Rabat – The UN has once again acknowledged Algeria’s reluctance to shoulder responsibility in the decades-running Western Sahara dispute.
The UN addressed the situation in the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres’ annual report on Western Sahara.
In the report, which comes weeks before the Security Council vote on a new resolution, the UN Secretary General said that Algeria “maintained previously-conveyed positions, including on framing its role as that of an observer.”
Despite its role in financing, arming, supporting and hosting the separatist Polisario Front, Algeria has been adamant in rejecting its responsibility and involvement in the dispute and instead portraying itself as merely an observer in the Sahara dispute.
Behind the guise of a professed “neutral stance,” the Algerian regime has for decades provided extensive support to the Polisario Front and its independence claims over the Western Sahara region in southern Morocco.
The UN report also addressed Algeria’s obstruction of the UN-led political process. In particular, paragraph 32 of the report highlighted that Algeria has “continued to object the roundtable format, contending that in that in 2018-2019 its participation has been ‘instrumentalised.’”
This latest UN report is further proof of Algeria’s refusal to comply with the international law and UN Resolutions, last year’s Resolution 2654, which called on all parties to engage in the UN-led political process and to support UN Personal Envoy Staffan de Mistura and his efforts to find an agreed upon and mutually acceptable solution to the Western Sahara dispute.
Resolution 2654 underscored the importance of the roundtable talks initiated by former UN envoy for the Sahara, Horst Kohler, who resigned in 2019 citing health concerns.
The resolution reported the UN Security Council as highlighting “the important contribution of the former Personal Envoy of the Secretary-General to Western Sahara in convening the roundtable process” and welcoming the momentum created by the first roundtable meetings in 2018 and 2019.
Despite historical records that prove its direct involvement in the Sahara dispute by providing financial, logistical, and operational support to the separatist Polisario Front, the Algerian regime has long tried to misleadingly distance itself from the conflict.
According to a December 1977 CIA document that was declassified in November 2012, Algeria’s goal in the Sahara dispute is to establish an independent separatist republic in southern Morocco to undermine the country’s sovereignty and to become the dominant power in North Africa.
“Algeria’s objective in the dispute is the establishment of an independent Saharan republic, in which it expects to have a predominant influence. This would deny Morocco the territory’s significant economic resources and stymie Moroccan efforts to restrict future Algerian access to the Atlantic,” the CIA document said.
Crucially, the document emphasized that Algeria uses “the ostensible reason” of supporting Polisario’s self-determination only to challenge Morocco’s predominance in northwest Africa.
