US Think Tank: UN Must End Recognition of Polisario as Sahrawi Representative

Doha – The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) scholar Michael Rubin has urged the United Nations to cease recognizing the Polisario Front as the legitimate representative of the Sahrawi people, describing the group as “a vestige of the Cold War” in a policy analysis published on April 7.

In his latest piece on the Middle East Forum, Rubin challenged the international community’s stance on Polisario’s legitimacy, asserting that “no one has ever elected them to such a position and no one has given the Sahrawi any say.”

The scholar described the emerging Sahrawi Movement for Peace as a more legitimate alternative, pointing out that the group has already secured recognition from Socialist International and growing support from the Spanish government.

“The Sahrawi Movement for Peace not only rejects violence but also seeks consensus across broad segments of the Sahrawi population,” Rubin wrote, contrasting this approach with the Polisario Front’s continued advocacy for armed conflict.

The movement, which first endorsed Morocco’s autonomy proposal in its 2022 Canary Islands Manifesto, reconvened recently at the same location to produce a second manifesto calling on “the UN Secretary-General to persuade his Personal Envoy to invite and include the Sahrawis for Peace Movement as a fully recognized interlocutor in the political process.”

In examining Spain’s shifting position, Rubin noted that while Madrid has traditionally favored the Polisario Front “due both to bitterness at the loss of its colonial Western Sahara holdings to Morocco and Spain’s reliance on Algerian gas,” the current Spanish government has begun reaching out to the Sahrawi Movement for Peace

The analysis also advanced a stark warning about MINURSO’s role, with Rubin proclaiming that “President Donald Trump has little patience for the waste of international assistance or those who use funding to preserve terrorism rather than bring peace.”

For Rubin, the 34-year-old UN entity represents “a multibillion-dollar failure” that “has yet to achieve even the first stage of its mission to conduct a referendum.”

He urged President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio to demand that UN Secretary-General António Guterres immediately terminate recognition of the Polisario Front as the Sahrawis’ representative.

This latest analysis follows Rubin’s March piece in the Washington Examiner of the AEI, where he condemned MINURSO’s continued operation as undermining US foreign policy interests.

Characterizing the Polisario as a “Marxist” group that “holds wives and children as hostages to prevent refugee resettlement” in the Tindouf camps, Rubin advocated for an end to funding what he described as “legacy peacekeeping missions that preserve conflict” following Trump’s decision to impose tariffs on UN operations.

The Atlantic Council, through journalist Sarah Zaaimi, echoed these concerns in an April 10 analysis depicting MINURSO as losing ground and operating in “spectator mode.”

The think tank’s report concluded that the UN mission now only serves to maintain a “state of paralysis throughout the years.”

These calls come as US Under Secretary Lisa Kenna reaffirmed today Washington’s position during talks with UN Personal Envoy Staffan de Mistura, declaring that “genuine autonomy under Morocco’s sovereignty is the only feasible solution” to the Western Sahara dispute.

Secretary Rubio conveyed the same stance during his meeting on Tuesday with Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita, with the top US diplomat explicitly hailing Morocco’s Autonomy Proposal as “the only basis for a just and lasting solution to the dispute.”

The growing scrutiny of Polisario coincides with mounting pressure in Washington, where influential Congressman Joe Wilson is spearheading a Republican initiative in the Senate to designate the separatist group as a terrorist organization.