Inner City Press -- Investigative Reporting From the Inner City to Wall Street to the United Nations

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, April 18, updated -- With the Western Sahara draft resolution still in the hands of the so-called Group of Friends and not distributed to UN Security Council members like Nigeria and South Africa, Inner City Press on Monday asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's acting Deputy Spokesman Farhan Haq about Ban's report belatedly released on April 15.

  While Haq declined to comment, the changes between the draft report obtained and published by Inner City Press in early April, and that ultimately released, concerns not only the lack of a human rights monitoring mechanism for the MINURSO mission, but even the characterization of past probes of detentions in Laayoune last November.

  The initial or draft report, in Paragraph 92, said that “Credible investigations by local and international human rights investigations found that 200 Saharans, including children, were detained.”

  Ban's final draft, after lobbying by Morocco and France, dropped among other things the word “credible,” reading “investigations by local and international human rights investigations found that 200 Saharans, including children, were detained.”

Compare Paragraph 92 in this draft text to this final text.

While the Security Council consultations were pushed from April 15 to Tuesday April 19, as of the afternoon before, the Group of Friends had still not agreed on a draft resolution. An experts level meeting was scheduled for Monday afternoon with the idea of getting the Group of Friends' ambassador together Monday evening.

France was said to be resisting the idea of distributing the text to the other Council members until it was entirely agreed within the Group of Friends.

Ban & Sarkozy, human rights monitoring in W. Sahara not shown

At the April 18 noon briefing, Inner City Press asked Ban's deputy spokesman Haq to respond to the critique by the UN's former Special Representative on Western Sahara Francesco Bastagli that “past experience shows occasional assessments by special rapporteurs do not suffice to address the grave and deteriorating human rights situation of the Saharawi. The UN must not fail to establish a robust, continuous and dedicated capacity to monitor, protect and advocate the human rights of the Saharawi people.”

Haq, after making sure to correct pronunciation of former Assistant Attorney Bastagli's name, then refused to respond to his critique of Ban's report and recommendation.

Some predict, however, that France's insistence that the resolution only refer to the “human dimension” cannot prevail this time, that a small incremental move to at least mentioning “human rights” will occur. Watch this site.

Update of 6:30 pm -- At the end of the Group of Friends on #WesternSahara meeting at 6:20pm, UK Ambassador Lyall Grant told Inner City Press that “a text will go out tonight.” Ambassador Susan Rice of the US, chair of the Group of Friends, didn't really answer when Inner City Press asked if the text would include human rights. Five minutes later, France's Ambassador Gerard Araud & Morocco Ambassador Loulichki came out together, silent as they walked up the stairs. We'll see.