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Western Sahara’s moment in the sun – IRIN News

Western Sahara’s moment in the sun
How the UN chief waded into a forgotten conflict with no end in sight
By Annie Slemrod, Middle East Editor
JERUSALEM, 14 April 2016
http://www.irinnews.org/analysis/2016/04/14/western-sahara%E2%80%99s-moment-sun

Of all of the world’s forgotten conflicts (and there are plenty), that of Western Sahara, with its refugees tucked away in a remote desert, ranks as one of the most consigned to oblivion.

But last month, the world’s top diplomat, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, brought the issue to temporary attention with a rather undiplomatic move. After visiting part of the disputed territory, which is claimed by both Morocco and the Algeria-backed Polisario Front, he called Morocco’s presence there an “occupation.”

What counts as chaos in the land of diplomacy ensued: Morocco angrily ordered civilian members of a UN peacekeeping force out; there were meetings in the UN Security Council that amounted to little and no joint expression of support for the secretary-general; and finally a spokesman tried to walk back Ban’s comments, saying it had all been a “misunderstanding” born of his “spontaneous, personal reaction” to the situation of the Sahrawi refugees.

“Without meaning to do so, Ban has awoken a sleeping dog,” Marina Ottoway, senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center think tank, said of the secretary-general’s actions.

But does that mean there could finally be progress in resolving one of the world’s most intractable conflicts, one that has rumbled on largely unnoticed for more than 40 years?

Here’s a look at the long-neglected Western Sahara dispute and the Sahrawi refugees stuck in the middle.
What is Western Sahara?

Western Sahara’s 266,000 square kilometres formed a Spanish colony from the late 19th century until the mid-1970s. Morocco claims the territory as its own, but no country officially recognises its sovereignty and it is countered by the Polisario Front, which has a government-in-exile in Algeria and the backing of many of the indigenous Sahrawi people.

When Spain washed its hands of the area in 1975, a war between Morocco and the Polisarios ensued. In the 1980s, Morocco built a 1,500-kilometre long wall through the territory, placing 82 percent on its side and separating many families.

By the time a 1991 UN-brokered ceasefire brought quiet as well as peacekeepers in the form of MINURSO, tens of thousands of Sahrawis had been displaced by the fighting. Most live in five Polisario Front-administered camps in Tindouf, Algeria, on the edge of the 18 percent of the territory that the Polisario Front considers “liberated”, and the international community tends to call a no-man’s land.

There’s no official count of how many Sahrawi refugees live in the camps – the Polisario Front and Algeria put it at 165,000 and the UN tends to base its needs assessments on an estimate of around 90,000.

Some live in tents, others in mud brick homes. They are extremely vulnerable to inclement weather – in October 2015 more than 17,000 homes were destroyed or severely damaged in flooding that affected both sides of the wall.

There are almost no employment opportunities for the Sahrawis in Tindouf, and almost all rely on aid to survive, although conditions are said to be significantly better on the Moroccan side because of the country’s investment in development there.

Human rights groups regularly report on Morocco’s heavy-handed way of dealing with Sahrawi dissidents, and there is concern that the Polisario Front does not tolerate dissent particularly well either.

What do the parties want?

The 1991 ceasefire was meant to be followed by an independence referendum, and MINURSO set about compiling a voter roll in the 1990s. But deciding who had the right to vote on the territory’s fate became a Sisyphean task, as throughout the 1990s Morocco had moved many new residents into the area and both sides objected to various counts.

By the time MINURSO came up with a list– reportedly kept in Geneva for safekeeping – the possibility of a referendum actually taking place had become remote. A new plan by former UN special envoy James Baker, which included independence as one option in a vote that would take place after a period of autonomy, was rejected by Morocco and he resigned in 2004 out of frustration with, among other issues, the Security Council’s refusal to implement a plan it had approved.

The Polisario Front still wants some sort of vote on independence, but most experts see this as an unlikely prospect.

“You will never be able to determine who is entitled to vote in that referendum,” explained Ottoway.

Morocco is fine with that, as their current proposal is that Western Sahara has some form of local governance akin to that of any other region, as part of a larger decentralisation plan. This would give the territory no special status.
What next?

Both groups have proved intransigent in negotiations, and the UN has utterly failed at moving the process forward.

Part of the problem is that it’s an easy place for major powers to ignore. “Looked at from Washington, Morocco and Algeria fighting over the Western Sahara is like two bald men fighting over a comb,” said Ottoway.

It’s true that the conflict is usually low in intensity. But there are occasional flare-ups: at least five people were killed in 2010 when Moroccan security forces broke up a Saharawi protest camp.

From another perspective, Western Sahara is left on the sidelines not because it is small and remote, but because it has in fact become a pawn in global politics.

As Jacob Mundy, an assistant professor at Colgate University and an expert on the conflict pointed out, Morocco has positioned itself as a key ally of Saudi Arabia and the West in North Africa, sharing intelligence with the United States and even playing host to at least one of the CIA’s controversial black sites. This brings the US closely into line with France, already staunchly on Morocco’s in the dispute.

“Anytime Morocco is feeling the pressure on Western Sahara, they probably find ways of making themselves very useful to the United States,” Mundy explained.

On Algeria’s side, three current UN Security Council members have officially recognised the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, the Polisario Front’s government-in-exile: Angola, Uruguay and Venezuela.

“The real issue is whether or not any country on the Security Council is going to expend political chips on the issue of Western Sahara,” Baker said, shortly after his resignation back in 2004. “That’s what makes this so difficult; because the profile of the issue is so very low and they’re not going to want to risk alienating either Morocco, on the one hand, or Algeria, on the other, by taking a firm position. And they’re not willing to ask either or one or both of the parties to do something they don’t want to do.”

Anna Theofilopoulou, an independent political analyst who was part Baker’s team, believes diplomacy over Western Sahara does need some shaking up but that Ban’s move was the wrong one.

Reportedly denied the right to land in Morocco, the UN chief only met with Sahrawi refugees, the Polisario Front, and Algeria. Then he used the word occupation.

“You don’t use the big guns unless you know that you are going to get good results,” Theofilopoulou told IRIN. “That’s one basic rule of diplomacy.”

While we shouldn’t have any illusions about whether Ban’s move will change a conflict that has been stubbornly unmoving for decades, there is a slim chance of an opening ahead.

MINURSO’s mandate is up for its yearly renewal at the end of April, and while that will likely be a rubber stamp, this might be a good occasion for Ban to point out that the Security Council’s refusal or inability to force meaningful action has had serious consequences, not least in the form of a generation of refugees who have been born and grew up in tents.

“I think maybe this is time for the secretariat to play hardball,” Theofilopoulou said, suggesting that Ban should apply pressure on the Security Council.

Mundy is of a similar mind. “It would be interesting if the secretariat just dropped it in the Security Council’s lap and said, ‘you guys refuse to take a firm position and also expect the mediators to work. What do you expect?’”

But with France and the United States permanent members of the Security Council, it’s unlikely we’ll see any significant shift any time soon. And there is also no guarantee that stepping up international involvement would bring any greater peace or lead to a durable solution.

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El Watan (Algiers) : « Le Maroc est la cause de l’impasse actuelle »

«Le Maroc est la cause de l’impasse actuelle»
A la une International
Jacob Mundy. Spécialiste des conflits et enseignant à l’université Colgate (Etats-Unis)

le 14.04.16

Inscrit depuis 1966 sur la liste des territoires non autonomes — et donc éligible à l’application de la résolution 1514 de l’Assemblée générale de l’ONU portant déclaration sur l’octroi de l’indépendance aux pays et peuples coloniaux —, le Sahara occidental est la dernière colonie en Afrique, occupé depuis 1975 par le Maroc qui est soutenu par la France. Jacob Mundy, enseignant à l’université Colgate de New York, explique les raisons des récentes attaques dirigées par le Maroc contre le secrétaire général de l’ONU.

– Les relations entre le Maroc et les Nations unies se sont considérablement détériorées depuis la visite, en mars, de Ban Ki-moon dans les camps de réfugiés sahraouis. Vous attendiez-vous à une telle situation ?

J’ai été surpris de voir le secrétaire général de l’ONU afficher ouvertement une pareille hostilité à l’égard du Maroc. La source de cette hostilité est bien connue. Durant des années, le Maroc a refusé de travailler avec son envoyé personnel pour le Sahara occidental, l’ambassadeur Christopher Ross. Dans le passé, le secrétariat a montré certains signes de frustration, mais cela est resté discret et gardé sous silence.

Quand le Maroc a décidé de bloquer la visite de Ban Ki-moon dans les territoires (cela inclut aussi le refus d’accorder à son avion l’autorisation d’atterrir à El Ayoun), ce fut la goutte de trop… le coup final. En affichant sa frustration publiquement, le secrétaire général de l’ONU a créé un précédent. De Waldheim à Annan, les secrétaires généraux de l’ONU ont généralement été plus favorables au Maroc qu’au Front Polisario.

– Que pensez-vous des raisons invoquées par le Maroc pour essayer de disqualifier Ban Ki-moon et l’approche de l’ONU du conflit ?

Les Marocains n’aiment pas entendre la vérité à propos du Sahara occidental. La vérité est que le Sahara occidental est le dernier territoire non autonome d’Afrique. De plus : selon les documents de l’ONU, l’Espagne est officiellement la puissance administrante. Donc, si l’Espagne est la puissance administrante et que le Sahara occidental est non autonome, alors quel est le statut légal du Maroc dans ce territoire ? Cela ne peut être autre chose qu’une occupation.

Ban Ki-moon a dit la vérité quand il a défini la situation comme une occupation. L’Assemblée générale de l’ONU a aussi qualifié la situation d’occupation. L’avis légal émis en 2002 par les Nations unies sur la question est aussi clair. En fait, quand Ban Ki-moon a qualifié le Sahara occidental de «territoire occupé», il a parlé simplement d’un fait reconnu comme tel par la loi internationale.

– Comment décryptez-vous la décision du Maroc d’expulser les membres de la composante politique de la Minurso ? Quel message le roi Mohammed VI a-t-il voulu délivrer ?

Le Maroc a toujours eu une relation inconfortable avec la Minurso. Tout d’abord, le nom de la mission onusienne reconnaît que sa vocation est d’organiser un référendum d’autodétermination. Le cessez-le-feu n’était pas le but principal de cette mission. Il ne s’agissait là que d’une étape dans le processus devant mener à l’organisation d’un référendum sur l’indépendance.

Le Maroc s’en est quand même accommodé. Le cessez-le-feu et les observateurs militaires onusiens le long de la berme sont devenus très utiles pour Rabat. Le Maroc sait que beaucoup de Sahraouis veulent que le Polisario reprenne la guerre. Rabat utilise donc les forces de maintien de la paix de la Minurso pour garder un œil sur le Polisario et dissuader les Sahraouis de se lancer dans une nouvelle lutte armée.

Cependant, l’administration civile de la Minurso est un problème pour le Maroc vu la pression internationale grandissante en faveur de la surveillance des droits de l’homme dans les territoires occupés, surtout que la demande est soutenue par les gouvernements américain et britannique.

Si la Minurso est mandatée pour surveiller les droits de l’homme, ce sera forcément ses administrateurs civils qui se chargeront d’accomplir la mission. A certains égards, la Minurso a déjà surveillé les droits de l’homme de façon informelle. Le Maroc a donc fait une action préventive destinée à empêcher la Minurso de surveiller les droits de l’homme.

– Le Conseil de paix et de sécurité (CPS) de l’Union africaine (UA) vient de se dire «inquiet» au sujet de la situation dans la région. Pour l’UA, la décision du Maroc d’expulser les membres de la composante politique de la Minurso «menace la sécurité régionale». Partagez-vous la même inquiétude ? Pensez-vous que la situation pourrait un jour dégénérer si rien n’est fait pour résoudre ce vieux conflit ?

Je partage les préoccupations de l’UA. Les tensions ne cessent d’augmenter au Sahara occidental. Néanmoins, il est peu probable que le Front Polisario se lance, dans un avenir proche, dans une guerre et cela par respect pour l’Algérie qui se débat avec la question de l’«après-Bouteflika». Le Maroc, quant à lui, attend tout simplement l’élection d’un nouveau président aux Etats-Unis. Il espère une deuxième Administration Clinton qui signifiera probablement le soutien total des Etats-Unis pour «l’autonomie».

Mais si le Maroc et le Conseil de sécurité des Nations unies continuent à fermer toutes les issues qui conduisent concrètement vers un référendum, il est difficile d’imaginer qu’il n’y aura pas de manifestations du conflit. Cela sous une forme ou une autre. Après, AQMI et Daech pourraient tirer profit d’une telle situation, comme ils l’ont déjà fait au Mali.

– Pourquoi le Conseil de sécurité n’a pas condamné l’attitude agressive du Maroc envers le secrétaire général de l’ONU, comme cela a été demandé par Ban Ki-moon lui-même ? Comment le Maroc peut-il se permettre de défier ainsi la communauté internationale ?

La réponse est simple : c’est la France. Le gouvernement français a toujours soutenu le Maroc au sein du Conseil de sécurité de l’ONU. La France est au Maroc ce que les Etats-Unis sont à Israël. Quand il y avait un consensus total sur le plan Baker en 2003 — qui aurait pu résoudre ce conflit en 2010 —, la France avait sonné la charge et s’y était opposée. Depuis lors, le Maroc ne cesse de se sentir conforté et renforcé dans son attitude. Ban Ki-moon est également sur le point de terminer son mandat. En France et aux Etats-Unis, le Maroc est plus important qu’un secrétaire général sortant.

– Qu’est-ce qui empêche concrètement le règlement du conflit du Sahara occidental, conformément aux résolutions pertinentes des Nations unies ?

Les résolutions du Conseil de sécurité de l’ONU appellent actuellement une solution politique négociée qui permettra un référendum d’autodétermination au Sahara occidental. Le Polisario est prêt à discuter de l’autonomie dans le contexte d’une solution politique qui équivaudrait au final au vote d’un statut définitif. Cependant, le Maroc estime que sa proposition d’autonomie avancée en 2007 est la solution optimale, même si elle ne prévoit pas de référendum d’autodétermination.

C’est le Maroc qui a généré l’impasse. Mais le Conseil de sécurité ne veut pas mettre de pression sur le Maroc. Et cela, même pas au plan du discours. Comme nous l’avons vu durant les derniers événements, le Maroc est prêt à tout pour parvenir à ses fins, y compris exploiter comme il l’a fait un événement sans conséquence (visite de Ban Ki-moon) ou créer une crise régionale.

– A votre avis, que devons-nous attendre de la prochaine réunion du Conseil de sécurité sur le conflit du Sahara occidental ?

Le rapport du secrétaire général de l’ONU a été retardé. Il semble donc qu’il y ait actuellement des tractations et un intense travail de coulisses. Il n’en sortira probablement pas grand-chose. La dernière fois que nous avons assisté à une levée de boucliers du Maroc concernant la surveillance des droits de l’homme dans les territoires sahraouis occupés, le Conseil de sécurité de l’ONU avait fini par trouver le moyen de le calmer. Un processus similaire est probablement en cours.

Bio express

Spécialiste du Maghreb, Jacob Mundy anime actuellement un cours sur la paix et les conflits à l’université Colgate de New York. Il a particulièrement travaillé sur les conflits armés et les interventions humanitaires en Afrique du Nord, une région où il a séjourné de nombreuses fois.

Jacob Mundy a publié des articles très fouillés sur le conflit sahraoui dans plusieurs revues spécialisées. Le dernier remonte à 2014 et est intitulé «Sahara occidental : La résistance non violente comme dernier recours». Il a été coécrit avec Stephen Zune. Jacob Mundy est diplômé des universités d’Exeter et de Seattle.

Zine Cherfaoui

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Vice News : Morocco Boots UN Diplomats Over Western Sahara Spat

Morocco Boots UN Diplomats Over Western Sahara Spat
Kayla Ruble
March 18, 2016
https://news.vice.com/article/morocco-boots-un-diplomats-over-western-sahara-spat

Morocco’s government and the Polisario Front liberation movement have been locked in a territorial dispute over Western Sahara for decades. Progress toward a solution has stagnated in recent years as the international community attempts to balance between the two sides, but controversial comments from the United Nations’ top official have sparked an unusually tense diplomatic spat.

The controversy kicked off last week when UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon visited refugee camps in Algeria where more than 100,000 indigenous Sahrawi people reside, many of whom fled Western Sahara decades ago. These camps are the base for the Polisario and the wider independence movement for Western Sahara, which has long pushed for Morocco to give up control of the territory that lies along Africa’s northwestern Atlantic coast and abuts Mauritania and Algeria.

Ban, however, did not meet with Moroccan authorities during the visit, as is typically expected by diplomats in order to appease both sides. Following the visit, Ban said the UN would work toward achieving a solution in the conflict. The UN chief referred to the Moroccan presence in Western Sahara, which Morocco took control of after Western Sahara gained independence from Spain in 1975, as an “occupation.”

This set off a series of condemnations by Morocco, with the government taking a strong stance as a result of the comments. Morocco said Ban’s statement’s indicated that he had abandoned his neutral position in the dispute and sided with the Polisario. While the UN confirmed that Ban did use the word occupation, they said the meaning was misinterpreted and that it was said in the context of the UN chief’s reaction to the situation in the camps.

A demonstration in the Moroccan capital Rabat on Sunday saw thousands gather in the streets to protest the secretary general. As the situation escalated this week, the country initially said it would cut down on staff at the UN mission in Western Sahara (formally called the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara, or MINURSO), while also threatening recall its troops participating in peacekeeping operations around the world.

“Following the unacceptable declarations and inadmissible actions from the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon during his recent visit to the region, the royal government of Morocco has decided on immediate measures,” the statement from the government said.

As the situation deteriorated, Ban cancelled a planned trip to Morocco. Eventually officials in Rabat backed down on Thursday, saying they would no longer move to withdraw its troops from global UN missions. But on Thursday, Morocco gave a three-day warning to 84 international UN civilian staff members to get out of Western Sahara, including three from the African Union. According to a UN secretariat spokesman, these actions “would seriously impede the functioning of MINURSO and negatively impact on its ability to deliver its mandate.”

After 16 years of fighting between Morocco and the Polisario Front, which has continuously sought to gain independence, the situation peaked in 1991 when the two sides finally signed a UN-brokered ceasefire and the peacekeeping mission known as MINURSO was established.

The most optimistic point in the conflict came in the early 2000s when former US Secretary of State James Baker, the UN’s personal envoy to Western Sahara at the time, attempted to push through a peace plan that included the option for self-determination by the Sahrawi people. Morocco ultimately rejected this plan in 2004, largely due to the option for independence. Just months later Baker resigned.

Since then the situation has been stuck in a stalemate. Popular uprisings took hold in 2011 as the Arab Spring protest movements spread through North Africa and the Middle East, but failed to incite any major changes. Moroccan authorities are routinely accused of human rights abuses against the Sahrawi in Western Sahara, including arbitrary arrest, torture, and restrictions on freedom of speech. Tensions heightened during the past two years after Morocco refused to accept the appointment of a new UN personal envoy to Western Sahara.

For the secretary-general, these tensions appear to have helped fuel continued frustration towards Morocco and the visit may have been an attempt to show Western Sahara that the international body has not forgotten about the issue, according to Jacob Mundy, a political science professor and North Africa expert at Colgate University. As Mundy noted, the visit was unusual in the fact that Ban only met with one side.

“It’s kind of unprecedented, just on its face, only going to meet with one side of the conflict,” he said. “The secretariat has never visibly shown this much frustration before and if it was… it never would have made its frustration public.”

As Mundy noted, even when the Baker plan was rejected, the secretary general did not express this kind of outward displeasure or frustration. While it’s difficult to say what the threats from Morocco mean, Mundy said he expects efforts to be made to try to repair the relationship before the annual referendum vote at the end of April to reaffirm the UN mission’s mandate.

Anna Theofilopoulou, a political analyst and former UN staffer who assisted Baker during the peace plan proposal process, questioned the decision to not sit down with Moroccan authorities during the visit. Theofilopoulou wondered why the UN chief felt the need to travel to Western Sahara given the relative impasse in recent years.

“In my whole career in the United Nations I just never witnessed such an ill-advised movement, quite bluntly,” she said. “I don’t know what [they] advised him and what were they thinking… did anybody look to the background of this conflict?”

While addressing the issue of the refugees living in Algeria is important, Theofilopoulou said that by making the visit the the secretary general was essentially walking into a pit of vipers — referring to Moroccan officials. As she explained, the situation in general is a tense one for the country, but furthermore Morocco is known for having the ability to overreact to these kind of diplomatic developments or when something doesn’t go their way.

Earlier this year, Morocco pushed back against the European Union after a court for the governing body blocked a farm trade deal with Morocco, ruling that goods from the occupied territories of Western Sahara should not be included in the agriculture trade agreement. Morocco subsequently cut communications with the EU, which later pushed the court to reverse its decision. Just this week, Morocco decided to warm up to Europe again after a visit from the bloc’s foreign policy chief helped to smooth things over.

“Morocco does respond to pressure if they realize there’s no way out,” she said. “It’s gone from bad to worse and I don’t know what on earth they’re thinking in the UN. How do they think this is going to end?”

Theofilopoulou speculated that Morocco will not work effectively with the UN until Ban’s term is up this year. Both she and Mundy also said that the kingdom is likely waiting for the results in the US presidential election this fall to make any significant moves. The US is one of Morocco’s key allies — along with France — with ties to former secretary of state and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation.

Regardless, with the peacekeeping mission in the spotlight, Mundy said it will be important to watch whether the UN seriously considers rethinking MINURSO’s role in the Western Sahara dispute and the peace process as a whole.”Since Baker resigned in 2004. It’s really been negotiations for the sake of negotiations [with] very little momentum [and] backwards progress from the kind of advancements made in late 1990s and early 2000s,” he explained. “One of the few tools the international community has left is the silent treatment really.”

Topics: africa, northern africa, western sahara, ban ki-moon, united nations, war & conflict, sahrawi, polisario front, algeria, morocco, occupation, peacekeeping mission, minurso

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«La Marche verte est la façade civile d’une invasion militaire»

Au grand dam des populations sahraouies représentées par le Front Polisario dès 1973, le Sahara occidental, ancienne colonie espagnole, est colonisé en 1975 par le Maroc. Hassan II y envoie, le 6 novembre, des Marocains pour l’envahir, avant de lancer une offensive armée contre les Sahraouis. L’attaque marocaine est même appuyée par des bombardements massifs. Le peuple sahraoui lutte depuis plus de 40 ans pour son droit à l’autodétermination. Dans les territoires sahraouis occupés par le Maroc, la vie des Sahraouis est marquée par la répression et le harcèlement constants. Le Sahara occidental est aujourd’hui la dernière colonie d’Afrique. Spécialiste des conflits au Maghreb, Jacob Mundy de l’université Colgate (New York) explique le stratagème mis en place par le roi Hassan II pour accaparer ce territoire.

– Cela fait maintenant 40 ans depuis que le Maroc a envahi le Sahara occidental. Pourquoi l’ONU n’arrive toujours pas à régler ce conflit conformément à la légalité internationale ?

Actuellement, l’Organisation des Nations unies a un double discours sur le Sahara occidental : le Conseil de sécurité appelle à la fois à une solution politique et à une solution qui respecte le droit du Sahara occidental à l’autodétermination, conformément au droit international. Ceci est une pure contradiction. Le Maroc rejette l’idée d’un référendum d’autodétermination, et ainsi le Conseil de sécurité a donné à Rabat un pouvoir de veto sur le processus de paix. Dès lors, pour le Front Polisario, la seule façon d’avancer serait de compromettre son droit à l’autodétermination et d’accepter cette injustice comme un fait accompli.

Mais pourquoi les Sahraouis renonceraient-ils à ce droit alors que le Maroc n’a pas fait une offre sérieuse d’une réelle autonomie ?

Cependant, je ne suis pas convaincu que les Nations unies puissent régler cette question, même si le Front Polisario se montre prêt à s’engager dans des négociations dans lesquelles l’option de l’indépendance ne serait pas à l’ordre du jour. Au fil du temps, le statut non résolu du conflit du Sahara occidental est devenu un élément central dans le fonctionnement du régime marocain sur le double plan intérieur et extérieur. Le Maroc se présente comme un modèle de stabilité dans une région instable du monde. Pourtant, comme nous le savons tous, cette stabilité est basée sur un fondement instable, le Sahara occidental.

La monarchie marocaine a utilisé la menace perpétuelle du Sahara occidental pour contrôler la politique intérieure marocaine et maintenir des alliances sécuritaires vitales avec Paris et Washington. Ces processus de «sécurité à travers l’insécurité» sont assez courants en géopolitique ; nous observons ces processus dans les relations-clés des États-Unis comme Israël, l’Arabie Saoudite et le Maroc.

– Pour quelle raison le Maroc refuse, à ce jour, au peuple sahraoui d’exercer son droit à l’autodétermination comme le recommandent pourtant un rapport de la Cour internationale de justice daté du 15 octobre 1975 et de nombreuses autres résolutions de l’ONU ?

Le Maroc refuse le déroulement d’un vote sur l’indépendance du Sahara occidental parce qu’il sera perdant. Cela était clair en 1975 lorsqu’une mission des Nations unies a visité le Sahara occidental et cela est clair aujourd’hui dans les camps de réfugiés et au Sahara occidental.

Les manifestations quotidiennes des Sahraouis qui vivent sous occupation montrent qu’il y a une forte majorité en faveur de l’indépendance. Après 40 ans d’occupation, le Maroc n’a pas réussi à gagner les cœurs et les esprits des Sahraouis. Le Maroc a tenté de gagner le vote dans les années 1990 en inondant l’électorat avec de faux Sahraouis. L’ONU n’a pas accepté cela. C’est la raison pour laquelle le Maroc parle maintenant d’autonomie, sachant qu’un vote légitime n’ira pas en sa faveur.

– D’après vous, pourquoi le roi Hassan II a-t-il organisé la Marche verte le 6 novembre 1975 ? Avait-il le droit d’envahir le Sahara occidental ? Cette marche était-elle pacifique comme le soutient le Maroc ?

Comme les historiens l’ont découvert, les plans marocains d’invasion du Sahara occidental avaient été préparés des années auparavant. Nous connaissons tous l’échec de la «guerre des sables» menée en 1963 par le Maroc contre l’Algérie. Ce qui est moins connu, c’est que Hassan II avait même un plan avancé pour envahir la Mauritanie.

En 1974, quand l’Espagne a annoncé son intention d’organiser un référendum sur l’indépendance du Sahara occidental, le Maroc a intensifié ses efforts diplomatiques en allant à l’ONU et en demandant l’avis de la Cour internationale de justice. Durant les audiences de la Cour, lors de l’été 1975, il était clair que les juges de la CIJ ne pouvaient pas prendre au sérieux les arguments juridiques avancés par le Maroc pour conquérir le Sahara occidental.

Le Maroc ne pouvait même pas démontrer sa souveraineté continue et effective sur le sud du Maroc (Oued Draa)… alors ne parlons pas du Sahara occidental. C’est comme cela que Hassan II a commencé à peaufiner ses plans d’invasion du Sahara occidental. Selon mes recherches, Henry Kissinger a été informé début octobre (deux semaines avant la publication de la décision de la CIJ) que le Maroc allait envahir le Sahara occidental.

Etant donné qu’une invasion militaire directe d’un Etat d’Europe occidentale allait être trop dangereuse, Hassan II a dû forcer l’Espagne à abandonner le Sahara occidental par d’autres moyens. Ainsi, l’idée ingénieuse de la «Marche verte» a été utilisée pour créer une façade civile pour une invasion militaire. Nous devons nous rappeler que la marche «pacifique» de Hassan II a été soutenue par une présence militaire massive dans le sud du Maroc. Hassan II a averti que si Madrid s’opposait à la Marche verte, le Maroc déclarerait la guerre à l’Espagne.

Cette sortie avait mis Madrid dans une situation impossible. Si Franco n’avait pas été en déclin, l’Espagne aurait peut-être résisté à la pression du Maroc. Mais comme les historiens espagnols le révèlent maintenant, l’agonie de Franco a créé une «guerre civile» dans le cabinet espagnol. En fin de compte, un accord secret a été conclu avec le Maroc fin octobre 1975. Dans les faits, l’invasion militaire par le Maroc de l’est de Saguia El Hamra a commencé les 30-31 octobre.

La Marche verte n’était devenue qu’un spectacle pour apaiser une opinion marocaine envahie par une frénésie nationaliste. Seuls quelques milliers de manifestants ont franchi la frontière du Sahara espagnol et… seulement de quelques kilomètres. La grande majorité des participants à la Marche verte est restée au Maroc compte tenu de l’accord conclu avec Madrid. Cela a permis aux deux parties de sauver la face : Hassan II a obtenu sa marche et l’Espagne a quitté le territoire selon ses propres termes.

– En août 1974, l’Espagne, qui souhaite se retirer du Sahara occidental, annonce l’organisation d’un référendum d’autodétermination pour 1975. Pourquoi Madrid a abandonné cette option et préféré ouvrir des négociations avec le Maroc et la Mauritanie ?

L’Espagne a été contrainte de négocier avec le Maroc et la Mauritanie parce qu’elle a été abandonnée par le Conseil de sécurité des Nations unies, principalement en raison de l’insistance française et américaine qui soutenait que le Maroc avait réussi son invasion. Lorsque la Marche verte a été annoncée, l’Espagne est allée au Conseil de sécurité de l’ONU pour dénoncer l’acte marocain comme un acte menaçant la paix et la sécurité internationales. Le Conseil a été lent à réagir et, à la fin, il n’a jamais fait plus que dénoncer la Marche verte du Maroc. Et quand la dénonciation est venue, la marche avait déjà commencé.

L’Organisation des Nations unies, qui avait été principalement créée pour prévenir une agression dans les affaires mondiales, n’a rien fait pour arrêter l’agression du Maroc contre l’Espagne, ceci parce que Paris et Washington savaient qu’un échec de Hassan II dans la conquête du Sahara occidental marquerait la fin de la monarchie au Maroc.

– Comment voyez-vous aujourd’hui l’évolution du conflit ? De quoi dépend son règlement ?

Il est difficile de voir tout espoir dans le processus de paix de l’ONU maintenant que le Maroc a tenté de rejeter l’ambassadeur Christopher Ross comme envoyé personnel du secrétaire général de l’ONU pour le Sahara occidental. Maintenant, nous attendons tous de connaître le point de rupture des Sahraouis.

Combien de temps encore les réfugiés peuvent-il supporter de souffrir à Tindouf ? Le Front Polisario subit une intense pression pour reprendre la guerre, tandis que l’exploitation et la répression marocaine au Sahara occidental se poursuivent avec peu de protestations de la communauté internationale. Je crains que la situation ira en empirant avant que le Conseil de sécurité de l’ONU ne décide de la prendre au sérieux.

Bio express

Spécialiste du Maghreb, Jacob Mundy anime actuellement un cours sur la paix et les conflits à l’université Colgate de New York. Il a particulièrement travaillé sur les conflits armés et les interventions humanitaires en Afrique du Nord, une région où il a séjourné de nombreuses fois.

Jacob Mundy a publié des articles très fouillés sur le conflit sahraoui dans plusieurs revues spécialisées. Le dernier remonte à 2014 et est intitulé Sahara occidental : La résistance non violente comme dernier recours. Il a été coécrit avec Stephen Zune. Jacob Mundy est diplômé des universités d’Exeter et de Seattle.

Zine Cherfaoui

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Recent analysis looks at role of international oil corporations and the Western Sahara dispute

US oil company set to violate international law in Western Sahara
In North-West Africa, American and British energy companies may be about to violate international law in pursuit of oil profits.

#Energy

Tom Stevenson
Sunday 28 September 2014 16:32 BST

Tags:
Western Sahara, UN, oil, Kosmos, Morocco

Kosmos Energy, a US oil and gas exploration firm, along with UK oil exploration company, Cairn Energy, are planning to begin searching for oil reserves off the shores of a territory known as Western Sahara.

However, according to Sahrawi representatives, the companies have no authorisation from the people of Western Sahara, a United Nations designated non-self-governing territory larger than the UK that has been subject to occupation by neighbouring Morocco since it invaded in 1975. The Moroccan government maintains that its civilians peacefully reclaimed Western Sahara by marching into the territory, but scholarly work has long since falsified this account.

The UN has been planning to organise a referendum on self-determination in Western Sahara since 1991 but for now Morocco has successfully blocked the plans and retains control of the territory which it claims as its “southern provinces” and calls Moroccan Sahara.

Kosmos has held rights to explore Western Saharan waters since 2006, when it signed an agreement with Morocco’s state oil company, the Office National des Hydrocarbures et des Mines (ONHYM).

The agreement was renewed in 2011 and, at Kosmos’s direction, a drill ship named Atwood Achiever is currently on its way from South Korea to Western Saharan waters in order to commence oil exploration in a block known as Cap Boujdor in November.

In a letter dated 19 September and addressed to Kosmos’s Senior Vice President, William Hayes, which has been seen by Middle East Eye, the Sahrawi Centre for Media and Communication – a campaigning group made up of indigenous Sahrawi and based in the territory’s capital Laayoune – condemned international energy companies planning to drill for “joining hands with Morocco” and “consolidating its sovereignty over Western Sahara.”

“Formally, it is illegal for international companies to operate in the land and coastal waters of Western Sahara without the consent of its people and without them being consulted and benefiting from these business operations,” the letter stated.

“Such illegal business is also a direct threat to the whole peace settlement as it puts at stake the right of self-determination by ignoring international law and legality,” the Sahrawi group claimed.

However, the Sahrawi are not alone in believing that oil exploration in Western Sahara without authorisation from the Sahrawi would be illegal under international law. In 2002, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs, Hans Corell gave a legal opinion which agreed with the Sahrawi.

“If further exploration and exploitation activities were to proceed in disregard of the interests and wishes of the people of Western Sahara, they would be in violation of the international law principles applicable to mineral resource activities in non-self-governing territories,” Corell wrote.

A number of previous attempts by oil companies to drill in Western Saharan waters have been abandoned, due to the legal status of the territory and subsequent divestment by shareholders. Kosmos, however, appears resolute and French oil major Total also has plans to drill next year.

Kosmos has defended its decision by arguing that while it does not have the authorisation of the Sahrawi, its activities will be beneficial to them.

“We believe that, if exploration is successful, responsible resource development in Western Sahara has the potential to create significant long-term social and economic benefits for the people of the territory,” Kosmos wrote in a statement on the issue in February.

But the UN’s Corell has made clear on multiple occasions that this is not sufficient to make the drilling lawful. In 2008, he issued a clarification of his original legal opinion that described it as “formulated in such a manner that it would be crystal clear that Morocco had no authority to engage in exploration or exploitation of mineral resources in Western Sahara if this was done in disregard of the interests and wishes of the people of Western Sahara.”

Speaking to the Financial Times on 17 September, Corell said that “the more resources are found in Western Sahara and its maritime zone, the less will be the incentive for Morocco to fulfil the UN resolutions and international law.”

Neither Morocco’s ONHYM nor the Moroccan government responded to requests for comment.

The Sahrawi population is divided into those still living in the occupied territory, and the thousands who fled from the Moroccan army in 1975 and became refugees living in camps in South-West Algeria.

Sahrawi living in the refugee camps are also highly critical of the drilling.

“Kosmos and Cairn plan to participate in the looting of our country,” said Kamal Fadel a representative of the Sahrawi government in the camps, the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).

“This is a shameful act by Kosmos and Cairn that puts their greed before the respect of legality and human rights, and it helps perpetuate the illegal occupation of our homeland, encouraging Morocco to continue to obstruct UN efforts to resolve the conflict,” Fadel told MEE.

International firms in other sectors besides energy have also engaged in potentially illegal resource exploitation in occupied Western Sahara.

Last October, the Canadian agricultural firm Agrium Inc. organised a deal with the Moroccan state phosphate company Office Chérifien des Phosphates (OCP) for Western Saharan phosphate.

Despite international pressure, more than $10 mn of phosphate rock mined by Morocco’s OCP in Western Sahara were loaded onto a freighter and shipped to Vancouver for use by Agrium as a result of the deal.

In December, the European Union also approved a four-year accord with Morocco, allowing EU boats – the majority of them Spanish – to fish in Western Saharan waters. Demonstrations were held in Laayoune by some Sahrawi but were met with a harsh response from Moroccan security forces.

“A significant oil or gas find in Western Saharan waters will only increase Morocco’s unwillingness to recognise the territory’s international right to self-determination,” said Jacob Mundy, assistant professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at Colgate University, in New York.

“The danger in all of this is the Security Council’s lack of interest in the Western Sahara situation generally,” Mundy told MEE.

“Having watched Morocco plunder the territory’s fisheries and minerals for years, it is difficult to imagine the Western Saharan independence movement remaining passive in the face of these new offshore developments.”

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Waiting for Disruption: The Western Sahara Stalemate

The Western Sahara conflict is fast approaching its 40th anniversary with no end in sight. A web of geopolitical interests keeps the conflict in a permanent state of limbo. At the heart of this web is the U.N. Security Council, which has managed the conflict since the late 1980s. The council has been historically reticent to take dramatic action to resolve the dispute and remains so today. Though there has been “peace” in Western Sahara since 1991 when a cease-fire came into effect, all efforts to reconcile Morocco’s claim of sovereignty against the local population’s right to self-determination have failed. The status quo thus seems indefinitely sustainable. Unless the conflict takes a sudden turn for the worse, it is unlikely that the international community will make the tough choices necessary to achieve a lasting solution. Therein lies the paradox of the Western Sahara peace process: The peace process now exists to contain the conflict, but only a crisis will save Western Sahara.

For these reasons, observers often speculate as to which forces could shake things up in Western Sahara. In recent years, three developments have emerged that initially appeared to have the potential to unbalance the deadlock: the Arab Spring, the 2012 Mali crisis and renewed oil and gas interest in the area. However, it is unlikely that a popular mass revolt will drive Morocco out of Western Sahara, or bring down the Moroccan monarchy. Meanwhile, it is abundantly clear that North Atlantic powers see Morocco as a bulwark of stability in a region plagued by civil strife along the Mediterranean coast and by terrorist groups in the Sahara. Finally, international energy companies that have returned to Western Sahara seek to work with Morocco to exploit the contested territory’s possible riches. Whether or not oil companies will bring peace or war to Western Sahara will likely hinge on the response of the territory’s nationalist movement, which remains to be seen.

A Brief History of the Stalemate

Morocco invaded Western Sahara in 1975 as the Spanish colonial authorities were about to conduct a referendum on the territory’s independence. Rather than face war with its neighbor across the Strait of Gibraltar, Madrid opted to transfer its colonial authority to Morocco and Mauritania. The United Nations viewed this transfer as largely illegitimate and continued to call for the territory’s self-determination. A local nationalist movement, led by the Polisario Front, had been fighting the Spanish for several years and, upon Morocco’s invasion, began to receive significant support from Rabat’s regional rival, Algeria. In the chaos of the invasion, nearly half of the native Sahrawi population fled to Algeria, where they live today as refugees under Polisario’s control; today they number over 100,000. The Morocco-Polisario war—Mauritania left the territory it controlled in Western Sahara in 1979—dragged on until 1991, when a cease-fire was declared to allow a U.N. mission to organize a referendum.

The U.N. arrived in Western Sahara with the intent to solve the conflict in less than 12 months by organizing a vote on independence. Twenty-three years later, the mission is still there. Disputes over how to register voters for the referendum dragged on until Moroccan King Hassan II died in 1999 and was succeeded by his son, Mohammed VI. King Mohammed soon reversed his father’s position and rejected the idea of an independence referendum. Morocco signaled its willingness to grant the territory autonomy but has steadfastly rejected any plan that has an independence option. In 2007, Morocco presented a formal autonomy proposal, but it has been treated as a non-starter for Polisario so long as an independence vote is off the table.

Since 1997, three U.N. envoys have attempted to mediate the dispute, including former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker. The current U.N. envoy, former U.S. Ambassador Christopher Ross, has held the position since 2008. For all intents and purposes, Morocco has stopped negotiating and even tried to have Ross dismissed in 2013. Morocco’s current position demands that Polisario accept its autonomy proposal as the basis of negotiations. Polisario is willing to discuss any proposal so long as it includes a referendum on independence, which is technically Western Sahara’s right under international law as Africa’s last non-self-governing territory.

The Western Sahara impasse owes as much to the mutually incompatible positions of the parties as to the U.N. Security Council’s unwillingness to place demands on either of them. Western Sahara’s relatively low standing on the international agenda owes as much to the territory’s intrinsic features as to its extrinsic ones. Intrinsically, the conflict suffers from obscurity because of the territory’s geography. Even with the large number of Moroccan settlers that have moved there in the past three decades, it is still one of the least densely populated countries. The native Sahrawi population is estimated to be less than half a million strong. Unlike other African countries along the great desert, Western Sahara has neither a mild Mediterranean coast nor a tropical south to augment the endless desert that defines its landscapes. What Western Sahara does have are some of the world’s richest fishing grounds off its long Atlantic coastline and some significant phosphate deposits.

But when the great powers of the Security Council look at Western Sahara, they do not simply see fish, phosphates, a protracted humanitarian crisis or Africa’s last colony. Paris and Washington, most of all, see one of their strongest allies, Morocco, and one of the world’s most important energy producers, Algeria. Both of these states are not only pivotal to stability in the Maghreb, they are increasingly viewed as important players on the African and Middle Eastern stages as well. Yet the Western Sahara conflict is not simply a Moroccan-Algerian affair. Central to the dispute are fundamental norms of decolonization and the prohibition of territorial expansion by force, issues that are central to the post-World War II order enshrined in the United Nations. After four decades of fighting for independence, it is also abundantly clear that Western Saharan nationalism will not accept a Moroccan fait accompli. Indeed, it is now widely understood that an international failure to accommodate Western Saharans’ right to self-determination will leave them no choice but to pursue armed struggle once again, as they did in the 1970s and 1980s.

The fundamental tension at the heart of the Western Sahara peace process is based on two fears: If the international community pushes too hard for a settlement, the situation could deteriorate; but if efforts to shift the status quo are abandoned, the situation could also deteriorate. Despite shifting international circumstances, from the fall of the Berlin Wall to 9/11 to the Arab Spring, there has been no exogenous disruption powerful enough to change the status quo in Western Sahara.

The Missed Opportunities of the Arab Spring

There was much hope that the Arab Spring might bring some positive change to Western Sahara. Whether through reforms in Morocco or in Polisario’s exiled leadership, or through mass demonstrations in the territory, the possibilities for change seemed endless in early 2011. Such hopes proved to be misguided. In several ways, the Arab Spring has made the Western Sahara peace process worse.

Reforms instituted by the Moroccan regime only enhanced its domestic and international credibility, thus resulting in a bold and uncompromising posture in recent negotiations. Though Arab Spring protests in Morocco, led by the February 20 Movement, failed to coalesce into a force that could threaten the regime, the monarchy nonetheless responded with a series of reforms that curbed the de jure powers of the throne. In reality, these reforms were part of a long trend in Moroccan politics whereby the monarchy has used electoral processes and power-sharing to delegitimize its foes and so enhance its de facto power within the country. First were Morocco’s democratic socialists, who were allowed to govern in the late 1990s; then came the Islamists in the early 2000s. In both cases, the government failed to deliver on long-promised reforms, promises that were easy to make when these parties were in the opposition. The monarchy, on the other hand, having symbolically retreated from politics, now wields power through informal and financial mechanisms. While political parties are blamed for the country’s failings, the monarchy—among the top 10 wealthiest royal families in the world—now uses its globalized holdings and influence over domestic economics to rule by other means.

Internationally, the monarchy’s top-down reforms also touched on the question of the “Saharan Provinces,” as Western Sahara is called in Morocco. These steps included recognizing the Sahrawi identity and loosening restrictions on travel between the occupied territory and the refugee camps. For Moroccan journalist Samia Errazzouki, a co-editor at the Jadaliyya website, the Moroccan regime deftly used the Arab Spring to improve its image vis-a-vis Western Sahara. “For many abroad,” she claims, “it appeared as if Morocco was making concessions and ceding to the demands of the people. This was no different than how Morocco responded to criticisms from abroad over its repression of pro-democracy protests associated with the February 20th Movement.” The instability witnessed in Egypt, Syria, Libya and Mali further convinced Washington and Paris to view the Moroccan monarchy as a pillar of stability in the Arab world.

Western Saharan nationalists are bitter not only because the Arab Spring has been a boon for Morocco, but because their protests have been largely ignored internationally. Indeed, weeks before protests erupted in Tunisia and Egypt, Western Sahara witnessed the largest pro-independence demonstrations ever organized in the Moroccan-occupied territory. In a massive showing of solidarity with the Western Saharan refugees in Algeria, Sahrawi activists established a protest camp on the outskirts of the territory’s main city, Al-Ayun, in a place called Gdaym Izik. Soon the camp boasted tens of thousands of Sahrawis, until Moroccan security forces violently demolished it in early November 2010. Following the camps’ dispersal, the territory saw the most intense and sustained civil unrest since Moroccan forces arrived in 1975, resulting in several casualties among the Sahrawis and Moroccan police, as well as clashes between Moroccan settlers and nationalist activists.

At the United Nations, these protests raised concerns about the fact that the U.N. mission in Western Sahara has no mandate to monitor human rights. Though all other missions now have such provisions, France, Morocco’s main ally, has steadfastly blocked all efforts to amend the U.N. mission.

Concerns about human rights inside the Moroccan-controlled territory had been growing since widespread Sahrawi protests greeted the new king in 1999. A massive uprising in 2005 drew even more attention due to the role the Internet played in the diffusion of images, videos and testimonies of the Sahrawi protestors. For years, the human rights group Freedom House has considered the Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara one of the worst situations in the world, and in 2008, Human Rights Watch released a damning report detailing the excesses of the Moroccan occupation, including widespread torture. The following year, Aminatou Haidar, a Sahrawi rights activist, won the prestigious Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award, causing further embarrassment for Rabat.

With the Gdaym Izik protests in 2010, things appeared to be coming to a head. Then the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, as well as the civil wars in Libya and Syria, changed everything. Morocco not only used the Arab Spring to advance its image as a moderate ally of Paris and Washington, the Arab Spring also drew attention away from Morocco’s repression in Western Sahara, which included the imprisonment of dozens of young activists who had created the Gdaym Izik camp. Most have received sentences of 25 years to life imprisonment.

According to Errazzouki, “November 2010 marked a turning point for the Moroccan regime’s treatment and response to dissent within the territory.” She added, “This is evident through the widespread torture, arbitrary arrests, harassment and even death of Sahrawis who dare to demand their right to self-determination.”

Hijacked by Radicals

One effect of the Arab Spring has undoubtedly had a negative impact on the Western Sahara conflict: the short-lived secessionist Tuareg republic in northern Mali that was hijacked by al-Qaida-linked groups. Key members of the Security Council, particularly the United States, are now more reluctant than ever to take risks to resolve the Western Sahara conflict, particularly if a solution leads to a weak and unstable new state.

Fed by the arms unleashed on the Sahara by the Libyan civil war of 2011, Tuareg rebels—many having been forced to flee the collapse of the Gadhafi regime—relaunched their decades-old bid to create an independent state for their people in the north of Mali. Humiliated by the rebels, elements of the Malian military staged an impromptu coup in March 2012. Amid the chaos, various armed Islamist organizations, including al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghrib (AQIM), hijacked the Tuareg rebellion and declared an Islamic state in northern Mali. A year later, French forces quickly routed the Islamists and restored a modicum of central government control to Mali’s vast northern stretches. However, a daring attack on a gas facility in eastern Algeria proved that the Islamists’ reach and audacity had grown well beyond their humble origins in the early 2000s.

For many, these developments in the Sahara were the outcome of a long-neglected front in the global war on terrorism. Concerns over the Sahara-Sahel region’s security grew as remnants of Algeria’s Islamist insurgency of the 1990s began to seek shelter and sustenance in the Sahara by linking up with smuggling networks and taking Europeans as hostages. The latter activity allowed AQIM to amass a small fortune from ransom payments to spend on arms and recruits. Though traditionally a region dominated by French influence, the United States launched a special, albeit modest, counterterrorism initiative there in 2003 to improve border security and address some of the root issues driving radicalization.

It was not long before concerns about trans-Saharan terrorism began to affect the Western Sahara conflict. A coordinated suicide attack in Casablanca in 2003 did much to convince the George W. Bush administration that a solution to the Western Sahara conflict should not be imposed on Morocco. Indeed, Morocco began insinuating that there were connections between al-Qaida activists in the Sahara and the refugee camps run by the Polisario in southwestern Algeria.

Recent reports in The Daily Beast, Time Magazine and Vice have offered contradictory and incomplete accounts of the supposed terrorist threat posed by the Western Saharan refugees and Polisario. On the face of it, these concerns seem ill-founded. Polisario is a secular Arab nationalist umbrella organization not unlike the Palestine Liberation Organization, and Algeria, which has been at war with jihadists since the early 1990s, is Polisario’s main diplomatic and financial backer. That said, aid workers in the camps were kidnapped in 2011 and delivered to one of the region’s armed Islamist organizations.

So is it possible, as recent reports often insinuate, that clandestine militant Islamist groups are recruiting or even operating within the Western Saharan refugee camps? Could we see Polisario’s revolution hijacked by Islamic fundamentalists in the same way the recent Tuareg rebellion in Mali or the rebellion in Syria have been hijacked by radical groups?

Anthropologists and aid workers with extensive experience in the camps remain skeptical about such claims.

Dr. Konstantina Isidoros has been visiting the camps regularly over the past six years, including two years of sustained ethnographic research. In her view, recent claims that the Sahrawi refugee camps have become overrun with criminal and terrorist networks are “absolute rubbish.” As she argues, “the close-knit kinship nature of Sahrawi society makes it very hard for an external entity to penetrate.” She adds, “The idea of ‘terrorism’ is pointless to the Polisario and the Sahrawi—they are focused on international legal frameworks.”

Nadia Zoubir, a political affairs consultant who recently visited the camps for the African Union, noticed significant improvements in local security measures following the 2011 kidnapping. She likewise doubted the presence of any militant organizations in the camps besides Polisario given the nature of the society. “I think that it would be very difficult to take place in a community that practices a more liberal and tolerant form of Islam than witnessed in other Muslim communities.”

“Polisario works hand in hand with the Algerian government in supporting anti-terrorist activities,” she noted.

Alice Wilson, who holds a doctorate in social anthropology, likewise finds recent media reports about terrorism in the camps incongruous with her years of experience there. The major political debate in the camps, she observed, was between those who favored the diplomatic approach to national liberation and those who favored a return to the military approach.

According to Wilson, “In general, I would say that Sahrawi refugees were not hopeful for the short term, but were hopeful about a long term, even a whole generation away or longer, in which Western Sahara would not be under Moroccan control.” But, she adds, “When people expressed such views, they weren’t specific about how to get from the current situation to something different. . . . Some refugees wish for a return to war as a means of shaking the stalemate. Others are opposed to this, on varying grounds.”

How Oil Could Upend Everything

The conditions under which Polisario might return to armed struggle are currently unclear. The liberation front almost went to war with Morocco in 2001. That year, Moroccan forces fired warning shots as they crossed the armistice line to clear mines for the Paris-Dakar Rally. While Algeria pulled Polisario back from the brink, these events demonstrated a widespread Sahrawi willingness and capacity to field a significant fighting force. Although Polisario’s forces are incapable of driving Morocco from Western Sahara, they could once again make Rabat’s occupation very expensive and send a strong signal to the U.N. Security Council.

The year 2001 also saw the entrance of a new factor into the Western Sahara conflict: the oil question. Moroccan efforts to attract French and U.S. energy companies to Western Sahara also succeeded in attracting U.N. legal attention. In an important 2002 opinion, Hans Corel, then the United Nations’ top international law expert, described Moroccan efforts to exploit Western Saharan natural resources as illegal. Given the extraordinarily strange international legal status of Western Sahara, foreign energy companies soon walked away from the territory, citing underwhelming prospects.

Just over a decade later, the oil companies are back with a vengeance, though Morocco has worked hard to keep things quiet this time. Using a precedent set in its fisheries accord with the European Union, Morocco has convinced foreign energy companies that the legal risks are minimal so long as resource exploitation in Western Sahara includes “social responsibility” programs that benefit the local population. Sahrawis have recently begun taking to the streets to protest the activities of Kosmos Energy, the U.S.-based firm leading the charge. According to the Maghrib Confidential newsletter, Morocco could become an energy-producing country by the end of the year.

“Clearly drilling in Moroccan-licensed acreage off the Western Sahara fits into the Moroccan political agenda,” explains John Marks, chairman of Cross-border Information, a consultancy that specializes in the region’s energy issues.

As for the companies’ motives in coming back to Western Sahara, Marks see a much more simple explanation. “The [international oil companies] who will make a heavy investment in offshore drilling,” he says, “are not doing it to burnish the Moroccans’—or Polisario’s—political credentials.”

“For the companies, it’s all about making a big offshore find in some attractive acreage with good terms on offer,” he adds. “Kosmos and Total have tried to implicate their governments in lobbying, but this is no power play; it’s about money.”

So could oil become the disruption to break the Western Sahara impasse? Morocco, for certain, will only become more intransigent. Oil’s effect will largely depend on how Sahrawi nationalists and, in turn, the U.N. Security Council respond. Polisario has said very little about the oil issue though it has recently become more aggressive in the international legal arena. In the East Timor conflict, a dispute between Indonesia and Australia over oil rights is often cited as an important step in that territory’s road to independence.

Conclusion

Right now, oil is the factor to watch when it comes to the Western Sahara dispute. The political and military stalemate that has been in effect since the late 1980s is otherwise unlikely to be disturbed. With much more serious crises unfolding in Southwest Asia and Eastern Europe, Western Sahara will continue to remain at the bottom of the international agenda. The impasse has not only shown an extraordinary ability to sap all diplomatic initiatives, it has survived profound geopolitical shocks, from the Cold War’s end to the Arab Spring. But what impact would a significant oil find have on the impasse?

It would certainly galvanize the Moroccan position. The question is how Polisario would respond. Mass protest by the Sahrawis is impossible given the Moroccan security presence in the territory. International legal initiatives are the nationalist movement’s strongest suit, and perhaps the only card left in their hand. No one doubts that international law is on Western Sahara’s side. But this has been the case since the start of the conflict in 1975. Unless the U.N. is willing to enforce the law in Western Sahara, the Sahrawis will continue to see no alternative but to take the law into their own hands.

Jacob Mundy is an Assistant Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at Colgate University where he also contributes to the Africa and Middle East studies programs. His books include “Western Sahara: War, Nationalism, and Conflict Irresolution,” “The Post-Conflict Environment: Investigation and Critique,” and the forthcoming “Imaginative Geographies of Algerian Violence.”

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On recent Moroccan-Algerian tensions over Western Sahara

Protester tears down Algerian flag from its embassy in Morocco
By Laura Angela Bagnetto
Saturday, 2 November 2013

A man is currently in police custody in Morocco’s commercial capital, Casablanca, after tearing down the Algerian flag from its embassy in the city. The man was protesting against comments made on behalf of Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika in relation to Western Sahara. Bouteflika reportedly said that Morocco had committed human rights violations against the people of Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara. Morocco illegally occupied Western Sahara in 1975. It is the largest disputed land mass in the world. RFI spoke to expert Jacob Mundy on Morocco’s reaction to withdrawing its ambassador.

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Daily Beast article quotes Jacob Mundy

Are Polisario Camps Becoming Prime Recruiting Grounds for al Qaeda?
The Daily Beast
Vivian Salama
October 21, 2013

Deep in the Sahara, the camps of the Polisario—former Marxist rebels ousted from Morocco after Spain’s withdrawal—are reportedly becoming prime recruiting grounds for Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. Vivian Salama reports from Morocco.

In Algeria’s no-man’s land, buried in the vastness of the Sahara desert, there exists a community of mud huts and tents that have, over time, transformed from a destitute refugee camp into a bustling community forced to make due. Electricity is sporadic and living conditions are harsh—to be expected in one of the hottest places on Earth. There are schools and hospitals (though the latter are poorly equipped). There’s even an annual Sahara Film Festival to distract from reality.
Sahrawis

Throughout the region’s history, maps have been drawn and redrawn—and with each new draft, there emerge winners who stake their claim to the land. For four decades, people here have lived as refugees—causalities of war and colonialism, largely forgotten amid regional instability and political upheaval.

When Spanish colonialists pulled out of the Western Sahara in 1975, Moroccan forces quickly annexed the large piece of land bordering the Atlantic, making it the largest and most populated region on the United Nations’ list of “non-self-governing territories.” Today, the future of the Western Sahara, dubbed by some as Africa’s last colony, is no clearer than when Spain withdrew. The rebel movement-cum-government in exile of the Polisario, formed to end Spanish colonization of the Western Sahara—only to be pushed out by Moroccan forces following Spain’s withdrawal—remains in refugee camps in neighboring Algeria. Along with tens of thousands of their fellow indigenous Sahrawi people, they are cut off from their would-be nation by a series of checkpoints, landmines and a Moroccan-built barrier of sand and stone spanning 170 miles across the desert—a bitter reminder that winner takes all.

A new generation is coming of age in the camps, frustrated by the perpetual status quo of talks over the future of Western Sahara, and detached from the far-left ideologies of Che Guevara and Gamal Abdel Nasser that fueled the Polisario’s fight 40 years ago. At least 56 percent of the refugee camp population is under the age of 18, according to UNHCR, and have never stepped foot on Western Sahara soil. Concerns are growing that the camps are becoming a potent recruiting ground for Al-Qaeda and that other extremists have begun to prey on the scalding frustrations of disillusioned Sahrawi youth who face a future of uncertainty.

A new generation is coming of age in the camps, frustrated by the perpetual status quo of talks over the future of Western Sahara, and detached from the far-left ideologies of Che Guevara and Gamal Abdel Nasser that fueled the Polisario’s fight 40 years ago.

Members of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), the group’s North African affiliate, are thought to roam freely between the border of Mali and Algeria, near to the refugee camps, particularly after France launched a military offensive in Mali in January to drive out Islamic militants who had seized Timbuktu. That same month, a deadly hostage crisis orchestrated by AQIM at a gas facility in Al Amenas, Algeria further hinted that Algerian forces may be stretched thin in their efforts to combat domestic terrorism.

“If the situation inside the camps turns dangerous, it’s not just a problem for Morocco and Algeria alone—it’s a problem for Europe, Africa and the whole world,” says “Wali” Hamid Chabar, governor of Morocco’s southernmost region, part of the disputed territory.

In an April report to the 15-nation Security Council, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon noted “serious concern over the risk that the fighting in Mali could spill over into the neighboring countries and contribute to radicalizing the Western Saharan refugee camps,” Even the Polisario, he added, “have not ruled out terrorist infiltrations.”

But Polisario leaders say they are taking extensive measures to prevent this from happening, and accuse the Moroccan government of bribing former refugees to speak out against the rebels. “Moroccan terrorists were linked to the 9/11 attacks, to the Madrid bombings; there are Moroccan fighters in Mali now, there are Moroccan fighters in Syria,” says Mohammed Yeslem Beisat, the Polisario’s ambassador in the United States. “I challenge those making these accusations to find me one Sahrawi terrorist who has been arrested anywhere—in Mali, Iraq, Syria. Give me names!”

Morocco was no exception to the wave of protests that consumed most of North Africa in 2011. The youth-based February 20 Movement took to the streets by the thousands, demanding jobs and an end to corruption by those closest to the monarchy. But King Mohammed VI was quick to respond just weeks after the protests began, addressing the nation in a rare televised speech, proposing new legislations and reforms. Despite efforts to target corruption and human rights violations, however, critics point to failures by the government to take genuine efforts to address these and other issues, and virtually no effort to curb the powers of the king himself.

The arrest of a prominent Moroccan journalist last month underscores just how seriously the government in Rabat is taking security concerns. Ali Anouzla, editor of the news website Lakome, was arrested for directing readers to an article in Spanish daily El País. The original Spanish report provides a direct link to a YouTube video purportedly posted by AQIM. The video berates Morocco’s King Mohammed VI for despotism and corruption, and depicts a photo of the young ruler engulfed in flames. It also summons Moroccan youth to take up arms in the name of jihad.

A senior Moroccan intelligence source, who spoke to The Daily Beast on the condition of anonymity, said that the government has “concrete evidence” that as many as 100 members of the Polisario are working with Mujao, an offshoot of AQIM.

A senior Moroccan intelligence source, who spoke to The Daily Beast on the condition of anonymity, said that the government has “concrete evidence” that as many as 100 members of the Polisario are working with Mujao, an offshoot of AQIM, in their lucrative drug trafficking business that generates some $1 billion annually. In 2011, the government blamed AQIM for a bombing at a café in the Moroccan city of Marrakech that killed 17 people, mostly European tourists.

Refugees who have left the camps say that young men, granted permission to leave to attend university, increasingly return preaching “backwards ideas,” as longtime refugee Ahmed Rabbanni, 48, described it. “Many of them end up building a network of contacts, in places like Mali and Niger, who continue to feed them those ideas even after they return to the camps,” he said.

Discontent is seething outside the camps as well. Southern Algeria has recently been the scene of significant protests by those pointing to an uneven distribution of wealth from the country’s enormous gas and oil reserves, much of which are found in the Sahara. While most of the leading figures with al Qaeda’s Algeria branch hail from the north, one of the main figures of the Al Amenas crisis was Mohamed Lamine Bencheneb, part of the southern Sons of Sahara armed Islamic group.

Moroccan authorities refer to the refugees as “captives” or “hostages,” suggesting that there would be a mass exodus back to Morocco were they allowed to leave the camps. However, in a report by New York-based Human Rights Watch, the organization noted that the Polisario “does not prevent camp residents from leaving the camps on trips of limited duration or to settle elsewhere permanently,” though it adds that the people returning to Western Sahara “concealed their ultimate destination, fearing that the Polisario would block their departure if it became known” that they were returning to the Moroccan Sahara.

With modern communication tools available to the refugees, “there is no mystery anymore about what goes on in the camps, and what goes on in the disputed territory,” said Jacob Mundy, an assistant professor at Colgate University and co-author of Western Sahara: War Nationalism & Conflict Irresolution. “The fact that so many people choose to stay in the camps probably speaks more to Morocco’s failure to win the hearts and minds of the Sahrawi people.”

The Polisario estimates that as many as 150,000 people live on their four major camps in Tindouf, Algeria; for years, the group received international aid to accommodate such a large number of exiles. However, the U.N. lowered its estimate in 2005 to 90,000 after conducting an assessment of the size of the camps via satellite imagery. Moroccan officials insist that the number may be as low as 40,000, and that Polisario officials are profiting from sales of the extra food and supplies—something the Polisario staunchly denies.

However, former refugees note terrible abuses behind the scenes for those who undermine the Polisario’s authority or fail to support the fight for Western Saharan independence. Accusations of spying for Morocco are reportedly rampant and punishment is allegedly severe, with numerous refugees telling The Daily Beast that they endured torture and years of imprisonment and solitary confinement at the hands of the Polisario. Cherif Mohamed, a former diplomat and member of the Polisario military, said he spent a year in solitary confinement as part of a seven-year sentence for treason, a crime he says he didn’t commit. “They dug a lot of individual holes in the ground and in these holes is where prisoners were kept,” he explained.

“Sometimes they attach you by your hands to the ceiling. Sometimes they attach you hanging from your ankles. Sometimes they cover your head and pour water over your face until it drives you crazy. Sometimes they tie you to a pole in the ground and throw cold water on you all night. Sometimes they tie you to a table, spread eagle, and people put their cigarettes out on your body–my body is covered in scars.”

Several other former refugees shared similar stories, but the Polisario claims that the Moroccan government pays people to spread negative stories in an effort to weaken the battle for self-determination.

Further complicating matters are Morocco’s sour relations with Algeria, which it has repeatedly accused of supporting the Polisario logistically and otherwise. To this day, the border between the two North African nations, once a bustling trade route, remains closed after Morocco suggested that the Marrakech bombers received support from Algeria. However, chilly relations between the two neighbors date back to the days following Algeria’s War of Independence in the 1960s, when Rabat attempted to claim part of modern-day Algeria as “Greater Morocco.” The attempt sparked a bloody battle along the border region, and relations have been rocky ever since. “Algeria also for obvious reasons doesn’t want a bigger Morocco,” said Arezki Daoud, publisher of the North Africa Journal. “There’s also possible mineral wealth in that area so obviously Algeria wants a piece of the pie.”

But Morocco stands firmly on claims that it has historic links to the Western Sahara dating back many centuries. This, the Polisario insists, is merely the government’s way of monopolizing Western Saharan resources, like fisheries and phosphate mines. Rabat has reportedly begun oil exploration there as well. The Moroccan government is spending some $2 billion on infrastructure, schools, and hospitals to develop the once-neglected territory and win hearts and minds.

In Laayoune, dubbed the capital of the disputed territory, the former shantytown is now a bustling center of some 300,000 residents. Many of the Sahrawi people who have chosen to return to Western Sahara often do so with the understanding that they concede to Moroccan rule. Challenging Moroccan authority anywhere in the country often comes at a price and protests, while not illegal, are frowned upon. In late 2010, just before cries of discontent began brewing in nearby Tunisia, Laayoune was scene to some of the most violent protests in years, with Sahrawi protesters briefly taking over the streets in parts of the city, display the illegal red, green, and black flag of their imagined nation and setting fire to police cars and government buildings. Many Moroccan loyalists retaliated, looting and pillaging Sahrawi neighborhoods. Sahrawi activist say that hundreds of their people remain imprisoned in Morocco, many of whom have never been prosecuted.

Residents of Western Sahara have long complained of neglect by the government in Rabat, which until recently had focused its resources on developing the north. While Rabat may be looking to appeal to local residents with the recent boost in investments, its critics say that it is only inflaming tensions further since many deem this as Morocco’s move to plant its flag deep into Western Sahara soil.

The Polisario officially laid down arms in 1991 following a U.N.-brokered ceasefire, which paved the way for a referendum, allowing Sahrawis the right to vote for independence or permanent integration with Morocco. But talks broke down over who is eligible to vote, and a referendum has never taken place.” The U.N. didn’t realize how difficult it was going to be to identify who has the right to vote in a referendum since the population has moved around so much,” said Chabar.

All the while, the future of those tens of thousands of people in the camps is the ultimate dilemma. And while a large segment of that population has never stepped foot on Western Saharan soil, the dream of independence remains vibrant. “Do people change their religion because they don’t see God?” said Khalili Elhabib, a Sahrawi human rights lawyer who spent 16 years in a secret Moroccan prison. “The desire to live in a free Western Sahara does not come from seeing the land. It’s an idea that is inside of these people that is as strong as their faith.”

© 2013 The Daily Beast Company LLC

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Jacob Mundy quoted in USA Today piece on Western Sahara

Forgotten Western Sahara pines for autonomy
Portia Walker
USA Today
June 9, 2013

Royal regime of Morocco firmly in place because of reforms that made uprising, independence unlikely.

LAAYOUNE, Western Sahara — Sultana Khaya is covered in bruises. The deep purple welts run up her legs and across her arms — the result of one of many beatings she says she’s received from the police.

Her crime is calling for independence for Western Sahara, a Colorado-size territory in southwest Morocco, where many of the indigenous people have been fighting for self-determination for nearly four decades.

In 2011, the Arab Spring revolutions swept away many of the rulers in North Africa. But the royal regime of Morocco is firmly in place because of reforms that have made an uprising less likely and independence for the disputed desert people of Western Sahara even less so.

“We are protesting here for independence and the return of the refugees around the world in order to construct a country,” says the prominent Western Saharan human rights activist Mohammed Daddach.

Advocates for independence say the Arab Spring began not in Tunisia as is commonly reported but at the Gdeim Izik protest camp in Western Sahara in 2010 when thousands of pro-independence activists gathered to voice objections to discrimination, human rights abuses and poverty. Mass protests hit the rest of the country in February 2011.

The difference here is that the demonstrations failed to gain momentum.

Morocco is unlike the deposed rulers of those countries, whose regimes were foisted upon the people in recent history. The royal family of Morocco first came to power nearly 500 years ago and its past has much to do with Morocco’s present.

“The Moroccan monarchy has been around for hundreds of years and that goes a long way,” says Alexis Arieff, analyst in African affairs at the Library of Congress. “Many Moroccans fear that without the monarchy, Morocco would fall apart and be divided tribally and ethnically.”

Moroccans trace their lineages back to Arab invaders, Berber tribesman and indigenous Africans, all brought under the Alaouite Dynasty in the 17th century. Its Barbary pirates were feared the world over, and it was the first to recognize the United States as a nation independent from England.

The monarchy resisted colonization by the French and Spanish and in the 1950s won independence for the country. The current king, Mohammed VI, is thus part of a dynasty that has ruled Morocco since the 1600s and that traces its origins to the Islamic prophet Mohammed, meaning the king is not just head of state but an important religious leader.

Arab kingdoms such as Morocco, Jordan and Saudi Arabia have proved much more durable than republics, and Morocco’s combination of reform and credibility seems to have succeeded.

“The monarchy goes both ways: They can claim religious legitimacy and they can claim modernization legitimacy,” Arieff says.

Some experts credit the king’s deft handling of the first signs of dissent for his resilience. When protesters took the streets in February 2011, he drafted a new constitution and called elections. When the moderately Islamist Justice and Development Party won the elections, the king appointed its leader, Abdelilah Benkirane, prime minister.

Moroccan officials say changes in response to the citizenry date back even further.

“We have started our reform process more than 10 years ago. Today we are consolidating,” explains Youssef Amrani, minister-delegate for foreign affairs. “We were listening to our people. We have political parties, we have trade unions, we have civil society. We have the leadership and the legitimacy — nobody was putting into question the role of the king.”

Geography also plays a part in the survival of the current system. Morocco is 12 miles from Spain and thousands of miles from the unrest of the Middle East. Dividing it from the revolutionary fervor of Libya and Egypt is Algeria, a closed and secretive nation that went through a grim and violent civil war in the 1990s and whose government appears to have crushed the revolutionary impulses in its society.

However, despite reforms, the Moroccan king still retains charge of the military and religious authorities, and dissent continues to be punished.

Seventy of the activists who protested against the regime during the 2011 demonstrations remain in prison and a popular rapper, “El Haqed,” recently spent a year in jail for penning a song about police corruption.

But there is comparatively little pressure on the regime to change, and even in volatile Western Sahara people are calling for independence not revolution.

Daddach says the people here don’t wish to sweep away the rulers as has happened in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt to their east.

“What we work for is peaceful demonstrations with no violence, no stone-throwing and with no words that would touch the dignity of the Moroccan sacred elements — God, the homeland and the king,” he says.

Some simply want better working conditions. One of the greatest grievances of the Western Saharan people, known as the Saharawi, is that their land’s resources such as ample fishing reserves and valuable phosphorus mines are exploited by the Moroccan state with little benefit for the native residents.

But there is little high-level international interest in pressing the Western Sahara issue.

“Morocco is a very close ally of France and the United States; Paris and Washington don’t want to jeopardize their excellent security and economic cooperation with Rabat, which could be the cost of forcing peace in Western Sahara,” says Jacob Mundy, assistant professor at Colgate University and author of Western Sahara: War, Nationalism and Conflict Irresolution.

“It’s not going to be resolved until there is a crisis. Something major has to happen to shake things up.”

Sultana Khaya still refuses to give up hope.

“This will not slow me down,” she says. “I’m still determined to go on and to continue the struggle.”

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/06/09/western-sahara-independence/2394651/

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Interview with Jacob Mundy in “El Watan,” leading Algerian francophone daily

«Le Maroc semble incapable de gouverner sans la violence»
A la une International
Professeur Jacob Mundy. Spécialiste du Sahara occidental à Colgate University
le 21.05.13
Zine Cherfaoui

Le peuple sahraoui a célébré, hier, le 40e anniversaire du déclenchement de sa lutte armée contre l’occupation marocaine, après avoir commémoré, le 10 mai courant, la création du Front Polisario (10 mai 1973). Spécialiste du conflit, Jacob Mundy, actuellement professeur à Colgate University (New York), décrypte pour nous les enjeux de la dernière réunion du Conseil de sécurité de l’ONU consacrée au dossier sahraoui. Celui-ci (le Conseil de sécurité) a, rappelle-t-on, adopté le 25 avril dernier la résolution 2099 dans laquelle il a réitéré son appel à «une solution politique juste et durable acceptée par les deux parties et qui garantit le droit du peuple sahraoui à l’autodétermination».

-Comment expliquez-vous le regain d’intérêt du gouvernement américain pour le conflit du Sahara occidental ces derniers temps ?

Ce regain d’intérêt américain est probablement dû au nouveau secrétaire d’Etat américain, John Kerry. Ce dernier soutient le droit du peuple sahraoui à l’autodétermination depuis de nombreuses années. C’est son collègue, le regretté sénateur Edward Kennedy, qui l’a sensibilisé sur la question du Sahara occidental après qu’il soit lui-même devenu sénateur de l’Etat du Massachusetts. Kennedy a été l’un des premiers sénateurs à soutenir le droit du Sahara occidental à l’indépendance.

L’ancienne secrétaire d’Etat américaine, Hillary Clinton, comme chacun le sait, est plus complaisante à l’égard du Maroc pour des raisons personnelles et politiques. Sans Hillary Clinton, la représentante américaine aux Nations unies, Susan Rice, qui est également favorable à la lutte du Sahara occidental, aura désormais plus de liberté au Conseil de sécurité de l’ONU pour faire pression afin d’obtenir l’élargissement à la surveillance des droits humains du mandat de la Mission des Nations unies pour l’organisation d’un référendum au Sahara occidental (Minurso).

-Quelle est exactement, aujourd’hui, la position des Etats-Unis sur le conflit au Sahara occidental et quels sont les éléments qui contribuent à la définir ?

Si les parties en conflit, c’est-à-dire le Maroc et le Polisario, s’entendent sur un projet d’autonomie, les Etats-Unis vont soutenir. Si celles-ci conviennent d’un référendum sur l’indépendance, Washington va également soutenir. Les Etats-Unis aimeraient voir le conflit du Sahara occidental connaître une solution juridique qui respecte l’autodétermination. Toutefois, l’autodétermination n’a jamais été la priorité de la Maison-Blanche. En revanche, un Maghreb stable constitue la priorité des Etats-Unis. Dans les conditions actuelles, toute solution au conflit du Sahara occidental doit être acceptée par tous du point de vue de Washington.

Les Etats-Unis feront toujours le choix du statu quo en premier dans le cas où une solution menacerait de déstabiliser la région. Ils ne soutiendront donc pas une solution imposée aux parties. L’ancien émissaire de l’ONU, James Baker, avait par exemple souhaité voir le Conseil de sécurité imposer sa solution au Maroc. La Maison-Blanche avait toutefois rejeté l’idée. Inversement, le Maroc, en 2007, voulait imposer sa proposition «d’autonomie» pour le Sahara occidental. La suite tout le monde la connaît : le gouvernement américain l’a rejetée et a choisi la voie des négociations en soutenant la nomination de l’ambassadeur actuel, Christopher Ross. Cette attitude (politique) est déterminée par un intérêt historique : celui de voir s’établir un gouvernement stable à l’embouchure de la Méditerranée. Comme avec l’Egypte, la priorité américaine au Maroc n’est pas le régime en tant que tel mais la stabilité que le régime offre. Toutes les autres considérations, y compris l’Algérie et ses ressources énergétiques, sont secondaires.

-Avant la dernière réunion du Conseil de sécurité de l’ONU sur le Sahara occidental (25 avril 2013), les Etats-Unis ont présenté un projet de résolution appelant à élargir le mandat de la Minurso à la surveillance des droits de l’homme dans les territoires sahraouis occupés. Washington a fini par se rétracter à la dernière minute. Qu’est-ce qui explique ce changement d’attitude ?

Les Etats-Unis ont voulu envoyer un signal au Maroc, mais pas au prix de perdre la présence de l’ONU au Sahara occidental. Un veto français aurait mis fin, en effet, à l’existence de la Minurso. Ce n’est dans l’intérêt de personne que cela se produise. Sur la question du Sahara occidental, le Conseil de sécurité utilise le consensus pour adopter des résolutions sur la Minurso. Il y a eu quelques exceptions à cette règle. La dernière en date remonte à février 2000, lorsque les Etats-Unis et la France ont abandonné le processus référendaire pour protéger le nouveau roi, Mohammed VI. Avec un vote, il n’aurait pas pu gagner. Cela fut une réunion du Conseil de sécurité très controversée.

-Pourquoi, d’après-vous, la France s’oppose à la surveillance des droits humains au Sahara occidental?

Si elles avaient obtenu l’élargissement des prérogatives de la Minurso, les Nations unies auraient eu largement la possibilité de documenter les violations quotidiennes des droits humains par le Maroc. C’est la raison pour laquelle la France s’oppose à la surveillance des droits humains au Sahara occidental. Le Maroc semble être incapable de gouverner le Sahara occidental sans l’usage de la violence, la peur et le contrôle de la société. Le suivi régulier des droits de l’homme conduirait nécessairement à une intervention plus importante de l’ONU (envoi par exemple de rapporteurs spéciaux sur la torture et les exécutions sommaires). Des poursuites de la CPI pourraient même être envisagées.
-Avant qu’elle ne change, la proposition américaine a donné des sueurs froides au Maroc. C’est probablement la première fois que les Etats-Unis mettent en difficulté leur allié traditionnel dans la région. Qu’est-ce qui explique la montée au créneau de Washington ? Les Etats-Unis sont-ils en train de revoir leur politique maghrébine ?

Non, il ne s’agit pas d’une révision radicale de la politique américaine à l’égard du Maghreb ou du Sahara occidental. Sous l’Administration Obama, les Etats-Unis n’ont cessé d’exercer des pressions sur le Conseil de sécurité pour qu’il élargisse le mandat de la Minurso à la surveillance des droits de l’homme. Les Etats-Unis ont souvent rappelé à l’ordre Rabat concernant les violations des droits de l’homme. Mais cela s’est toujours fait avec beaucoup de discrétion. En avril 2013, cela a changé. Depuis 2003 (plan Baker), c’est effectivement la première fois que les Etats-Unis s’opposent ouvertement au Maroc. Mais dans les deux cas, Washington tentait en réalité de pousser le Maroc à gagner les cœurs et les esprits des Sahraouis.

-A votre avis, pourquoi le Maroc ne veut pas entendre parler d’un référendum d’autodétermination au Sahara occidental ?

Du plus petit village du Haut-Atlas jusque dans les rues de Casablanca, il est difficile de trouver une divergence d’opinions sur la question du Sahara occidental. En privé, les Marocains remettent en question les «lignes rouges» traditionnelles de la société (la monarchie, l’islam, l’armée, etc.), mais pratiquement aucun ne remet en cause la question du Sahara occidental. C’est un accomplissement incroyable de l’idéologie nationaliste ! La plus grande victime de cette idéologie est le roi lui-même.

-Comment ça ?

Il est dit quelque part que les rois sont les pions de l’histoire. Personnellement, je pense que Mohammed VI est le pion d’une histoire qu’il n’a pas écrite. Il doit suivre l’histoire que son défunt père, le roi Hassan II, lui a léguée. Celle-ci ressemble beaucoup à la tragédie d’Hamlet. Mohammed VI subit. Il est gouverné par des fantômes. A l’inverse, Hassan II a été brutal mais respecté. Même les dirigeants du Polisario pourraient dire : nous aurions pu travailler avec Hassan II mais pas avec ce nouveau roi et son régime. La raison est que Hassan II a obtenu son trône en survivant à des moments très difficiles et en prenant le Sahara occidental de l’Espagne. En somme, seul Hassan II a pu prendre le Sahara occidental et donc lui seul aurait pu le rendre. Mohammed VI n’a pas pris le Sahara occidental. Il n’a donc pas le droit de le rendre. Plus de trois décennies après, le Sahara occidental est devenu la chasse gardée de puissants intérêts dans l’armée et le makhzen. Le fait aujourd’hui que la pêche et l’exploitation des phosphates soient très rentables n’incite pas le Maroc à abandonner ce territoire.

-Comment voyez-vous l’évolution du conflit ?

Dans mon livre et sur le site web de Foreign Policy (Politique étrangère), j’ai soutenu que Washington n’interviendra dans le conflit du Sahara occidental que s’il devient une crise majeure et menace de déstabiliser le Maroc. Si, aujourd’hui, le Timor oriental est indépendant c’est parce que Bill Clinton a été forcé de faire un choix : permettre qu’un second génocide s’y produise ou dire à l’Indonésie de se retirer. Moubarak est parti parce qu’Obama a été aussi forcé de faire un choix, en particulier lorsque les travailleurs ont menacé de bloquer le canal de Suez. La même logique s’applique au Sahara occidental. Jusqu’à ce que les Etats-Unis soient obligés de faire un choix au Sahara occidental, ils choisiront toujours de ne pas choisir.