Sahrawis for Peace has asked UN envoy Staffan de Mistura to widen participation in the Sahara political process to include Sahrawi groups outside the established negotiating framework, arguing that the renewed diplomatic push should also reopen the question of who gets heard in talks over the territory’s future.
In a letter sent ahead of the UN Security Council’s October review of MINURSO, the movement’s first secretary, Hach Ahmed Bericalla, said the next phase should include Sahrawis who have rejected armed confrontation and favor a negotiated settlement.
Bericalla said the objective was to “expand the space for dialogue” to include Sahrawis advocating what the movement describes as a realistic compromise without a winner or loser.
That demand introduces a representation question into a political process that has traditionally revolved around Morocco, the Polisario Front and neighboring Algeria and Mauritania.
The appeal comes at a consequential point for the UN process. MINURSO’s current mandate expires Oct. 31, and Security Council members are expected this month to hear from both de Mistura and mission chief Alexander Ivanko before deciding whether and how to renew it.
Last year’s Resolution 2797 altered the diplomatic framework by calling for negotiations taking Morocco’s autonomy proposal as their basis
. The resolution also requested a strategic review of MINURSO’s future mandate in light of progress in negotiations.
Sahrawis for Peace argues that reviewing the mission should therefore go beyond troop numbers, resources and another technical extension. The movement says any renewed process will lack credibility if it does not also address what it describes as declining confidence among Sahrawi refugees in decades of inconclusive diplomacy.
The group has made the same argument repeatedly in recent weeks. In September, it separately asked both de Mistura and UN Secretary-General António Guterres to open consultations to additional Sahrawi voices and give the movement a place in the political process.
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