Guatemala City, 9 November 2026 (SPS) – Human rights activists and representatives of social organisations have established the Guatemalan Movement of Solidarity with Western Sahara, a civil initiative aimed at raising awareness of the Sahrawi cause and strengthening solidarity with the Sahrawi people's struggle for self-determination.
The newly established movement has outlined three demands addressed to the Guatemalan government: defending the Sahrawi people's right to self-determination at the United Nations, supporting the establishment of a new mechanism to organise the long-awaited referendum, and closing Guatemala's consular representation in the occupied city of Dakhla.
It stressed that any political solution to the Western Sahara conflict must respect the will of the Sahrawi people and the role of their legitimate and sole representative, the Polisario Front.
The movement also called on Guatemala to support the establishment of a UN mechanism to organise the self-determination referendum, which has remained unimplemented since 1991, and to reconsider the opening of its consulate in Dakhla on 1 December 2022.
Guatemala recognised the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic in 1986 before suspending diplomatic relations in 1998. Through this initiative, the movement seeks to encourage a review of Guatemala's position and promote a just and lasting solution guaranteeing the Sahrawi people's inalienable right to self-determination.
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