UN's Ban urges Rights Council action on W. Sahara

By Patrick Worsnip

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on Friday for action by the U.N. Human Rights Council on disputed Western Sahara but stopped short of proposing permanent rights monitoring by U.N. peacekeepers.

Sahara's Polisario Front independence movement has long called for the U.N. mission there to report on what it says are rights abuses by Morocco, which annexed the former Spanish colony in 1975. Rabat denies the charge and opposes the move.

The office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights had proposed that a report by Ban to the Security Council on Sahara should contain a call for a rights unit to be established in the 230-strong mission, known as MINURSO.

Polisario officials in New York charged that an early draft of the report had been leaked to Morocco, which then put pressure on the United Nations not to include the call. U.N. officials said it was normal for member states to try to influence such reports.

In the final version of the report, Ban said he expected "engagement of the HRC mechanisms to address on an independent, impartial and sustained basis the alleged violations of the universal rights of the people of Western Sahara."

Monitoring by the Geneva-based Human Rights Council should apply not just in the northwest African territory itself but also in refugee camps for Saharans controlled by Polisario in neighboring Algeria, Ban said.

Morocco's annexation of Western Sahara, which is about the size of Britain and has phosphates, fisheries and, potentially, oil and gas, sparked an armed conflict with the Polisario.

A U.N.-brokered ceasefire was reached in 1991 on the promise that a referendum would be held to decide the fate of the territory, but differences between the two sides about who would be eligible to vote sabotaged it.

PROMISES OF ACCESS

Ban's report, which will be considered by the Security Council as it prepares to renew MINURSO's mandate for another year on April 27, welcomed what it said were promises by Morocco to grant access to the Human Rights Council.

Ahmed Boukhari, Polisario's U.N. representative, said the report was a "step in the right direction" but the movement would still prefer permanent rights monitoring by MINURSO to occasional visits by HRC investigators.

A spokesman for Morocco's U.N. mission did not immediately return a call.

Morocco's interests have long been defended in the Security Council by its former colonial master France, but diplomats from other countries said human rights references could be strengthened in the mandate renewal to be approved next week.

"It is realistic to think that we could get this year a specific reference to human rights, that there will be some international dimension to the human rights aspect," one senior Western envoy said. But he said getting a rights monitoring role for MINURSO was "a step too far" at present.

Four-year-old talks between Morocco and Polisario on the future of Sahara are deadlocked. Morocco has offered limited autonomy, but Polisario and its ally Algeria want a referendum, with independence as one of the options.

Ban's report criticized Morocco over the way its security forces broke up a Saharan protest camp near the territory's main city Laayoune last November, despite attempts by senior U.N. officials to discourage forceful action.

It said Morocco had impeded access by MINURSO to the camp in violation of an agreement with the United Nations. Morocco said it was an internal matter that did not concern MINURSO.

Polisario said 36 Saharans were killed in the violence, while Morocco said 11 of its security forces were killed. Ban said the United Nations could not verify either figure.


(2011-4-16/af.reuters)