Hibapress
During a session of the 4th committee of the UN General Assembly, the Moroccan ambassador to the United Nations, Omar Hilale, castigated the Algerian ambassador, Amar Benjama, for his repeated fixation on the question of the Moroccan Sahara.
Mr. Hilale described this obsession as a “schizophrenic pathology”, accusing Algeria of being prisoner of a logic of permanent conflict.
Responding to the attacks of his Algerian counterpart, Mr. Hilale denounced Algeria’s double discourse: “On the one hand, it claims to be neutral, arguing that it is not a stakeholder, but on the other, it gives lessons and challenges our committee without ever addressing the Security Council,” declared the Moroccan ambassador. He pointed out the “bizarre” attitude of Algiers which seems to be avoiding discussions in the Security Council, which is nevertheless responsible for decisions on the question of the Moroccan Sahara.
“The Security Council is the body that holds international law and negotiates the political solution. But Algeria prefers to ignore this body, as it ignores the interventions that have resonated with our Commission over the last ten days,” he indicated, regretting that the Algerian ambassador likes “the spectacle”.
The Moroccan ambassador did not hesitate to dismantle the Algerian argument around the so-called existence of a “Sahrawi people”. “What people? There is no Saharawi people. There are Sahrawi populations, part of whom are locked up in the Tindouf camps, controlled by the Polisario militias and the Algerian army,” he said with irony.
Mr. Hilale then challenged his Algerian counterpart to clarify the term “people”, a definition that even the African Union Commission on Human Rights has failed to clearly determine.
As for the question of self-determination raised by Benjama, the Moroccan diplomat retorted: “The Algerian ambassador is so obsessed with Morocco that he ignores the Moroccan Autonomy Initiative, which provides for popular consultation at the end of the negotiations », adding that “this initiative, supported by the Security Council, is for Morocco the only path towards a consensual, lasting, pragmatic political solution, based on compromise, as recommended by this Council”.
In this regard, he affirmed that “it is only thanks to the round tables and the accountability of the four parties that this region will be able to find peace and stability. In the meantime, Morocco resolutely continues its path of development of the Moroccan Sahara region and leaves Algeria to bark,” concluded Mr. Hilale.
