El Fórum Canario Saharaui pide incluir a todos los interlocutores para resolver el conflicto del Sáhara Occidental

The Saharawi Canarian Forum issued a press statement in which it assessed positively the extension of the MINURSO mission and the new mandate of Staffan de Mistura as the new representative of the UN Secretary General for Western Sahara.

The entity demanded the participation of all the interlocutors in the negotiations on the problem of Western Sahara, including the Saharawi Movement for Peace.

The statement of the Saharawi Canarian Forum is reproduced below in full:

The UN Security Council adopted this Friday by 13 votes in favour and 2 abstentions, resolution 2602 by which the mandate of MINURSO is extended for one year, until 31 October 2022, thus leaving open again the option for a compromise solution by the parties.

This new resolution is accompanied by the arrival of the new representative of the UN Secretary General, Staffan de Mistura, whose mandate comes into force on 1 November, although he had already been appointed on 6 October. We in the Saharawi Canarian Forum wish him the best of luck in this task, which we are sure he will need given the circumstances.

From the Saharawi Canarian Forum we urge all parties, especially those who permanently and deliberately refuse to seek a solution to this problem beyond belligerence and war, to actively participate in this new political journey and not to continue to eternalise a problem that is now dangerously approaching half a century.

In this regard, we would like to stress the need for new round tables as a form of negotiation, rejected outright by Algeria, with the participation of all the parties, and whose end must lead to a realistic and feasible solution based on dialogue, agreement and real commitment, especially from Algeria, which has traditionally looked the other way on this issue.

In line with the aforementioned dialogue and agreement, we stress the need to include all Saharawi interlocutors in the search for a just, lasting and mutually acceptable political solution to this conflict. Therefore, we understand that the Saharawi Movement for Peace should be regularly taken into account, as soon as possible, as it represents a very large percentage of the Saharawi population in different areas of the world geography, in the search for such a solution.

The unique representativeness of an entire population should not be an eternal title, and both the Polisario and Algeria have shown for years their ineptitude in finding any kind of solution to this dispute, beyond the one preferred by Brahim Ghali, the war solution. We also believe that the autonomy proposal offered for years by Morocco is the ideal starting point to reach the end of a tortuous road in which, as always, the Sahrawi population living in Tindouf is the real victim, and not their leaders like Brahim Ghali, who live like a king, perpetuating themselves in positions of power in what is, de facto, a gerontocracy.