct negotiations between the Frente POLISARIO and the Kingdom of Morocco, under the auspices of the United Nations.
The South American nation, via the voice of its envoy, expressed its unwavering support for the efforts of the Personal Envoy of the Secretary-General, Staffan de Mistura, in the hope that he can promote the political process in order to reach, without further delay, a peaceful, just, long-lasting and mutually acceptable solution to the question.
Western Sahara is a Non-Self-Governing Territory of the UN that lies in the Sahel region bordered by Algeria, the Kingdom of Morocco, and Mauritania. This territory is home to the Sahrawis, a collective name for the indigenous peoples living in and around the region. They speak the Hassaniya dialect of Arabic. Similarly, many others also speak Spanish as a second language due to the region’s colonial past.
Western Sahara has been on the decolonisation agenda of the UN and AU for more than fifty years. In 1963, Western Sahara was included on the list of non-self-governing territories under Article 73 of the UN Charter to which the UN General Assembly resolution 1514 (XV) of 1960 on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples.
On November 6, 1975, Morocco launched the so-called ‘Green March’, a march of 350,000 Moroccans, a number four times the size of the Sahrawi population back then, into the territory of Western Sahara.
According to Adala UK, on that day, Morocco organized what it called a “Green March” to officially invade the North of Western Sahara moving 350,000 Moroccan settlers to the territory. This occupation coincided with the termination of the Spanish status as Administrative Power, creating a vacuum that imposed on the UN to assume its responsibility there.
Subsequently, the UN Security Council deplored the holding of the march, calling upon Morocco to immediately withdraw all the demonstrators from the territory of Western Sahara; however, its effort was in vain.
The Polisario Front liberation movement continued its struggle to end all foreign occupation of its country and in 1976 formed a government-in-exile and declared the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic. In November 1984, the Polisario Front’s SADR was recognised by the then Organisation of African Unity (OAU), now the African Union (AU), which led to the withdrawal of Morocco from the OAU in protest. In May 1991, the Polisario Front and Morocco ended many years of fighting following an UN-sponsored peace settlement, culminating in the establishment of the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO), which is assuming its responsibility till nowadays.
Despite a cease-fire in 1991 that put an end to the armed combat, Western Sahara remains a disputed territory. Nowadays, Morocco controls parts of the territory. However, the United Nations refers to Western Sahara as a non-self-governing territory and maintains a stance favoring self-determination for its people.
The UN body is attaching great interests to the Sahrawi cause, expressing willingness to find a solution ensuring the self-determination of the Sahrawi people, in accordance with the relevant resolutions of the Council.
After almost 30 years of compliance with a 1991 ceasefire, Morocco and the Polisario Front have resumed war in Western Sahara, as Morocco torpedoed the 1991 ceasefire through its act of aggression on the Sahrawi Liberated Territories on 13 November 2020.
The Moroccan new act of aggression has not only ended the ceasefire and related military agreements but has also undermined the UN peace process in Western Sahara and plunged the region into another spiral of extreme tension and instability.
Both the UN Secretary-General and the Security Council have confirmed the breakdown of the 1991 ceasefire on 13 November 2020. In his report (S/2021/843; para 2) dated 1 October 2021, the UN Secretary-General acknowledged, among other things, “the resumption of hostilities” between the occupying state of Morocco and the Frente POLISARIO. For its part, in its resolution 2602 (2021) adopted on 29 October 2021, the Security Council noted “with deep concern the breakdown of the ceasefire” (PP 14).
The acknowledgment by both the UN Secretary-General and the Security Council of the breakdown of the 1991 ceasefire and the realities on the ground render any attempt to deny or underplay the seriousness of the current situation in MINURSO’s area of operation unacceptable and even misleading at a time when the occupying state of Morocco continues its aggression on the Sahrawi Liberated Territories and its deliberate targeting and killing of civilians and destroying their properties.
The final status of the state of Western Sahara will only be settled when a UN-supervised referendum is held in which the country’s inhabitants must exercise their legitimate right to self-determination.
