The Polisario Front and Morocco maintained their positions on the Western Sahara, but will continue to maintain a dialogue during the first quarter of 2019. The expiry of six years from both parties sit on the same table in Manhaset (united States), the UN special envoy for the Western Sahara, the German Horst Köhler, he managed to bring them again this Wednesday and Thursday in Geneva and to take a commitment to engage in dialogue.
The intention of Köhler was that all stakeholders, including neighboring countries Algeria and Mauritania, to sit at the same table before the Security Council of the UN to give its next resolution on Western Sahara, scheduled for the end of next April. “It is possible, a peaceful solution to this conflict”, stated Köhler at a press conference. “After the discussions it has become clear to me that none of the parties wins with the status quo. All conversations have been kept in an atmosphere of commitment, openness and mutual respect”.
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Morocco get that Algeria continue to be involved in the dialogue, through a high representative as its delegate minister for the Affairs of the Maghreb, Abdelkader Messahel, dependent on Foreign. Morocco believes that Algeria is much more than a mere observer, because, as they Nakitbahis claim the highest dignitaries from morocco, Algiers, provides military support, logistical, and political to the Polisario. The organization saharawi considered, however, that include Algeria beyond the role of observer, would be to reduce a process of decolonization (of Morocco regarding the Western Sahara) to a mere conflict between two neighboring countries. However, the Polisario is shown also satisfied with the commitment of Morocco to sit at the same table.
After the conversions, the head of the moroccan delegation, the Foreign minister, Nasser Burita, gave a lecture in which he warned that the possibility of a referendum on the Sahara is not in the order of the day. “Morocco has not established any conditions, but parameters for a realistic solution, pragmatic and durable. Everything that does not meet these conditions is not on the table,” said Burita in statements collected by the agency Efe.
The Polisario Front indicated to this newspaper through a spokesman: “despite the fact that Morocco has been present in Geneva, it remains to express a will to constructive dialog. To continue the conversations it would be desirable to show two gestures of good will.” Those gestures would “enter into a dynamic of respect for human rights and the release of the group of prisoners of Gdeim Izik”.
After six months of trial, the justice moroccan won July 2017 harsh prison sentences to 19 sahrawi activists. The accused were already in prison since 2010, the date on which there were serious riots during the dismantling of the camp of Gdim Izik, which was built with 7,000 tents to 15 kilometres from Laayoune. In the camp were installed during a month, more than 20,000 people, in what was the largest civil protest since Spain abandoned the Western Sahara in 1976. After a month, the November 10, 2010, the police received the order to vacate the area. During the operation died 11 officers moroccans, for the most part struck. The Polisario Front claims that the greater part of the activists sentenced or even found it that night in the camp.
