The video that was widely circulated on YouTube showing two members of the MINURSO encouraging pro-Polisario young people to rebel against Moroccan law enforcement agents discredits the UN mission entrusted with monitoring the cease-fire in Western Sahara.
The video shows the two MINURSO elements giving advice to young separatists on how to organize the revolt. And as one of the two “coaches” is Egyptian, there is no wonder that he mentioned as an example the uprising in Tahrir Square in Cairo.
Such images evidence a blatant violation of the UN rules regulating peacekeeping forces deployed in the world.
But the worst is that they reveal that the reports sent by the MINURSO to the United Nations are without doubt biased and that the two members on the video are may be just a representative sample of the MINURSO other members, raising the question of whether it is an isolated initiative by the two MINURSO members or whether it is the state of mind prevailing in the ranks of the UN Mission.
The question is all the more relevant as the Security Council is about to renew the mandate of a mission that is primarily responsible for monitoring the cease-fire between Morocco and the Algeria-based Polisario separatist Front.
In any case, the video reveals in broad daylight that the two members of the MINURSO serve an agenda other than the one which was formally stipulated in the Security Council resolutions.
And if this outrageous behavior reveals the extent of some MINURSO members’ neutrality, it gives the proof that the UN mission is not the best mechanism to supervise, or even write reports on the situation of human rights in the Western Sahara.
