[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 11]
[House]
[Page 14577]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1015
                             WESTERN SAHARA

  (Mr. PITTS asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, I am deeply concerned that the negotiations 
over the Western Sahara for the past decade have all been for nothing.
  Former Moroccan Minister of Interior Driss Basri recently said, ``The 
Houston agreement did not come as a way to find a solution to the issue 
of Sahara. It came as a starting point of an American plan . . . and it 
will preserve the American interests,'' and as U.N. diplomat Marrack 
Goulding wrote, ``for enhanced autonomy for Western Sahara within the 
kingdom of Morocco.''
  I find it deplorable and offensive that various officials of Morocco, 
the U.N., and the U.S. engaged in what amounted to a farce. They spent 
over $530 million and negotiated an agreement to hold a referendum for 
the people of Western Sahara without ever intending to hold that 
referendum.
  Mr. Speaker, this is not a game. The people of Western Sahara agreed 
to a ceasefire on the basis that all parties would uphold the 
negotiated agreement of a free, fair, and transparent referendum for 
self-determination. The people of Western Sahara have no desire to 
suffer under the colonial rule of the kingdom of Morocco; and so the 
United States, the U.N., and Morocco should stop the game-playing and 
implement the referendum.

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