[The following letter was sent to the editors of journal Middle East Policy. I was subsequently informed that my letter was passed onto Professor Zartman but, as of March 2011, the concerns raised have yet to be addressed. — JM]
15 April 2009
Middle East Policy Journal
1730 M Street NW, Suite 512
Washington, DC 20036
To the Editors:
I would like to bring to your attention some factual errors in a recent article authored by Professor I.W. Zartman (‘Time for a Solution in the Western Sahara Conflict’) and published in your journal’s Winter 2007 edition (Vol. XIV, No.4, pp. 178-183). I will address these page by page in the order they occur:
Page 178:
Phosphate prices have actually increased in recent years. In 2007, when Zartman’s article appeared, prices were already climbing; the year 2008 saw prices quadruple. Offshore fishing from Western Sahara is one of the most lucrative in Africa, netting Morocco and foreign operators millions of US dollars per annum (e.g., the Moroccan-EU fisheries accord). Both resources are dwindling world wide, and without a clear replacement for either, their prices are likely to keep going up.
The Morocco-Polisario war actually started in 1975 not 1974 as Zartman claims. Morocco began its military invasion of the territory on 30-31 October 1975, followed six days later by an unarmed civilian invasion, indicating that, contrary to Zartman’s claim, it was Rabat rather than Polisario who initiated the war. Polisario was formed in 1973 and began its war of liberation against Spain that same year.
General Francisco Franco did not will Western Sahara to Morocco as Zartman claims. He collapsed on 17 October 1975, the day after Morocco announced plans for its civilian invasion (the Green March) of Spanish/Western Sahara. He fell into a coma shortly thereafter. The historical record does not indicate that Franco played any role in — or was even capable of making decisions during — the negotiations that led to the tripartite agreement between Morocco, Mauritania and Spain from 12-14 November. By then, Prince Juan Carlos had assumed power. Spanish historians and the US diplomatic record indicate a division inside the Spanish cabinet during the Spanish Sahara crisis (16 October to 14 November 1975), with one side favouring Morocco and another side favouring Western Sahara’s self-determination. In fact, it was Franco who, in 1974, initiated a policy to hold a referendum on independence in Western Sahara.
Morocco completed its defensive walls in 1987, not 1981. In 1981, Morocco had only completed the first stages of a wall protecting a small portion of the territory.
Page 179:
Polisario’s government in exile, the Saharan Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), was seated as a full member state of the Organization for African Unity (OAU) in 1984, not 1981 as Zartman claims. So it was 1984, not 1981, when Morocco left the OAU, now known as the African Union.
The UN Secretary-General became involved in the Western Sahara conflict in 1985, not 1988. A UN technical mission went to Western Sahara in 1987 and the Security Council adopted its first a resolution on a settlement plan for Western Sahara in 1988, the first resolution of the Security Council on Western Sahara since 1975.
Contrary to what Zartman claims, Morocco and Polisario both agreed, under the 1991 Settlement Plan and the 1997 Houston Accords, that only ethnic Sahrawis native to Western Saharan should be able to vote in a referendum. Their disagreement was over the criteria for voter enfranchisement, the processes for vetting applicants and the legitimate basis for an appeal of failed application to vote.
Baker did not hold discussions with the parties between January 2003 (when he presented a new proposal) and May (when the plan and the response of the parties were released publicly) or July (when Polisario and Algeria accepted Baker’s 2003 proposal). Morocco’s formal rejection appeared in April 2004 not in mid-2003.
Baker did not present any proposals for ‘interim autonomy’ subsequent to the plan he presented in January 2003. Morocco, however, did present several non-papers in late 2003 and early 2004 to Baker.
Page 180:
As mentioned above, Spain agreed to hand over the territory to Mauritania and Morocco in 1975 not 1974; Spain’s final withdrawal was in February 1976. The United Nations has never recognised the 1975 Madrid agreement as legal; a 2002 legal opinion from the United Nations underscored that Spain, contrary to Zartman’s claim, had not transferred administering powers to Morocco and Mauritania in 1975-6.
Mauritania’s formal withdrawal from the conflict in 1979 did not cause the government to collapse but instead followed two military coups precipitated by Mauritania’s disastrous occupation of Western Sahara.
Zartman does not provide a source for his claim that Algeria’s proposal to divide Western Sahara in 2001 was along the lines of the Spanish administration’s division of Rio de Oro and the Saqiyah al-Hamra’ panhandle. Algeria’s proposal was never made public and those involved in the negotiations at the time indicated that the Algerian proposal was geographically undefined.
Page 182:
Zartman falsely claims that the UN Security Council ‘dropped the idea of a referendum’ in 2005. In its most recent resolution on Western Sahara (UNSC 1813) in 2008, the Security Council called upon Polisario and Morocco to negotiate an agreement that ‘will provide for the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara’. In his April 2006 report to the Security Council (i.e., after 2005), the UN Secretary-General notes that the Secretary-General’s Personal Envoy ‘did not see how he could draft a new plan that would replace the [2003 Baker] Peace plan. A new plan would be doomed from the outset because Morocco would reject it again, unless it did not provide for a referendum with independence as an option. Such a plan he could not envisage: the United Nations could not endorse a plan that excluded a genuine referendum while claiming to provide for the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara’ (emphasis added).
Zartman confuses the legal status of the Spanish colony of Western Sahara and the Spanish protectorates of Ifni and the Tarfaya strip (a.k.a., Tekna Zone or Draa Zone). Like Spanish northern Morocco, Ifni and Tarfaya were a part of Spanish Southern Morocco, areas Spain ruled on behalf of the Moroccan sultan like French Morocco. However, Rio de Oro and Saqiyah al-Hamra’ (i.e., Spanish/Western Sahara) were internationally recognised as zones of free occupation lying outside of Moroccan sovereignty, which is why Spanish Southern Morocco was eventually ceded back to Morocco while Spanish Sahara is owed the right of self-determination. These facts are confirmed in the 1975 opinion of the International Court of Justice on Western Sahara, which found that the native Western Saharans, not Morocco, constituted the sovereign authority in Western Sahara at the time of Spanish colonisation.
Page 183:
Zartman misidentifies the UN mission in Western Sahara as the ‘UN Observer Mission on the Western Sahara’. In English, MINURSO is officially the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara.
Sincerely,
Jacob Mundy
PhD Candidate
Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies
University of Exeter
CC: Prof. David S. Sorenson