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Unlocking the Conflict in Western Sahara

At the end of April, the UN Security Council will have the opportunity to make the right choice or the safe choice when it renews the authorization for the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO). The right choice would be to give the new UN envoy a mandate for peace. To do this, the Security Council would have to secure the commitment of both sides of the conflict, Morocco and the pro-independence Polisario Front, to power-sharing and self-determination. The safe choice, meanwhile, would be to continue under the weak mandate that contributed to the failure of the previous UN envoy.

Published by Foreign Policy In Focus.

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The Potomac-SAIS report on North Africa: Paid Analysis, Partisan Fear Mongering, Bad Policy

Machiavelli by the Checkbook

At the end of March, a relatively obscure Washington, D.C., think tank called the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies published a report — in conjunction with the conflict management program of the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University — arguing largely in support of Morocco’s 2007 autonomy proposal to solve the Western Sahara dispute. Framed in terms of US policy towards North Africa (‘Why the Maghreb Matters‘), the report is a thinly veiled effort to provide academic and political legitimacy to a one-sided view of the Western Sahara issue. It precipitated a detailed response from the Western Saharan Union of Writers and Journalists.

The Potomac-SAIS ‘task force’ was likely an initiative organized by the Moroccan-American Center for Policy (MACP), a registered agent of the Kingdom of Morocco. Though MACP’s fingerprints are nowhere to be found in the report, it is an open secret in Washington that this project, culminating in the Potomac-SAIS report, has been in the works for several months. And little surprise, then, that the report’s recommendations attempt to equate US interests with those of the Moroccan Monarchy. Paying for policy is quite normal in Washington.

The Potomac-SAIS report boasts that it is ‘the result of an independent task force on an issue of critical importance to US foreign policy, where it seems that a group diverse in backgrounds and perspectives may nonetheless be able to reach a meaningful consensus’. On the other hand, ‘Task force members are asked to join a consensus signifying that they endorse the general policy thrust and judgments reached by the group, though not necessarily every finding and recommendation’. So while they all apparently agree, we cannot necessarily hold each individual signatory responsible for the content of the report.

Apart from Dr. I William Zartman — Professor Emeritus at SAIS, whose pro-Moroccan views are well known — there is no other recognized expert on the task force who has an extensive scholarly publishing record on the Western Sahara conflict. The effects of Zartman’s partisan bias are quite clear in the report. Yet the arguments suffer from a debilitating series of misrepresentation, fallacies and contradictions. If translated into actual policy, they would prove counter productive at best, disastrous at worst.

Two other names attached to the Potomac-SAIS report, however, suggest the real agenda behind it: General Wesley Clark and Madeline Albright, two leading figures in the Democratic Party. While Morocco’s autonomy initiate played very well with the previous Republican controlled White House, the Obama administration has yet to outline a clear policy towards the dispute. On the same day that the Potomac-SAIS report was published, Edward Kennedy urged his good friend Obama to uphold Western Sahara’s right to self-determination under international law, which Morocco staunchly opposes. With names like Clark and Albright, the Moroccan lobby is obviously seeking to make inroads into the Democratic establishment.

Background

Before examining the shortfalls of the Potomac-SAIS report, it is necessary to background some of the salient historical realities of Western Sahara. The conflict dates back to November 1975, when a Moroccan threat to invade what was then a Spanish colony drove out Madrid lest it face a ‘colonial war’. The native people of Western Sahara had already developed a nationalist conscience and, according to a 1975 UN report, rallied behind the pro-independence Polisario Front, founded in 1973. Since the early 1960s, the United Nations has called for Western Sahara’s self-determination, including independence, and the UN still considers the Western Sahara a Non-Self-Governing Territory — a colony. For this reason, no country in the world yet recognizes Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara, a clear indication of the international census backing self-determination. And given the fact that Morocco refuses to hold a referendum on independence, it is easy enough to deduce the fact that most Western Saharans would likely opt for independence.

Algeria has supported Western Sahara for ideological reasons (self-determination) and regional security interests (keeping Moroccan ambitions in check). Morocco, of course, denies the existence of an authentic Western Saharan nationalism and sees an independent Western Sahara only as an expansion of Algeria’s regional hegemony. France and the United States have traditionally supported Morocco because Morocco furthers Franco-American interests in the Mediterranean, Africa and the Middle East, and because a referendum on independence in Western Sahara could destabilize Morocco by de-legitimizing the Monarchy. Still, a UN mission arrived in 1991, putting an end to the Morocco-Polisario war so that a referendum on independence could finally be held. Morocco’s previous King, Hassan II, had committed to a referendum in 1981, but when he died in 1999, the new King, Mohamed VI, dropped that commitment. In 2007, Morocco proposed a final status solution based on autonomy for Western Sahara within Moroccan sovereignty while Polisario put forward a series of bridging proposals to allow for a referendum. Four rounds of negotiations in 2007 and 2008 produced zero progress towards a solution. In early 2009, a new UN envoy to Western Sahara, former US ambassador Christopher Ross, made his first tour of North Africa. He will report to the Security Council at the end of April.

Sovereignty versus Self-Determination or Sovereignty and Self-Determination?

The Potomac-SAIS report makes the case that the Obama administration should take more interest in North Africa. The primary reason is predictable: terrorism. The broader Northwest Africa region, especially the Sahara-Sahel, the report argues, faces significant security challenges. One of the best ways to achieve security in North Africa is to help create the conditions for regional cooperation. And so resolving the Western Sahara conflict, which prevents inter-regional cooperation, especially between Morocco and Algeria, is key.

The Potomac-SAIS report supports a solution to the Western Sahara conflict based upon ‘autonomy within Moroccan sovereignty’, as proposed by Morocco in 2007. There are two positive reasons put forward for endorsing Morocco’s initiative. One, its alleged status as the ‘only current proposal for a compromise’ (a partisan dismissal of Polisario’s 2007 bridging proposals); two, if implemented, it would rid Morocco and Algeria of a major point of contention, paving the way for renewal of the Arab Maghrib Union (UMA) trading bloc. The latter point is addressed later.

The Potomac-SAIS report also provides some cautionary reasons to support Morocco’s autonomy initiative. An independent Western Sahara ‘likely would remain a source of acrimony and tension between Morocco and Algeria as well as the other bordering states’. The report furthermore alleges that Western Sahara would not constitute a viable independent state on the grounds of its low population and limited natural resources. While the report’s authors are pessimistic for a near term solution given alleged Algerian and Russian obstruction, they claim that U.S. support for Morocco’s autonomy initiative will help build a new consensus for peace.

As we can see, the best arguments in favor of Morocco’s autonomy proposal are, in fact, merely arguments against self-determination for Western Sahara. To say that autonomy is good because independence is bad is not only fallacious, it seeks to posit a false opposition between self-determination and power sharing that would preemptively bind the imagination of mediators. The three decades old impasse in Western Sahara demonstrates that mediators need to get beyond the old dichotomy of sovereignty versus self-determination.

To suggest that an independent Western Sahara will become a failed state or a terrorist safe haven falls back on Bush-style fear mongering and does very little to get the parties to the table where this issue will eventually have to be sorted out. Demonizing and alienating one of the parties to the conflict (i.e., Polisario) is not a recipe for creating trust and mutual respect, it is a recipe for further stagnation. It is surprising that conflict resolution expert such as Chester Crocker would put his good name to these counter productive, highly biased proposals.

Western fears of a failed state in Western Sahara can be easily allayed if the focus of the peace process turns away from highly speculative, distant outcomes. Instead, the focus needs to be on realistic, achievable processes in the here and now. Too much time has been wasted in Western Sahara developing final status solutions and not enough time developing a framework for negotiations that will (1) get the parties to the table and (2) produce substantive talks bridging both of their red-lines: sovereignty and self-determination. Choosing one side in this framework — Moroccan sovereignty — will not make the United States and honest broker; it will only further exacerbate the status quo the Potomac-SAIS report finds so intolerable. The report is as self-contradictory to its own aims as it is partisan.

The current Security Council mandate for Western Sahara seeks ‘achieving a just, lasting and mutually acceptable political solution, which will provide for the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara’. A non-partisan approach would simply require that the parties commit to this mandate. Polisario would commit to negotiating a power sharing agreement with Morocco and Morocco would commit to putting any agreement to a referendum including the option of independence. Morocco’s autonomy proposal certainly constitutes a serious and credible starting point for negotiations towards a comprehensive power sharing agreement, but Polisario will never discuss it openly unless the Security Council secures Morocco’s commitment to a referendum.

Algeria and Autonomy

The Potomac-SAIS report describes the Western Sahara conflict as a dispute primarily pitting Moroccan and Algerian interests, rather than the UN description, which holds that the two parties to the dispute are Morocco, the de facto administering power, and the people of Western Sahara, represented by Polisario. The report attempts to place some doubt over Polisario’s credibility, not only as a partner for peace, but also as the legitimate representative of Western Sahara. Regarding the latter, one need only answer this question: If Polisario does not represent the interests of the Western Saharan people, then why is Morocco so afraid to hold a referendum on independence? Morocco claims widespread support among native Western Saharans for its forced annexation, yet Morocco is unwilling to put it to a vote. A referendum, not autonomy, would literally end the conflict tomorrow as far as the international community is concerned.

The problem is that Morocco would not win the referendum, so it wants to have the Security Council impose autonomy at the maximum parameters for negotiations on a take-it-or-leave-it basis.

Rather than Polisario, the Potomac-SAIS report attempts to portray Algeria as the bad guy in the conflict, a view consistent with a Moroccan perspective and Zartman’s scholarship [1]. Yet Algeria did not even get seriously involved in the conflict until after Morocco invaded Spanish/Western Sahara in 1975. This was six years after the first Western Saharan independence movement came into being and nearly a decade after the UN first started calling for Western Sahara’s independence from Madrid. For Algeria, it was Morocco’s unilateral attempt to redraw the map of North Africa in 1975 by annexing Western Sahara — just as Morocco had attempted to annex parts of Algeria in 1963 — that precipitated Algerian support for Polisario. From Algeria’s point of view, its regional security interests dictate that Morocco’s demonstrated history of aggressive irredentism must be kept in check. To adopt a Moroccan reading of the conflict, as the Potomac-SAIS report does, produces poor analysis and impoverishes diplomatic objectivity.

Even if we assume, as the Potomac-SAIS report does, that Algeria has a dog in the fight, how are Algeria’s interests served by an autonomous Western Sahara under Moroccan sovereignty? Algeria’s regional and geo-strategic interests are not addressed by Morocco’s autonomy proposal, nor does it provide any room for Algeria to save face given Algiers’ longstanding support for Western Sahara’s right to a vote on independence. Without first going through an internationally sanctioned act of self-determination, an autonomous Western Sahara would, logically, become just as much ‘a source of acrimony and tension between Morocco and Algeria’.

The political and intellectual defenders of Morocco’s autonomy proposal continuously trumpet its virtues as a non-zero-sum or win-win solution. Because it is a compromise, they argue, it contains incentives to make peace. Yet from Algeria’s point of view (as described in the Potomac-SAIS report), autonomy is very much a zero-sum, win-lose outcome. If Algeria is so important to the Western Sahara deadlock, as suggested by the Potomac/SAIS report, why then support a solution that does not respect Algeria’s interests but rather boldly defies them? Zartman’s own ground breaking work in the fields of conflict resolution and game theory should tell him this, yet he defends a solution that his own theories would reject.

It is also bizarre to claim that an independent Western Sahara is Algeria’s idea but then to claim that Algeria would allow an independent Western Sahara to become a failed state. Why would Algeria back Polisario’s cause for over thirty years, only to see Western Sahara become a ‘Somalia on the Atlantic coast of North Africa’? Let’s be clear: preventing a failed state in Western Sahara is everyone’s interests. Morocco and the United States do not monopolize this concern. If anyone has a vested interest in a viable Western Sahara, it is, first and foremost, the Western Saharans, followed by Algeria, who has championed their cause. Mauritania, sharing the longest border with Western Sahara and undergoing its own bouts with political instability, is likely a close third ahead of Morocco.

To claim that Algeria is so cynically motivated as to see Western Sahara only as a means to destabilize Morocco — in its current form as a haphazard occupation or in a possible form as a failed state — is unjustified by the record. Not only does Algeria, sadly, have more direct experience with political instability and armed violence than Morocco, it has been intensively engaged in recent efforts to contain unrest in the northern areas of Niger and Mali on Algeria’s southern flank in the Sahara. Likewise, Algeria offered the United States significant cooperation during the early years after 11 September. Relations only cooled after the George W. Bush administration double-crossed Algeria on Western Sahara. In early 2003, the White House asked Algeria to pressure Polisario to accept the 2003 plan, devised by none other than James Baker. Bush also promised Algeria that Washington would press Morocco to accept it too. Though Algeria delivered Polisario, Washington refused to put pressure on Rabat to accept the plan. The Bush administration then went on to support Morocco’s autonomy initiative, which showed further disrespect to Algeria’s interests and dignity.

Algeria and Polisario are well aware of Western fears of a failed state in an independent Western Sahara, one that could become a safe haven for trans-national terrorist groups. For that reason, Polisario put forward its own set of compromise proposals in April 2007, when Morocco also put its autonomy plan on the table. Polisario has offered Morocco significant economic, political and security guarantees should a referendum result in independence. These included the option of allowing Moroccan settlers to remain in Western Sahara. In 2003, Polisario made the significant concession of allowing Moroccan settlers to vote in a referendum on independence. Polisario is also willing to have Morocco’s 2007 autonomy proposal placed on any referendum ballot so long as it includes independence. Morocco and its supporters have never even attempted to explain why this democratic solution is not viable. Polisario’s leadership is acutely aware of the fact that broad regional cooperation with Mauritania, Morocco and Algeria will be a necessity for a sustainable peace, security and prosperity. Like the Potomac/SAIS report, they often speak of the day when the Arab Maghrib Union will dissolve all the old colonial boundaries and unite North Africa.

Whether out of ignorance or deliberate deception, the Potomac-SAIS report also underestimates the economic viability of Western Sahara. As an independent state, Polisario is willing to maintain the Moroccan settler population, which will boost the population and create natural, social, economic, political and security ties with Morocco. Its main resources, phosphates and fish, are precious dwindling commodities world wide; last summer actually saw phosphate prices increase six-fold over its historic price. Additionally, since 2001, Morocco has engaged several companies to search for hydrocarbon and mineral resources in Western Sahara, suggesting other sources of revenue for an independent Western Sahara. In terms of security, Polisario has proven highly cooperative with the UN mission, foreign governments and, as a full member of the African Union, has participated in joint security exercises with other African states.

What is the way forward?

Contrary to what Morocco and its intellectual supporters say, there is no contradiction between the Security Council taking a strong stance in favor of both power sharing and self-determination. Instead of endorsing a particular final status, the Security Council should endorse a specific framework for negotiations based upon mutual respect for each side. Indeed, recent Security Council resolutions have said as much in their calls for a political solution that respects the right of Western Sahara to self-determination. But the Council needs to make this clearer to the parties. To Morocco, the Council needs to state firmly that its claim on Western Sahara will never be legitimated unless it first passes through a referendum. To Polisario, the Council needs to state clearly that it will never get its referendum unless it is willing to discuss power-sharing with Morocco. Substantive negotiations should be seen as the means to, not the result of, self-determination. This approach has the advantage of addressing the interests of Morocco, Polisario and Algeria without prejudice or favor. Peace in Western Sahara will never be achieved until the parties build the necessary confidence in each other and the Security Council. That trust and respect has to be built at the negotiating table, not through imposed solutions. The Obama administration should choose peace not partisanship.

Notes

1. In a recent article, Zartman described the two ‘interested parties’ as Morocco and Algeria. See Zartman, I.W., 2007, Time for a Solution in the Western Sahara Conflict, Middle East Policy, 14, p.181.

Originally posted at http://concernedafricascholars.org/the-potomac-sais-report-on-north-africa/ [no longer active]

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Negotiations in Western Sahara: UN’s Last Chance?

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The Future of Western Sahara

The Bush administration and a bipartisan group of congressional leaders have enthusiastically supported the Moroccan autonomy plan as a means of ending the conflict. But Morocco’s plan for autonomy falls well short of what is necessary to bring about a peaceful resolution to the conflict. It also poses a dangerous precedent that threatens the very foundation of the post-World War II international legal system.

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Western Sahara: Against Autonomy

In recent years, the Moroccan government has championed the idea of autonomy as a solution to its territorial dispute with pro-independence advocates over Western Sahara. Rabat has said it is willing to consider an autonomous, locally elected government in Western Sahara, which would have powers independent of the central government, albeit circumscribed by Morocco’s ultimate sovereignty. The movement for Western Saharan statehood, on the other hand, has rejected autonomy. It continues to claim the right of self-determination, to be exercised through a final status referendum among the territory’s indigenous ethnic Sahrawis.

There is a broad international consensus, political and juridical, backing the right of self-determination in former European colonies. This consensus was applied most recently in East Timor. Western Sahara, like East Timor, was a European colony until the mid-1970’s. In a landmark 1975 ruling, the International Court of Justice dismissed Morocco’s historical claims to Western Sahara and instead supported the Sahrawis’ right to self-determination. The United Nations Security Council and secretary general have both reiterated their support for a solution that provides for self-determination, which would entail a vote including, but not limited to, the option of independence.

From 1988 to 1999, the Security Council attempted to hold a vote on self-determination in Western Sahara. Then, in 2000, the discourses started shifting away from self-determination to a “third way” that was neither independence nor integration with Morocco. Autonomy has become that “third way” solution, and it seems like the best compromise on paper. Yet, when mapped onto the realities of the conflict, autonomy becomes a recipe for disaster—both at the negotiating table and on the ground in Western Sahara.

Though the Ford, Carter, and Reagan administrations had provided material support for Morocco’s invasion and occupation of Western Sahara from 1975 to 1991, the first Bush and Clinton administrations maintained a hands-off policy toward the early United Nations referendum process (1992-1996). Indirect, high-level American involvement—in the form of former Secretary of State James Baker—began in 1997. However, Baker’s seven-year engagement was sabotaged, on the American side, by larger geo-strategic concerns: Morocco’s role as an ally in—and after May 2003 a site of—the war on terror. The United States government’s attitude toward the conflict since then has been to leave it to the parties to make their own proposals while discretely encouraging autonomy.

Stalemate

The stalemate in Western Sahara was originally achieved on the battlefield during a 16-year war pitting Western-supported Morocco against the Algerian-backed Sahrawian guerrillas of the Polisario Front. The armed conflict ended in 1991 when the Security Council backed an agreement to hold a referendum on independence, but only with the consent of the two parties, most importantly Morocco. Several hundred United Nations peacekeepers began monitoring the ceasefire in 1991. Five years later, and no closer to a vote, the United Nations seriously considered a withdrawal. Then, in 1997, former Secretary of State James Baker agreed to mediate the dispute.

During his seven-year tenure as the United Nations secretary general’s personal envoy to Western Sahara, Baker was the center of gravity in the peace process. He originally brokered a series of agreements that revived the referendum process in 1997. However, when it was time to hold a vote in 2000, the Security Council decided that a referendum was no longer realistic. Behind the scenes, the Clinton administration also backed away from a referendum and instead supported the new regime in Morocco under King Mohammed VI. To avoid the kind of dangerous referendum the Security Council had botched in East Timor, Baker started searching for an alternative to an independence/integration referendum. However, in 2002, the Security Council said that it would consider any peace proposal so long as it provided for self-determination (i.e., a referendum on independence).

In 2003, Baker presented his final proposal. The idea was to grant Western Sahara four years of autonomy as a kind of trial period and then hold a final status referendum. The choices would be autonomy, integration with Morocco, or full independence. To sweeten the deal for Rabat, Baker proposed that non-Sahrawi Moroccan settlers could participate in the vote. With Moroccan colonists outnumbering the native Sahrawi population by as much as two-to-one, it came as quite a shock that Rabat rejected the proposal as soon as Polisario accepted it. Baker worked with Morocco for another year, but all of Rabat’s counter-proposals demonstrated a deep unwillingness to compromise on the most fundamental issue, the right of self-determination.

For the George W. Bush administration, Morocco’s role in the “war on terror” was more important than supporting Baker in Western Sahara. The same month Baker resigned, Morocco won major non-NATO ally status and a free trade agreement from Washington. Elliott Abrams, head of Middle Eastern affairs in the National Security Council, is most likely the lead cheerleader in the White House for Western Saharan autonomy. Indeed, Moroccan expectations that the United States would support a unilaterally implemented autonomy had echoes of American support for Israeli unilateralism in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Sharing the Land

In Western Sahara, total victory is impossible and total defeat is unthinkable for the Moroccan government and the Polisario Front. In such a situation, both sides should, if they are self-interested rational actors, search for a middle-of-the-road solution. The two obvious compromise options for Western Sahara are either sharing the territory or splitting it up. Both sides, however, have rejected the latter. Besides setting an ugly precedent for the international community, a mini-Saharan state would be severely disadvantaged in terms of its viability, which is in no one’s interests.

Sharing the territory involves roughly four choices:

* giving Western Sahara special regional status within Morocco though without governmental autonomy;
* transforming Morocco into a symmetrical federalist state so that each region, including Western Sahara, has its own elected government that cannot be dissolved by Rabat;
* granting Western Sahara special governmental autonomy within Morocco;
* confederating an independent or quasi-independent Western Sahara with Morocco.

The first approach, regionalism, calls for little compromise on the part of Morocco and a massive concession from Polisario, and so is unlikely to be taken seriously by the latter. The second approach, federalism, has some sympathy in Morocco, but it requires a massive and messy overhaul of Morocco’s state structures through a new constitution, effectively involving the entire Moroccan population in the peace process. Federalism also does not recognize the special status of Western Sahara, so it is seriously deficient as a peacemaking tool. A confederation between an independent Western Sahara and Morocco is another option, but Rabat is unlikely to consider such a serious challenge to its “territorial integrity.”

Thus the third option, autonomy, wins by default. A peace agreement between Morocco and Polisario could allow for the creation of a quasi-independent Western Sahara with its own locally elected government and internal responsibilities. Both Morocco and Western Sahara would have to share security duties, with Morocco likely retaining military duties and the foreign relations portfolio.

Unripe for Compromise

On paper, autonomy seems like the ideal solution. The problem, however, is just that: it is ideal, not real. Autonomy might be viable under a situation corresponding to a prisoners’ dilemma, wherein mutual cooperation produces a positive sum outcome rather than the zero-sum outcome of competition. Yet an honest appraisal of the situation in Western Sahara reveals that the parties’ thinking is still war-like; neither Morocco nor Polisario yet believes that total victory is impossible. While there are “hurting” aspects to the stalemate for both sides, the “pain” isn’t enough to alter either’s fundamental objectives. Morocco’s control of the territory is incomplete and lacking in international legitimacy, but its control is enough that the administration is routine and the prospect of being militarily dislodged appears slim.

While Morocco’s offer of autonomy might seem like a compromise, the autonomy it put on the table this month is far less than Baker offered in 2001 and 2003. Despite their glowing statements of support, some American, United Nations, and even French officials off the record are very disappointed that Morocco’s idea of a concession is still very limited. Rabat’s support for autonomy is, for now, merely rhetorical, a tactical concession made to regain the moral high ground after rejecting the Baker Plan—and Baker—in 2004.

Polisario, as well, is acting as if time is on its side, even though it also faces problems. Polisario exists in exile, its arms are deteriorating, and there are generational tensions. A recent poll of youth in the Western Saharan refugee camps in southwest Algeria—home of Polisario’s popular base of support—suggests that young Sahrawis are increasingly frustrated with the limits of camp life. Polisario also has to contend with the constant and growing calls for a return to arms against Morocco. These internal tensions may well come to a head at the movement’s upcoming triennial congress.

Meanwhile within Western Sahara, nationalism has exploded rather than receded in recent years. Growing in militancy, the Western Saharan independence movement has spawned its own intifada, a decentralized, youth-led, anti-Moroccan protest movement in the occupied region. The Sahrawi heroes of this struggle are former political prisoners who have become unashamed nationalists. Many Sahrawis living under Moroccan administration are no longer afraid to speak their mind about the Moroccan occupation, for which they suffer regular beatings and imprisonment. The flag of Polisario, once unseen in Moroccan-controlled areas, is now a ubiquitous symbol of Sahrawi resistance. The only internal feedback that Polisario’s leaders are receiving is toward greater confrontation not compromise.

Additionally, support for independence from Algeria’s executive is at nearly unprecedented levels. As post-conflict Algeria gains in international status and regional power, literally fueled by soaring hydrocarbon sales, Polisario is more and more confident that it has sided with North Africa’s emerging hegemon. Furthermore, Polisario has interpreted Morocco’s offer of autonomy not as a peace gesture but as the desperate gesticulations of an occupier slowly losing its grip.

Challenge of Negotiations

Western Sahara is experiencing a long, drawn-out diplomatic war of attrition. Indeed, the peace process has significantly deteriorated in the past two years. Negotiations, or even the admitted existence of some kind of first-track initiative, would constitute a breakthrough at this point. Neither side has been willing to talk, even under the most non-committal and secretive situation. The fundamental attitudes of the parties reflect Foucault’s inversion of Clausewitz: both still see politics as war by other means.

The current standoff in negotiations involves a reluctance to lose face in order to gain through compromise. Polisario wants Morocco to accept the principles of the 2003 Baker Plan—including a referendum on independence—before negotiations can start. Morocco claims it is willing to enter into negotiations without preconditions, yet Rabat will not discuss a referendum on independence. So, from Polisario’s point of view, Morocco’s negotiations “without preconditions” still entail an implicit precondition: Polisario must take self-determination off the table. According to the history and realities on the ground, then the likelihood of either side making a fundamental concession—just to get talks started—is nil.

The clear subtext to the current United Nations thinking on Western Sahara is to get Polisario to abandon a vote on independence. This is technically impossible under international law, as only the Western Saharans can, through a referendum, give up their right to self-determination. But former Secretary General Kofi Annan was even bold enough to suggest that the right of self-determination is the prerogative of the Security Council. In his last report on Western Sahara, October 2006, Annan warned that “Polisario would be well advised to enter into negotiations now, while there is still consensus in the council that a negotiated political solution must provide for the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara.”

But Polisario is not in the mood, nor is it willing, to make further concessions. The Western Saharan independence movement has already agreed to a referendum under the 2003 Baker Plan that would be dominated by Moroccan settlers. Indeed, Polisario has made all of the major concessions in the peace process: from the criteria for registering referendum voters to agreeing to live under Moroccan autonomy for four years before a referendum. The movement’s officials reasonably argue that it can’t make any more concessions. All that is left to compromise is Polisario’s fundamental core: the right to a vote on independence. Abandoning self-determination would completely de-legitimize Polisario in the eyes of its constituents and its international support. If a compromise is unlikely from either Morocco or Polisario, the autonomy option is a non-starter.

Negotiating autonomy will also require secret talks so that no one loses face. Again, the problem is that Polisario’s leadership is neither willing nor able to enter into such negotiations. Any backroom deal for autonomy is unlikely to receive support from Western Saharan nationalists, especially in the camps. Most Western Saharan nationalists still think the 2003 Baker Plan is a dangerous compromise, only made worthwhile by Morocco’s stern rejection of it. However, many nationalists swear that the Baker Plan was the last and ultimate compromise. If that is the limit of Polisario’s concessions, then there should be little hope for autonomy.

Implementation

The challenges to autonomy are not just in the negotiating stage. Both sides also have reasons for concern about implementation, should it come to that. To create an environment where Sahrawi refugees feel safe to return, both Morocco’s military-security apparatus and the numbers of Moroccan settlers will have to decrease. For autonomy to work, Western Sahara must revert to being Sahrawi, not Moroccan, in both the majority of its citizens and the visible elements of its regional security. However, in any autonomy scheme, Rabat will constantly fear separatist moves, so it will demand a sizable military presence to guarantee its “territorial integrity.” Finding a balance will be difficult if not impossible, yet this issue is not even on the radar.

The real question, however, is whether or not the international community, especially the Security Council, is willing to invest in the kind of multinational peace-building project such an autonomy agreement would warrant. No one is talking about how to get Morocco and Polisario to work together after 30 years of mutual mistrust. Then there are the coercive aspects of implementing autonomy: will an international force be required to maintain the peace if Sahrawi separatists organize an insurgency and Moroccan settlers form death squads?

The implementation of autonomy thus involves many moving parts and will require a credible threat—if not the actual use—of force from the international community. For autonomy to work in Western Sahara, there has to be a tripartite willingness that has been historically lacking: the willingness of Morocco, Polisario, and the Security Council.

In 2003, Baker asked the Security Council to endorse his proposal so that he could have a mandate to twist some arms. Instead, he got a weak vote of support after Morocco protested directly to France and the United States. Will the Security Council suddenly find the will to use coercion in support of autonomy in Western Sahara? If so, this begs the question: Why reject self-determination because it requires coercion when autonomy will need the same? Autonomy is, after all, a far more complicated solution to implement than an independent Western Sahara.

Washington’s Options

The problem of Western Sahara is not that the Moroccan annexation is a fait accompli, which is one of the dominant assumptions driving calls for autonomy. Instead, the determinant reality is that Western Saharan nationalism is growing, not diminishing. Thirty years of exile (for the Sahrawi refugees in Algeria) and socio-economic marginalization (for the Sahrawis under Moroccan administration) have strengthened their resolve, not diminished it. In the streets of Western Sahara, an escalating dialectic of violence is being played out day by day. Protest meets repression meets counter-protest meets police retaliation in an endless cycle. How much longer can Polisario’s leaders justify to their constituents, without losing all credibility, the maintenance of a cease-fire that is now considered pointless by many nationalists? Sooner or later the international community must face this fact, or they will be forced to face it. Either we can intervene in a realistic manner or we can, feigning ignorance, let another obscure African conflict deteriorate before our very eyes.

The politics of the least-worst option in Western Sahara are no longer working. The time has come for a new approach. The Security Council has to confront the Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara and bring it to a legal and practical end using the weapons of non-violence at its disposal.

There is only one hope for a peaceful and just resolution to the Western Sahara conflict. Key states, like the United States government, must back up their rhetorical support of self-determination with meaningful action. International pressure must build on Morocco to allow and respect an internationally organized expression of self-determination for the native population of Western Sahara. As Morocco is highly sensitive to its international image, the only weapon required is the tool of shame. At the same time, though, Morocco’s domestic stability and reform should be supported in word and deed.

Thus the United States government should take a two-track approach in its relations with Morocco: supporting self-determination in Western Sahara on the one hand while supporting Moroccan stability and reforms on the other. In other words, Washington should decouple support for Rabat from support for the occupation of Western Sahara. The United States Congress should reaffirm its support for American initiatives aimed at supporting Moroccan stability and internal democratization processes. But Congress should simultaneously press the White House to support self-determination in Western Sahara. None of this, however, will be possible without political will. International, grassroots, faith- and community-based organizations will have to create broader awareness of the problem in the United States. Such pressure helped bring a peaceful end to apartheid in South Africa and was key to ending Indonesia’s occupation of East Timor.

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Autonomy and Intifadah: New Horizons in Western Saharan Nationalism

The Western Sahara conflict entered its thirtieth year last November. Celebrated by Moroccans and lamented by Sahrawi nationalists, the anniversary went largely unnoticed by the international community. Though it has been on the Security Council’s agenda since 1988, Western Sahara has defied resolution by three successive Secretaries General and Kofi Annan’s former personal envoy, former US Secretary of State James Baker. It is likely that a fourth Secretary General will take over management of the conflict next year.

in Review of African Political Economy Vol.33 No.108 (June 2006), pp255-267.