United Nations Visiting Mission To Spanish Sahara - Purpose of The Visiting Mission

Purpose of The Visiting Mission

The mission intended to investigate the political situation in the Spanish Sahara, as well as the conflicting claims to the territory:

  • Spain had administered the Spanish Sahara since the Berlin Congress in 1884, but had announced it was pulling out of the territory. A Madrid-backed political party, the Partido de Unión Nacional Saharaui (PUNS), argued for a gradual transition to independence and demanded privileged relations between Spain and a future Western Sahara.
  • The Polisario Front, an indigenous anti-colonial organization that was waging a guerrilla war against Spanish forces since 1973, claimed the country for its inhabitants, the Sahrawis, and demanded immediate independence.
  • Morocco invoked historical ties between its royal family and the Sahrawi tribes, claiming the territory as its Southern Provinces.
  • Mauritania referred to common ethnicity (of Sahrawis and Moors) and historical territorial connections, to claim it as a northern part of the country; Tiris al-Gharbiyya.
  • The United Nations had since 1966 demanded that a referendum among the native population should determine the future status of the territory.

Read more about this topic:  United Nations Visiting Mission To Spanish Sahara

Famous quotes containing the words purpose of, purpose, visiting and/or mission:

    Possibly the Creator did not make the world chiefly for the purpose of providing studies for gifted novelists; but if he had done so, we can scarcely imagine that He could have offered anything much better in the way of material ...
    Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (1844–1911)

    I have always felt that the real purpose of government is to enhance the lives of people and that a leader can best do that by restraining government in most cases instead of enlarging it at every opportunity.
    Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)

    For the Lord thy God is a jealous God among you.
    Bible: Hebrew Deuteronomy, 6:15.

    The words are also found in Exodus 20:5, referring to the second commandment: “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image ... for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.”

    I am succeeding quite well in my work and the future looks well. What special mission is God preparing me for? Cutting off all earthly ties and isolating me as it were.
    Ellen Henrietta Swallow Richards (1842–1911)