AMBASSADOR RICE MEETS MOROCCAN PERMREP LOULICHKI

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 USUN NEW YORK 000222

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/09/2019
TAGS: PREL XI XF KPAL WI MARR
SUBJECT: AMBASSADOR RICE MEETS MOROCCAN PERMREP LOULICHKI

Classified By: Ambassador Rice, For Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)


1. (C) Summary: Ambassador Rice and Moroccan PermRep
Mohammed Loulichki on March 5 held their introductory meeting
and discussed the Western Sahara, Human Rights Council, and
Durban Review Conference. Loulichki spoke at length about
human rights, insisting that the inclusion of human rights
language in the Security Council's mandate on MINURSO,
scheduled to be renewed in April, would complicate matters
and lead to a breakdown in negotiations between Morocco and
the Polisario. He also urged the U.S. to reengage on the
Human Rights Council and the Durban Review Conference. End
summary.

Western Sahara


2. (C) Loulichki wasted little time in getting to the issue
of Western Sahara and said he sincerely appreciates U.S.
cooperation on trying to solve the problem. He said
Morocco's autonomy plan will work, but it needs a political
push, admitting that Algeria and his own country needed U.S.
encouragement. Loulichki said he met with Chris Ross, the
SYG's Personal Envoy to Western Sahara, during Ross's visit
to Rabat February 17-21, and that his government has full
confidence in him. Loulichki said the GOM is particularly
pleased with Ross's proposal to not rush a formal fifth round
of negotiations between Morocco and the Polisario and
Algeria, preferring instead to conduct informal meetings for
the time being. Loulichki said the GOM also favors Ross's
endorsement of a one-year extension of MINURSO (United
Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara)
because, according to his government, Ross needs time to
engage the parties without being tied to unnecessary
deadlines. (Note: The Security Council renewed MINURSO's
mandate in April 2008 for one year. Previously, MINURSO's
mandate expired every six months, requiring a new Security
Council resolution for each renewal. End note)


3. (C) In responding to Ambassador Rice's query on what
issues could complicate the MINURSO renewal, Loulichki said
the introduction of human rights language into the resolution
could lead to a breakdown in negotiations. At length he
defended Morocco's human rights record, claiming that his
government devoted $150 million in compensation to people
whom the GOM had improperly imprisoned. He said considering
Morocco's scarce financial resources, such expenditure
signified his country's recognition of human rights. He also
emphasized that Morocco had ratified the Convention on
Torture, introduced legislation to enshrine human rights
standards, and acted on international recommendations for
improvement. In short, he said, Morocco has nothing to hide.
For propaganda purposes, however, groups opposed to
Morocco's autonomy proposal for Western Sahara inflated the
significance and frequency of the few abuses that occurred.
This, despite the Department of State's human rights report
on Western Sahara, which, according to him, noted progress
and reduced instances of human rights abuses. (Note: The
Department released its 2008 report on Morocco on January 25,

2009. End note)

Human Rights Council


4. (C) Loulichki told Ambassador Rice that the Human Rights
Council (HRC) needs the United States and urged the U.S. to
become a member. He said he recognized that the HRC's
Universal Peer Review process could be improved. Reflecting
on his previous position in Geneva as Morocco's Ambassador to
the UN, he said delegations were very frustrated when the
U.S. withdrew from the HRC. Ambassador Rice said that the
U.S. had recently become an "observer" to the HRC and
inquired how the HRC would address its frequent attacks on
Israel and failure to criticize countries like Sudan for
their human-rights violations. He answered that like-minded
African, Arab, and European countries agreed that the HRC had
to be more balanced in its criticisms. He highlighted the
Arab Ministerial meetings in New York during the Gaza crisis
in January as an example when Arab ministers implicitly
agreed that Hamas rocket attacks needed to be condemned, but
that explicitly publicizing that criticism was difficult to
do. He said engagement by the U.S. would bring results
amenable to the U.S. Loulichki judged that the first
indication the U.S. would have of its latent popularity would
be the support from 190 countries to join the HRC.

Durban Review Conference


5. (C) Ambassador Rice raised the issue of Durban with
Loulichki, informing him that, consistent with the
President's campaign message, the U.S. tried to engage
delegations on the Durban document. She said the USG's goal
of having a short document free of troubling language on

USUN NEW Y 00000222 002 OF 002


defamation of religion and Israel has met with no success to
date. She asked what countries were capable of leading a
change. Loulichki said Morocco did not engage South Africa
because of the countries' difficult bilateral relationship.
Apart from South Africa, Loulichki assessed that Russia,
Egypt, Ghana, India, Senegal, Morocco, Pakistan or Mexico
could lead change in the Durban Review Conference to more
moderate language. In any event, he said, the U.S.
unfortunately came to late to the negotiations to make much
of a difference.


6. (C) Regarding U.S. participation in the Durban Review
Conference, Loulichki declared that a "take it or leave it
policy" was not the right way to approach it. He said there
were plenty of like-minded countries in Geneva and in New
York to guide the Conference to more moderate language, but
completely reversing the ideas of the previous Conference was
not realistic. Although Loulichki criticized the draft
document by noting that it "says anything and everything," he
recommended the U.S. constructively engage with the document
and delegations rather than demand exclusion of certain
points. He advised Geneva over New York as the preferred
location for informal negotiations related to Durban.
Rice