SPEECH
by Juan Soroeta Liceras
Public International Law Professor
Universidad del País Vasco/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea
Before start I would like to thank to the South African Government the
chance to take part in this important Conference about Western Sahara.
South Africa is at the moment the most important support for the future
state of Sahrawi people.
CONTEXT OF THE CONFLICT
Due to the limited time given, my intervention will try to shed a light
on History to recall the main milestones of the conflict. This
recalling will begin from three indisputable premises from the point of
view of International Law:
First, that Morocco is not the Administering power of the territory (as
stated by the Office of Legal Affairs of the United Nation, in the
person of Hans Corell, here with us), and due to this fact exploits
illegally the territory?s natural resources.
Second, that Morocco is the Occupant Power (as stated already in 1975
by the Security Council when the territory invasion took place), in the
same way Israel in the occupied Palestinian territories, and that
violates permanently Humanitarian Law.
And finally, that the Sahrawi people hold the right of self-
determination (as stated by United Nations main organs: Security
Council, General Assembly, International Court of Justice) and that
only by its exercise will the conflict come to an end.
PARTIES AGREEMENT AND WHAT REMAINS OF
IT
Thirty three years have past since Spain gave the territory to
Morocco and Mauritania, who claimed sovereignty over the Territory
without right to it (as stated by the International Court of Justice in
1975).
The enormous economic cost of the war confrontation took Morocco to
negotiate the ?Settlement Plan? with the POLISARIO Front. This plan
envisaged, as occurred in most of the African colonized territories,
the celebration of a self-determination referendum, in which the
Sahrawis included in the census elaborated by Spain in 1974, would
choose between the only two options: the territory?s independence or
its integration in Morocco.
The King of Morocco knew perfectly the outcome of a referendum in which
only Sahrawis would participate: the independence of the territory. So,
using his capacity of diplomatic pressure, succeeded in ?retouching?
the Settlement Plan to the point of making it unrecognizable and
blocking the process.
James Baker succeeded in unblocking it. For this the POLISARIO Front
had to accept that, after five years of autonomy, a self-determination
referendum would have to be held. In this referendum the Moroccan
colonists, that already tripled the number of Sahrawis would be able to
participate. But Morocco, that did not trust the sense of their own
citizens? vote (Van Walsum himself stated it recently before the French
Parliament), decided to retire from the peace process and refuse
definitely the possibility of holding a referendum.
Eighteen years of peace process show eloquently at least two things. On
the one hand, there is no trace of the initial consensual agreement
between the parties (why search another consensus when there is one
freely negotiated by the parties and approved by the Security
Council?); Morocco has used the Peace Plan to maintain sine die the
occupation.
On the other, that neither, the voluntary abandon of weapons, trusting
the UN, nor the tireless negotiating patience of the POLISARIO Front,
have been of any use, and that like Van Walsum himself admited ?Morocco
has to assume the complete responsibility that the referendum is not
realistic and is unfeasible.?
WHY AUTONOMY IS NOT THE ANSWER
If we assume these premises, what is there to negotiate?, what
other concessions can the POLISARIO Front make? Van Walsun asks them to
propose an autonomy regime within the integrity of Moroccan territory,
which would be ?internationally supervised?. It is clear that this
proposal doesn?t respect the International Law and that it takes side
with whom violates it. If the Sahrawi people accept this answer to the
conflict it would stop being an international conflict and therefore
would drop out of the Decolonization Committee agenda, passing to be an
internal Moroccan problem.
But there is also another matter that makes the autonomy proposal
unfeasible. Those who have known a little about the deep national
feeling of the Sahrawi society (and Morocco is completely aware of it)
knows that, if as a consequence of a theoretical agreement, the Sahrawi
refugees returned to their land as a province of Morocco, resistance
would then be unstoppable. The African decolonization history proves
this with as much clarity as harshness, as you, South African peoples
well know.
WHAT FUTURE AWAITS WESTERN SAHARA?
Nobody can ignore that International Law is openly on the
Sahrawis side, people that renounced it?s legitimate right of armed
struggle trusting the promises of the United Nations. Time has proved
Security Council?s inability to impose a permanent solution, but also
that the Sahrawi perseverance is indestructible. The non-application of
the Settlement Plan and the Baker Plan (both approved by the Security
Council) together with the United Nation doctrine regarding
decolonization constitute a violation of International Law.
But the actual situation cannot hold on indefinitely. On the one hand,
it remains the main obstacle for the normalization of Moroccan
international relations. On the other hand, the exile in the refugee
camps and the violation of Sahrawis? human rights in the occupied
territories of Western Sahara cannot remain any longer. If something
has be proven in the more than thirty years of this conflict is that it
will not conclude until the Sahrawi people can decide their future in
freedom by a self-determination referendum; if others decide for them,
imposing for example an autonomy regime, the conflict will remain open.
In this case, the Sahrawi people cannot be blamed of not having
explored all the imaginable pacific means to put an end to their
suffering.
Juan Soroeta Liceras
Public International Law Professor
Universidad del País Vasco/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea
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