In a blatant move to legitimize colonial plunder, the US, UK, and France have engineered a UN resolution that betrays the Sahrawi people’s right to self-determination, pushing a Moroccan autonomy plan that codifies a half-century of illegal occupation.
NEW YORK – The struggle for the liberation of Western Sahara has reached a critical and dangerous crossroads. As the Sahrawi people marked a grim 50-year anniversary of Morocco’s illegal occupation on November 6, they face an escalating campaign by Western powers to erase their quest for sovereignty from the international agenda. This campaign culminated in a controversial United Nations Security Council resolution that has effectively abandoned the UN’s founding decolonization principles in favor of rewarding an occupying power.
The resolution, drafted by the United States and adopted on October 31 to renew the mandate of the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO), represents what the Polisario Front—the sole UN-recognized representative of the Sahrawi people—called “a very dangerous and unprecedented departure.” In a stunning reversal, the resolution calls for negotiations based solely on “Morocco’s Autonomy Proposal,” which would grant the territory self-rule under Moroccan sovereignty, and speculates that this “could represent a most feasible outcome.”
This framework is a direct assault on the Sahrawi people’s inalienable right to self-determination, a principle that has guided the UN’s stance on Western Sahara for decades. The resolution’s self-contradictory language, which calls for a solution that “provides for self-determination” while pre-emptively endorsing a plan that denies it, has been widely condemned as a product of cynical, imperialist diplomacy.
A Pivotal Moment for Colonial Plunder
The reaction from Morocco and its Western backers was swift and celebratory. The US ambassador hailed the “historic vote,” while the UK and French delegations praised Morocco’s plan as the only “credible, viable and pragmatic” solution. Moroccan King Mohammed VI declared the resolution a turning point, stating, “From now on, there will be a before and an after October 31, 2025,” even proclaiming the date a national holiday.
This diplomatic victory for the occupation is seen by Sahrawi activists as a green light for intensified resource looting. “The West is blatantly violating the international laws they themselves have written,” said Babouzeid Lebbihi, President of the Collective of Sahrawi Human Rights Defenders (CODESA). “Imperialism no longer needs a veneer of legality to justify its exploitation of peoples and plunder of their resources. It is living in a stage of absolute barbarism.”
The rich phosphate deposits and Atlantic fisheries of the occupied territory have long been eyed by international capital, with the occupation protected by a 2,700 km-long wall—the world’s second-longest—fortified with millions of landmines and built by US corporations Northrop and Westinghouse.
International Law Clear, But Ignored
The UN resolution flies in the face of a consistent body of international law that has never recognized Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara. In a 1975 advisory opinion, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) explicitly found no “tie of territorial sovereignty” between Morocco and Western Sahara. This position has been repeatedly upheld, including by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), which has ruled that trade deals involving Western Sahara’s resources are illegal because Morocco has no sovereignty there.
The Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) remains a full and founding member of the African Union (AU), which recognizes the territory as under occupation. The UN continues to list Western Sahara as a “non-self-governing territory” awaiting decolonization.
Resistance Intensifies as Diplomacy Fails
On the ground, the political betrayal has been met with intensified armed resistance. The Sahrawi People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) has launched daily attacks from the liberated eastern territories, targeting Moroccan command centers, artillery positions, and soldier entrenchments. According to the SADR Defense Ministry, these operations have inflicted “heavy losses in lives and equipment” on the occupation forces.
The Polisario Front, while reaffirming its commitment to the UN peace process, has flatly refused to negotiate on the basis of the Moroccan autonomy plan. “It will not be party to any political process… which aim to ‘legitimize’ Morocco’s illegal military occupation,” it stated in a response.
Global Reactions: A Fractured Council
The UN Security Council vote revealed deep divisions. While the US, UK, and France led the push for the resolution, Russia and China abstained. Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia condemned the “unbalanced text” and the US for using “the Security Council to advance its own national agenda,” warning of a “cowboy approach” that could “reignite the conflict.”
Algeria, a key supporter of the Sahrawi cause, pointedly absented itself from the vote. Its ambassador declared that Algeria wished to “demonstrate its distance from a text that does not faithfully reflect the UN doctrine on decolonization.”
Crucially, even the nine non-permanent members who voted for the resolution rushed to clarify that their vote was to extend MINURSO’s mandate, not an endorsement of Moroccan sovereignty. Slovenia’s ambassador insisted, “We do not interpret the text… as taking any decision regarding the question of sovereignty,” while South Africa reaffirmed that “the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara is paramount.”
A Final Test for the UN
For over 30 years, the MINURSO mission has failed in its primary task: to hold a referendum on self-determination, originally scheduled for 1992. The US, as the penholder on the Western Sahara file, has consistently sabotaged this process, first by arming the occupation and now by drafting resolutions that legitimize it.
CODESA warned that this situation is a “critical juncture” not just for Western Sahara, but “for the credibility of the UN itself.” They concluded, “the Western Sahara issue will serve as a final test case for the UN.”
As Western powers discard the pretense of international law to openly back a brutal occupation, the Sahrawi people, facing street violence, arrests, torture, and rape, continue their resistance. Fifty years on, their struggle remains a defining battle against a new era of raw, unvarnished imperialism.