Arabs and UNSC

Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, June/July 2016, pp. 44-45

United Nations Report

There’s More Than One Way to Skin the Security Council Cat

By Ian Williams

Two months after Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, Arab League Ambassador Clovis Maksoud (r) confers with Security Council president Ambassador Noel Dorr of Ireland (l) and Soviet Ambassador Richard S. Ovinnikov, Aug. 6, 1982. The U.S. vetoed a Soviet draft resolution calling for a ban on the supply of arms to Israel until it fully withdrew its troops from Lebanon. (U.N. PHOTO/YUTAKA NAGATA)

THE GOLDEN DAYS HAVE never glistened quite as brightly as we think, but if there were a Golden Age of Arab Unity it was perhaps half a century ago, when an American-born Lebanese Christian, Clovis Maksoud, was an ambassador for the Arab League, first in India, then later in the U.S. and at the U.N. In those days, Arab Unity meant more than a vow ofomerta between governments to cover each thuggish dictator’s rear—certainly to Maksoud, who was a true, but pragmatic believer.

He died in May, in Washington, where he had long headed American University’s Center for the Global South, and where he could call upon his long experience, powerful intellect, and deep reservoirs of respect across the world.

His pragmatism showed in several ways at the U.N. One was when he deployed the rhetorical skills he had honed in the Oxford Union and “Maksoudized,” as it was known—fondly, one might add. Superb and soaring, polysyllabic and poetical, his speeches mesmerized audiences—but left them scratching their heads as they wondered what he had actually said. When I asked him about it while he was at the U.N., he smiled and explained, “I represent the Arab League—it is almost impossible to say anything concrete that will not upset at least one of the members.”

As Arab League ambassador to the U.N., Clovis Maksoud has also left a lasting legacy that is equally mixed in its effects. He crafted the deal that synchronized the Asian and African groups’ cycles to ensure that there would always be an Arab representative on the Security Council.

It is not in the Charter, but by longstanding agreement, temporary seats are apportioned on the basis of geographical regions: Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa, and the West European and Other Group. Eastern Europe was essentially the Warsaw Pact countries, which have now almost all joined the European Union and NATO, or are trying to, but they maintain the fiction—claiming, for example, that it is their group’s “turn” to have a secretary-general. West European and Other was sufficiently elastic to include Australia, Canada and New Zealand, and thus allowed itself to be bullied into accepting Israel as a member.

In the U.N.’s version of geography, the Arab world is split between Asia and Africa, each of which has five temporary seats rotated on a two-year cycle. More often than not—as with so many U.N. positions—the fix is in. The diplomats at the U.N. courteously sort out a rota to avoid unseemly contests and surprises. One can tell decades ahead which member state will be “elected.” It is the same system that eviscerates the Human Rights Council by putting some of the most egregious offenders on it. At least the Human Rights Council made a pretense for a while of fielding more candidates than seats—even if they all knew which were the real candidates and which were for show.

The deal Ambassador Maksoud made was that every two years, Asia would reserve a seat for an Arab League member and in the alternate biennium one of the North African Arab states would rotate around. This was the cozy arrangement that returned dubiously Arab countries like Djibouti to the Council and regularly seats Security Council members who are in flagrant violation of the Council’s own resolutions. That is not an exclusively Arab problem, of course, but it lends neither prestige nor potency to the U.N. as an institution and the Security Council as its highest embodiment of the international community in matters of war and peace. 

When Ambassador Maksoud crafted the deal, his concern was that there be an Arab voice on issues like Palestine that united them, and that there was at least vestigial respect for the notion of Arab Unity. But, of course, that fell apart after the original Egypt-Israel deal and never recovered. It has now become a diplomatic career opportunity for salespeople of unelected oligarchs.

THE SECURITY COUNCIL ­ADVANTAGE

The point of being on the Security Council was more than adequately demonstrated earlier this year, when Western Sahara appeared yet again on the agenda. The imbroglio has dire potential beyond the Polisario (the Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el-Hamra and Río de Oro) and Morocco.

Quietly but effectively, the issue has eroded the always parlous authority of both the secretary-general and the Security Council that have, with all their failings, done a lot to keep the peace since 1945. In March Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visited the camps in Tindouf and, clearly upset by what he saw, called for the referendum on self-determination and referred to the Moroccan presence across much of Western Sahara as an “occupation.”

He had a similar epiphany when he visited Gaza early in his mandate and saw for himself the reality behind the clinically cleansed language of U.N. resolutions. When Ban made his statements Morocco went into unprecedented paroxysms of undiplomatic denunciation, claiming—totally falsely—that the U.N. and the international community accepted its annexation.

In a breathtaking abuse of language, Morocco accused the U.N. secretary-general of “semantic slippage” for using the term “occupation” and, along with even more incoherent indignation, noted with “utter dismay the verbal slippages, faits accomplis and unjustified complacency” of the secretary-general. It ordered the U.N. staff out of the territory it controlled. The kingdom staged mass “spontaneous” demonstrations against the secretary-general in the Moroccan capital, Rabat.

There were clear U.N. resolutions and decisions, not just about the territory’s status but about the U.N. staff. It was an unprecedented challenge to the Security Council’s authority. Remember, Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic was put on trial for such temerity.

The International Court of Justice had ruled that the Sahrawis are entitled to exercise their right to self-determination, and dismissed Moroccan claims to the land and the fealty of its people. The General Assembly had called for the “occupation” to be ended, and the Security Council had from the beginning asked the Moroccans to withdraw. Security Council Resolution 690, passed in 1991, established MINURSO, the U.N. Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara, to implement settlement proposals that Morocco had accepted in 1988.

Rabat had paid lip service to the referendum while it tried to pack the electoral rolls with its settlers, but when it became clear that the eligible voters wanted Morocco out, the kingdom insisted that the referendum must exclude any question of independence. Almost as revealingly, Morocco and France have fought successfully to ensure that MINURSO remains the only peacekeeping operation without a human rights monitoring component.

When Morocco ordered U.N. staff to leave, Ban sought the support of the Security Council—but did not get it, due to opposition from France, Egypt and Japan. After days of backroom wrangling, the most the Council could deliver was an anodyne appeal for the mission to continue.

Persuaded by his staff that the U.N. term was a “non-self-governing” territory rather than an “occupied” one, Ban, even though upset by the Moroccan tirades, explained that his use of the term was his personal emotional reaction to the plight of the refugees. He did not back down from the clear decisions of the U.N. over the years, but modified his entirely accurate statement for the exigencies of diplomacy.

He and his advisers were appalled by the lack of active support from major Security Council members which, in effect, handed Morocco a proxy veto via France and its African allies. If only to uphold the authority of the institution, the Council should have had much stronger resolution about Morocco’s behavior.

A COMPROMISED SYSTEM

Morocco and its friends have thoroughly compromised the U.N. system on the Saharan issue. U.N. officials have been bribed and browbeaten not to challenge the Moroccan version with anything as upsetting as the truth. Interestingly. the MINURSO website begins its list of U.N. resolutions in 1991, when it was set up, not in 1975, when the Security Council asked Morocco to get out!

Rabat has consistently refused to hold the referendum that the Mission was sent to prepare for. The king, like his father before, knows he would lose it. And, once again shamelessly backed by France, Morocco’s successful opposition to permit a human rights component in MINURSO is a telling indication of how he intends to keep it.

In May, the Security Council sent a delegation to talk to Arab League countries in Cairo, where many of them grandstanded, demanding (rightly) that the Council should enforce its resolutions on Middle East peace and settlements. They seem to be missing the point that France’s attempts to jump start the peace process at the eastern end of the Maghreb are compromised by its own behavior on the western end. Perhaps summing it up, it was reported that, at a recent gathering, a former French ambassador to the U.N. reprimanded his British former colleague for being a puppet of the U.S.—for which he got the deserved riposte, “Better than being the King of Morocco’s puppet!” ◙

A line in the Sand for International Law

Letter from America – Ian Williams

Written By: Ian Williams

Published: March 19, 2016 Last modified: March 18, 2016

The paths of two much mis-underestimated, highly ethical individuals crossed recently. A year before he became leader of the Labour Party, I saw Jeremy Corbyn at the House of Commons report back from a visit to Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara. It was an impressive performance. Invoking Western Sahara is no way for a politician to win votes, nor even for a writer to win commissions! Second, the audience was loaded with Moroccans whipped in by their ­government to support its claims to the territory.

He dealt with them impressively, listening respectfully while calmly stating facts and restating principles in a way that averted provocation and conflict. I did not know it then, but he was foreshadowing his remarkable self control in the face of fanatical New Labour types who cannot believe they lost with all the certainty of Moroccans who cannot believe that anyone could question their right to rule the Sahara.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon went to Western Sahara earlier this month and stated a few home truths about the continuing occupation there and compounded his sins by visiting the headquarters of Polisario, the Saharwi independence front. Morocco went into paroxysms of counterfactual denunciation and claims that the UN and the international community accept its annexation. In a breath-taking abuse of language it accused the UN Secretary General of “semantic slippage”, for using the term “occupation” and expressed, among even more incoherent indignation noted with “utter dismay the verbal slippages, faits accomplis and unjustified complacency” of Ban.

In reality, away from whatever they smoke in offices of Morocco’s highly paid Public relations company, the International Court of Justice has ruled that the people of Western Sahara are entitled to self-determination. The UN Security Council has ruled that Morocco should withdraw from the territory and allow an act of self-determination. For more than 20 years, there has been a UN mission there to conduct a referendum – and Morocco has officially accepted those terms – even though in international law they do not really have any option. The world’s maps all show the territory separate from Morocco.

The Security Council resolution in 1975 called for Morocco to withdraw from the territory, and it has been defying it ever since. However, underlying their indignation, which highlights Ban’s courage, is that Morocco and its friends have thoroughly compromised the UN system. Successive UN officials have been bribed, suborned and browbeaten not to challenge the Moroccan version with anything as upsetting as the truth. ­Interestingly, MINURSO’s own website begins its list of UN resolutions in 1991, when it was set up, not in 1975, when the Security Council asked Morocco to get out.

Morocco has had outright support from France, and it benefits from good relations with Israel. In the words of then US ambassador Daniel Patrick Moynihan about Sahara and East Timor in 1975: “The Department of State desired that the United Nations prove utterly ineffective in whatever measures it undertook. The task was given to me, and I carried it forward with no inconsiderable success.” Since then, it has tried to tidy things up but not enough to annoy the Moroccans, and one supposes that the issue was clinched by the $5 million-plus paid to the Clinton Foundation by the Moroccan-owned phosphate company that is looting Western Sahara’s phosphates.

Hillary Clinton, as US Secretary of State, tried to push Barack Obama’s administration to accept the dubious “autonomy” plan promoted by King Mohammed that excluded the option of independence for Western Sahara from the terms of the referendum. One should add that Polisario is about as compromised as any other “liberation movement” of the seventies in terms of its adherence to human rights. But the most convincing element of the Sahrawi claim is the Moroccan refusal to allow a referendum. The King knows he would lose it.

History should provide a pre-emptively answer to anyone who asks why we should worry about “a quarrel, in a far away country between people of whom we know nothing”. Britain is a permanent member of the Security Council of the UN, pledged to uphold the UN Charter, and with a few notable exceptions has been fairly good at it. The UK delegation has been reluctantly supportive of what Robin Cook would have called the ethical dimension of foreign policy over the Sahara, but is palpably discomforted by all the sordid reasons it should go along with others who would happily sell the Sahrawis down the sand dunes.

Both Ban and Corbyn see that an injustice perpetuated like this attacks the basic principles of the United Nations. In the face of the frantic Moroccan assault on Ban Ki-moon, Britain, and indeed ­Jeremy Corbyn, should be signalling ­support for the Secretary General’s brave initiative, aimed as it is at rescuing­hundreds of thousands of people from life in exile of under occupation.

About Ian Williams

Ian Williams is Tribune's UN correspondent

AIPAC, Graham, Netanyahu and the Utter uselessness of the Quarter

WRMEA, May, 2015, pp. 20-21

United Nations Report

Three New Amigos: Graham, Netanyahu And Blair

By Ian Williams

International Quartet special envoy Tony Blair at a July 15, 2014 press conference in Jerusalem with Israeli President Shimon Peres. Still criticized in Britain for his role in helping George W. Bush launch the 2003 war on Iraq, Blair more recently has been attacked for focusing more on his own economic interests than in bringing peace to Palestine and Israel. (ILIA YEFIMOVICH/GETTY IMAGES)

“It’s déjà vu all over again,” as Yogi Berra famously said. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) recently put in a bid for more campaign funding from Sheldon Adelson and his friends. At the AIPAC annual conference and on Fox, the senator threatened to reopen the tedious tactic of threatening Washington’s payment of its $654 million in dues to the U.N. Once a hardy perennial on the Hill, the issue had gone away since the relatively benign relations between the world body and Israel seemed to have dulled the edge of Washington’s constant grating chorus.

Despite their professed disdain for the U.N., Israeli diplomats and politicians clearly wallow in the reflected glory of every minor committee membership the state has achieved since it became a de facto member of the West European and Other Group.

As on those earlier occasions, it is pro-Israel activists rather than Israel itself trying to score donations and points by bashing the U.N. This time it is not just Palestine, but the Iranian issue that has them exercised. Graham knows that there are major donations to be had from deranged Likud supporters like Adelson.

“All the money that goes in to support the State Department comes through my committee,” Graham, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs, told Fox, adding, “I’m gonna put the United Nations on notice.” He warned that he would slash U.S. funding to the U.N. if that body decided to lift sanctions on Iran as part of a nuclear agreement. “Twenty-two percent of the funding for the United Nations comes from the American taxpayer and I’m in charge of that account,” Graham stated.

“If they go to the U.N. Security Council, and the U.N. Security Council lifts all sanctions before we ever get a chance to look at this deal, absolutely I would suspend funding the United Nations, because I don’t think your money should go to an organization that irresponsible,” he affirmed. “I’m not going to allow the United Nations to be used as a way to get around the United States Congress for a deal that affects the very existence of Israel and our own national security,” he vowed.

Since there is no way the Council could consider lifting sanctions on Iran without the support and vote of the U.S. delegation, which has a veto there, the senator really is talking about using his assumed legislative prerogatives to thwart an agreement by his own country’s president and diplomats. It is an act similar to that of the 47 Republican senators who wrote Tehran on behalf of Israel threatening not to honor any agreement with Iran, which is hardly surprising since Graham was one of the signatories.

The tentacles of Likud-USA, as AIPAC has become, are everywhere. Bereft of direct influence over President Barack Obama and the State Department, they are using their bully power everywhere else. Binyamin Netanyahu’s election rally in front of an adoring Congress might have helped him win back home with the voters—but it was much less effective with the White House.

When Netanyahu gauchely topped his Washington performance with his election eve speech to hard-line settlers explicitly denouncing recognition of any Palestinian state, he made it even more difficult to win over the White House. What little diplomatic credibility the U.S. has had globally on the issue was that it was pulling Israel along toward the stated goal of a two-state solution, as enshrined in all previous declarations from Oslo onwards.

However, Netanyahu’s promise should not have come as much of a surprise to most observers. Anyone who looked at Netanyahu and Likud could see the unconvincing hollowness of their protestations of support for a Palestinian state. They had put so many conditions on recognition that it clearly said “Bukra fil mishmish” (when pigs fly) to any recognition. However, it suited American leaders and their diplomatic hangers-on to overlook all this and pretend that Israeli leaders sincerely wanted peace. Otherwise they would have to confront their Israeli “ally” publicly, with all the fraught consequences for domestic politics that would entail.

In order to win re-election, Netanyahu went farther than usual in dropping the pretense of cooperation in peace talks. An already exasperated President Obama deliberately delayed telephoning him to congratulate him on his victory, and when he did, reminded the Israeli leader of U.S. policy on the two-state solution and the U.S. view of settlement building.

Similarly, at the United Nations, U.N. spokesperson Farhan Haq read a prepared statement from Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon saying, “It’s incumbent on the new Israeli government, once formed, to create the conditions for a negotiated final peace agreement with the active engagement of the international community that will end the Israeli occupation and realize the creation of a viable Palestinian state living in peace and security alongside Israel. This includes the cessation of illegal settlement building in the occupied Palestinian territory. The secretary-general firmly believes this is also the best and only way forward for Israel to remain a democratic state.”

It was not exactly casting down the gauntlet, but in diplomatic terms, and coming from the low-key Korean secretary-general, it was quite a strong rebuke.

An Opportunity Not to Be Missed

This is an opportune juncture for the secretary-general to withdraw from the hollow charade of the Middle East Quartet, the U.S./Russia/EU and U.N. body that epitomizes all the problems of a committee. The “consensus” of the Quartet is of course dominated by the U.S. When it was set up, it was almost a breakthrough that the U.S. and Israel allowed the United Nations any role at all in the “peace process.”

The U.S. has had the strictly limited virtue of consistency over the years, emphasizing the importance of bilateral negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, and thereby seeking to exclude international law and the whole body of U.N. resolutions as a basis for peace. Somehow, however, the U.N. is now bound by this Quartet consensus and, with no decision or discussion among U.N. members, U.N. officials in Gaza and the West Bank were barred, for example, from talking to Hamas. The U.N. secretary-general became the Quartet spokesperson, charged with reading their increasingly anodyne statements marking the complete lack of progress in negotiations and steadfastly refusing to put the blame where it belonged, on the settlement builders and occupiers. Instead of the U.N. position being taken to the Quartet, Washington’s view of consensus has taken over U.N. policy!

It would be unfair to say that the Quartet served absolutely no purpose. It did provide a job and networking opportunities for former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, whom George W. Bush wanted to reward for his loyalty in helping engineer the Iraq invasion disaster. By all accounts, Blair has used his time well—securing contracts from unsavory potentates all over the world and being much favored by Israeli interests.

With a new regime in Washington that does not feel overmuch gratitude for Blair’s part in turning the Fertile Crescent into a sectarian inferno and increasing press scrutiny of the former prime minister’s entrepreneurial activities, Blair’s position is under severe challenge. American officials are briefing that he has “no credibility at all,” while the Palestinians call him “useless, useless, useless.” So, in a sense, Blair is a unifying factor for the Quartet and the Palestinians. They all regard him as a waste of space.

Blair became special envoy to the Middle East Quartet the same day he resigned as prime minister, replacing James Wolfensohn, the World Bank official who had the integrity to resign when he found his every effort to restart the Palestinian economy blocked by the Israelis, who could count on automatic diplomatic cover from the U.S. There was certainly a stark contrast in their approaches. Blair has been careful not to criticize Israel, whose supporters have bankrolled his career almost from the beginning.

Blair won’t be missed at the Quartet, and his departure is the right time to put the stake through the heart of this shambling cadaver of an organization. The U.N. has already charted the real road map, with the full force of international law: Israel should withdraw from the occupied territories, allow refugees to return or compensate them. Under international law, the settlements that Netanyahu is expanding even as Blair shakes his hand are illegal, a point reinforced by Security Council resolutions and a decision of the International Court of Justice.

It is indeed time that the U.N. separated from the man who would not listen to it on Iraq.

Talk Also Cheap in Western Sahara

Interminable peace talks with no progress are also a reminder of Western Sahara, where the Moroccan attempts to cover their own non-cooperation stoked a minor diplomatic flurry in March. Just as no country recognizes the Israeli annexation of Jerusalem, no one accepts the legality of Morocco’s occupation of Western Sahara. So Morocco hosted a conference of an alleged NGO in the territory in the occupied city of Dakhla, and wasted no opportunity to emphasize U.N. connections.

To some extent it backfired, since claiming that a U.N. adviser speaking at the forum implied United Nations support for the lavishly funded event prompted the U.N. to disavow the conference and state the official position. The U.N. statement said:

“The secretary-general was invited to this Forum, but informed its president that he could not attend. He did not delegate Mr. Philippe Douste-Blazy or anyone else to represent him or the United Nations. Mr. Douste-Blazy, who serves as a special adviser to the secretary-general on innovative financing, is attending exclusively in his private capacity.

“While Dakhla is described in Forum materials as a city in Morocco, the definitive status of Western Sahara is the object of a negotiating process being conducted under the auspices of the secretary-general in accordance with the relevant United Nations resolutions.”

This was a gentle but firm put-down of Morocco, which has shown all the assiduity of Israel in abiding by U.N. decisions. It is now more than 40 years since Morocco was told to pull out of the territory and to cooperate in holding a referendum on its future.

It is a telling reminder of the weaknesses of the U.N. that after all these decades, the Moroccans and the Israelis continue to occupy territory in defiance of U.N. resolutions. But it is also a reminder of the strength of the organization that after all this time no country recognizes the legitimacy of their occupations. There is hope yet.  ❑

---

Ian Williams is a free-lance journalist based at the United Nations who blogs at <www.deadlinepundit.blogspot.com>.

Western Sahara & Sarkozy

Nicholas Sarkozy should not get too much praise for his success in getting Aminatou Haidar, http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2009/1117/p06s10-wome.html the hunger striking Western Saharan human rights activist back into her own country. It is Sarkozy's France that has consistently provided diplomatic backing and a veto in the Security Council for all attempts to force Morocco to abide by its own promises, the UN resolutions and the International Court of Justice determination that the people of Western Sahara are entitled to self-determination.

Sarkozy's pressure on King Mohamed to allow Haider back home was impelled more by French embarassment at the way her hunger strike was drawing worldwide attention to the Moroccan occupation and consequent human rights violations which France has protected from international action. Indeed, in the last days of Javier Perez de Cuellar's tenure at the UN, France even tried to ambush the Security Council on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve to accept Moroccan occupation. "Tis the season!

The King recently re-emphasised that he was prepared to give the finger to the international community - but sadly the international community mostly does not care. Arab states are happy to denounce the illegal wall and refugee problem in Palestine while ignoring the even longer sand berm that Morocco built to bisect Western Sahara and the thirty five year occupation. The US began by treating the Moroccan occupation as a preemptive move against "communist" Algeria but does not really care anymore. Morocco's position as the closest Arab state to Israel probably counts more than any residual Cold War motives.

Then US Ambassador to the UN said after the occupation, “China altogether backed Fretilin in Timor, and lost. In Spanish Sahara, Russia completely backed Algeria, and its front, known as Polisario and lost. In both instances the United States wished things to turn out as they did, and worked to bring this about. The Department of State desired that the United Nations prove utterly ineffective in whatever measures it undertook. The task was given to me, and I carried it forward with no inconsiderable success.”

Since then the French have inherited that American role. Just as Indonesia's egregious oppression in Timor brought the issue back onto the international agenda, Aminatou Haidar's brave stand is bringing Western Sahara back as unfinished business. If one hunger striker can embarass Sarkozy that much, the time is long past for France's role to come under more and embarassing scrutiny.

Western Sahara; A Maghrebi Commonwealth?

Ha - the perils of deadline punditting - in the Guardian I reversed my Hassans and my Mohammeds... rectified in true Orwellian fashion in this version!

A very British compromise
Rather than shrugging its shoulders about Western Sahara, the UN should use the Commonwealth as a role model

Ian Williams
guardian.co.uk, Friday August 15 2008 18:30 BST

It was a bit like telling a rape victim to stop struggling. Peter van Walsum, the Dutch diplomat who is the UN representative to Western Sahara, told the Spanish newspaper El Pais that Western Sahara will never achieve independence, even though he admitted that international law and successive UN resolutions have called for self determination in the vast desert country mostly occupied by the Moroccans.

He castigated Spanish civil society - which is very active on the issue since Western Sahara is a former Spanish colony that Franco threw to the Moroccans to protect his own "Gibraltars" in Morocco, the Spanish enclaves of Melilla and Ceuta - for encouraging the Sahrawis in their resistance.

Van Walsum almost has a point when he says the UN security council "is not ready to exercise its authority under article VII of the UN charter, and impose it." But why is he attacking the victims and their friends? One would have thought a Dutch diplomat, with the record of acquiescence to "facts on the ground" in Srebrenica, would be more circumspect. Why has he not pilloried Morocco and its friends in the Security Council - the US, France and Britain?

The silence of the UN Secretariat over the years has been stunning, since Morocco reneged on its 1991 agreement to allow a referendum in the territory. Indeed, there has often been complicity and connivance, as when then UN secretary-general Perez de Cuellar, in his last week in office tried to get the security council to adopt a pro-Moroccan resolution over the Christmas and New Year's holidays.

I was at the press briefing back in 1991 when Johannes Mantz, the Swiss diplomat charged with heading MINURSO announced that it would only take a year to identify the voters and hold the referendum. I asked him at the time if he had consulted the King of Morocco, who had made it plain that the only referendum he would allow was one that he was guaranteed to win. Since then, Hassan and his heir Mohammed each refused to allow the referendum while the UN has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the sand dunes in preparation for it.

There is a deafening sound of silence about Morocco's refusal to accept international law and security council resolutions, let alone honour its own promises. Initially backed strongly by France, Morocco now has American support, which nowadays always carries automatic British acquiescence as an added bonus.

At least partly, Washington's support is because Morocco is Israel's closest partner in the Arab world, even though the King hedges his bets by being chair of the Arab League committee on Jerusalem. The latter position ensures that Arab states perennially concerned about Palestinian refugees and the separation wall are calmly insouciant about the Saharan refugees and the huge sand berm that Morocco has built across the territories it has occupied.

However, there is a solution from the example of the British Commonwealth, which has been endlessly inventive in finding ways to maintain symbolic ties without real authority or responsibility. When the Moroccans referred the issue to the World Court, the ICJ, the judgement found no evidence "of any legal tie of territorial sovereignty" between Western Sahara and Morocco and said that the territory needed an act of self-determination. Neverthless, it did detect "indication of a legal tie of allegiance between the [Moroccan] Sultan and some of the tribes of the territory."

So, enter King Mohammed of Western Sahara, with all the powers and honours of Queen Elizabeth in her realms of Canada, Australia, Barbados and so on. The security council can then tell the King that he gets his due, while the Western Saharans clearly get what they want: effective independence. Polisario would surely be happy to offer a 21-gun salute and a few garden parties every time the King visited – maybe even build him a royal sand-castle somewhere.

But first, the western members of the security council have to put some truth to the rumours they keep spreading about their attachment to international law, democracy and the rights of small countries not to be bullied and occupied by their neighbours.

UN Goes Dutch with Polisario

If you go to the site you can can click on and get the radio interview

Western Sahara
UN rep claims Western Sahara has the law on their side, but not the UN Security Council

Article published on the 2008-08-13 Latest update 2008-08-13 17:29 TU
Soldiers from the United Nations mission for the organization of a referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) at Oum Dreyga(File Photo: AFP)

Soldiers from the United Nations mission for the organization of a referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) at Oum Dreyga
(File Photo: AFP)
The UN mediator on the Western Sahara Peter van Walsum told the Spanish paper El Pais that the Frente Polisario, the group representing the Sahrawi people will never achieve independence, even though international law in on their side. Part of the problem, according to the Dutch diplomat, is that the UN Security Council "is not ready to exercise its authority under Article VII of the UN Charter, and impose it."

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Ian Williams, a senior analyst for Washington DC-based think tank Foreign Policy in Focus, spoke to RFI about the El Pais interview, noting that the more interesting statement was what van Walsum did not say.

"What he actually did was told off Spanish NGOs for what he said was supporting Polisario's 'unreasonable' aims... he wasn't castigating the US, or France or Britain or the UN for not fulfilling international law," said Williams.

"His advice to the Polisario is basically fairly scandalous. It's like telling a rape victim that she should lie back and enjoy it because there is nothing she can do about it," he added.
Ian Williams, a senior analyst for Washington DC-based think tank Foreign Policy in Focus

listen 2 minutes 42 seconds

13/08/2008 by Laura Angela Bagnetto

Van Walsum's declaration comes before the renewal of his mandate on as UN special representative on the Western Sahara later this month.

The Frente Polisario have indicated that van Walsum "is biased in favour of Morocco after a declaration that the independence of Western Sahara is an unrealistic option," according to a report published by Algeria's APS news agency.

Talks between the Frente Polisario and the Kingdom of Morocco have been going on since June 2007 under the auspices of the UN in New York. The fifth round of talks, scheduled for later this month, have been postponed, according to the office of spokesperson for the UN Secretary General.

The former Spanish colony was illegally annexed by neighboring Morocco in 1975. Fighting between the Frente Polisario and Morocco ensued until both sides agreed to a UN-brokered truce in 1991.

Practising What We Preach, full text

For three days this week representatives of Polisario and Morocco secluded themselves in Manhasset in the New York suburbs, allegedly in an attempt to reach a solution to the western Sahara issue. At stake was not just the fate of the half of the Saharawis baking in desert exile and the other half suffering consistent Moroccan occupation and repression, but whether international law actually has any force or meaning in the 21st century.

However, the talks were not about solving, but about evading, the real issue, which is Morocco's persistent refusal to abide by international law, UN decisions or its own promises and the refusal of the United Nations and its members to enforce them.

No country recognises Moroccan ownership of the territory, not least since a long series of UN resolutions in the general assembly and the security council have declared that the people of the former Spanish colony of western Sahara should be allowed to determine their own fate. Morocco quibbled, and got the UN to ask the International Court of Justice to rule on the issue in 1974. The court ruled against Morocco and said there should be an act of self-determination.

In 1975, Morocco and Mauritania carved up the territory from which Spain had made an undignified exit. While Madrid did not officially hand the territory over, it almost certainly cut a deal with Rabat in return for silence about the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla on the coast of Morocco.

While the US voted for the unanimous security council resolutions deploring the Moroccan invasion, US ambassador to the UN Daniel Patrick Moynihan revealed in his memoirs: "The United States wished things to turn out as they did, and worked to bring this about. The Department of State desired that the United Nations prove utterly ineffective in whatever measures it undertook. This task was given to me, and I carried it forward with no inconsiderable success."

For 15 years, the issue simmered in guerrilla warfare until the end of the cold war seemed to open a window. I remember the press conference at the UN back in 1990 when Johannes Manz, the first head of Minurso, the peacekeeping mission intended to supervise a referendum and ceasefire, announced that it would all be settled in a year.

The Moroccans had accepted a referendum, and he explained that the Spanish census taken just before they had left was the definitive basis for the voter's rolls. I asked him then whether he had consulted the King of Morocco on this point, since his majesty was already making it plain that the only vote he would tolerate was one that he would win.

The current and previous kings of Morocco have repeatedly declared their support for a referendum, but have always reneged in the end since no one disputes that the result would be independence. Indeed, Morocco would not even accept the plan produced by former US Secretary of State James Baker, which would have allowed Moroccan settlers in the territory to vote, presumably because the King suspects that they too could support independence.

France, which so memorably upheld international law in the run up to the Iraq invasion, has been consistently shameless in its shilling for Morocco. The US has now joined France more actively. Morocco is Israel's closest friend in the Arab world and has positioned itself as an ally in the war on terrorism.

The UK has no dog in the fight, but did once at least have scruples about actively aiding and abetting an egregious breach of international law, not to mention the multiple breaches of human rights that Morocco perpetrates both at home and in western Sahara.

Since the Iraq invasion washed out the vestiges of Robin Cook's ethical dimension to British foreign policy, the UK is no longer concerned about quarrels in a "far-away country between people of whom we know nothing". That means that three permanent members of the security council are now actively working to force the Saharawis to accede to Moroccan occupation.

But there is plenty of blame to go round. The UN secretariat over the years has proven shamelessly invertebrate about implementing UN resolutions. It may of course just be oversight that the Minurso website omits mention of the security resolutions condemning the occupation and the ICJ decision, but over the decades many UN officials have knuckled under to Moroccan blandishments and pressure. Certainly no secretary general has had the temerity to confront Morocco for its outright defiance of international law and UN resolutions.

The troika of France, the US and the UK, should be forcibly reminded that they cannot expect to sermonise the rest of the world about international law when they connive with Morocco's lawlessness. Let the Saharawis vote.

Practising What You Preach

My latest take on Western Sahara now on the Guardian site
and greetings from Juneau, capital of Alaska, where I am admiring the rapidly shrinking Mindenhall Glacier.

My response to Beijing Bluster

Taiwan and the PRC in the Guardian

My response to Beijing Bluster

All Hail Freedonia: Groucho for Congress

Here's the full text of "Save Freedonia" in the Guardian Comment-is-Free

When it comes to Western Sahara, America's Africa policy is so bad you'd think it was dealing with an imaginary country from a Groucho Marx movie.
Ian Williams

May 1, 2007 7:30 PM

Not many people have heard of the Western Sahara dispute and most congressmen could not tell it from Freedonia - until the lobbyists came a-knocking.

Yesterday, the UN Security Council fought back a Franco-American effort to rewrite international law in favour of Morocco and against the people of Western Sahara. Morocco has offered dubious "autonomy" to Western Sahara, but is refusing to hold the referendum in the territory that the World Court and the UN Security Council have called for - and to which Morocco had agreed, until it became clear that it would lose.

The compromise resolution did not endorse the Moroccan plan, but called for talks between Morocco and the Sahrawi Polisario, "with a view to achieving a just, lasting and mutually acceptable political solution, which will provide for the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara." The Moroccan plan directly precluded self-determination.

The US's new pro-Moroccan policy was heralded last week when no less than 168 members of congress signed a letter demanding that the White House support Morocco - regardless of international law or previous policy.

We can safely assume that at least 160 of them had never heard of Western Sahara a month ago. When the learned members of congress rush to sign a fact-free letter on foreign policy, you can be sure that there is a lobby at work.

Not that the lobbies have to work too hard. In foreign policy matters congressmen can be like urinal walls - you can write anything on them. In 1992, a Spy magazine reporter called some two score Republican congressional new-comers for the Newt Gingrich revolution and asked them what they were going to do about the situation in Freedonia. The neocons had not taken over then, so not one of them suggested regime change and getting rid of Groucho. Instead, they waffled in a statesmanlike way about the efforts they would take to ensure stability there.

So, on this occasion, who could be too surprised to discover that the lobbyists responsible for those diplomatic triumphs, the war in Iraq, the war on terror, the embargo on Cuba and America's uncritical support for whichever nudnik heads the Knesset were also those who garnered the 168 signatures?

Morocco has put in some $30m into its lobbying effort and, through its surrogate, the "Moroccan American Policy Center", has been tickling the soft underbelly of the congress.

Toby Muffett, a former Connecticut representative who had been elected on a Naderite clean-up-Congress ticket, engagingly described a week in the life of a lobbyist in the Los Angeles Times recently:

I leave and rush to the House side of the Capitol to meet another client, the ambassador from Morocco. We have a meeting with a key member of the Appropriations Committee. Morocco has a good story to tell. It is a reliable friend of the U.S. It believes that the long-standing dispute with Algeria and the rebel Polisario group over the western Sahara must be resolved.

We tell the congresswoman and her staff that the region is becoming a possible Al Qaeda training area. ...My idea is to sell this as a chance for Democrats to resolve a dispute in a critical region, in contrast to the president's utter failure to fix anything.

And on the Republican side, Elliot Abrams the "deputy national security adviser for global democracy strategy", a hawkish pro-Israeli supporter and one of the neocon devisers of the Iraq war, has also been pushing the Moroccan plan, betraying the same insouciance towards legal technicalities that he did when convicted over the Iran/Contra scandal.

In Washington, the Moroccan Embassy hired Edelman for $35,000 a month as its lobbyist, which of course had nothing to with the timely letter from an increasingly conservative and belligerent American Jewish Committee weighing in with a letter of support for the king, who combines being chair of the Organization of the Islamic Conference's Committee for Jerusalem with being one of Israel's best friends in the Arab world.

For Morocco supporters, an enemy's friend is a hated foe. Polisario has the dubious benefit of Castro's support and that is enough, (plus a $15,000 monthly retainer) to rally the Florida delegation, which has also noticed that El Jefe has a soft spot for the Palestinians as well, with similar results on their voting patterns.


The 168 signatories are almost a roll-call of anti-Castro, pro-Israeli members of Congress, and their numbers were doubtless boosted when the MACP recently hired the law-and-lobbying firm of Alberto Cardenas, a veteran anti-Castro Cuban American who served two terms as head of Florida's Republican Party and co-chaired Bush's 2004 effort in the Sunshine State.

That alone should put in relief his concern for Democracy in north Africa. But just in case you had lingering doubts, Freedom House and similar bodies give Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara and Zimbabwe the same human rights score, just beating, by a wrenched out finger-nail, Tibet, Cuba, North Korea, and Sudan.

If in doubt, of course, invoke terrorism. Most of the letters from the King's men and women invoke the Polisario-held areas as potential heartlands of al-Qaida style terrorism. Oddly enough, in the real world, the Polisario's biggest supporter is Algeria, which is battling Islamic extremists with some considerable vigour - indeed a little too much for some tender minded observers - while Polisario itself was, until recently, proclaimed a communist plot by American politicians, which is why they have tacitly supported the Moroccan occupation all these years.

But luckily, it's not all Duck Soup on Capitol Hill - even if there are far too many horse feathers around for comfort. Most of the members of the African subcommittee in the house were among the 50-plus who signed an opposing letter demanding US support for Sahrawi self-determination. But without Moroccan money behind it, not many people heard about the story.

It's no way to rule a world!

All Hail Freedonia!

Latest on Guardian Comment is Free about Western Sahara and the lobbyists in Washington.
Click to join in and comment.

UN Blackout on Polisario?

So who sabotaged the TV feed for Polisario?

April 30 was another day at the UN Security Council Stakeout. As the Polisario representative Ahmed Boukhari was answering questions, someone called the control room and told them to fade the cameras to black. No one has confessed, but some Moroccan present or former member of UN staff will doubtless be rewarded by his grateful Kingdom.

In fact, whoever it was has done an oblique favour by reminding us that Morocco's arguments have no legal credibility whatsoever. Their only weapon is to silence the truth.

For over 15 years the issue of the Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara has come up every six months ago as the Council members agree to pour yet even more money into the sand for MINURSO, the peace-keeping force. Everyone wishes the issue would just go away, since it poses such a clear challenge to the UN and to international law. The ICJ said there should be a referendum, the Security Council said Morocco should end the occupation and endorsed a ceasefire that was to end in a referendum. Even the former King of Morocco said there should be a referendum – although he stopped saying it as soon it was apparent that he could not win since MINURSO would not let him pad the electoral rolls with Moroccans.

But no one had enough of a dog in the fight to force Morocco to abide by Security Council resolutions. On the other hand, smaller members have been concerned enough to thwart the perennial plans of France and others to hand the territory over to Morocco. This time the French were joined by the Americans, but once again they could not railroad a decision past the atavistic attachment of the smaller members to international law. Even so, the resolution shamelessly thanks the Moroccans for their initiative in offering spurious autonomy – without a referendum or the option of independence while only noting Polisario's willingness to go along with the full letter of UN resolutions.

The non-aligned are right to be cautious. If Morocco can overturn international law, and legalize its movement of settlers into and annexation of occupied territory, then why can't Israel? The Arab countries that stand by and let Morocco get away with this are forging the weapons to dispossess the Palestinians, whose only remaining weapon is international law and United Nations decisions.

And that is not to mention condemning their Arab brothers of the Sahara to a justly condemned regime that consistently violates their human and national rights.

What Wall? What Occupation?

Here's the full text of my Guardian comment on Western Sahara...
For which I was attacked, (as always) on Serbia and Kosovo.

What wall? What occupation?

It's time to stop Morocco's prevarication over Western Sahara.
Ian Williams

April 13, 2007 4:00 PM | Printable version

It's not double standards, it's no standards at all. The world has let scoff-law Morocco ride roughshod over international law and the UN Charter. It helps to have friends!

Their territory split by a huge wall built at enormous expense, an occupied Arab population suffers under police raids and arbitrary imprisonment while the occupiers try to swamp the territories with settlers from their own population. In response, the locals are beginning an intifada, but face a much larger, better-equipped military force, the beneficiary of substantial overseas aid. Refugees living in camps are refused the right to return to their homes.

Despite clear decisions of the International Court of Justice and the UN Security Council, the occupiers hedge whenever it comes down to the question of a peace settlement that grants independence even when American emissaries try to nudge them towards serious talks.

Welcome to Western Sahara, the occupation that admittedly has lasted only three decades compared with Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, but which has excited much less media interest.

This week, the issue came back to what passes for the fore in this forgotten conflict, when the Polisario, on behalf of the Sahwaris and the Kingdom of Morocco both submitted their plans for the resolution of the problem.

The Moroccan one is superficially attractive after all these decades, offering Scottish-style devolution. But their track record on keeping promises is far from stellar. Over 15 years ago, Morocco accepted a peace deal that involved the referendum on self-determination. The cash-strapped UN has spent hundreds of millions on keeping a force there to monitor the cease-fire and arrange a vote. But as soon as it became clear that Morocco would lose any vote that involved independence, the king and his father before him, gave prevarication a bad name. They tried to stack the voters' rolls, and when that failed, simply refused to allow a vote that asked the question.

Morocco's human rights record leaves much to be desired, as indeed did Polisario's in the old days. But the Moroccan reticence about allowing a vote is eloquent testimony to the government's assessment of the popular mood.

What is the secret of Morocco's success? In essence, it is choosing friends carefully.

Morocco claims Arab solidarity - and is one of the best friends of Israel in the Arab World. Immediately after the Moroccans occupied the territory despite the ICJ ruling that rubbished its territorial claims, the UN security council passed resolutions 379 and 380, which explicitly and unconditionally called on Morocco to withdraw. However, the French and Americans blocked the enforcing of these resolutions. According to then-US ambassador to the United Nations Daniel Patrick Moynihan, "the Department of State desired that the United Nations prove utterly ineffective in whatever measures it undertook. The task was given to me, and I carried it forward with no inconsiderable success."

While the US's anti-communist fervour has died down - with communism - France has remained an important and unprincipled supporter of the king. Despite all that Cartesian rhetoric with which it opposed the invasion of Iraq, over the Sahara it has a novel and disturbing principle: the security council cannot impose its decisions on parties if they disagree.

France has claimed there was a tradition of using consensus on Western Sahara, which was a bit like the apocryphal prisoner who had killed his parents and then asked for the court's sympathy because he was an orphan. Any such "tradition" developed in response to constant French and American attempts to railroad a pro-Moroccan position past the other security council members in defiance of all previous decisions.

Britain's attitude seems to be that it does not have a dog in the fight, so it is prepared to go along with the Americans and the French. But the standing of international law, the UN charter and principles are surely a dog worth backing in any foreign policy with - in Robin Cook's words - "an ethical dimension". In the end, the illegal Indonesia occupation of East Timor succumbed to the persistent refusal of the world to recognise it.

Polisario has made a very reasonable offer, which is in complete accordance with UN resolutions and international law. It could also offer, instead of a Scottish style solution with the Moroccan army and secret police still in occupation - a Canadian style solution. We will put King Mohammed on our coins and welcome an occasional royal visit - but nothing more.

But in any case, the UK, the EU, and the UN, should stop accommodating Morocco and France and step up the pressure on Rabat. It's the law.