By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, April 4 -- In the run up to the UN Security Council's regular fight on Western Sahara this month, Morocco has been lobbying to change Paragraph 119 of the UN's report, about establishing a human right mechanism within the UN Mission MINURSO, Inner City Press has learned.
The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has suggested “the establishment of an effective international mechanism for regular independent, impartial and sustained human rights monitoring and reporting... through a component within MINURSO,” according to a draft obtained by Inner City Press.
But Morocco, according to sources, obtained a leak of the draft from the UN and is pressuring to change the paragraph to delete any reference to a new mechanism, and to instead “welcome the commitment of Morocco to allow unimpeded access to Special Rapporteurs of the Human Rights Council.”
Morocco continues to have the unquestioning support of France. Some Polisario supporters call it a contradiction, that France would be bombing Libya in the name of human rights while blocking the establishment of a mere human rights reporting mechanism for Western Sahara. But, these people say, many of France's policies are more explicable in terms of colonial relations than principle.
Meanwhile, when new Security Council member South Africa invited all 15 Council members to a session on Western Sahara at its mission last month, Morocco lobbied many countries not to attend. Attendees included Nigeria, the US, Russia and the UK. France was notably not present. Watch this site.
