At UN on Western Sahara, Ban's Final Report Has No Rights Monitor in MINURSO

http://www.innercitypress.com/unws6morocco041511.html

At UN on Western Sahara, Ban's Final Report Has No Rights Monitor in MINURSO

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, April 15 -- Nine days after UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was supposed to issue his annual report on Western Sahara, and after extensive lobbying by Morocco and France, Ban on Friday put out a text which did not include the human rights monitoring mechanism that even the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has urged.

Instead the finalreport, being put online here and here, has Ban “appreciating” Morocco's “expressed commitment” to allow Special Procedures and presumably Special Rapporteurs from the UN Human Rights Council. See Paragraph 121 in this file, and compare to this.

Not explained is why having a human rights monitoring mechanism, which other UN Peacekeeping missions in Africa have, is not being done in the case of Western Sahara, particularly at a time when France and other Permanent Five members of the Security Council are citing human rights and the protection of civilians as the basis for military action in Libya and Cote d'Ivoire.

The lead Ambassador of a non-permanent member of the Security Council told Inner City Press that Morocco's push was that it would “stop the political track” if a human rights monitoring mechanism were imposed. But if such threats are successful here, they will be tried even more elsewhere, in places like the Democratic Republic of the Congo or Sudan.

Is it, he wondered, that France is more unequivocally the attack dog for Morocco than any P-5 member is for Sudan? The consultations were postponed until Monday. Watch this site.