Testimony from UN Special Political and Decolonization Committee (Fourth Committee) - June 2025
Katlyn Thomas
Members of the Fourth Committee:
Today you will hear many petitioners support the Moroccan autonomy proposal. I believe that many of them have not even bothered to study this proposal and are supporting it only as a means to escape the difficult task of upholding the principle of self-determination for the Sahrawis under international law and the requirements of the UN Charter. If they had studied it they would have recognized that it doesn't offer any real autonomy at all, but rather essentially perpetuates the status quo. The Moroccan army will remain in control of the territory, the courts will be subordinate to the Moroccan Supreme and Constitutional Courts, the Moroccan settlers who outnumber the native Sahrawis by three to one, will presumably be able to remain, the King and other Moroccans who today control most of the wealth of the territory will presumably retain their assets or obtain a sizable payoff, and the Moroccan Constitution, under which the King retains the ability to override or suspend any act of Parliament, governmental body or court decision, will be the law of the land. This is autonomy in name only.
And what is worse, there is no guarantee that even the meager rights given to the Sahrawis under the Moroccan proposal would continue. If the government of the Sahrawi Democratic Republic is any guide the Sahrawis would probably wish to establish a government based upon democratic principles, where a Constitution protects freedom of speech, due process, religious freedom and women's rights. History shows that it is almost impossible for an autonomous region with a democratic government to survive within a totalitarian state. When Great Britain ceded control over Hong Kong to the Chinese government China guaranteed the people of the territory that they would have self-rule and look at how that turned out. And earlier in 1952 when the British protectorate of Eritrea was accorded autonomous status within Ethiopia by the United Nations that status only lasted 9 years before the Ethiopian emperor revoked it setting off a 30 years conflict with Great Britain. Likewise, when Serbian leader Milosevic revoked the autonomous status of Kosovo in 1989 he ignited a conflict that was only ended two years later after NATO's intervention.
Ask yourselves who will intervene if Morocco decides to revoke Western Sahara's autonomous status? The United States? Europe? The United Nations? Not likely. But this situation is not likely to arises because Morocco will never give Western Sahara true autonomy to begin with. It cannot afford to lest its own people demand the same rights and privileges -- rights and privileges that are anathema to a regime tightly controlled by an absolute monarch, where according to Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, freedom of speech and of the press is unknown, unfair trials are rampant, and the jails are filled with political prisoners.
No, the autonomy proposal is just a means by which governments can be lulled into foregoing the fight to uphold the self-determination rights of the Sahrawi people, and I hope that members of the Fourth Committee will see it for the farce it is.