On Western Sahara, Morocco Got Ban Assurances, Polisario Calls MINURSO Secret

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, November 28 -- When two sides to a controversy in the UN Security Council come out to talk to the press at the stakeout, is it better to go first or second? 

  Among Sudan and South Sudan it is often a race who can get there first, or to know if the other is going to speak. But the power dynamic between Morocco and the Polisario Front of Western Sahara is quite different.

   Wednesday after UN envoy Christopher Ross briefed the Council and then took a few question at the stakeout, Ahmed Boukhari of Polisario approached the microphone. 

   Then he paused and gestured to Morocco's Permanent Representative Loulichki, who was standing up the steps from the stakeout, if Loulichki wanted to go first.

  Loulichki waved him off, seeming to say, I don't need to talk there. Morocco is a member of the Security Council now, and for the next 13 months.

  Boukhari started up. Inner City Press asked him about reported restrictions on the UN's MINURSO peacekeeping mission and why the Department of Peacekeeping Operations hasn't in the past year made these restrictions more public.

  Among other responses, Boukhari talked about foreign journalists being thrown out by Morocco. Inner City Press asked him about the European Union's fisheries agreement with Morocco, which would purport to cover waters off Morocco in violation, some experts say, of international law.

  Boukhari said the EU should closely consider the law. When he finished, despite some expectation he would be the last speaker, Loulickhi came to the microphone and said he was ready for any question.

  Inner City Press asked him about Morocco's questioning of Ross as envoy, and about the expulsion of foreign journalists. On the former, Loulichki said that the King of Morocco received assurances from Ban Ki-moon, in their phone conversation, that this would not be a continuation of the same mediation process.

  Loulichki will become the president of the UN Security Council for the month of December, in just a few days.

  On the latter, Loulichki said that some come in as tourists, and then begin activities that have nothing to do with reporting. He said one has to apply, as a journalist, and that Morocco is open to the "dialectics" of human rights, is open to criticism.

  In connection with the last few UN reports on MINURSO and Western Sahara, Inner City Press has been told in detail by UN sources of lobbying by Morocco, and France, to change the report before it is released. 

  Is this just part of the dialectic?

  When Boukhari was at the microphone, he said that MINURSO is a "secret operation" without proper access to the population, to the international community or to the press. He said silence on this undermines the credibility of the peacekeeping mission. It is noted that the head of UN Peacekeeping is Herve Ladsous, the fourth Frenchman in a row to hold the position.

Since May, Ladsous has refused to answer any Inner City Press question, most recently summoning other less critical correspondents to follow him into the hallway beside the stakeout to give "information" about the Congo, on which he came to brief the Council. He also came Wednesday morning for Sudan, but did NOT come to the Council on Western Sahara and MINURSO.

   Some in DPKO who work for Ladsous say it is unfair to criticize or even question Ladsous about Western Sahara, his previous role working for his native France (including as Deputy Permanent Representative of France at the UN during the Rwanda genocide in 1994).

    But since Ladsous won't answer anything on this, the questions only mount, and with them the criticism. But we will keep asking. Watch this site.

After NYT Places Western Sahara Fighters in Mali, POLISARIO Writes to UN

By Matthew Russell Lee

 

UNITED NATIONS, October 24 -- While the UN helps promote and plan military action to "re-conquer" northern Mali, reporting from there has touched on another conflict long languishing on the UN's agenda: Western Sahara.

 

Today's New York Times reports that "In Timbuktu, Cissé Agaly, a former hotel manager, said 37 new fighters had arrived over the weekend. 'We saw them walking in the market,' he said, adding that they appeared to be from Western Sahara. Similarly, a municipal councilor in Gao, Abderahmane Oumarou Maïga, said about 60 new fighters had arrived in the town, also from Western Sahara and the border regions of Algeria."

  The fewer than 100 fighters the Times links to Western Sahara -- 37 "appeared to be from" there, 60 are asserted to be "from Western Sahara and the border regions of Algeria," with the breakdown unclear -- have given rise to a letter to four UN officials from the representative in New York of the Frente Polisario, Ahmed Boukhari.

   Inner City Press has obtained the communication and publishes it below.

  Writing to UN Under Secretaries General Jeffrey Feltman of the US and Herve Ladsous of France, as well as envoy Christopher Ross, Boukhari states:

 

"Some press reports are trying to implicate 'western Sahara' in the mess taking place in Mali. We see in this a new attempt by Morocco 'local friends' there to create confusion for political motivations and gain. No credible country or person in the world could take this as a serious information. Some media's including the NY Times today have taken this fake information without assessing its credibility. I think that there is a clear objective here to harm Western Sahara people and in the process the international credibility of Polisario whose position is very known on this matter. I am sure that UN will be able to separate what is right and what is wrong regarding information and news coming from that region."

  This confidence that the UN distinguishes between right and wrong information, from Africa or anywhere else, might be misplaced.

  Currently the UN Sanctions Committee on Cote d'Ivoire is alleging Gbagbo supporters are trying to link with groups in Mali; the reporting of UN coordinator Steve Hege on the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda has been challenged, including based on his 2009 writings dismissive of the threat posed by the FDLR militia, which once Inner City Press linked to them were taken off the Internet.

  Furthermore, questions have arisen about Herve Ladsous, formerly France's Permanent Representative to the UN including during the Rwanda genocide, now heading UN Peacekeeping and so its mission in Western Sahara.  Ladsous refuses to answer any Press questions, saying on October 22, "Mister I told you already that I would answer your questions when you stop making insulting insinuations about me." Video here, at Minute 26:22.

  But it is not an insinuation to note France's position on Western Sahara and no human rights component in MINURSO, to note that Ladsous was the Deputy Permanent Representative of France, and to expect him to answer questions for example about his views on the peacekeeping mission in Western Sahara.

  Just for comparison, the above-addressed Feltman has answered questions about possible conflicts of interest due to his prior service in the US State Department.

  So what is different about Herve Ladsous? As some now surmise, could his thin-skinned refusal to answer Press questions, and characterization of questions as "insulting insinuations," be indicative of actual conflicts of interest of the type Feltman took questions on and addressed, in their fashion? And might these play out not only in Western Sahara but in Mali? Watch this site.

Western Sahara's Polisario Speaks on UN TV Amid Pushback, Article 100 Cited

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, April 24 -- After the UN Security Council's open meeting on Western Sahara, there was a lull at the press stakeout. 

 

South Africa's Baso Sangqu had spoken in the Council chamber, decrying the watering down of the report on the MINURSO mission and invoking the UN Charter's Article 100, which says that UN staff, for example like Herve Ladsous the fourth Frenchman in a row to run UN Peacekeeping, should not do the bidding of their countries. 

 

But Sangqu indicated that he would not be speaking at the stakeout. So who would?

The Frente POLISARIO's representative to the UN Ahmed Boukhari came out, and to the microphone. Inner City Press went over, listened and asked him a series of questions, about MINURSO's freedom of movement, the Arab Spring, a possible visit to Western Sahara by the King of Morocco. 

 

Boukhari called this last a "provocation," and said that Morocco would try to use the "settlers" to make the King look popular in Western Sahara.

While this went on, a cluster of Moroccan diplomats stood off camera appearing increasinly agitated. They summoned over UN staff; a moment later, Inner City Press was asked regarding Boukhari, "Who is this guy?"

Well, he's the representative to the UN of a party to a UN mediated conflict. Once in the past, it is true, the UN TV camera was turned off while POLISARIO spoke. 

 

But when Inner City Press inquired, the answer given was that the electricity had, by chance, gone off just then. This time, will Boukhari's stakeout go online on the UN Webcast archives? It should, just as stakeouts by a non-governmental democracy activist from Yemen went up.

Inner City Press asked Boukhari another Arab Spring question, then was told to stop, that there was another speaker waiting. Morocco's Ambassador Loulichki came around the corner and to the microphone. He spoke in Arabic and then French, then said he would take the first question in English, from Inner City Press.

Thanking Loulichki for this, Inner City Press reminded him of the question asked but not answered ten days previous, about freedom of movement for MINURSO in Western Sahara compared to that being demanded in Syria.

Loulichki responded that he lived there in 1999 to 2001 and that 90% of MINURSO personnel live out among the population, they go to movies and play soccer and could not be monitored. Likewise, when Inner City Press asked if Morocco had opposed any ongoing presence in Dakhla by UN political affairs officer, said that a team had been allowed for five days, after last September's violence.

Inner City Press asked about the promised referendum on self-determination. Loulichki said that James Baker in 2000, as the UN's envoy, had deemed this unfeasible, that a compromise should be negotiated. But in the Council chamber on Tuesday, at least as translated, Loulickhi said that Morocco owns Western Sahara. What kind of compromise is that? Watch this site.