Inner City Press: Investigative Reporting from the United Nations

As France Urges No Changes, W. Sahara Draft Goes to Silence, IAEA Map

By Matthew Russell Lee

UN System, April 19 -- While the Group of Friends on Western Sahara has no African members on it, once it agreed to a draft resolution on the MINURSO peacekeeping operation, it was presented to the wider Security Council as largely unchangeable, with France strongly pushing this position.

  South Africa, not surprisingly, spoke up against the process. The UK, Inner City Press is told, remained silent. Now the draft is "under silence" procedure until April 20 at 5 pm.

  Beyond Operative Paragraph 3 which Inner City Press has previously quoted, here arre Operative Paragraphs 8 and 9:

"Invites Member States to lend appropriate assistance to these talks;

9. Requests the Secretary-General to brief the Security Council on a regular basis, and at least twice a year, on the status and progress of these negotiations under his auspices, on the implementation of this resolution, challenges to MINURSO’s operations and steps taken to address them, and expresses its intention to meet to receive and discuss his briefings and in this regard, further requests the Secretary-General to provide a report on the situation in Western Sahara well before the end of the mandate period;"

  Even amid loud calls for "freedom of movement" for the UN on Syria, this is the euphemism for Moroccan restrictions: "challenges to MINURSO’s operations." Since Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and his French head of peacekeeping Herve "The Drone" Ladsous allowed France and Morocco to twice water down the report on the restrictions, why have confidence in Ban's report on implementation?

Meanwhile Inner City Press has discovered that the UN system's International Atomic Energy Agency portrays Western Sahara as a part of Morocco, here: http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/CNPP2010_CD/countryprofiles/Morocco/CNPP2010Morocco.htm

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