Western Sahara Solution Still Distant
Mohammad El-Ashab Al-Hayat - 05/09/08//
With or without UN Envoy Van Walsum, the Manhasset Negotiations over the Western Sahara did not achieve sufficient progress. Negotiations were to lead to a settlement at a moment where political realism prevailed, if only negotiators had been on an equal footing in cooperating fully with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and his former Personal Envoy Van Walsum.
However, this is the first time a UN Envoy leaves the core of the conflict having kept his ideas and conclusions to himself. The previous UN mediator, James Baker, had resigned, convinced that it was impossible to bring the contradictions together, the closest to mind of which being that no agreement will be reached on any matter unless there is an agreement on everything. Before him, UN Envoy Eric Johnson came out with the conclusion that the solutions that are being outlined in air-conditioned offices do not necessarily apply to the reality on the battlefield.
Nevertheless, what is most important among the ideas expressed by Van Walsum is not just that the option of the Western Sahara's independence is unrealistic, but that there is no solution in the foreseeable future, and that the International Community, in dealing with the conflict, has the tendency to give precedence to accomplished facts.
He had said the same thing while he was still carrying out his mandate as UN Envoy and performing his duties in the management of a conflict, which many envoys and mediators had taken up before him. He did not change his ideas and orientation once his mandate ended without renewal and it was difficult for Ban Ki-moon to push for his Personal Envoy in the light of criticism from the Polisario Front that reached the point of demanding that he be removed from his post. As luck would have it, his mandate expired on the 21st of last month, allowing for a face-saving way out for everyone involved.
The Polisario can get high on the idea that Van Walsum's mandate was not renewed, as it could consider it to be a diplomatic gain. On the other hand, Morocco can rest assured that the departure of persons does not cancel out the ideas they put forth, especially when it comes to implementing related Security Council resolutions, most prominently Resolution 1813, as it is the only reference setting the rhythm of past and future negotiations. For the Secretary-General, the matter will not go beyond influencing the end of a mandate and the start of another, as what he is concerned about in the first place is for negotiations to move forward in the direction of forming a political solution.
This is specifically where lies the importance of the change prompted by UN Envoy Van Walsum when he insisted on involving regional parties and neighboring countries in supporting the negotiations.
In other words, he has maintained the legal and political framework of the conflict, but has added to it a once absent strategic depth. Before him, Baker had recognized the regional ambiguities and, as a result, classified both Algeria and Mauritania as indirect yet concerned parties in the settlement. He could have gone much further in probing for a solution, had he not mixed up two cases, the referendum and autonomy, at the point where one of the two choices had been drained of its content.
Today, not much has changed on the ground. The negotiations are suspended until the appointment of a new UN Envoy, who will have to start from square one, at least at the level of becoming familiar with the background and depth of the crisis, as well as the results that have been reached so far. However, far from what is happening behind the scenes at the UN, there is another reality that does not call for optimism. Algeria and Morocco, for instance, have been unable to agree on any formula to reopen the sealed borders, which does not seem to raise significant political difficulties. Indeed, they are most likely to cooperate in paving the way for a political solution to the Western Sahara conflict.
Van Walsum's departure is merely the tree hiding a thick forest of contradictions, not the least of which is that it is not yet time to speed up the solution. What has changed is that extending the conflict's duration is no longer subjected to the ambiguities of an international resolution, but rather to the formula of the solution not being ripe yet on the regional level.
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