UN C24: Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda Reject Separatist Narrative on Sahara

Marrakech – The Commonwealth of Dominica and Antigua and Barbuda aligned squarely with Morocco’s sovereignty over its Sahara and the country’s autonomy plan at the UN Committee of Decolonization (C24) seminar in Managua, Nicaragua, adding to an unrelenting trajectory that continues to dismantle the separatist thesis piece by piece and strip it of whatever residual credibility it claims. 

The two interventions – alongside a similar position articulated by Côte d’Ivoire at the same forum – exposed the deepening diplomatic isolation of the Algeria-backed Polisario front, the accelerating consensus that leaves the secessionist chimera with diminishing ground to stand on, and the irreversibility of global momentum behind Rabat’s sovereignty-based solution.

Dominica’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the UN, Philbert Aaron, hailed the “growing international dynamic” in favor of Morocco’s territorial integrity, pointing to the proliferation of consulates general in Laayoune and Dakhla as tangible proof of the international community’s settled judgment on the Sahara question.

Aaron commended the “historic” adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 2797 in 2025, affirming that it had injected “new momentum” into the political process anchored exclusively in the Moroccan autonomy initiative.

He urged all parties to seize what he termed a “historic opportunity” to reach a definitive settlement to a dispute that has dragged on for half a century, and voiced support for the efforts of UN Personal Envoy Staffan de Mistura and the United States in advancing the process.

The Dominican diplomat also welcomed the roundtable format bringing together Morocco, Algeria, Mauritania, and the Polisario – discussions that have already produced sessions in Washington and Madrid built around Morocco’s autonomy plan.

Antigua and Barbuda’s delegate, Jerri-Anne Jeremy, proved equally unequivocal, characterizing the Moroccan autonomy plan as a “realistic basis” for a lasting resolution and noting its consistent designation as “serious and credible” across successive Security Council resolutions.

Jeremy declared her country’s commitment to the UN-led political process aimed at achieving a “just, realistic, pragmatic, and durable” solution, while calling on all parties to engage with “realism and compromise.”

Both Caribbean delegations drew particular attention to the socioeconomic transformation underway in Morocco’s southern provinces under the New Development Model launched in 2015, citing measurable gains in infrastructure, renewable energy, employment, and human development indicators.

They also reaffirmed the importance of respecting the ceasefire – repeatedly breached by the Polisario, most recently in Es-Smara earlier this month – and commended Morocco’s sustained cooperation with MINURSO, while cautioning against any escalation that could destabilize the broader Sahel region.

An anachronism sustained by inertia rather than legal standing

Undergirding the two Caribbean endorsements was a withering intervention by Morocco’s Ambassador to the UN, Omar Hilale. The Moroccan diplomat went beyond contesting the Sahara dossier’s place on the C24’s agenda and struck at the root, declaring the committee’s custodianship of the issue a jurisdictional anomaly that no serious reading of the UN Charter can defend.

Hilale dismissed the continued examination of the issue as “anachronistic” and in direct contravention of Article 12 of the UN Charter, which enshrines the primacy of the Security Council over subsidiary bodies, casting the C24’s custodianship as a procedural relic kept alive by institutional inertia long after it outlived whatever purpose it once claimed.

He rejected outright the “obsolete ideological discourse” and “doctrinaire decolonization narrative” wielded by the separatist camp and its state backers, calling on Algeria and the Polisario to demonstrate “courageous steps” rather than entrench a bankrupt status quo.

Rabat has “matched words with action” by presenting the operational details of its autonomy plan in Washington and Madrid following Resolution 2797’s adoption, Hilale noted, recalling that over 130 UN member states now recognize the initiative as the “only political solution and realistic path forward.”

Hilale warned that the opposing parties face a “historic choice”: seize the moment to close this half-century chapter and end the ordeal of populations confined in the Tindouf camps, or perpetuate a stalemate freighted with security risks and regional paralysis.