UNITED
NATIONS, April
9 -- The UN's
consideration
of Western
Sahara, where
it has
supposed to
hold a
referendum
since 1991,
has become
formulaic
to an extreme.
As Inner City
Press has at least
twice noted,
UN
reports are
issued, then
recalled and amended.
This
time, however,
despite the
Western Sahara
report being
assigned a
number
(S/2013/220)
on neither
April 8 nor
April 9 would
this
document come
up in the UN's
document
system. Rather
a message in
English and
French: “There
is no document
matching your
request,
Pas
de reponse a
votre demande.”
Even
the Polisario
Front, a party
to the
conflict,
could not find
the
report on
April 8.
Meanwhile
Permanent
Members of the
Security
Council handed
the report to
“their” media,
resulting in
stories
which
breathlessly
emphasized
that in light
of terrorism
in Mali and
the Sahel, the
conflict
better be
solved soon --
that is,
without a
referendum.
Here
is from Agence
France
Presse's
report, by
Tim Witcher
who most
recently has
complained to
UN Security
about how
Inner City
Press
asked a
question to
Herve Ladsous,
the fourth
Frenchman in a
row atop
UN
Peacekeeping:
“urgent
international
efforts to end
the Western
Sahara
conflict
because of
fears the Mali
war will spill
over into the
Moroccan-occupied
territory...
While the
year-old
conflict in
Mali, where
French-led
international
forces are
battling
Jihadist
groups,
dominates
headlines.”
Just
as AFP, 41% of
whose funding
comes from the
French
government,
did
not question
how France
claimed to be
operating
under UN
Security
Council
resolutions
when it
intervenes in
Mali, it does
not question
the spin on
and use of
Mali in this
context.
Polisario,
which
finally got
its own copy
of the report,
issued a
statement
which is sure
to be
published by
rote
elsewhere, as
a hat-tip to
telling the
two sides. It
added this,
now published
by Inner City
Press:
"the
question of
Western Sahara
as a problem
of
decolonization
should be
resolved with
or without
what is going
on in the
Sahel. We as
all
African
countries are
concerned by
stability and
security in
Mali or
in any other
place in
Africa but
there should
be no
confusion
between
an internal
problem in a
concrete
country and
the right of
self-determination
of the people
of the last
colony in
Africa located
in the other
corner of the
region.”
Watch
this site.
, 
