This mission was established to hold a referendum for determining the
future of the region and to provide movement control. The major issue
was to decide if the people of the Western Sahara wanted independence
from or integration with Morocco. Following the election, the mandate
was to monitor the cease-fire. The United Nations Mission for the
Referendum in Western Sahara is the United Nations peacekeeping
mission in Western Sahara, established in 1991 under United Nations
Security Council Resolution 690[1] as part of the Settlement Plan, which
had paved way for a cease-fire in the conflict between Morocco and the
Polisario Front (representing the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic) over the contested territory of Western Sahara (formerly Spanish Sahara).
MINURSO mission was to monitor the cease-fire and to organize and
conduct a referendum in accordance with the Settlement Plan, which
would enable the Sahrawi people of Western Sahara to choose between
integration with Morocco and independence. This was intended to
constitute a Sahrawi exercise of self-determination, and thus complete
Western Sahara still-unfinished process of decolonization (Western
Sahara is the last major territory remaining on the UN list of non-
decolonized territories.