The head of the Polisario Front on Sunday claimed a report by the United Nations chief Kofi Annan amounted to a ”plot against the Sahrawi cause” and threatened a returned to ”armed struggle” if it is approved by the Security Council.
In an interview with Algerian daily El Khabar, Mohamed Abdelaziz, head of the Algerian-backed Polisario Front, said Annan’s report was a ”plot against the legitimate right of the Sahrawi people to self-determination” and urged the UN not to ”go back on its own international charters and laws”.
In a report published on Friday in New York, Annan recommended that Morocco engage in direct talks with the Polisario Front without preconditions to settle the dispute over the Western Sahara.
The secretary general also suggested that the mandate of the 460-strong UN mission in the territory, which expires on April 30, be extended for a further six months until October 31.
Abdelaziz said the Polisario had acted ”within the framework of international law, from the 1991 peace plan to the Baker plan and the Houston agreement”.
”If the UN goes back on its principles and commitments that will be a serious precedent that can in no circumstances be justified,” he added.
The Baker plan, named after Annan’s former representative on the Western Sahara, allowed for independence to be followed within five years by a referendum on self-determination.
”We advise the Security Council not to approve this report because we are a colonised and weakened people, but if we cannot defend our legal rights by peaceful means we will be obliged to defend those rights by armed struggle,” warned Abdelaziz.
Abdelaziz dismissed the decision by Morocco’s King Mohammed VI to free all prisoners from the disputed territory of Western Sahara currently being held in jails in the kingdom as an ”economic manoeuvre” aimed at ”guarding against what could be damaging to the Moroccan regime”.
Morocco annexed the Western Sahara in 1975 but the move is contested by the Polisario, which is supported by neighbouring Algeria. – Sapa-AFP