Morocco and the Polisario Front tighten the diplomatic cord regarding Western Sahara

Sahrawis who arrived from the refugee camps in Algeria blocked the Guerguerat border crossing on the 21st.LIAM BACHIR / EFE

The UN Security Council must decide on Wednesday whether to extend its observer mission in Western Sahara.

The fact that a good part of the international community has forgotten the details of the conflict makes the opposing parties take increasingly striking actions.

Thus, around fifty civilians residing in the Sahrawi camps of Tindouf have been blocking the border crossing from Western Sahara to Mauritania for a week, which is known as the Guerguerat buffer zone, a no man's land.

They thus protested against the fact that the UN does not promote the organization of a referendum of self-determination in the Sahara.

Meanwhile, Rabat has promoted in recent months the creation of consulates of allied African countries in the Sahrawi cities of El Ayoun and Dakhla.

Rabat began its strategy last December, with the consulate of the Comoros Islands.

It continued in January with those of the Gambia, the Central African Republic, Guinea and São Tomé and Príncipe.

Last Friday the opening of Burkina Faso, Guinea Bissau and Equatorial Guinea was announced.

And on Tuesday, a day before the UN pronouncement, Rabat announced the opening of the Zambia and Eswatini (formerly Swaziland).

The star addition to this list of countries that implicitly assume the "Moroccanness" of the Sahara was announced by Morocco on Tuesday night.

This is the United Arab Emirates.

The news was spread by Rabat after King Mohamed VI had a telephone conversation with Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed, the de facto ruler of the country as crown prince of Abu Dhabi (the main emirate of the federation).

Bin Zayed informed Mohamed VI of his decision to open a consulate in Laayoune.

It is, therefore, the first Arab country to adopt such a measure.

Morocco will thus have less than a dozen African countries with official representation in Western Sahara, plus the Emirates.

The Security Council must pronounce itself every six months on the continuation of its mission in the Sahara, which dates back to 1991, when the opposing parties signed peace.

The Polisario Front is interested in the international community deploying international observers, even if they are banned - by Moroccan imposition - from monitoring human rights.

But the Saharawi organization recalls that the objective of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) must be to organize a referendum, as stated in its own name.

And Morocco does not want to hear about a referendum.

He is only willing to negotiate autonomy for what he considers to be his "southern provinces."

Rabat has managed to ensure that in recent years UN resolutions hardly mention the word referendum and cite the Ministry by its initials.

For the Polisario, the cause of this diplomatic victory can be summed up in one word: France.

Paris has the power of veto in the United Nations, as a permanent member of the Security Council, along with Russia, China, the United States and the United Kingdom.

Paris has always voted in favor of the interests of its former colony;

either with a government of the right, of the center or of the left in the Elysee.

Every time the Security Council must rule on the continuity of the MINURSO, the conflict is tense in the desert.

One of the most delicate situations occurred in 2017, when Morocco undertook asphalting works on the Guerguerat road that leads to Mauritania.

The Polisario blocked the road in February of that year and King Mohamed VI called on the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, to stop the “provocations”.

This time no call from the king to Guterres has transpired.

But the day after the blockade, Guterres' spokesman made an appeal at a press conference from New York not to block "civil and commercial traffic" and to return to the

.

The General Secretary of the Polisario Front, Brahim Gali, answered this slap on the wrist with blunt words in a statement stating that the Minurso was deployed in Western Sahara in 1991 to "hold a free and fair referendum" and to apply "supervision of the ceasefire ”.

"It was never deployed to facilitate the trafficking of civilians or other activities throughout the territory, especially through an illegal breach, the existence of which constitutes a continuous violation of Military Agreement No. 1 and the spirit of the Peace Plan."

For his part, the Moroccan Foreign Minister, Naser Burita, answered from Dakhla last Saturday that Morocco will not negotiate with gangsters and bandits. "And the Foreign Minister of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, Mohamed Salem Uld al Salek, declared that the Moroccan policy will have “fatal” consequences.

This is the context in which the Security Council must rule on the extension of the Ministry for another six months.