On the occasion of the seventy-third session of the Fourth Committee of the UN’s General Assembly, held at the UN’s headquarters on October 10th-13th, a number of Sahrawis gathered for a series of days in NYC to fulfill our duties and use our voices.
We held, as the main purpose of our gathering, to act as petitioners in favor of our Freedom, vis a vis the committee Chair, the State Delegates and fellow petitioners. Nonetheless, as many of us found ourselves in such proximity, sharing purpose and fellowship with one another, the occasion lent itself to other activities besides.
On the morning of Thursday, October 11th, a group of 12 participated in a peaceful protest in front of the French Embassy in NYC. It was a rainy morning, our suits, shirts and melfas soaked under the ceaseless rain as we held signs and spoke our message to the French government.
During the hearings, demands and claims were made undermining the crude reality of Sahrawis today, and its multitude of consequences for younger generations and others to come. In Bouela Lehbib’s four minutes, we heard the energy and eloquence of the Saharawi youth, how it is understood by young Sahrawis that they are entitled to precisely the basic principles of human dignity of which the occupation deprives them. Lehbib expressed, with ease and composure, a frustration that many Sahrawis share: “Since the day I was born and started opening my eyes in one of the most inhospitable places of the planet, the Saharawi refugee camps […] I could see the UN’s resolutions voiced, without being reinforced.”
Fatimatu Jatri addressed the Chair for the third year, and remarked how year after year, the hopes for a referendum diminish as the disappointment in the promise grows. This is a shared sentiment. However, in spite of petitioners’ willingness to point out the dramatically long stagnation of the MINURSO, the air breathed amongst the participant was one of ever-lasting hope—a sentiment that is as rooted in Peace as a fundamental principle, as it is backed by a forty-three-year-old history of armless resistance that vouches and legitimizes the plight.
Although, as citizens and activists we must understand what we mean when we say “UN.” In reality, the United Nations is technically—and under all political standards, heavily—invested in the decolonization of all Non-Self Governing Territories, including the Western Sahara. But, even though the Committee has the power to approve the drafting of potentially consequential policies, it is the members states’ votes that these drafts need in order to be fully and effectively implemented. Resolutions may be suggested by the General Assembly, but Members can choose disagreement, or abstention, on the voting. Member States can also choose not to implement resolutions, even if they are passed. In the end, what is mostly of concern to us when we think of our case in the United Nations is the veto power of the five permanent states, namely: China, UK, USA, Russia, and France.
Regardless of our belief, hope, or lack thereof, in the United Nations—we have long decades of exercising patience and non-violence to endorse our sovereignty and the validity of our message of Peace. From Peace we not only draw support and international recognition, but also legitimacy. To Sahrawis, standing for anything other than peace is a blow to humanity, as a whole—the humanity that we all participate in. It is understood, not just by Sahrawis but by any peoples who have been forced into suffering and injustice, that violence can only aspire to be a reaction to frustration, useless in achieving the ultimate goal which is dignity and prosperity for everyone, regardless of origin, independent of culture or country of birth.
By Inma Zanoguera