Morocco does not dispute self-determination — it disputes that it be applied

Nawal S. — Dakhla, Sahara occidental — 2026-10-08

The Security Council's consultations on Western Sahara have closed in New York, and the Moroccan reading of what was said there has found its culprit: Staffan de Mistura, the Secretary-General's Personal Envoy, accused of running for the Polisario.

The accusation is grave, since it targets an international official whose mandate is precisely to hold the balance between the parties. It therefore deserves better than indignation: it deserves to be read in the light of what the accusers themselves write.

And what they write is revealing. Under the pen of Moroccan commentators, the problem is not the reference to the principle of self-determination — that principle, they concede, “has long been part of the United Nations vocabulary concerning Western Sahara”. The problem would be the way the Envoy articulates that principle with the Moroccan autonomy project.

That is a considerable concession, and it has to be measured. If the principle of self-determination has belonged to the UN vocabulary for a long time, then the Envoy did not invent it. He did not introduce it into a dossier where it was absent. He found it where it was, and he left it there.

That principle, Security Council resolution 2797, adopted on 31 October 2025, reaffirms in black and white, in paragraph 3, by asking the parties to reach a definitive and mutually acceptable political solution “that provides for the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara”. That sentence is not Staffan de Mistura's. It is the Security Council's.

And there is one thing that is often forgotten in this affair: Morocco did not vote for that resolution. It is not a member of the Security Council. The text that sets the Envoy's mandate, that defines the framework of his consultations and that reaffirms the principle of self-determination was written by fifteen States, without it. One cannot contest the application of a text one did not help to write, by imputing to the executor the fault of its authors.

The session of 31 October 2025, whose record is public, adds a detail that triumphant readings and outraged readings alike pass over in silence: in that chamber, the fifteen delegations called the mission by its full name. United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara. The word “referendum” has been in the title since 1991, and no resolution has removed it.

The United Kingdom, a permanent member, voted for it, and said before the Council that this text represented “a step towards a just and lasting political solution that provides for the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara”, before adding: “This is the beginning of the process, not the end.” It is not Algiers speaking. It is a permanent member of the Council, which voted for the text.

There remains the real question, the only one that counts, and it does not concern the person of the Envoy.

According to the accounts of the report that the Moroccan press itself publishes, any proposal arising from the negotiations must be submitted to a consultation of the populations of the Sahara, guaranteeing them the freedom to accept or reject it, and that consultation is presented as necessary for the exercise of their right to self-determination. These same accounts report that the divergences on sovereignty and self-determination were deep enough for the two co-chairs to examine the dossier separately with each party, that the absence of trust constitutes a major obstacle, and that the main challenge remains turning a diplomatic rapprochement into a definitive political agreement.

None of these elements is imputable to the partiality of a mediator. They describe the state of a dossier, as reported by a press that cannot be suspected of complacency towards Algiers.

We have not been able to read the Secretary-General's report: its symbol, S/2026/781, does not return an accessible document on the official United Nations distribution service, and we wrote that without dressing it up. What we can read, on the other hand, is what everyone says about it — including those who draw a victorious reading from it, and those who, today, draw an accusation against the mediator from it.

One conclusion remains, and it is simple.

If the difficulty lay in the person of Staffan de Mistura, it would be settled by changing envoy: there have been others, and the dossier has not changed. If it lies in the text — in that paragraph 3, in that word “self-determination”, in that mission name that contains “referendum” — then changing envoy will change nothing.

And to change the text, one thing is needed that Morocco does not have: the penholder. It belongs to the United States.

That is the real difficulty. It is not settled by accusing a mediator of reading what is written.

Sources: Maghreb Online / moroccomail.fr, “Western Sahara: Guterres's draft report sets the powder keg alight, Morocco accuses De Mistura of running for the Polisario”, 8 October 2026 (quotation reproduced: the principle of self-determination “has long been part of the United Nations vocabulary concerning Western Sahara”). — United Nations Security Council, resolution 2797 (2025), adopted on 31 October 2025, symbol S/RES/2797 (2025), public text: https://docs.un.org/fr/S/RES/2797(2025) — paragraph 3 quoted word for word. — Official record of the 10030th meeting (S/PV.10030), 31 October 2025: vote (11 in favour, 0 against, 3 abstentions); non-participation of Algeria; explanations of vote by the fifteen delegations; intervention by the United Kingdom (“not the end”). — Security Council, resolution 690 of 29 April 1991, creation of MINURSO. — Hespress (Morocco), “Moroccan Sahara: Guterres sketches a ‘transitional council’”, 4 October 2026 — account of report S/2026/781 (consultation of the populations, freedom to accept or reject, divergences on sovereignty, absence of trust, definitive political agreement). — Afrik.com, 8 October 2026 — the report “has not yet been made public”.

⚠️ Reservation to be kept online. Report S/2026/781 is not public: we have not read it, and everything reported from it here is attributed by name to those who publish it. We do not at any point claim to have opened it.