Historical Dictionary of Western Sahara Third ... - Scarecrow Press

lviii • INTRODUCTION
the characteristics of the territory and the problems likely to be faced by
UN peacekeeping troops and administrators.
Armed with this new data, and encouraged by the re-establishment of
diplomatic relations on May 16, 1988, by Morocco and Algeria after a
12-year break caused by the Western Sahara war, Pérez de Cuéllar resumed
work on a comprehensive settlement plan, one which would culminate
in a referendum of self-determination. But questions of voter eligibility
for the plebiscite and other modalities kept any agreements
from being reached from 1988 to 1991, even through both parties accepted
in principle to a peace plan put forward by the secretary-general
in August 1988; each side, as it turned out, placed such differing interpretations
on the blueprint as to make it seem at times that they had each
approved separate documents, at least in the opinion of a high-ranking
UN official at the time, Marrack Goulding of Great Britain.
The UN Security Council approved the formation of the United Nations
Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) by
means of Resolution 658 on June 27, 1990, but progress was interrupted
once again, this time by Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and the subsequent
diplomatic crisis that placed enormous demands on Pérez de Cuéllar
and the rest of the United Nations bureaucracy. But after the end of the
Gulf War in February 1991, the UN once more turned its attention to
Western Sahara. The secretary-general submitted a detailed settlement
proposal, one lasting for about 35 weeks from the date of a Morocco-
Polisario cease-fire and which provided for the introduction of soldiers
and administrators from MINURSO and the confinement of both FAR
and SPLA troops to designated locations in the former colony. All restrictive
laws were to be repealed, all political prisoners and prisoners
of war were to be freed, all refugees repatriated, and a campaign phase
would begin, during which time each side would be free to urge either
integration with Morocco or full Western Saharan independence. Several
weeks later, the actual vote would take place, and depending on the
outcome, the Polisario Front would either be disbanded or Rabat would
be obliged to accept a Saharawi Republic on its southern flank.
In Resolution 690 of April 19, 1991, the UN Security Council accepted
Pérez de Cuéllar’s plan and authorized MINURSO to deploy to
the territory; the actual date was later set at September 6. But over the
summer of 1991, things went badly wrong, as Morocco conducted military
attacks against Polisario positions beyond the “defensive wall”