United Nations — The African continent has long been monopolized by European colonial rulers, with France having the largest number of colonies, ruling over 35 territories followed by Britain with 32.
A bygone era of colonial rule on the continent, “once carved up and ruled by European powers hungry for imperial glory,” has virtually ended- almost.
Currently, they are all members of the 55-nation African Union (AU).
https://au.int/en/member_states/countryprofiles2
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Described as a non-self-governing territory in North-western Africa fighting for de-colonization, Western Sahara is the last African colonial state yet to achieve independence and dubbed “Africa’s last colony”.
With an estimated population of around 600,000 inhabitants, it is the most sparsely populated territory in Africa and the second most sparsely populated territory in the world, consisting mainly of desert flatlands.
A former Spanish colony, it was annexed by Morocco in 1975. Since then, it has been the subject of a long-running territorial dispute between Morocco and its indigenous Sahrawi people, led by the POLISARIO Front.
On October 30, the UN Security Council is scheduled to vote on a draft resolution on the future of the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO).
According to a published report, the United States has circulated a draft resolution supporting Morocco’s 2007 autonomy plan for Western Sahara as the basis for a mutually acceptable solution.
The draft, which supports extending the UN mission’s mandate, calls for negotiations to begin without preconditions based on Morocco’s proposal, framing it as the “most feasible solution” for a “genuine autonomy within the Moroccan state” and a lasting resolution.
Dr. Stephen Zunes, a Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of San Francisco, and co-author of Western Sahara: War, Nationalism, and Conflict Irresolution, told IPS the autonomy proposal is based on the assumption that Western Sahara is part of Morocco, a contention that has long been rejected by the United Nations, the World Court, the African Union and a broad consensus of international legal opinion.
Western Sahara, he pointed out, is a full member state of the African Union, and the United Nations recognizes it as a non-self-governing territory.
“To accept Morocco’s autonomy plan would mean that, for the first time since the founding of the United Nations and the ratification of the UN Charter eighty years ago, the international community would be endorsing the expansion of a country’s territory by military force, thereby establishing a very dangerous and destabilizing precedent, with serious implications for Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine as well as Israeli-occupied territories.”
If the people of Western Sahara accepted an autonomy agreement over independence, as a result of a free and fair referendum, he argued, it would constitute a legitimate act of self-determination.
However, Morocco has explicitly stated that its autonomy proposal “rules out, by definition, the possibility for the independence option to be submitted” to the people of Western Sahara, the vast majority of whom – according to knowledgeable international observers – favor outright independence.
On October 24, the Representative of the Frente POLISARIO at the United Nations and Coordinator with MINURSO, Dr Sidi Mohamed Omar, sent a letter to Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia of Russia, current President of the UN Security Council, in which he stressed the position of the Frente POLISARIO on the US draft resolution.
“The Frente POLISARIO underscores that the draft resolution, which reflects the national position of the penholder, is a very dangerous, unprecedented departure not only from the principles of international law underpinning Western Sahara as a question of decolonization, but also from the basis upon which the Security Council has addressed Western Sahara.”
“It also contains elements that strike at the heart of the foundations of the UN peace process in Western Sahara and constitute a grave violation of the international status of the Territory.”
Acting under the relevant Chapters of the UN Charter, the Security Council has firmly and consensually established the basis of the solution and the process leading to it, namely negotiations under the auspices of the Secretary-General without preconditions and in good faith with a view to achieving a just, lasting, and mutually acceptable political solution, which will provide for the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara in the context of arrangements consistent with the principles and purposes of the UN Charter, the letter said.
As confirmed by the International Court of Justice, sovereignty over Western Sahara belongs exclusively to the Sahrawi people who have an inalienable, non-negotiable, and imprescriptible right to self-determination to be exercised freely and democratically under the UN auspices.
Therefore, any approach that sets a prefixed framework for the negotiations or predetermines their outcome, circumscribes the free exercise by the Sahrawi people of their right to self-determination, or imposes a solution against their will is utterly unacceptable to the Frente POLISARIO, the letter said.
According to a Security Council report, October 2025, an immediate issue for the Council is to renew the mandate of MINURSO and consider what changes to the mission’s mandate, if any, are necessary.
The underlying issue remains how to facilitate a viable and lasting resolution to the long-standing deadlock over the status of Western Sahara.
Two fundamentally diverging positions have made a resolution to the conflict difficult.
On the one hand, the Polisario Front’s demand for the Sahrawi people’s right to self-determination, which has been recognized by the International Court of Justice in its 16 October 1975 advisory opinion and supported by several member states.
And numerous UN General Assembly resolutions, such as resolution A/RES/34/37, have affirmed the “inalienable right of the people of Western Sahara” to self-determination and independence. The Council has also called for a “just, lasting, and mutually acceptable political solution which will provide for the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara”.
On the other hand, Morocco claims sovereignty over the territory, and its Autonomy Plan has received support from an increasing number of member states in recent years. In 2007, the Council adopted resolution 1754, which, in its preambular paragraphs, took note of Morocco’s proposal and welcomed Morocco’s efforts as serious and credible to move the process forward towards resolution.
Significant obstacles remain in the peace process. Hostilities have persisted at a low to medium intensity, falling short of large-scale confrontation. Moreover, Morocco controls over three-quarters of the Western Sahara territory and has made substantial investments in the region, including a $1.2 billion port project in Dakhla.
In addition, settlers of Moroccan origin account for nearly two-thirds of the approximately half-million residents of Western Sahara
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Elaborating further, Dr Zunes said: “even if one takes a dismissive attitude toward international law, there are a number of practical concerns regarding the Moroccan proposal as well: One is that the history of respect for regional autonomy on the part of centralized authoritarian states is quite poor, as with Eritrea and Kosovo, which only gained independence after a long a bloody struggle, and more recently with Hong Kong”.
Based upon Morocco’s habit of breaking its promises to the international community regarding the UN-mandated referendum for Western Sahara and related obligations based on the ceasefire agreement in 1991, he said, there is little to inspire confidence that Morocco would live up to its promises to provide genuine autonomy for Western Sahara.
“A close reading of the proposal raises questions as to how much autonomy is even being offered. Important matters such as control of Western Sahara’s natural resources and law enforcement (beyond local jurisdictions) remain ambiguous”.
In addition, he pointed out, the proposal appears to indicate that all powers not specifically vested in the autonomous region would remain with the Kingdom.
Indeed, since the king of Morocco is ultimately invested with absolute authority under Article 19 of the Moroccan Constitution, the autonomy proposal’s insistence that the Moroccan state “will keep its powers in the royal domains, especially with respect to defense, external relations and the constitutional and religious prerogatives of His Majesty the King”, appears to afford the autocratic monarch considerable latitude of interpretation.
IPS UN Bureau Report