New York (UN), 17 October 2024 (SPS) - Algeria reiterated, in New York, its position of support to the Sahrawi people’s right to self-determination and to the UN efforts to reach a political solution to the issue of Western Sahara, during two consecutive rights of reply by its permanent representative in the United Nations, Amar Bendjama.
Responding to the Moroccan delegation's fallacious and worn-out narrative, Bendjama noted Wednesday in a right of reply that Morocco's representative 'did not once pronounce the word Western Sahara in his address,” yet, he underlined, 'this is the issue that is on the agenda of the general debate of the UN Fourth Committee, in charge of special political issues and decolonization.
He further emphasized that “the Moroccan delegate cannot pronounce the word +Western Sahara+ just as he cannot pronounce the word “Sahrawi people” and yet, the Security Council and General Assembly created MINURSO (United Nations Mission for the Organization of a Referendum in Western Sahara) which established an identification commission for those who must vote for or against Western Sahara's independence, for or against integration into the Kingdom of Morocco.”
'Who is blocking MINURSO's mission?' asked Bendjama, before emphasizing that it “is the United Nations mission for the referendum in Western Sahara.”
“My country supports and continues to support the efforts of the UN Secretary-General and his Personal Representative Staffan de Mistura, to find a political solution to the Western Sahara question,” he reaffirmed.
In this regard, he called on the Moroccan representative to “read his country's documentation which states that they (Moroccans) are only able to accept a solution (to the Sahrawi issue) within the framework of (alleged) Moroccan sovereignty.” “This is contrary to everything we do at the United Nations,” lamented Bendjama.
Ambassador Bendjama emphasized: 'If we are talking about Western Sahara and the inalienable right of the Sahrawi people to self-determination, it is because in Morocco, there are massive violations of the fundamental rights of the Sahrawi population. There are abuses meticulously documented by numerous international and African human rights organizations and which have recently been highlighted by the United Nations Secretary-General (Antonio Guterres) in the report before you on Western Sahara.'"
The diplomat underlined that “'these human rights violations include, among others, the forced disappearance of Sahrawi activists, torture of prisoners of conscience, arbitrary detentions, police brutality, intimidation and extrajudicial executions, moreover the entire occupied territory of Western Sahara is subject to such a tight military siege that for nine years, even the High Commissioner's experts (for Human Rights), nor even human rights defenders have been able to set foot in Western Sahara. They have come to Morocco but never to Western Sahara!'"
“If we are gathered here, it is to bring justice to the people of Western Sahara who only ask for the right to choose their future, and the only way to choose their future is through the right to self-determination. Let us ensure that this right is also applied to the people of Western Sahara."
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