By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, October 18 -- As thousands of Western Sahara residents are cut from from food and water in camps outside the towns of El Aaiun, Smara and Bojador, a Polisario Front representative delivered a letter of protest to the UN Security Council Monday morning.
Afterward he told Inner City Press that a meeting had been set up for 12:15 with the head of UN Peacekeeping, Alain Le Roy, who is in charge of the UN's strangely silent mission in Western Sahara, MINURSO.
With UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in Morocco, it is unclear if he or the UN Secretariat will say anything at all.
According to the letter, delivered to October's Council President Ruhakana Rugunda, “more than 7,000 Saharawi citizens, including entire families, settled last week in tents [a] few kilometers from the occupied cities of El Aaiun, Smara and Bojador to protest against the acute deterioration of their social and economic conditions.”
To some, it is reminiscent of the hunger strike which put issue of Western Sahara and its long promised but not held referendum back on the Council's front burner. Since then, silence as returned, with Morocco's King at his Throne Day earlier this year saying that “no a single inch” of Western Sahara will be given up.
When Sudan Omar al Bashir says this, regarding South Sudan, reaction from such countries as the United States is fast, including the threat of increased sanctions. Why is one agreement, some wonder, deemed so much more worthy of Council enforcement that another?
In 2011 South Africa, known to still favor a Western Sahara referendum, will rejoin the Council. But the Permanent Five members can block anything.
The letter continues that “the Moroccan government has decided to resort to inhumane means by impeding the arrival of provisions of water and food to the larger camp settlements and by setting the smaller ones on fire... this exodus of civilians would have devastating consequences on the current mission of Mr. [Christopher] Ross,” the UN envoy.
From the Council, so far, a silence as vast as Western Sahara's desert. If and when there is a formal response from Morocco we will report it here. Watch this site.
Footnote: the literary minded may remember Fernando Pessoa's line in "Mensagem,” that "Who wants to pass beyond Bojador, Must also pass beyond pain." (Quem quer passar além do Bojador, Tem que passar além da dor.) But what will the UN's Alain Le Roy or Christopher Ross say?
