Efforts continue to solve Western Sahara problem.

Work continued during early 1989 on the details of implementing a joint United Nations/Organization of African Unity (OAU) peace plan for Western Sahara.

The plan-accepted in principle on 30 August 1988 by both Morocco and the Frente Popular para la Liberacion de Saguia el-Hamra y de Rio de Oro (POLISARIO)-calls for a cease-fire and a referendum organized and supervised by the UN. The practical modalities of each are still being worked out.

Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar reported in February that UN experts were collecting relevant data and studying methods for revising electoral lists on the basis of a 1974 Spanish census. Reportedly, identity papers had been issued on the basis of that census. Available information would be computerized. In March, Spanish experts who had worked on that census spent two weeks in New York assisting in the process.

Mr. Perez de Cuellar called it a rather complicated exercise", as it had to be ensured that everyone who was really Sahraoui had the right to participate in the elections. He said that very careful work was being undertaken to prepare the referendum so that the will of the Sahraoui people would be expressed.

On 2 February, Hector Gros Espiell, the Secretary-General's Special Representative for Western Sahara, had reported on a two-week mission to North Africa in January. Mr. Gros Espiell had met in Rabat with King Hassan II of Morocco, and in Tindouf, Algeria, with Abdel Aziz, POLISARIO SecretaryGeneral. He also met with Mali's President Moussa Traore, current OAU Chairman, in Bamako, and with the Heads of State of Algeria -President Chadli Benjedid-and Mauritania-Col. Maaouya Ould Sid Ahmed Taya, President of the Military Committee of National Salvation-in their capacity as observers to the peace process.

In March, Major-General Timothy K. Dibuama, Military Adviser to the Secretary-General, accompanied by Issa Diallo, Special Assistant to the Secretary-General, visited Morocco to discuss with Moroccan military authorities the military aspects of the peace plan. On their return to New York, they reported to the Secretary-General on questions related to the reduction of troops in Western Sahara during the transitional period leading up to the referendum.

In the ongoing diplomatic process within the framework of his good offices, Mr. Perez de Cuellar met on 27 March with Bachir Mustapha, Special Envoy of POLISARIO, in New York.