UN Secretary General warns about war in Western Sahara

The Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) demands the European Union to show more commitment to ensure that the MINURSO mission in Western Sahara will be continued. “The international community only has seven days left to prevent a new war in Western Sahara,” said Ulrich Delius, the STP’s Africa consultant, in Göttingen on Thursday. On April 28, 2016, the UN Security Council will be discussing the continuation of the MINURSO mission, as the current mandate ends on April 30, 2016. In a recently published report, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon warned the members of the UN Security Council that a new war might break out in Western Sahara if the mandate for the mission is not extended.”
“It is in the interest of the EU and Germany to prevent a new war in the region – for an armed conflict in Western Sahara would compromise the commitment of the Bundeswehr in Mali and destabilize northern Mali,” warned Delius. Currently, the Bundeswehr and the German police are involved in three different peacekeeping and training missions in Mali.

Every year in late April, since 1991, the UN Security Council debates on whether the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) should be continued. The envisaged referendum focuses on the future of the former Spanish colony, which is now occupied by Morocco. “However, in the last 25 years, the situation has never been as tense as it is today,” said Delius. As a reaction to critical remarks by Ban Ki-moon, Morocco had had quit the mission and declared 84 international members of the MINURSO mission as “personae non gratae” on March 21, 2016. Ban Ki-moon demanded the civilian staff to be admitted again, as the MINURSO mission is dependent on them. Before the incident, the MINURSO mission consisted of 242 soldiers, 84 civilian staff and 157 local employees.

The dispute between Morocco and the UN Secretary General arose when – at a press conference in Algiers on March 6 – Ban Ki-moon stated that the kingdom in the Western Sahara was “occupied”. Later, he apologized for his statement after Morocco’s government had protested and organized mass demonstrations against the United Nations in the UK. So far, the states represented in the EU Security Council have always decided to continue the MINURSO mission, emphasizing that the international legal status of the territory is unclear. However, Morocco considers the Western Sahara as part of its territory.

Header Photo: © UN Photo/Evan Schneider via Flickr