« Polisario » Does Not Have Any Form of UN Recognition

The Protocol Office of the United Nations has swiftly removed “polisario” from its directory of Permanent Missions in New York, after a software glitch resulted into the separatist group being briefly included in this listing.

The Protocol Office has presented its apologies for this “grave mistake”, and has immediately taken action to correct the glitch.

As an armed non-state group, “polisario” does not hold any official status with the United Nations, which comprises only Member States.

The United Nations has never recognized “polisario” as “national liberation movement”.

As a result, the so-called “representation of frente polisario at the United Nations” does not appear in the UN Blue Book. UN reports refer to the head of this entity exclusively as a “representative of polisario in New York”, thus undercutting the attempts of this armed group to appropriate an official status with the UN.

So-called “representative of frente polisario” is in fact neither an ambassador, nor a “representative” at all. The actual representatives of the population of the Sahara are the elected officials in regional and local bodies, such as M’Hammad Abba and Ghalla Bahiya, who participated last month in the work of the main session Committee of Twenty-Four upon an official invitation of the Chair of the Committee.

If anything, this usurpation highlights the illegitimacy of this non-state armed group, which only exists thanks to the support of its Algerian mentors.