Petitioners on Western Sahara Highlight Human Rights Concerns to Fourth Committee

Petitioners on Western Sahara Highlight Human Rights Concerns to Fourth Committee

Give Morocco's autonomy plan a chance, the Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) heard from some petitioners today, even as others underscored that there should be no compromise on the Sahrawi people's right to self-determination.

Western Sahara was inscribed on the list of Non-Self-Governing Territories in 1963. In 1991, the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) was established to support the settlement proposals and ceasefire reached by Morocco and the Frente Popular para la Liberación de Saguía el-Hamra y de Río de Oro (Frente POLISARIO). In October 2025, the Security Council adopted Council resolution 2797 (2025), which expressed "its full support for the Secretary-General and his Personal Envoy in facilitating and conducting negotiations, taking as a basis Morocco's Autonomy Proposal, with a view to achieving a just, lasting and mutually acceptable resolution to the dispute, consistent with the UN Charter".

Calls to Implement Council Resolution 2797 (2025)

Eric Cameron of World Action for Refugees said that resolution - and its support for the Moroccan autonomy plan - is about putting human beings back at the centre of this "artificial conflict". Human dignity "seems to have been sidelined for decades by the host country" of the Tindouf camps, while the Moroccan Sahara has seen an "unprecedented dynamic of development and openness", he said.

"There are whole generations in Tindouf that only know waiting and relying on assistance," Amal Jbour of the Jordanian Philosophical Society added. Recalling her visit to the southern regions of Morocco, she said: "I saw a new economic reality." Describing infrastructure, ports and investments, she said the region is changing into a strategic and economic system that is connected to the Atlantic Ocean. "The Moroccan Sahara is not waiting;" it is building its future, she said, as she expressed concern regarding possible links between Frente POLISARIO and terrorist networks working in the Sahel region.

Jaouad Dekaki of Jeune Chambre International said there should be no political impunity for Frente POLISARIO, adding that civil society organizations and international experts have gathered evidence about its use of arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearance and torture. The most realistic solution is the Moroccan autonomy plan, he said, adding that it will ensure development while upholding human dignity. The autonomy plan is an "opportunity to end the deadlock" and open the doors for development and regional integration.

Some Petitioners Cite Increasing Diplomatic Momentum, Trade Ties

More than 30 countries have opened consulates in cities of the Moroccan Sahara, while others such as Peru have announced that they plan to do so, said Martha Chávez Cossío. This is a clear message of trust in the stability, development and economic opportunities that Morocco offers, she said, adding that the Moroccan Sahara has turned into "an increasingly attractive area for trade", investment and regional cooperation.

Henri Diederich said the rights of a people must be honored not by imposing frameworks that are foreign to their history but by recognizing their cultural, spiritual and ancestral links. The case of the Sahara deserves to be examined through the prism of "affiliation, genealogy and memory", he said. Well before the colonial borders were drawn, the Sahrawi tribes and the Moroccan Sultanate had a relationship of reciprocal obligations. Council resolution 2797 (2025) is a new political expression of this, he said, adding: "When history and diplomacy come together like this, we must pay particular attention to it."

Other Petitioners Stress That Sahrawi Voices Must Not Be Left Out

However, petitioner Jimmy Eliecer Zuluaga Guerra said that Council resolution 2797 (2025) gives preference to a proposal in which the Sahrawi people do not have a say. Therefore, it is up to the Fourth Committee to ensure that the status of a Non-Self-Governing Territory cannot be determined without its people. The international community cannot expect multiple generations that were born and grew up and aged under occupation to stay patient and simply wait for international law to be respected, he said. "MINURSO was not created to administer exile indefinitely but rather to organize a fair and binding referendum," he added.

Yefri Benzerga said that Morocco is pillaging the resources of Western Sahara. It is "negotiating trade agreements while those who are meant to benefit from them live under surveillance", many of them in prison simply for growing up "under the wrong flag", he added. European countries who invoke international law every day when borders are violated in Eastern Europe turn away from that principle when it comes to the Sahara because it is occupied by an ally. Diplomatic calculations cannot erase the Sahrawi people, he said, adding that the Frente POLISARIO is their only legitimate representative.

"You will certainly hear Moroccan claims about development and investments," Mohammed Abbadi of FreedomSun, an organization for the protection of Sahrawi human rights defenders, said. But the Moroccan occupation of the Sahara is marked by marginalization and unemployment. "I have lived this reality personally," he said, adding that the impoverishment "is not because our land lacks resources but because the Moroccan occupation uses starvation to subjugate our people". Drawing attention to a highway between occupied Dakhla and Tiznit, which was recently named after United States President Donald Trump, he said it is nothing other than a corridor for Moroccan trucks to loot Sahrawi fish and other products, "exporting them abroad falsely as Moroccan".

Concern about International Narratives That Legitimize Colonization

David Alejandro Toro Ramirez, Member of the House of Representatives of Colombia, said that two years ago, his Government reestablished diplomatic relations with the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic and recognized the sovereignty of the Sahrawi people over their territory. But the current Colombia Government "has once again turned its back on the Sahrawi people", he said. Such decisions are part of an international narrative that legitimizes colonization, he said, adding that the decision must be understood in the context of the rise of the far right in Latin America - with encouragement from transnational political Powers.