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At UN, W. Sahara Resolution Approved,
Exploitative Fishing Continues, Pascoe's Murky Trip
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
October 21 -- The lingering
question
of Western Sahara came up for a vote on Tuesday in the UN's Fourth
Committee. Inner City Press interviewed two representatives of the
Polisario
Front. Both expressed moderated satisfaction with the resolution about
to be
voted on. The key is Operative Paragraph Two, said the first, pointing
to a
section saying that the General Assembly "strongly supports Security
Council Resolution 1754 (2007), by which the Council called upon the
parties to
enter into negotiations without preconditions... which will provide for
the
self-determination of the people of Western Sahara." He went to say
that
"the rest is bull [excrememt]."
Morocco, on
the other hand, likes the subsequent
paragraphs, and pushed for inclusion of such concepts as political
realism,
which some equate not only with Elliot Abrams but further back with
Henry
Kissinger -- who incidentally is slated to appear at the UN on October
24, with
Hans Blix and others.
The second Polisario representative present at
Tuesday's vote,
referring to Monday's
voting-down of Argentina's language that
self-determination must be qualified by any question of sovereignty
that may
exist, blamed Argentina for not simply making a resolution about
the Falklands
Island, instead of putting other situations like Western Sahara into
jeopardy.
Last week,
Inner City Press asked the UN's former envoy to Western Sahara
Francesco
Batagli about the European Union's agreement with Morocco which the EU
claims
gives its members permission to fish off the coast of Western Sahara. Batagli said Spain is using the agreement to
exploit Western Saharan waters, while Sweden disagreed on these grounds
with
the EU's agreement with Morocco.
Unloading in Western Sahara, Batagli and flag not
shown
Batagli, who also served in Kosovo, said he left the UN because he was
embarrassed. In Western Sahara, he said, the Moroccan flag was allowed
to fly over that of the UN. They sent me there without no tools, he
said, echoing another UN envoy, to Myanmar
The non-governmental
diplomatic service that brought Batagli to the UN told Inner City Press
that
the UN's Lynn Pascoe was then going to Rabat to try to convince the
Moroccan
government to accept as Ban's envoy to Western Sahara the American
Christopher
Ross. Pascoe was seen in the UN on
Monday, eating Chinese food. Was his trip to Rabat successful? "Morocco
is
trying to humiliate Ross," one of the Polisario representatives told
Inner
City Press.
"Not a
good start," Inner City Press commented.
"For
whom?" came the response. "For Ross? Or for Morocco?"
While
the meeting was to start at 3, at 3:18 the crowd was still milling
around. The
chairman, Argentine himself, gaveled open the meeting. By 3:24, the
resolation
had been rubber stamped, and the first speaker began: Jean-Maurice
Ripert of France,
which actively keep human rights out of the Western Sahara process. Droits de
l'homme, mon oeil. The meeting was over by 3:33.
Watch this site, and this Oct. 2 debate, on
UN, bailout, MDGs
and this October 17 debate, on
Security Council and Obama and the UN.
* * *
These
reports are
usually also available through Google
News and on Lexis-Nexis.
Click
here
for a Reuters
AlertNet piece by this correspondent
about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click
here
for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali
National
Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an
undefined trust fund. Video
Analysis here
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