Ross' resignation leaves UN scrambling over Western Sahara
Analysis: With Washington hinting at scaling back its UN commitments, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has a mountain to climb to tackle the decades-old Western Sahara crisis, writes Habibulah Mohamed Lamin.
3 min read
After eight years of repetitive continental tours, the UN Secretary-General's Special Envoy to Western Sahara, Christopher Ross, submitted his resignation as Antonio Guterres started his first term as the new UN chief.
Ross had been mediating in an attempt to reach a settlement between Morocco and the Polisario Front. They have not sat on the same table for more than seven years.
The former American diplomat served as the US ambassador to Algeria from 1988 until 1991. But in 2009, Ross returned to the region to succeed James Baker, who presented two initiatives know as Baker Plan I and II.
However, Baker's resolutions were never put into practice.
While the first offered limited autonomy for Western Sahara without voting, which the Polisario rejects, the second was a hybrid plan that included a referendum after five years of autonomy - allowing Moroccans who live in Western Sahara to part take in a plebiscite to decide their political future.
The Polisario, Western Sahara's armed independence movement, also rejected that proposal, insisting that Sahrawis, the indigenous people of Western Sahara, are the only eligible voters to participate in a self-determination referendum.
Ever since, the UN has not been able to get the two adversaries any closer to each other. A frustrated Ross appeared by the end of his tenure to have given up on any possibility of realising a mutually respected agreement between Morocco and the Polisario Front.
According to the UN chief of political affairs, Jeffrey Feltman, Ross was "unable to bring the parties back to negotiations".
While the impasse has lasted years, Ross' resignation is an indication of Washington's divorce with UN peace-keeping missions, especially in the North African region, where France has had the upper hand.
As a former European diplomat, Guterres has an unenviable position, as differences have emerged between the EU and the United States, particularly with Trump administration officials declaring the White House will "rethink" its policy towards the UN. This will likely affect MINURSO, the UN's mission in Western Sahara.
US diplomats have repeatedly led international efforts to bring an end to this decades-long conflict, but without any change in the status quo.
With Ross stepping down, this opens the door for a new European envoy, who would likely count on EU states to restart the whole process of talks in to save the region from a possible plunge into a violent swamp. Tensions remain high after a recent standoff in the Guerguerat was only solved after a Moroccan withdrawal following a phone cal between Guterres and the king of Morocco.
The UN praised that Moroccan withdrawal as "a positive move". The Polisario, however, remains positioned in Gueguerat to this date. Their intransigence drove Guterres to summon the front's chief, Brahim Ghali, to the UN headquarters in New York.
The online news portal Alifpost reported that Brahim Ghali "rejected withdrawing Polisario troops from Gueguerat".
Ross had been mediating in an attempt to reach a settlement between Morocco and the Polisario Front. They have not sat on the same table for more than seven years.
The former American diplomat served as the US ambassador to Algeria from 1988 until 1991. But in 2009, Ross returned to the region to succeed James Baker, who presented two initiatives know as Baker Plan I and II.
However, Baker's resolutions were never put into practice.
While the first offered limited autonomy for Western Sahara without voting, which the Polisario rejects, the second was a hybrid plan that included a referendum after five years of autonomy - allowing Moroccans who live in Western Sahara to part take in a plebiscite to decide their political future.
The Polisario, Western Sahara's armed independence movement, also rejected that proposal, insisting that Sahrawis, the indigenous people of Western Sahara, are the only eligible voters to participate in a self-determination referendum.
Ever since, the UN has not been able to get the two adversaries any closer to each other. A frustrated Ross appeared by the end of his tenure to have given up on any possibility of realising a mutually respected agreement between Morocco and the Polisario Front.
According to the UN chief of political affairs, Jeffrey Feltman, Ross was "unable to bring the parties back to negotiations".
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As a former European diplomat, Guterres has an unenviable position, as differences have emerged between the EU and the United States |  |
While the impasse has lasted years, Ross' resignation is an indication of Washington's divorce with UN peace-keeping missions, especially in the North African region, where France has had the upper hand.
As a former European diplomat, Guterres has an unenviable position, as differences have emerged between the EU and the United States, particularly with Trump administration officials declaring the White House will "rethink" its policy towards the UN. This will likely affect MINURSO, the UN's mission in Western Sahara.
US diplomats have repeatedly led international efforts to bring an end to this decades-long conflict, but without any change in the status quo.
With Ross stepping down, this opens the door for a new European envoy, who would likely count on EU states to restart the whole process of talks in to save the region from a possible plunge into a violent swamp. Tensions remain high after a recent standoff in the Guerguerat was only solved after a Moroccan withdrawal following a phone cal between Guterres and the king of Morocco.
The UN praised that Moroccan withdrawal as "a positive move". The Polisario, however, remains positioned in Gueguerat to this date. Their intransigence drove Guterres to summon the front's chief, Brahim Ghali, to the UN headquarters in New York.
The online news portal Alifpost reported that Brahim Ghali "rejected withdrawing Polisario troops from Gueguerat".
Meanwhile, Spanish diplomats have said that EU-Morocco trade should exclude Western Sahara.
All this just adds to the burden on the newly appointed UN secretary-general, who already faces considerable difficulties in finding a mutually acceptable representative to Western Sahara.
On one hand, the Polisario hopes that the next UN envoy will apply the same pressure as Ross did to reach a self-determination referendum. But Morocco seeks a more flexible delegate, who would prioritise autonomy as the only remaining option to resolve the decades-old Western Sahara crisis.
Habibulah Mohamed Lamin is a journalist based in the Western Sahara refugee camps in Tindouf, Algeria. He has worked as a translator and is director of Equipe Media Branch, a group of media activists covering Western Sahara. His work focuses on politics and culture of the Maghreb.
Follow him on Twitter: @habibullahWS
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