Morocco’s Sahara Argument Shifts From Decolonization to C24 Irrelevance
- Jun 22
- 4 min read
By Ahmed Fathi
UNHQ, New York: Morocco's message to the U.N. Special Committee on Decolonization was unusually direct: the Western Sahara debate, as the committee continues to frame it, no longer matches the political reality Morocco says now defines the file. In an intervention before the C24, Morocco’s ambassador to the United Nations, Omar Hilale, did more than restate Rabat’s long-standing position on Western Sahara. He challenged the forum’s relevance, arguing that the committee is stuck in an outdated decolonization script while the Security Council, the U.N. envoy’s political track, Morocco’s autonomy proposal, and developments on the ground have moved the dispute into a different phase.
That was the real weight of the speech.
Hilale’s argument was built around two connected claims. First, that the C24 continues to treat Western Sahara through what Morocco sees as a 20th-century decolonization framework. Second, Morocco’s southern provinces are no longer, in Rabat’s view, a territory awaiting status but a developing part of the kingdom backed by investment, infrastructure, diplomatic recognition, and growing international support for autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty.
The intervention came as U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura completed a regional tour that included Algeria and the Tindouf camps. But instead of treating the C24 session as another procedural stop in the annual U.N. calendar, Hilale used it to question why the committee was still debating the file at all.
He argued that Western Sahara’s return to Morocco in 1975 ended the decolonization process and that the matter has since become a regional dispute handled under the authority of the Security Council. He accused the C24 of repeating the same arguments, the same resolutions, and the same ideological positions while ignoring what Morocco sees as the evolution of the diplomatic and political landscape.
That argument is not new in Moroccan diplomacy. What stood out was the sharper institutional challenge. Hilale invoked Article 12 of the U.N. Charter and said the Security Council has been the principal body handling the issue since 1991. In his framing, the C24 is not merely outdated; it is duplicating a file that belongs elsewhere in the U.N. system.
This scenario is where the issue becomes larger than Morocco, Algeria, or Polisario. It raises a difficult question for the United Nations: what happens when one part of the system continues to treat a conflict as an unfinished decolonization file while another part handles it as a regional political dispute under Security Council authority?
Morocco’s answer is clear. Rabat wants the debate moved away from the language of decolonization and toward the language of political settlement, autonomy, stability, and development.
Hilale placed Security Council Resolution 2797 at the center of that argument, describing it as a historic and irreversible turning point. According to his intervention, Morocco sees the resolution as confirming the autonomy plan under Moroccan sovereignty as the only basis for a final settlement, while moving beyond both the referendum option and what Rabat considers to be obsolete proposals.
Algeria and Polisario will reject that framing, as they continue to view Western Sahara through the principle of self-determination. For them, the C24 remains relevant precisely because they view the territory as an unresolved decolonization question. That divide is not cosmetic. It is the core of the diplomatic impasse.
But Morocco’s strategy is no longer limited to rejecting that interpretation. Morocco is also trying to overwhelm this interpretation with a different kind of evidence: facts on the ground.
Hilale pointed to more than 9.5 billion dollars (87 billion dirhams) invested in the southern provinces, support from more than 130 U.N. member states for Morocco’s autonomy plan, and the opening of more than 30 consulates in the territory. He described the region as undergoing economic development and political inclusion under the vision of King Mohammed VI.
That is the second half of Morocco’s message: the C24 may continue to debate status, but Morocco says it is building institutions, attracting diplomatic presence, investing in infrastructure, and integrating the territory into national development.
This is a powerful narrative, but it is also a contested one. Development does not automatically settle questions of sovereignty. Investment does not erase competing claims of self-determination. And diplomatic support, however significant, does not by itself close a dispute that has remained on the U.N. agenda for decades.
Still, Morocco’s argument reflects a real shift in diplomatic emphasis. The debate is no longer only about legal history or competing interpretations of self-determination. It is increasingly about political momentum. Morocco is betting that autonomy, backed by development and international recognition, will appear more realistic than an open-ended process built around maximalist positions.
That is why Hilale’s intervention matters. It was not just a defense of Morocco’s sovereignty claim. It was an attempt to delegitimize the old forum, reframe the vocabulary of the dispute, and present the autonomy plan as the only practical path left.
For the United Nations, the challenge is uncomfortable. The organization still carries the legacy of decolonization as one of its central achievements. But Western Sahara now sits at the intersection of that legacy and the Security Council’s search for a politically acceptable settlement.
The C24 continues to speak the language of unfinished decolonization. Morocco is now speaking the language of irreversible political reality.
Between those two languages lies the unresolved future of Western Sahara — and a U.N. system still struggling to decide which conversation it is actually having.