Reuters

Javier Bardem

New York - Oscar-winning Spanish actor Javier Bardem on Tuesday said he would urge the United Nations General Assembly's decolonisation committee to demand an end to human rights violations in the disputed territory of Western Sahara.

Bardem said he was due to address the 193-nation General Assembly's Fourth Committee on the issue of Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony which Morocco annexed in 1975, as a private petitioner later on Tuesday.

“I heard that anybody could be a petitioner,'' he told a news conference. “I'm one of them.''

Morocco says Western Sahara, a sparsely-populated tract of desert that has phosphates, fisheries and, potentially, oil and gas, should come under its sovereignty, while independence movement the Polisario Front says it is an independent state.

The Polisario waged a guerrilla war against Moroccan forces until the United Nations brokered a ceasefire in 1991 with the understanding that a referendum would be held on the fate of the territory. The referendum never took place and attempts to reach a lasting deal since then have foundered.

“The people of the Western Sahara are suffering under repression inside the occupied territory,'' Bardem said in a statement.

“They are suffering in refugee camps in the Sahara Desert, where they have been forgotten, for decades. But no one hears of their suffering,'' the Eat Pray Love star said.

Bardem added that the Saharawis “were promised a referendum on the future of their country 20 years ago... and today they are still waiting for this chance to declare their views”.

Bardem, who is married to actress Penelope Cruz, was highly critical of his own country's government, as well as France and the United States, which he said were allies of Morocco and supporting its efforts to thwart calls for self-determination for the Saharawis and for human rights monitoring to be conducted by UN peacekeepers.

UN diplomats say that France, which holds a veto on the UN Security Council, has been the principal blocker of attempts by some countries to include a mandatory human-rights monitoring role in the mandate for the UN monitoring force in Western Sahara, known as MINURSO. - Reuters