Peru will gain by supporting Morocco's Autonomy Plan for the Sahara
Eighteen years after being formulated in a comprehensive and ecumenical manner – which is why it was presented to the UN, the largest political forum on the planet – the plan has received a highly positive response from the international community. It has been valued for its extraordinary peaceful and inclusive dimension – it would never be imposed by Rabat – and is widely recognised as a realistic, serious and credible, and whose solution will be the result of mutually acceptable political negotiations, as Morocco has clearly emphasised.
That is the magic, in my opinion, that explains the unilateral support for the Moroccan autonomy proposal, which has been following a course of unstoppable support that we could describe as progressive, growing and overwhelming on the part of the UN Member States, and which I would describe as an avalanche of sovereign declarations of solidarity with an initiative by the Moroccan kingdom which, by its very nature, grants administrative government to the Sahrawi populations, leaving sovereignty over Western Sahara in the hands of the Kingdom, as is only right, which is the only possible scenario for preserving the territorial integrity of Morocco.
Our diplomacy knows by heart what the aforementioned empowerment of the Moroccan autonomy proposal means politically for Peru, given its international standing, and therefore cannot afford to let the current circumstances and opportunity pass by, as perfect premises for a successful equation for Peru's international projection, the fact that the United Kingdom has joined the United States of America and France, permanent members of the UN Security Council, in supporting Morocco in its initiative and in recognising its sovereignty over the Sahara, as Washington and Paris have done.
Peru has taken the first step by suspending its relations with the non-existent self-proclaimed ‘Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic,’ and this measure alone is more than enough for our country to follow in the footsteps of three world powers, but also to keep pace with Brazil, Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, etc., which have also endorsed the proposal for autonomy.
If Minister Schialer has announced that Peru will defend the 200-mile sovereignty and jurisdiction thesis – note that this is not 200 miles of territorial sea – at the United Nations Conference on Oceans in Nice, bringing the country into line with the overwhelming adherence to UNCLOS, then, in the same way, it would be fitting for Peru to do the same by joining the majority of the world in supporting the initiative for autonomy for the Moroccan Sahara. We would gain a lot internationally!
Miguel Ángel Rodríguez Mackay, former Peruvian foreign minister and internationalist
Article published in the Diario Expreso newspaper