U.N. issues new list of W.Sahara referendum voters

WIRE:01/17/2000 16:31:00 ET

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 17 (Reuters) - Only 2,130 of 51,220 members of three disputed tribal groups seeking to vote in a referendum on the future of Western Sahara have been found eligible, a U.N. spokesman said on Monday.

Their names, which were released by the U.N. Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO), would be added to 84,251 eligible voters previously endorsed out of an initial 147,000 applicants, the spokesman said.

The referendum, originally set for January 1992, is to decide whether the former Spanish colony should be incorporated into Morocco, which largely controls the territory, or become independent, as sought by the Algeria-based Polisario Front.

Repeated delays in conducting the vote have been due to differences over who should be eligible to vote, with each side accusing the other of trying to manipulate the electoral rolls.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a report last month there seemed little possibility of holding the referendum before 2002, or even beyond.

This is because of the likelihood of a lengthy appeals process by many of those ruled ineligible to vote.

The U.N. voter identification commission began hearing appeals on Monday at 14 centres in Morocco, Western Sahara, Mauritania and at Polisario-run camps at Tindouf, Algeria, the U.N. spokesman said.

MINURSO, comprising some 200 military observers, about 30 soldiers and 80 civilian police, plus civilian officials, has also been monitoring a ceasefire between Morocco and Polisario since September 1991.


Coming soon to a city near you

-- Possible Impact (posim@hotmail.com), January 17, 2000

Answers

Coming soon to a city near you?
Lost the question mark in the copy, makes a big difference!
E. Timor and others comes to mind, it seems a disturbing trend to me. (The loss of States rights)

-- Possible Impact (posim@hotmail.com), January 17, 2000.

The loss of states' rights seems to have come more from invasion by a large and powerful neighbour (Indonesia into E.Timor, Morocco into W.Sahara) than from UN attempts to get elections held decades later. Surely the first step in any election has to be deciding who's eligible to vote, which is hardly a job for the occupying power and is maybe best left to a multinational group of outsiders who could at least be viewed by all sides as impartial.

-- randomdigits (randomdigits@r.r), January 18, 2000.

* * * 20000118 Tuesday

randomdigits:

Do the phrases "U.S. Constitution," "representation," or "democratic republic" ring a bell (a la "Liberty Bell") with you?

Me thinks randomdigits is experiencing "randomsynapses."

Regards, Bob Mangus

* * *

-- Robert Mangus (rmangus1@yahoo.com), January 18, 2000.

Dear Bob

I could have sworn this was happening in W.Sahara and E.Timor, not the US. So the US Constitution wouldn't seem to apply. Neither W.Sahara nor E.Timor (as far as I know) have had proper elections before, and both have been occupied / warzones for decades. So, given we all agree that fair elections are required for a country to be properly run, they need elections. But how to do this in an occupied country with no democratic tradition? If you can think of a better way than an international (therefore viewed by locals as impartial) organising group with plenty of witnesses and monitors then I'm sure the people of these regions would be only too glad to hear it. By all means be outraged if evil foreigners turn up at a polling booth near you and tell you you can't vote, but that's not what happening in these cases.

-- randomdigits (randomdigits@r.r), January 18, 2000.

Randomdigits,

Thank you for your replies.
It is the 'trend to Globalism' that worries me.
Korea is still patrolled by UN troops.
Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo, and others - each a unique situation. They are each a step in a direction we should not go.
I guess the 'Perpetual' nature of the involvement is my main concern.
Global "Housing projects"
Global "HUD" bureaucracy
Global administration

Not my idea of a good time.

-- Possible Impact (posim@hotmail.com), January 18, 2000.