UN mission on Sahara referendum gets $32 million to finish work

The UN General Assembly Administrative and Budgetary Committee adopted friday a resolution recommending the allocation of an additional loan worth $37.2 Million to ensure the functioning of the MINURSO (UN mission for the holding of the referendum in the Sahara).

The new loan will cover the functioning expenses of the MINURSO from July 1st, 1998 to June 30, 1999. The UN mission has received earlier usd 22.7 Mln loan to ensure its working from July 1st to October 31, 1998.

The security council decided last month to extend the mandate of MINURSO until this October 31 after UN secretary General informed the council that the identification process was completed with the registration of 147,000 eligible except for the contested tribes H41, H61 and J51/52 (groups that fled the Spanish occupation and that are denied eligibility by the Polisario).

The identification process which first started in 1994 was interrupted in December 1995 and resumed two years later, following the signing of UN special envoy Baker's brokered Houston accords in September 1997.

Other aspects still need to be finalized before deciding on arrangements for the referendum that will decide whether this former Spanish colony retrieved by Morocco in 1975 under the Madrid accords would stand on its own, as claimed by the Algeria-backed Polisario guerilla movement, or incorporate with Morocco. The MINURSO's identification commission still has to convoke hundreds of applicants living abroad, identify members of the contested tribes and examine appeals by those who already appeared before the commission which had offices in Tindouf (stronghold of the polisario in south-western Algeria), Morocco and Mauritania.

The MINURSO which supervises a cease-fire in force since September 1991 comprises 203 military observers, 10 staff officers, 248 troopers and 80 civilian police observers.