BY: Hana Saada
ALGIERS- A Venezuelan delegation has begun a visit to the Sahrawi refugee camps, lasting several days, during which it will be briefed on the situation of the Sahrawi refugees.
The delegation, headed by the Venezuelan ambassador to the Sahrawi Republic, will make a field visit to several national institutions and hold several meetings with officials of the Sahrawi state and the Polisario Front.
The delegation will supervise a training session for women at the headquarters of the National Union of Sahrawi Women, and a training session for the affiliates of the cinema school.
The delegation will organize a workshop on the history of Venezuela and its relations with the Sahrawi Republic, and will hold a meeting with the University of Tafariti.
The delegation will take part in the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Polisario Front and the outbreak of armed struggle.
A 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 October 5, 2004, an Integral Cooperation Convention was signed by Venezuelan Minister of Energy and Mines Rafael Ramírez and Sahrawi Cooperation Minister Salek Baba. On January 31, 2007, eleven Sahrawi students arrived in Venezuela to pursue oil refining studies in Cumaná, within the scope of the International Scholarship Program of Venezuela. In April 2010, the Venezuelan Foreign Affairs Vice Minister for Africa, Reinaldo Bolívar met in the framework of the convention with Sahrawi ambassador Omar Emboirik Ahmed, reviewing the possibilities of educational cooperation. On October 27, 2011, the complementary accord to the Integral Water Resources Cooperation Convention was signed by the Vice Minister 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, June 13, 2022, in New York, the 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 decolonization 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, according to 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 Spain’s status as an administrative power, creating a vacuum that forced 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 recognized by the then Organization 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 today.
Despite a 1991 cease-fire that put an end to 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 interest 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 November 13, 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 November 13, 2020. In his report (S/2021/843; para 2) dated October 1, 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 October 29, 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 exercise their legitimate right to self-determination.
