BBC News Online: World: Africa

Annan backs Western Sahara plan

In a report to the UN Security Council, Mr Annan called on the Polisario Front, who represent the indigenous Saharawi people, to accept a delay to a planned referendum on independence from Morocco in return for substantial autonomy.

Despite hopes of a breakthrough, Polisario has rejected the plan, drawn up by former US Secretary of State James Baker, as a "Moroccan proposal", and not one that is mutually acceptable.

On Friday, spokesman Ibrahim Mokhtar said: "To give us an autonomy... we have to be first part of [Morocco] and we are not part of [it]."

Mr Mokhtar said he believed such a proposal did not respect the rights of the people in Western Sahara.

War threat

He also warned that if the plan was put into action then the Polisario Front could restart the armed struggled that it abandoned after a ceasefire agreement with Morocco in 1991.

"What alternative do we have? Do you want us to die in the refugee camps?" Mr Mokhtar said.

About 160,000 Saharawis have spent most of the last 26 years living in refugee camps in an inhospitable desert area.

The status of Western Sahara has been in dispute since the colonial power Spain left the territory in 1975.

Struggle

On 27 February 1976 the Polisario Front set up what was in effect a government.

For the next 15 years, it fought a guerrilla war against Morocco which occupies most of Western Sahara.

The 1991 ceasefire offered the promise of a political settlement.

However, a UN-sponsored referendum to decide whether Western Sahara should become independent or integrated into Morocco has never been held, nine years after it was planned.

The process became bogged down by continuing disagreement over who should be allowed to vote and an appeals process.