Hidden Agendas in the Sand (Western Sahara)

[bemildred]

Nice update and backgrounder, the quote from Moynihan
is priceless:

"The Department of State desired that the United Nations prove
utterly ineffective in whatever measures it undertook. The task was
given to me, and I carried it forward with no inconsiderable
success."

After much wrangling from the French, the UN Security Council
unanimously passed resolution 1495 right on the July 31st deadline
for the rollover of the MINURSO peacekeeping operation in
Western Sahara. In the best diplomatic tradition, the resolution
affirmed the commitment to provide for the self-determination of the
people of Western Sahara, even while it seriously compromised on it
by supporting a peace plan that would allow the Moroccan settlers
in the territory to vote on independence in five years. As with
Israeli settlers on the West Bank, these Moroccan colonists are
there in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits
countries from transfering their civilian population onto territories
seized by military force.

The Security Council had fought off a similar plan last year, but
this time former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker, UN Secretary
General Kofi Annan's special representative, adjusted the plan to
provide for a genuine Sahrawi autonomy in the five years before the
proposed referendum. This was an ominous sign for the increasingly
autocratic rule of King Mohammed in Morocco itself, not to mention
leading to uncertainty about the result of the referendum: one fixed
principle of Rabat's policy has been never to allow a vote that its
principals cannot control.

The Polisario Front and its principal ally Algeria had surprised
everyone two weeks earlier by supporting the new plan. It may even be
that they supported the plan precisely because they knew Rabat would
oppose it. For weaker states, it is sound diplomatic strategy to
maneuver your opponents into defying the United States and the rest
of the world.

In the longer term, it looks as if Polisario and Algeria have scored
a significant diplomatic victory by playing along with Baker's peace
proposals and the resolution that was moved by the United States.
Morocco's one small victory was that the resolution cited Chapter VI
of the UN Charter dealing with the peaceful settlement of disputes,
rather than Chapter VII which would have implied mandatory
implementation of UN decisions.

GNN (lots more)