The armed separatist group, known as Polisario, is an Algerian proxy and a vestige of the Cold War that has no legitimacy in claiming to represent the Sahrawi people, US Think Tank The Middle East Forum said in a new analysis by Michael Rubin.
“Algeria founded the group, and the Soviet Union and Cuba supported it, to use as a proxy against Morocco,” Michael Rubin said in the analysis.
After stating facets that make the “Polisario an affront to human rights,” Rubin notes that the Polisario has no right in claiming to represent the Sahrawi people, given the fact that no one voted for them.
The Polisario, a group that engages in aid embezzlement in full sight of the UN, is challenged by Sahrawis themselves.
A new grassroots group, the Sahrawi Movement for Peace, has called on the UN Secretary General to persuade his Envoy to invite them as a fully recognized interlocutor in the political process, along with tribal leaders, instead of listening to the Polisario only because it has arms and rear bases in Algeria with no support among the Sahrawis themselves.
The Sahrawi Movement for Peace is recognized by the Socialist International, he said, adding that “the organization represents more the center-left than the hardcore socialism of the Cold War, and so Socialist International’s endorsement of the Sahrawi Movement for Peace follows the imprimatur Social International once gave Jalal Talabani’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.”
“Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio should demand that U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres pay heed to the Sahrawis for Peace Movement and immediately cut off any recognition of the Polisario Front as the Sahrawis’ representative,” he said.
“It’s time to end the fiction that the Polisario Front represents the Sahrawis and allow one of the last Cold War relics to fade into history,” Rubin made it clear.