Western Sahara – 17 June 2016

Moroccan and Venezuelan Diplomats Clash at UN Over Western Sahara

The Special Committee on decolonization, officially called the Special Committee on the Situation with regard to the Implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence of Colonial Countries and Peoples, was discussing two draft resolutions about information flow in such territories, when the subject shifted to Western Sahara.

After expressing solidarity with the peoples in non-self-governing territories, Venezuelan Special Committee Chair Rafael Darío Ramírez Carreño encouraged the body to dismiss any and all input from Abba Mohammad, representative of the Laâyoune in the Sahara.

Abba was expected to participate in an upcoming report concerning the conditions of Saharawis, but Carreño cited past UN resolutions that granted authority to speak on behalf of the Saharawi peoples exclusively to Polisario representatives.

Morocco World News

Morocco continues occupation of Western Sahara, in defiance of UN

As Morocco continues to defy the United Nations, the International Court of Justice, and much of the international community in its continued occupation of Western Sahara, the United States continues supporting that autocratic government.

Morocco has illegally occupied the former Spanish colony for more than 40 years. Despite promising to hold an internationally-supervised referendum on the fate of the territory in return for a 1991 cease fire with the nationalist Polisario Front, the kingdom has strengthened its grip on the territory and recently expelled the civilian members of the U.N. Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara, or MINURSO.

National Catholic Reporter