MOROCCO: U.N.'s Minurso continues to monitor cease-fire in Western Sahara as mandate for peacekeeping force about to expire

Record ID: 349388

  • Title: MOROCCO: U.N.'s Minurso continues to monitor cease-fire in Western Sahara as mandate for peacekeeping force about to expire
  • Date: 30th April 2007
  • Summary: PHOTOGRAPHS OF MINES AND UNEXPLODED ORDINANCE
  • Embargoed: 15th May 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Morocco
  • Country: Morocco
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVA2AVBI6KTOXAR8136Z2YYQGULH
  • Story Text: It may look as if everything is quiet on the Western front but the contingent of the United Nations peace-keeping force in the Western Sahara, better known as Minurso, is vigilant day and night and reports on every violation to the cease-fire between the Moroccan army and the militia of the Polisario Front brokered by the UN in 1991.
    Since then, the UN mission has been extended every six months by the UN Security Council, at the recommendation of the General Secretary.
    However, the U.N. Security Council delayed on Friday (April 27) a key vote on Western Sahara as members haggled over a resolution seeking to kick-start negotiations over the disputed northwest African territory, diplomats said.
    The Council had hoped to vote to renew the mandate of the 220-member Minurso peacekeeping force, but also to call for U.N.-sponsored direct talks between Morocco and the Polisario independence movement.
    But with Polisario unhappy with the draft resolution, diplomats from the 15 council members picked through its wording. The council now hoped to vote on Monday (April 30), when the peacekeeping force mandate expires, diplomats said.
    Moves to resolve the long-standing dispute received a shot in the arm this month when both Morocco and the Polisario handed the United Nations proposals for the future of the desert territory of 260,000 people. That encouraged the Security Council to lend its support to talks.
    Each side now says it is ready in principle to talk, but wide differences remain on the basis for negotiations over Sahara, which was annexed by Morocco after Spain abandoned its colonial occupation in 1975.
    The territory, spanning an area larger than Britain, has lucrative phosphate reserves and rich fishing grounds. Many thousands of Sahrawis live in refugee camps across the border in Algeria, where Polisario is based.
    Diplomats said a key sticking point in the text was how to refer to the rival proposals on Sahara's future. Polisario objects to wording praising Morocco's "serious and credible" efforts but merely "taking note of" the Polisario plan.
    From the headquarters of the peacekeeping mission in Laayoune, the main city in the Western Sahara, Danish Minurso force commander Major General Kurt Mosgaard is organising the work of the 490 troops, military observers, policemen, international and local civilians and UN volunteers under his orders.
    In his latest report to the Security Council, the UN General-Secretary said that the overall situation in the area remained generally calm.
    Minurso has carried out more than 4,000 ground patrols and 300 air patrols in the last six months to visit and inspect units of the Royal Moroccan army and the military forces of the Polisario Front and to monitor adherence to the military agreements between the two sides.
    Minurso also continues to have good relations with both the Moroccan army and the Polisario Front militias, even though there were no direct meetings between the two parties.
    During this period Minurso recorded many violations of the cease-fire by both parties. These did not involve the use of weapons but involved restricting the movement of the Minurso military inspectors.
    Major Absmann Walter, team site commander in the Smara Minurso garrison, told Reuters: "(Restriction of the) freedom of movement means that we are not allowed partially to enter a unit to verify any information we are getting."
    He added: "We are always getting the information that there is no problem at all, but we have to verify as well, and in some units, we are not allowed to do this job".
    The other violations he mentioned are the construction or establishment of new observers posts by both parties without prior consent from the Minurso.
    Minurso, whose yearly budget is 46 million US dollars, also has to deal with the presence of mines and unexploded ordnance throughout the territory, including areas where Minurso military observers and logistical vehicles operate on a daily basis.
    Major General Kurt Mosgaard says that de-mining is now a priority and should be implemented - even before any political solution to the conflict - because mines are killing and maiming civilians of all ages.
    He told Reuters: "I don't think that there is any reason to wait for a political solution to the Western Sahara conflict before having the mines removed."
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