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UNITED NATIONS Distr. GENERAL GENERAL A/32/303 26 October 1977 ASSEMBLY ENGLISH ORIGINAL: FRENCH Thirty-second session Agenda item 24 IMPLEMENTATION OF THE DECLARATION ON THE GRANTING OF INDEPENDENCE TO COLONIAL COUNTRIES AND PEOPLES Letter dated 21 October 1977 from the Permanent Representative of Madagascar to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General On instructions from my Government, I have the honour to transmit to you herewith a memorandum from the Frente Popular para la Liberaci6n de Saguia el Hambra y Rio de Ora (Frente POLISARIO) addressed to the Chairman ~f the Special Committee on the Situation with regard to the Implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples on the occasion of the thirty-second session of the General Assembly. I should be grateful if you would have this memorandum circulated as a document of the General Assembly under agenda item 24. (Signed) Blaise RABETAFIKA 77-20825 I ... A!32!303 English Annex Page 1 ANNEX Memorandum dated 5 October 1977 from the Frente Popular para la Liberaci6n de Saguia el Hambra y RIo de Oro (Frente POLISARIO) addressed to the Chairman of the Special Committee of 24 on the occasion of the thirty-second session of the General Assembly of the United Nations Once again the General Assembly of the United Nations is considering the decolonization of Western Sahara. Like all the peoples of the world, the Saharan people has the right to self-determination and independence. The United Nations and all international organizations recognize the inalienable rights of our people to freedom and dignity, rights which it has jealously defended for centuries. The Saharan people has always resisted foreign penetration in order to preserve its independence and sovereignty. The various attempts at penetration have therefore been frustrated. Thus, the Spanish colonial penetration, which was begun in 1884, remained ineffective until 1935. This continuing age-old resistance was reaffirmed with the establishment of the Frente POLISARIO, the sole legitimate representative of the Saharan people, on 10 May 1973. On 20 May 1973, the Frente POLISARIO, which is both a liberation front and a movement of the masses, launched its first operation, the historic operation of El Khanga, against the Spanish occupier, thus inaugurating a new era to demand respect for the legitimate and universally recognized rights of our people. Since that time there has been an increasing number of military operations and the Saharan People's Liberation Army' (ALPS) has inflicted heavy losses on the enemy. A considerable amount of war materiel was destroyed and recovered. Several Spanish soldiers and officers were captured. Spain could no longer sustain the heavy losses in the field which the Frente POLISARIO was inflicting on it. Students, workers and unemployed, the entire Saharan people, enlisted in the ranks of the Frente POLISARIO. Faced with this mobilization and determination, Spain resorted to massive and savage massacres. In the towns, repression was unleashedj searches, abductions, imprisonment and executions were common. In the countryside, daily bombardments were aimed at exterminating both the civilian popUlation and livestock. All these barbarous acts only strengthened our people's firm belief in the justice of its cause and its determination to gain respect for its right to live in freedom like all the peoples of the world. The liberation of most of the territory of our country, the imprisonment of Spanish officers and soldiers, the recovery of significant amounts of war materiel by the Saharan People's Liberation Army, and the failure of an attempt to create a third force compelled the Spanish occupying Power to consider leaving our country, which it found itself increasingly unable to control. ! ... A/32/303 English Annex Page 2 Spain was at that time playing a double game. In the United Nations it claimed to respect and defend the inalienable rights of our people to independence and self-determination and the territorial integrity of our country, which it was administering in conformity with its obligations as administering Power, While, at the same time it was preparing a criminal conspiracy to divide our homeland and its wealth fOllowing the failure of its policy aimed at perpetuating direct domination. This colonialist policy was defeated thanks to the struggle of our people and its great sacrifices. Since its establishment, the United Nations has been given responsibility for decolonization and has adopted a number of declarations, resolutions and measures aimed at the implementation of its Charter, in particular Article 1, paragraph 2, and Chapter XI. It was in that context that the General Assembly adopted the Declaration contained in resolution 1514 (XV) of 14 December 1960 on the granting of independence to colonial countries and peoples, and two years later established the Special COIT@ittee of 24 (the Committee on Decolonization). Since that time the process of decolonization carried out by the United Nations has led to the adoption of numerous resolutions dealing with our country. In that connexion, the adoption of resolution 2229 (XXI) of 1966, which invited the administering Power to determine the procedures for the holding of a referendum under United Nations auspices with a view to enabling our people to exercise freely its right to self-determination and independence, represented the beginning of the decolonization process. Resolution 2229 (XXI) served as a model for a series of provisions which were identical in substance: resolution 2354 (XXII) of 19 December 1967, resolution 2428 (XXIII) of 18 December 1968, resolution 2591 (XXIV) of 16 December 1969, resolution 2711 (XXV) of 14 December 1970, resolution 2983 (XXVII) of 14 December 1972, and resolution 3162 (XXVIII) of 14 December 1973. The United Nations has thus reiterated in increasingly urgent terms the need for the complete liberation of our country through the exercise by our people of its right to self-determination and independence without foreign interference. All its resolutions and others insisting on the implementation of the strict right of peoples to self-determination were adopted with the consent and support not only of Spain but also of Morocco and Mauritania, which are now attacking us. During the meeting of the Special Committee at Addis Ababa in 1966, for example, Morocco stated through its representative, who had been invited to participate as an observer, that it recognized the right of Western Sahara to independence. Furthermore, at a sUbsequent meeting of the Special Committee in New York, the Moroccan representative stated that Morocco had since June 1966 urged that the / ... A!32!303 English innex Page 3 indigenous population of the Territory should be allowed to exercise its right to independence and self-determination. In connexion with the draft resolution submitted by the Special Committee on 17 November 1966, the Moroccan representative stated that his country, like any truly independent African country, felt that the indigenous population should be able to determine freely its own destiny. Again, during the meeting of the Special Committee at Addis Ababa, the Mauritanian representative, who had also been invited to participate as an observer, said, in reference to the statements made by the representative of Morocco, that his country was in complete agreement with Morocco with regard to the rights of Spanish Sahara to freedom, and that the Territory should be completely independent of Spain, but also of Morocco. At the twenty-first session of the General Assembly, Morocco reiterated that it recognized the right of Western Sahara to free self-determination and independence. In the Fourth Committee, Morocco affirmed its acceptance of immediate independence for all African Territories still under colonial domination in conformity with the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples. The Moroccan representative stated that Spain was too generous not to withdraw from a Territory which did not belong to it and not to grant independence to its people. Morocco would be the first to applaud any initiative in that direction. In the same Committee, the Mauritanian representative said that his country was moved by the desire to promote the interests of Spanish Sahara and its inalienable right to self-determination and independence. In the course of the meetings of the Special Committee held in 1969, the Moroccan representative, Mr. Benhima, stated with regard to Spanish Sahara that the Special Committee had noted at its recent meetings that, for the past three years, the General Assembly had been voting on a resolution the provisions of which had been almost identical each time, and that on each occasion the General Assembly had recalled in greater detail certain basic provisions. Those provisions were, first, the principle of self-determination, to which Spain had adhered since the second resolution and, second, the decision by the Committee of the General Assembly concerning the dispatch of a visiting mission to the Territory to gather all the necessary information. At the twenty-seventh session of the General Assembly, the same Moroccan representative, Mr. Benhima, stated that once the Sahara became independent, Morocco would be prepared to respect the freely expressed wishes of the inhabitants of that TerritDry, and, again, that when the Territory became independent, its A/32/303 English Annex Page 4 frontiers would be respected in the same way as those of all independent countries and that at that time, Morocco would be prepared to respect the freely expressed wishes of the inhabitants. Thus, Morocco had undertaken not only to respect the wishes of the Saharan people, but also to respect the territorial integrity of the Sahara, once it became independent just as it respected that of all other independent countries. Morocco and Mauritania have recognized the right of the Saharan people to self-determination and independence not only at the level of the United Nations but also at the level of continental and regional organizations.