New York (United Nations), September 29, 2025 (SPS) – In his speech delivered today during the high-level general debate of the 80th regular session of the United Nations General Assembly, Ambassador Dionisio Babo Soares, Permanent Representative of East Timor to the United Nations, reaffirmed his country's steadfast support and defense of the Sahrawi people's right to self-determination.
Speaking on behalf of His Excellency Mr. Bendito Dos Santos Freitas, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, the Timorese delegate recalled that his country hosted the regional seminar of the UN Special Committee on Decolonization in the capital, Dili, last May.
In this context, he pointed out that his country, in the same week, organized the first Asia-Pacific Solidarity Symposium for Western Sahara, stressing that the voice of the Sahrawi people, stifled for half a century on the international stage, needs and deserves everyone's attention and action.
He added that East Timor's connection to the history of Western Sahara is of a moral nature, referring to the statement by Timorese Prime Minister, Xanana Gusmão, who said that the suffering of the Sahrawi people was a lesson for East Timor when it decided to hold a popular referendum, because the postponement of the promised referendum in Western Sahara in 1992 negatively affected everyone who dreamed of independence at that time.
The Permanent Representative of East Timor to the United Nations concluded his speech by stating that the suffering of the Timorese people ended before the suffering of our brothers and sisters in Western Sahara, and that his country will always be, within the General Assembly and in every forum for dialogue, a defender of the Sahrawi people's right to self-determination, calling for an urgent resolution to the conflict.
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