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