The president of the Consell de Mallorca and the councillor of the Presidency, Antoni Fuster, spoke before the Fourth Committee of the United Nations General Assembly, where they defended the cause of the Saharawi people and the holding of a referendum.
The president Llorenç Galmés stressed that ‘it is the first time in history that the Consell de Mallorca raises its voice in support of the Saharawi people before the international community, in an unprecedented act of commitment and courage’.
The president of the Consell de Mallorca, Llorenç Galmés, spoke before the Special Political and Decolonisation Committee of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, dedicated to the question of Western Sahara. At the request of the Association of Friends of the Saharawi People and the Polisario Front, the president of the insular institution defended the cause of the Saharawi people and called for compliance with international resolutions to put an end to a conflict which, as Galmés recalled, has been going on for almost 50 years. In this line, president Llorenç Galmés assured that ‘the Consell de Mallorca defends that the best solution is the celebration of a referendum so that the Saharawi people can freely decide their future’. At present, Western Sahara is considered a non-self-governing territory by the United Nations and is the last African territory where the decolonisation process has not yet been completed.
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President Galmés calls on the UN to comply with international resolutions for an end to the conflict in Western Sahara
Throughout his appearance, Galmés recalled the harsh conditions in which the Saharawis live in the refugee camps, the human rights violations in the occupied territories and the close links between Mallorca and the Saharawi people for 40 years. President Galmés pointed out the consensus between the different political forces of the Balearic Islands on the Western Sahara conflict. He also highlighted the involvement of the Consell de Mallorca with financial aid to carry out humanitarian projects and now giving a further step, since he said that ‘it is the first time in history that the Consell de Mallorca raises its voice in support of the Saharawi people before the international community, in an unprecedented act of commitment and courage’.
Likewise, the Councillor of the Presidency, Antoni Fuster, and the island’s Director of Coordination, Sandra Morell, also spoke before the Fourth Committee.
The Councillor pointed out that ‘174,000 people are still living in a refugee camp in the Algerian desert, including 60,000 children and young people who are still surviving today, thanks to international humanitarian aid’, and claimed that, ‘after 49 years of paralysis, the role of the UN has not been sufficient until now’.
For her part, Sandra Morell called for responsibility and denounced that ‘we have been talking about the Saharawi people’s conflict for so long that it no longer upsets us, it no longer shocks us. We are running a great risk, resignation, and what is worse: oblivion’.
156 requests from all over the world to speak on Western Sahara
The chair of the Fourth Committee has received 156 requests from all over the world to speak on the conflict in Western Sahara and the speaking sessions will take place from 8 to 11 October, extendable on the 14th depending on the number of participants. Among them are the four deputies of the Parliament of the Balearic Islands: Marga Duran, from the Popular Parliamentary Group; Omar Lamin, from the Socialist Parliamentary Group; Marta Carrió, from the Més por Mallorca Parliamentary Group; and Joana Gomila, from Més por Menorca.
The Consell de Mallorca forms part of the Spanish delegation coordinated by the International Association of Jurists of Western Sahara which participates in the UN Special Political and Decolonisation Committee together with representatives of the Cabildo de Gran Canaria, the observatories of Asturias and Castilla-La Mancha of human rights for Western Sahara, among others.