The Polisario Front is showing signs of strain over Western Sahara, and its latest target is the United Nations itself. The separatist movement has sharpened its rhetoric against the UN’s Personal Envoy for Western Sahara, Staffan de Mistura, accusing him of bias after he publicly described Morocco’s autonomy plan as the basis for future negotiations. According to reports from the region, the group has gone so far as to threaten scaling back its cooperation with the veteran diplomat, an unusually sharp move for a mission that has tried to keep all sides at the table.
The flare-up follows Security Council consultations held on October 8 on the future of MINURSO, the UN mission tasked with monitoring the ceasefire in the territory. Those talks unfolded in the shadow of Resolution 2797, which enshrined autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty as the only realistic path out of the five-decade dispute. For Rabat, the resolution simply formalized a shift in international opinion that has been building for years, as capital after capital has lined up behind the plan.
Analysts following the file see the attack on de Mistura as more of an admission than an offensive. Instead of restating its historic call for a self-determination referendum, the Front finds itself quarreling with the UN’s own process and personnel, a retreat that several observers interpret as evidence of shrinking diplomatic room to maneuver. The timing is notable: the Security Council is expected to vote before the end of October on renewing MINURSO’s mandate, a deadline every party in the dispute is watching closely.
Morocco, for its part, has kept its autonomy initiative unchanged, betting on international momentum rather than a public war of words. Western and African governments alike have reaffirmed their backing for the plan in recent months, leaving Polisario increasingly isolated on the diplomatic stage. Should tensions with the UN envoy persist, they could complicate the work of a mediator already juggling a decades-old file, but for now they do little to shift the trajectory set in motion by Resolution 2797.
