The leader of the Polisario separatist militia, Brahim Ghali, sent a new missive to the UN Secretary General, on the eve of the UN SC meeting on the Sahara, to complain and try to deny the elements from Antonio Guterres’ latest report.
While the UN boss indicated in his report on the situation prevailing in the Sahara, that the Polisario was blocking and preventing the UN mission, MINURSO, from exercising its mandate by prohibiting it from accessing certain territories at East of the berm, Brahim Ghali seems to be giving another speech.
In a long letter in which he distils falsehoods and lies about the situation in the Sahara, the Polisario chief militiaman attempted to contradict the words of the UN chief as well as reports from agents of the ceasefire observation mission. fire, MINURSO.
According to Ghali, senior members of the mission refused to meet with his representatives in what he called “the liberated territories” east of the Moroccan defense wall. “In the report, the Secretary-General notes that +my Special Representative and the Force Commander of MINURSO remained unable to meet the Polisario front in Rabouni, in accordance with previously established practice+”, he noted.
He tried to assert that despite the disengagement of the Polisario from the ceasefire, the militia would continue to collaborate with MINURSO at various levels. “We remain committed to cooperating with the Mission in fulfilling its mandate as established by the Security Council. However, as we have emphasized on several occasions, we do not accept that the civil and military leadership of MINURSO cannot meet the Polisario front anywhere within the limits of the territory. he said.
Brahim Ghali also denounces that the Polisario cannot meet the leadership of MINURSO east of the berm. A meeting there “would constitute recognition of the control of the Polisario front over the territory east of the wall” (S/2018/889, para. 52), noted the Polisario by noting a passage from Guterres’ report, considering that this conclusion “is dangerous and deplorable, because it reflects the position of the occupying State.”
Demanding that the meetings be held east of the berm, Ghali cited former Special Representatives of the Secretary-General, including the Pakistani Sahabzada Yaqub Khan, the British Julian Harston, and the German Wolfgang Weisbrod-Weber, among others, who had held meetings notably in Tifariti.
According to him the frequently cited argument from established practice would be “erroneous, untenable and therefore unacceptable”. In this regard, he considers that the “the only place where meetings with the leadership of MINURSO, both civilian and military, can take place is (which he calls, editor’s note) the Sahrawi Liberated Territories, where the five sites of the Mission team have been operational since 1991 “.
