The Sahara was decolonized in 1975, at a time Polisario did not exist, says UN Secretary General

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres affirmed that the Sahara was peacefully decolonized in 1975, when the Polisario was still unknown.

Actually, the Polisario is an artefact whose advent came after the decolonization of the Sahara.

On the sidelines of a visit to Paris, where he took part last week in the “Climate Summit for a Global Financial Pact”, Antonio Guterres was guest-lecturer at the Paris Institut des Sciences Politiques. Guterres shared with his audience of professors, students, and pundits from all over the world for more than one hour, his convictions and visions on current international issues, including that of the dispute created around the Moroccan Sahara.

He said in this connection that that the Sahara was decolonized in 1975 following a tripartite agreement between Spain, Morocco, and Mauritania. At the time when the Sahara was peacefully decolonized in 1975 from the Spanish Protectorate, the SADR (self-proclaimed by the Polisario) did not exist, he explained.

It was only after this decolonization that the world began to hear about the SADR, he said, insisting that Spain handed the Sahara to Morocco and Mauritania.

Concerning the little progress made since Morocco put on the table in 2007 the autonomy proposal, Guterres said that the UN was not the cause of the deadlock, but rather the parties hampering the resolution of the conflict, alluding to Algeria and the polisario.

Morocco had actually proposed an autonomy initiative, a solution meeting the interests of all parties and which the Security Council has supported through all its latest resolutions, advocating a political and realistic solution to the regional conflict. However, the Polisario and its mentor have not adhered to the autonomy initiative, stubbornly calling for holding a self-determination referendum although the UN recognized that such a consultation is unfeasible and unrealizable.