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If there was one seat that should not have been occupied on Friday, October 31, in the United Nations Security Council, it was that of Algeria’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Amar Benjama. It was difficult for him to convince the other delegations of his country’s position, which was once again seeking to prolong the dispute over the Moroccan Sahara, now in its fifth decade. The Council’s collective effort, to pass Resolution 2797, continued the original intentions of Morocco’s Green March in 1975 — to confirm Morocco’s sovereignty over its southern provinces. But this time, this joint effort was to tell Algiers that enough is enough.
In his speech, the Algerian diplomat attempted to justify the unjustifiable by drawing on all his anti-colonial rhetoric to explain his country’s non-participation in the vote on the new resolution which, according to him, should lead to the organization of the referendum in Moroccan Sahara. He insisted that his absence on behalf of his country to not to participate in the text is because he believes it did not respect the UN doctrine on decolonization. To please the Americans, he referred to former President Wilson and the UN Charter, which had enabled several peoples to achieve self-determination.
In the eyes of the Algerian diplomat, the resolution, which was passed by a large majority of members, suffers from shortcomings and raises questions. It falls short, he argued, of the aspirations of the Sahrawi people, for whom he has improvised himself as spokesperson and standard-bearer. He emphasized that the new resolution is a restrictive framework for his country, creating an imbalance between the two parties. For him, it focuses only on the territorial ambitions of one of the parties, namely Morocco, and ignores the other party, which for him is the Polisario, i.e., Algeria.
Benjama, who was seething with anger, also attempted to delve into the legal arguments to find fundamental flaws in the resolution. He solemnly called on his peers to imagine if this framework were replicated elsewhere, claiming that the entire international order would be dangerously fractured. With regard to the Americans, who are trying to play the role of good side, he lamented that the pen-holder, despite all efforts, had ignored the aspirations of the Sahrawi people. He considered it a missed and regrettable opportunity.
The Algerian also stated that, for his country, this resolution does not yet create the momentum and conditions necessary for its success. Algeria remains committed to the principle of peaceful settlement of disputes and to the objectives of the United Nations Charter. He assured us that his country will always be ready to engage with full sovereignty in any negotiations with responsibility and creativity, provided that such negotiations scrupulously respect the cardinal principles of fairness, impartiality, and justice with a view to a definitive settlement of this conflict.
On the counter, Morocco, for its part, is simply defending the same principles, but within the framework of its territorial integrity. The Security Council resolution recognizing autonomy as the only means of settlement now opens up promising prospects for the world to definitively remove the Sahara from the list of non-self-governing territories. To proceed in the same vein, the SADR’s participation should be frozen and excluded from the African Union so that this continental organization is in tune with the will of the international community.
