Security Council Urges ‘Realistic’ Solution to Sahara Conflict

A view of Council members voting in favor of the resolution (UN)
A view of Council members voting in favor of the resolution (UN)
TT
20

Security Council Urges ‘Realistic’ Solution to Sahara Conflict

A view of Council members voting in favor of the resolution (UN)
A view of Council members voting in favor of the resolution (UN)

The UN Security Council on Thursday called for a “realistic” political solution in the contested territory of Western Sahara as it passed a resolution extending the UN mission there for another year.
The US-sponsored resolution renewed the mandate of MINURSO, also known as the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara, until October 31, 2025, AFP reported.
The resolution passed with support from 12 of the Security Council's 15 member states; Algeria -- which submitted two rejected amendments -- refused to vote in protest, while Russia and Mozambique abstained.
In a statement on the resolution, the Security Council emphasized “the importance of aligning the strategic focus of MINURSO and orienting resources of the United Nations to this end” for the former Spanish colony.
Considered a “non-autonomous territory” by the United Nations, Western Sahara covers approximately 266,000 square kilometers north of Mauritania.
The territory, which contains valuable mineral deposits and long stretches of coastline fisheries, is largely controlled by Morocco.
For decades, it has constituted a dispute between Rabat and the Algerian-backed Polisario Front.
Morocco had proposed an autonomy plan that would provide for a degree of self-government for Western Sahara under its sovereignty. In return, the Polisario has called for a referendum on self-determination, under the auspices of the United Nations, as stipulated in the 1991 ceasefire agreement.
Last Wednesday, French President Emmanuel Macron promised in Rabat his country’s “diplomatic” commitment to push the Moroccan solution on Western Sahara at the UN as well as within the European Union.
“We will act by engaging diplomatically to convince that the Moroccan solution is the only one within the European Union, at the United Nations,” he said in front of the French community in Morocco.
Earlier last month, the UN envoy for Western Sahara, Staffan de Mistura has proposed dividing the territory between Morocco and the Polisario Front in order to resolve the decades-old conflict. However, his plans were swiftly rejected by the Polisario that said the plan fails to “enshrine” the Sahrawi people's right to self determination.
Sidi Omar, the Polisario representative to the UN, said in a post on X that the movement strongly affirms its total and categorical rejection of any proposals or initiatives, which do not fully enshrine and ensure the inalienable, non-negotiable and imprescriptible right of the Sahrawi people to self-determination and independence or do not respect the territorial integrity of Western Sahara.

 



Sudan's RSF and Allies Formalize Vision for Parallel Government

A man walks by a house hit in recent fighting in Khartoum, Sudan, an area torn by fighting between the military and the notorious paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, on April 25, 2023. (AP)
A man walks by a house hit in recent fighting in Khartoum, Sudan, an area torn by fighting between the military and the notorious paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, on April 25, 2023. (AP)
TT
20

Sudan's RSF and Allies Formalize Vision for Parallel Government

A man walks by a house hit in recent fighting in Khartoum, Sudan, an area torn by fighting between the military and the notorious paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, on April 25, 2023. (AP)
A man walks by a house hit in recent fighting in Khartoum, Sudan, an area torn by fighting between the military and the notorious paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, on April 25, 2023. (AP)

Sudan's Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and allied groups signed a transitional constitution on Tuesday that takes them a step closer to setting up a parallel government during a two-year-old war with the army that threatens to split the country.

The paramilitary RSF has recently been on the back foot in the conflict, which has caused mass displacement, extreme hunger, bouts of ethnically-charged killings and sexual violence.

As fighting rages, the RSF on Tuesday launched its latest long-range drone attack on power infrastructure, targeting Sudan's largest power generation station at the Merowe Dam, according to an army statement and knocking out power in swathes of northern Sudan.

The army claimed gains in the Sharg el-Nil area as it sought to surround the RSF in the capital, Khartoum.

The RSF-led constitution is designed to supplant a constitution signed after the army and RSF ousted long-ruling autocrat Omar al-Bashir during an uprising in 2019.

In 2021 the two military factions staged a coup, derailing a transition towards civilian rule, but in April 2023 plans for a new transition triggered warfare between them.

The RSF and its allies had in late February agreed in principle to form a government for a "New Sudan" as they sought to pull legitimacy from the existing army-led government and facilitate advanced arms imports.

The new constitution formally establishes a government and maps out what it describes as a federal, secular state, split into eight regions.

It provides for a bill of basic rights, giving regions the right to self-determination should certain conditions, chief among them separation of religion and the state, not be met.

It also calls for a single national army, with the signatories as the "nucleus". Elections are mentioned as an outcome of the transitional period, without any fixed timetable.

Signatories include the powerful and secular-minded SPLM-N, which controls vast areas in Sudan's South Kordofan, and other smaller groups.

The RSF and its allies have said the government will be formed in the coming weeks but it is unclear who will be in it or where it will operate from.