Thank you, my dear friend, for raising this important issue. This is a textbook example of the post-colonial lens through which questions concerning countries of the Global South continue to be approached. They discuss issues that concern us first and foremost, speak on our behalf, and say whatever they please, yet no one representing Morocco’s perspective is invited to the discussion.
This is largely how the debate surrounding this conflict has been framed for more than five decades. Many Western commentators, if not the overwhelming majority, have developed their own slanted, biased, and tendentious reading of the conflict, and they abhor being confronted by someone capable of challenging their assumptions, refuting their arguments, and dismantling the entire scaffolding on which their agenda-driven narrative has been built.
But no matter how hard they try, truth and justice ultimately prevail. They may distort the facts, present them selectively or ignore those that don't align with their narrative, but facts are stubborn. From a legal standpoint, the path toward settling this dispute has already been charted by Security Council Resolution 2797, adopted last year. Article 12 of the UN Charter states that “while the Security Council is exercising in respect of any dispute or situation the functions assigned to it in the present Charter, the General Assembly shall not make any recommendation with regard to that dispute or situation unless the Security Council so requests.”
By adopting Resolution 2797, the culmination of a process that began with Resolution 1754 in 2007, the Security Council has decisively charted the path that should ultimately lead to the resolution of this dispute on the basis of the Moroccan autonomy plan.