John Bolton : Morocco Blocking Western Sahara Referendum to Avoid Losing It
MADRID – Former U.S. diplomat and national security advisor John Bolton reiterated on Sunday his conviction that organizing a self-determination referendum in Western Sahara remains the only solution to resolve this conflict, holding Morocco responsible for blocking the UN process.
“I continue to believe that the only way to solve this problem is to hold a referendum,” he told the Spanish newspaper El Independiente.
Bolton, who advocates returning to international law in this conflict, stated that “the Sahrawis, who are still living in refugee camps, deserve to be able to return home.”
“No one disputes this,” he added, being astonished that nearly 35 years after the adoption of the Security Council resolution creating the United Nations Mission for the organization of a self-determination referendum in Western Sahara (Minurso), this text is still not implemented.
“I find this very regrettable. This testifies to the weakness of the UN: it adopts a simple resolution, easy to implement, everyone accepts it, then one party changes its mind and everything collapses,” he deplored.
“A referendum would have been easy to organize,” said the diplomat.
“It is not an enormous task,” he emphasized.
Holding the occupier responsible for the deadlock in the peace process, Bolton recalled that Morocco has reneged on commitments made in 1991 under the ceasefire agreement and 1997 Houston agreements because it “simply does not want to risk losing the referendum.”
“During my successive mandates, I discussed with James Baker (the former UN special envoy to Western Sahara) and with several of his successors. They all told me privately the same thing: Morocco simply does not want to take the risk of losing the referendum,” he said.
In this regard, he noted that Morocco has organized several so-called “green marches” aimed at installing Moroccans in Western Sahara, but “it has still not managed to find a way to win the referendum.”
John Bolton dwelt at length on Morocco’s expansionist aims in the region and on its normalization with the Zionist entity in exchange for American recognition of its alleged “sovereignty” over Western Sahara, affirming that the kingdom was, in the past, very close to recognizing this entity and that it would have done so even without compensation.
Regarding Spain’s new position in this conflict, the former diplomat underscored that it will not help resolve the problem.
“The current position of the Spanish government is not useful. Everyone had committed to organizing a referendum and the Moroccans backed down. The victims are the Sahrawis who still live in refugee camps. It is really absurd,” he added.
John Bolton rejected, once again, the accusations of connivance with terrorist and extremist groups, conveyed by the Makhzen against the Polisario Front, maintaining that this is “totally false” and that these allegations “rest on lies.”
