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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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Washington Post article and video on struggle of Western Sahara’s refugees

Could war come back to Western Sahara? Some of Algeria’s Sahrawi refugees think so
By Whitney Shefte
December 31, 2014

Tumana Ahmed is tired of dreaming of a homeland she has never seen.

The 28-year-old was born in the desolate desert of western Algeria, in a refugee camp that was supposed to be temporary. Only there has been nothing temporary about her situation, or that of about 150,000 of her current neighbors.

Ahmed’s family and thousands of others fled their homeland of Western Sahara, a territory bordering Algeria that is about the size of New Zealand, after Morocco annexed the territory in 1975. Nearly 40 years later, the families still have not returned.

Morocco and Western Sahara engaged in armed conflict until 1991, when the United Nations brokered a cease-fire. As part of the deal, Morocco was supposed to conduct a referendum for Sahrawis to decide whether they wanted to be part of an independent nation or remain under Moroccan rule. But that referendum still hasn’t happened. Many Sahrawis worry that without a return to armed conflict, the referendum may never happen.

“For me, I think there is only two solutions,” Ahmed said. “We go to the borders, fight, make war, which is not the best solution. And the other solution, which is self-determination, this is the best one. Just let us vote. Is Morocco afraid of something?”

Tumana Ahmed, right, a Sahrawi refugee living in camps in Algeria, speaks with a fellow refugee after prayers on Oct. 8, 2013. Ahmed was born in the camps, which are in the western part of the country near the city of Tindouf, and she has never traveled to Western Sahara. (Whitney Shefte/The Washington Post)

Leaders of the Sahrawi resistance movement who govern the camps encourage Sahrawi youths to be patient.

“We’re still believing in peace, and we’re still believing that United Nations is able to do something,” said M’hamed Khadad, the U.N. Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) coordinator for the Polisario Front, the resistance movement. “But they are in need really to push this thing hard because you cannot really control the feeling and the sentiment of people.” He noted that 60 percent of the people in the camp are youths, many of them born after the cease-fire.

MINURSO workers in Western Sahara spend their time monitoring the cease-fire. There have been efforts from time to time to hold a referendum, but the Moroccan government and the Polisario Front cannot agree on who should be considered eligible to vote. And some Sahrawis want to remain under Moroccan rule.

“It’s problematic,” said Hajbouha Zoubir, a Sahrawi who works for the Moroccan Royal Advisory Council for Saharan Affairs.

In October 2013, Sahrawis in the Dakhla refugee camp reenacted the 2010 Gdeim Izik protest that took place outside Laayoune, Western Sahara. During the Gdeim Izik protest, thousands of Sahrawis erected tents in the desert in protest of Morocco’s occupation of Western Sahara and a lack of jobs and limited freedom of speech in the territory. The camp was violently dismantled, with Moroccan police and protesters clashing. (Whitney Shefte/The Washington Post)

After Morocco invaded Western Sahara, the kingdom offered thousands of Moroccans tax breaks to move into the territory. It’s thought that Moroccans now outnumber Sahrawis by at least 2 to 1 in Western Sahara, which has a population of about 500,000. And Morocco argues that Algerians have populated the Polisario-run refugee camps. Representatives of the Polisario — which is backed by Algeria — deny this.

Morocco also claims that Western Sahara, which is rich in fisheries and phosphate mines, was part of Morocco long before the Spanish ruled the territory from 1884 until 1975 and that Morocco thus has a right to the land. In fact, Berber tribes mostly populated the region before Spanish rule, at one point forming the Almoravid dynasty, whose rule included both Morocco and Western Sahara. The International Court of Justice ruled that indigenous Sahrawis have sovereignty over Western Sahara – not Morocco.

“Mainly it’s become part of the national ideology in Morocco that Western Sahara is part of the territory,” said Jacob Mundy, assistant professor of peace and conflict studies at Colgate University. “It’s viewed as being historically part of Morocco, and today the nation obviously benefits from the occupation in terms of certain mineral wealth and other sorts of things.” For the current Moroccan government, he said, “one of the pillars of its legitimacy is the continued control over Western Sahara and the hope for the eventual legal annexation in the international community’s eyes.”

Most nations, including the United States, do not recognize Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara. But France — a member of the U.N. Security Council — has defended Morocco.

“Conflicts like this where the big boys are involved — the big boys being the permanent five members of the Security Council — can be incredibly difficult to resolve,” Mundy said. “So while there is overwhelming international consensus that Western Sahara is owed some act of self-determination … there’s no will from the Security Council to really push this conflict in any direction that would otherwise upset what is a real, kind of delicate balance of interest.”

This reality is something that Ahmed has come to understand, which is why she says a return to war may be the only way she’ll ever see her family’s homeland.

Learn more about the conflict between Western Sahara and Morocco by watching this video.

This story was made possible with support from the International Women’s Media Foundation.

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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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Washington Post article and video discusses role of women, political impasse in Western Sahara

“In Western Sahara, women play large role in forgotten struggle for independence”
Washington Post
Loveday Morris
July 7, 2013

LAAYOUNE, Western Sahara — As dusk enveloped the salmon-pink houses of this capital city, the brightly colored robes of women stood out in a mass of protesters chanting for independence from Moroccan rule.

While other colonies in Africa threw off occupiers one by one, this rocky desert expanse on the continent’s northwestern coast remains a disputed territory controlled primarily by next-door Morocco and locked in a nearly 40-year-old forgotten struggle for the right to choose its fate. And in a Muslim-majority region where women are often marginalized from politics, women have taken an unusually prominent role in Western Sahara’s independence movement.

Their involvement has spanned a guerrilla war with Morocco and, for the past two decades, a mostly peaceful protest movement. Female activists in the former Spanish colony attribute the phenomenon to a combination of the indigenous Sahrawi population’s moderate interpretation of Islam and the freedom they derived from their nomadic roots — but also, perhaps counterintuitively, to the prevalence of traditional gender roles, which they say give women the time to demonstrate.

“This is a pride for us, that this is led by women,” said Aminatou Haidar, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee and the most recognizable face of Western Sahara’s nationalist movement.

But as its duration shows, the campaign is an uphill battle that has so far been won by Morocco, which annexed most of Western Sahara after the Spanish withdrawal in 1976. Morocco argues that Western Sahara — home to abundant fishing grounds, lucrative phosphate mines and offshore oil — is an integral part of its territory and that separatists represent just a fraction of the population of about 500,000.

That is now probably the case, because Moroccan citizens — whom the Moroccan government entices to the area with tax breaks — are thought to outnumber the remaining 150,000 or so Sahrawis inside the territory by at least two to one.

The United States, like most nations, does not recognize Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara, but calls by the Sahrawi people for a referendum on independence have made little headway. Experts attribute that to a combination of Moroccan lobbying against the proposal, lack of international will to upset one of the region’s most stable countries and arguments between Morocco and the Sahrawis’ rebel-movement-turned-government-in-exile, the Polisario Front, over who should vote.

Moroccan officials argue that an independent Western Sahara is not viable and that longtime enemy Algeria is backing the cause to stir problems.

“There is no room for a failed state in the region,” Moroccan Deputy Foreign Minister Youssef Amrani told reporters in May. “It will fall into the hands of extremists.”

Despite the independence movement’s regular protests, the victories are small. Still, it appears to have brought about a shift in Moroccan government policy, which now officially supports making Western Sahara an autonomous region within the Moroccan state.

“Even if I don’t reach that day when the Sahara is independent, I am completely convinced that the next generation is going to live the day of independence,” Haidar said.

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New Boston Globe analysis on Western Sahara quotes Jacob Mundy

Western Sahara: Why Africa’s last colony can’t break free
In global politics, playing by the rules doesn’t always help.
Jenn Abelson
June 16, 2013

http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2013/06/15/western-sahara-why-africa-last-colony-can-break-free/87jACxXfU5bVUtqEe6uyrM/story.html

LAAYOUNE, WESTERN SAHARA — On a recent Saturday in May, as dusk shaded into night in this desert city, more than a thousand women, men, and children poured into the streets. They chanted slogans for independence; flashed the peace sign to show their support for the Polisario Front; and waved the illegal red, green, and black flag of a nation that may never exist.

For anyone who isn’t a geography buff, it’s likely that the Polisario Front, and perhaps even Western Sahara, are unfamiliar names. A former Spanish colony now annexed and ruled by neighboring Morocco, this territory has been waiting four decades for a shot at independence it was promised but never received. After a half-century of global decolonization that has produced about 80 new nations throughout the world, Western Sahara is now by far the largest piece of land remaining on the United Nations’ list of “non-self-governing territories,” places it considers to have an unfulfilled right to decide their own futures.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the push for independence in Western Sahara, a movement that for the last two decades has been largely peaceful. The Polisario Front—the formerly armed nationalist group that officially represents Western Saharans in their negotiations—signed a cease-fire with Morocco in 1991, and since that time protests have unfolded much like this recent one. Members of the indigenous Sahrawi ethnic group raised their fists in the air and honked car horns to show their displeasure with Moroccan rule; some brandished Polisario flags, which are banned by the government 800 miles away in Rabat. The evening ended with some rock-throwing and accusations of injury by both sides. No shots were fired.

In part because their campaign has been a civil one, it has unfolded almost totally outside the world’s sphere of attention. Elsewhere on the continent, civil war has split Sudan into two countries; self-immolation and riots have brought regime change across North Africa. Here, meanwhile, even though the UN, the United States, and most other powerful nations have never recognized Morocco’s sovereignty over the area, the independence movement has been unable to make headway.

Today, the Sahrawis are becoming increasingly frustrated, and politics are making the prospects of independence more distant, if anything. The Moroccan government has shown no sign of loosening its grip. Officials worry about Islamic militants fomenting violence, given Polisario’s backing by rival Algeria; furthermore, Morocco relies on the territory’s fisheries and phosphate mines, and has begun exploring for oil. Its allies in the West, including the United States, prize Morocco as a stable ally in a volatile region, and aren’t moving to force its hand.

The stalemate here in Africa’s last remaining colony, and the willingness to let it simmer as the world focuses on deadlier conflicts in nearby Mali and Syria, raise the uncomfortable question of whether a peaceful breakup of nations is really possible—even when the process, officially speaking, enjoys the full support of the UN. Western Sahara is emerging as a case study on the limits of the international community’s power to help a people win self-determination when they choose not to be violent, but to follow the rules.

“It doesn’t make sense. Why are just the Sahrawis left behind? Why are we not being helped by the international community?” Lahbib Salhi, 63, a Sahrawi activist, said in a recent interview in Laayoune. “Most other countries got independence. Look at Namibia, Mozambique…look at Bosnia and Kosovo even South Sudan. But why are the Sahrawis left behind?”

***

Western Sahara is the last chapter of a story that began in the wake of World War II, when the world’s colonial empires started to break apart. In the decades after the war, France spun off about two dozen countries, including Morocco in 1956. The United Kingdom let go of roughly 40 territories. The sweep of decolonization, formalized in the UN’s 1960 “Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples,” rapidly redrew the map of the world.

Spain and Portugal were slower to unwind their dominions, but by 1975, in the face of growing international pressure and fierce fighting by the newly formed Polisario, Spain was ready to relinquish what was then called Spanish Sahara.

The colony was a 103,000-square-mile tract of Western Africa with roughly 75,000 Sahrawi inhabitants, people who trace their roots to nomadic tribes. Their right to self-determination was upheld by the International Court of Justice that year. But any chance at a quick, smooth transition to independence was derailed when neighbors Morocco and Mauritania each claimed the area.

That put Western Sahara into a small, unhappy group of territories where decolonization was botched in part because of attempted annexation by a neighboring state, says Jacob Mundy, a professor at Colgate University and the author of a 2010 book, “Western Sahara: War, Nationalism, and Conflict Irresolution.”

The most notable of those, East Timor, suffered near genocidal violence when Indonesian forces took control from Portugal in 1975. After a bloody referendum in 1999, East Timor finally got its independence, but it remains impoverished and corrupt, largely because of this damaging process.

Western Sahara has seen violence, too. The Polisario, organized in 1973, at first waged a guerilla war against Spain. Then, in November 1975, the king of Morocco orchestrated what became known as “The Green March,” calling on 300,000 civilians to descend into Western Sahara to stake it as their own. Spain quickly relented and transferred authority to Morocco and Mauritania. Now the Polisario turned on these countries. As war escalated, Mauritania renounced its right to Western Sahara in 1979, leaving Morocco with sole control, but no recognized claim.

The fighting continued for another decade, and slowly reshaped the makeup of the territory. Sahrawi refugees fled for camps in Algeria, which backed the Polisario movement. Today more than 100,000 live in the camps, governed by the Polisario, which faces its own accusations of suppressing freedom of expression, torture, and embezzling aid. Waves of Moroccans, meanwhile, moved into Western Sahara, lured by strong economic incentives.

The Polisario Front laid down arms in 1991 in a UN-brokered deal that gave Western Saharans the right to vote on their own future, choosing independence or integration into Morocco. The referendum was supposed to be in 1992. But the effort broke down in arguments over the eligibility of tens of thousands of resettled Moroccans who now called the territory home. Subsequent political talks went nowhere, and more than 20 years later, the people of Western Sahara find themselves in suspended animation.

“There is an abiding disappointment in the UN as an institution, one that sometimes borders on cynicism,” said Jeffrey Smith, a professor of international law in Ottawa who served as counsel to the UN mission in East Timor during that country’s transition to independence.

Despite that disappointment, in a region known for militant revolution and guerilla warfare, the Sahrawis’ playbook has come to look more like a Western protest effort. They stage marches and organize human rights activist groups. Aminatou Haidar, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee who was abducted and tortured in a secret prison in the 1980s, went on a hunger strike for 32 days at a Spanish airport in 2009.

Then, in 2010, activists set up a protest camp, Gdeim Izik, in an empty stretch of desert a few miles outside Laayoune. At least 10,000 people pitched tents as a way to demonstrate against occupation and get attention for their demands to end discrimination and the lack of job opportunities. It was illegal (Morocco has strong laws against freedom of assembly without permits), but not violent—familiar to anyone who saw the Occupy camps that swept across the United States a year later. There were workshops, a charity group to collect funds, and a dialogue committee responsible for running negotiations with the Moroccan government.

“The idea came in response to the oppression that’s been going on for decades. We want to come up with something new, something different, and get out of the city limits,” said El Idrissi Mohamed Lamine, 27, who was one of the protesters.

After 28 days, authorities put an end to the civil disobedience and brutally dismantled the camp, burning tents to the ground, beating protesters, and arresting others. Protesters fought back; several people were killed, including security officers, and hundreds were injured.

To activists, Gdeim Izik was a success; it broke through the media blockage and was covered by organizations that usually ignore them. The Sahrawis like to see it as the inspiration for the Arab Spring—Noam Chomsky has argued that the widespread political and economic grievances that resulted in that wave of popular uprisings started in Gdeim Izik.

***

Either way, it has not made much of a difference in Western Sahara itself. That’s in part due to two circumstances: the presence of natural resources and the region’s occupation by a nation that is a strong Western ally. The 714-mile-long coastline gives Morocco access to some of the world’s richest fisheries, while phosphate reserves are becoming only more valuable as the global demand for fertilizer grows.

Politically, Western Sahara is a unifying issue within Morocco; analysts worry that splitting it off could undermine the monarchy, and threaten a pillar of stability in a volatile region. Polisario’s socialist rhetoric and Algerian ties have not won them friends in the West, either. For the West, “the status quo is much more tolerable than the frightening futures that might result from prioritizing a solution over stability,” Mundy said.

Morocco’s own position on Western Sahara stresses this risk. It has proposed an autonomy plan that would give the Sahrawis limited self-government but not independence. Officials in Rabat insist this is for the best: An independent but weak new state, they say, would be vulnerable to extremists and jihadis.

“An independent state is not viable in Sahara. You have to be very clear for security reasons. Today what is happening in Mali is happening in the Sahara. It is threatening the security of the Sahara and everywhere,” said Youssef Armani, minister delegate of foreign affairs and cooperation of the Kingdom of Morocco, in a meeting with journalists in May. “There is no room for a failed state in the region.”

Independence-seekers respond that Morocco is inflating security threats and making false allegations about Al Qaeda infiltrating the refugee camps.

“It is propaganda,” said El Ghalia Djimi, vice president of the Sahrawi Association of Victims of Grave Human Rights Violations, who says the independence movement doesn’t have terrorist connections.
A spontaneous protest in favor of independence in Laayoune, Western Sahara.

Jenn Abelson/Globe Staff

A spontaneous protest in favor of independence in Laayoune, Western Sahara.

“We are a small people with big land and big natural resources and occupied by a power that has historical relationships with Western countries,” she said. “So this is why they let this ongoing conflict not get resolved.”

***

How do successful national breakups happen? In the time Western Sahara has waited for its chance at independence, dozens of new countries have been born. Many were smooth spinoffs of islands by distant colonizers.

But others, especially with contiguous territories and at least one unwilling party, were painful and bloody. Yugoslavia dissolved into separate populations, propelled by ethnic cleansing. Kosovo is still under UN protection, its declaration of independence from Serbia still unrecognized by Serbia itself. Most recently, South Sudan’s 2011 independence came only after decades of brutal civil war and pressure from Christian groups in the United States who had worked for decades on the issue. In nearly all of these conflicts, including East Timor, independence was finally achieved once these self-determination struggles had won substantive support from the United States, the United Kingdom, or other Western allies.

America has tried to keep a neutral position on Western Sahara: It does not recognize Moroccan sovereignty and helps fund the UN mission there, but hasn’t aided the independence movement. It considers Morocco’s autonomy proposal to be “serious, realistic, and credible,” according to a recent Congressional Research Service report by Alexis Arieff, an analyst in African affairs.

In April, for the first time, the United States drafted a proposal for the UN to monitor human rights in Western Sahara—an effort defeated after heavy lobbying from Morocco, which set off the protests here last month.

America’s premium on stability essentially boils down to support for Morocco—for now. President Obama, in a call to King Mohammed VI in May, discussed the “importance of continuing to deepen our bilateral cooperation, especially on regional security matters of mutual concern.”

In Western Sahara, activists still say they want to break up the “right” way. Even after a recent attack on Aminatou Haidar left her black Toyota Corolla smashed by rocks, the woman nicknamed “the Sahrawi Gandhi” says she is committed to peace as the path to independence.

But she added that there is growing frustration among younger Sahrawis, who have not seen progress in this protracted, seemingly forgotten struggle. Haidar acknowledged that they could be at risk of being radicalized on the issue, and of returning to a violent struggle.

She and other Sahrawis blame the international community for not pressing forward on what they see as a long-promised vote. Last week, the UN’s Special Committee on Decolonization began its periodic discussions on the case of Western Sahara and other territories. On Tuesday in New York, Polisario Front Secretary-General Mohamed Abdelaziz expressed frustration at the impasse and pressed UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to give more attention to the dispute.

Despite his plea, it is hard to see the door opening anytime soon. Charles Dunbar, a Boston University lecturer who spent fom 1997 to 1999 living in Laayoune as a UN diplomat and trying to move the referendum forward, said that if a vote had been held back then, the Sahrawis would have won their independence. He blames the long deadlock on UN inaction.

“The true blame lies with the UN Security Council. It is the unwillingness of the council to take decisive action that has caused this mission to be seemingly, permanently stalemated,” Dunbar said.

About the prospects for the Sahrawis to gain their own country today, he considers himself a pessimist. “The world,” he said, “just has other priorities.”

Jenn Abelson is an investigative reporter with the Globe’s Spotlight team. She traveled to Western Sahara and Morocco with the support of the International Women’s Media Foundation. E-mail abelson@globe.com.

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Stephen Zunes joins Jadaliyya roundtable on Western Sahara

The Last Colony: Beyond Dominant Narratives on the Western Sahara Roundtable
June 3, 2013
Stephen Zunes

This is one of seven pieces in Jadaliyya’s electronic roundtable on the Western Sahara. Moderated by Samia Errazzouki and Allison L. McManus, it features contributions from John P. Entelis, Stephen Zunes, Aboubakr Jamaï, Ali Anouzla, Allison L. McManus, Samia Errazzouki, and Andrew McConnell.

Western Sahara is a sparsely-populated territory about the size of Italy, located on the Atlantic coast in northwestern Africa, just south of Morocco. Traditionally inhabited by nomadic Arab tribes, collectively known as Sahrawis and famous for their long history of resistance to outside domination, the territory was occupied by Spain from the late 1800s through the mid-1970s. With Spain holding onto the territory well over a decade after most African countries had achieved their freedom from European colonialism, the nationalist Polisario Front launched an armed independence struggle against Spain in 1973. This—along with pressure from the United Nations—eventually forced Madrid to promise the people of what was then still known as the Spanish Sahara a referendum on the fate of the territory by the end of 1975. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) heard irredentist claims by Morocco and Mauritania and ruled in October of 1975 that—despite pledges of fealty to the Moroccan sultan back in the nineteenth century by some tribal leaders bordering the territory, and close ethnic ties between some Sahrawi and Mauritanian tribes—the right of self-determination was paramount. A special visiting mission from the United Nations engaged in an investigation of the situation in the territory that same year and reported that the vast majority of Sahrawis supported independence under the leadership of the Polisario, not integration with Morocco or Mauritania.

During this same period, Morocco was threatening war with Spain over the territory and assembled over three hundred thousand Moroccans to march into Western Sahara to claim it as theirs regardless of the wishes of the indigenous population whose dialect, dress, and culture was very different than that of the Moroccan Arabs to their north. Though the Spaniards had a much stronger military during that time, they were occupied with the terminal illness of their longtime dictator, General Francisco Franco. At the same time, Spain was facing increasing pressure from the United States, which wanted to back its Moroccan ally, King Hassan II, and did not want to see the leftist Polisario come to power. As a result, Spain reneged on its promise of self-determination and instead agreed in November 1975 to allow for Moroccan administration of the northern two thirds of the Western Sahara and for Mauritanian administration of the southern third.

As Moroccan forces moved into Western Sahara, nearly half of the population fled into neighboring Algeria, where they and their descendants remain in refugee camps to this day. Morocco and Mauritania rejected a series of unanimous United Nations Security Council resolutions calling for the withdrawal of foreign forces and recognition of the Sahrawis’ right of self-determination. The United States and France, meanwhile, despite voting in favor of these resolutions, blocked the United Nations from enforcing them. At the same time, the Polisario—which had been driven from the more heavily populated northern and western parts of the country—declared independence as the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).

Thanks in part to the Algerians providing significant amounts of military equipment and economic support, Polisario guerrillas fought well against both occupying armies and defeated Mauritania by 1979, making them agree to turn their third of Western Sahara over to the Polisario. However, the Moroccans then annexed the remaining southern part of the country as well.

The Polisario then focused their armed struggle against Morocco and by 1982 had liberated nearly eighty-five percent of their country. Over the next four years, however, the tide of the war turned in Morocco’s favor thanks to the United States and France dramatically increasing their support for the Moroccan war effort, with US forces providing important training for the Moroccan army in counter-insurgency tactics. In addition, the Americans and French helped Morocco construct a 1200-kilometer “wall,” primarily consisting of two heavily fortified parallel sand berms, which eventually shut off more than three quarters of Western Sahara—including virtually all of the territory’s major towns and natural resources—from the Polisario.

Meanwhile, the Moroccan government, through generous housing subsidies and other benefits, successfully encouraged thousands of Moroccan settlers—some of whom were from southern Morocco and of ethnic Sahrawi background—to immigrate to Western Sahara. By the early 1990s, these Moroccan settlers outnumbered the remaining indigenous Sahrawis by a ratio of more than two to one.

While rarely able to penetrate into Moroccan-controlled territory, the Polisario continued regular assaults against Moroccan occupation forces stationed along the wall until 1991, when the United Nations ordered a cease-fire to be monitored by a United Nations peacekeeping force known as MINURSO (United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara). The agreement included provisions for the return of Sahrawi refugees to Western Sahara followed by a United Nations-supervised referendum on the fate of the territory, which would allow Sahrawis native to Western Sahara to vote either for independence or for integration with Morocco. Neither the repatriation nor the referendum took place, however, due to the Moroccan insistence on stacking the voter rolls with Moroccan settlers and other Moroccan citizens whom it claimed had tribal links to the Western Sahara. Secretary General Kofi Annan enlisted former US Secretary of State James Baker as his special representative to help resolve the impasse. Morocco, however, continued to ignore repeated demands from the United Nations that it cooperate with the referendum process, and French and American threats of a veto prevented the Security Council from enforcing its mandate.

The Stalled Peace Process

In 2000, the United States, under President Bill Clinton, successfully convinced Baker and Annan to give up on efforts to proceed with the referendum as originally agreed by the United Nations ten years earlier and instead, accept Moroccan demands that settlers be allowed to vote on the fate of the territory along with the indigenous Sahrawis. Eventually, Baker came up with a proposal whereby both the Sahrawis and the Moroccan settlers would be able to vote in the referendum, but the plebiscite would take place only after Western Sahara experienced significant autonomy under Sahrawi-elected leaders for a five-year period prior to the vote. Independence would be an option on the ballot for the referendum and the United Nations would oversee the vote and guarantee that advocates of integration and independence would both have the freedom to campaign openly. The United Nations Security Council approved the Baker plan in the summer of 2003.

Under considerable pressure, Algeria and, eventually, the Polisario, reluctantly accepted the new plan, but the Moroccans—unwilling to allow the territory to enjoy even a brief period of autonomy and risk the possibility that they would lose the plebiscite—rejected it. Once again, the United States and France blocked the United Nations from pressuring Morocco to comply with its international legal obligations and Baker resigned.

In what was widely interpreted as rewarding Morocco for its intransigence, the Bush administration subsequently designated Morocco as a “major non-NATO ally,” a coveted status then granted to only fifteen key nations, such as Japan, Israel, and Australia. The following month, the Senate ratified a free trade agreement with Morocco, making the kingdom one of only a half dozen countries outside of the Western hemisphere to enjoy such a close economic relationship with the United States, though—in a potentially significant precedent—Congress insisted that it not include products from the Western Sahara.

US aid to Morocco increased five-fold under the Bush administration, ostensibly as a reward for the kingdom undertaking a series of neoliberal “economic reforms” and to assist the Moroccan government in “combating terrorism.” While there has been some political liberalization within Morocco in recent years under the young King Mohammed VI, who succeeded to the throne following the death of his father in 1999, gross and systematic human rights violations in the occupied Western Sahara continue unabated, with public expressions of nationalist aspirations and organized protests against the occupation and human rights abuses routinely met with severe repression.

The Significance of the Struggle for Self-Determination

The Sahrawis have fought for their national rights primarily by legal and diplomatic means, not through violence. Even during their armed struggle against the occupation, a conflict that ended over twenty years ago, Polisario forces restricted their attacks exclusively to the Moroccan armed forces, never targeting civilians.

The lack of resolution to the Western Sahara conflict has important regional implications. It has encouraged an arms race between Morocco and Algeria and, on several occasions over the past three decades, has brought the two countries close to war. Perhaps even more significantly, it has been the single biggest obstacle to a fuller implementation of the goals of the Arab Maghreb Union—consisting of Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, and Mauritania—to pursue economic integration and other initiatives that would increase the standard of living and political stability in the region. The lack of unity and greater coordination between these nations and their struggling economies has contributed to a dramatic upsurge in illegal immigration to Europe and the rise of radical Islamist movements.

Nearly half of the Sahrawi population lives in exile in the desert of western Algeria in refugee camps under Polisario administration. The one hundred fifty thousand Sahrawis living in these desert camps are largely self-governing. Demonstrations and strikes in the late 1980s forced the Polisario to democratize the governance of the camps, where they maintain a functional, if barely subsistent, economy. Though devoutly Muslim, Sahrawi women are unveiled and enjoy equal rights with men regarding divorce, inheritance, and other legal matters. Sahrawi women also hold major leadership positions in the Polisario and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), including posts as cabinet ministers. Some observers note the irony that while France and the United States claim to seek the establishment of such democratic governance throughout the Arab and Islamic world, they have contributed greatly to the failure of the Sahrawis to establish such a democratic system outside these refugee camps by supporting the occupation of their country by an autocratic monarchy.

Over the past three decades, the SADR has been recognized as an independent country by more than eighty governments, though some have subsequently withdrawn their recognition, mostly under French pressure. The SADR has been a full member state of the African Union (formerly the Organization for African Unity) since 1984. By contrast, with only a few exceptions, the Arab states—despite their outspoken opposition to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian and Syrian land—have supported Morocco’s occupation of Western Sahara. The United Nations still formally recognizes Western Sahara as a non-self-governing territory, making it Africa’s last colony

With Morocco’s rejection of the Baker Plan and threats of a French veto of any Security Council resolution that would push Morocco to compromise, a diplomatic settlement of the conflict looks highly unlikely. With Morocco’s powerful armed forces protected behind the separation wall and Algeria unwilling to support a resumption of guerrilla war, the Polisario appears to lack a military option as well.

Morocco’s “Autonomy” Plan

As an alternative to a referendum, Morocco proposed an autonomy plan for Western Sahara in 2006, for which it has been vigorously working to gain international support. The Polisario and most of the international community have rejected the proposal on the grounds that it is based on the assumption that Western Sahara is part of Morocco rather than an occupied territory, and that Morocco is somehow granting part of its sovereign territory a special status. To accept Morocco’s autonomy plan would mean that, for the first time since the founding of the UN and the ratification of the UN Charter, the international community would be endorsing the expansion of a country’s territory by military force, thereby establishing a very dangerous and destabilizing precedent. Nevertheless, the Moroccan proposal was immediately endorsed by France, as well as the Bush administration, former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and a bipartisan majority of the US Senate.

If the people of Western Sahara accepted an autonomy agreement over independence as a result of a free and fair referendum, it would constitute a legitimate act of self-determination. However, Morocco has explicitly stated that its autonomy proposal “rules out, by definition, the possibility for the independence option to be submitted” to the people of Western Sahara, the vast majority of whom favor outright independence.

International law aside, there are a number of practical concerns regarding the Moroccan proposal. For instance, centralized autocratic states have rarely respected the autonomy of regional jurisdictions, which has often led eventually to violent conflict, such as in Eritrea and Kosovo. Moreover, the Moroccan proposal contains no enforcement mechanisms. Morocco has often broken its promises to the international community, such as in its refusal to allow the UN-mandated referendum for Western Sahara to go forward. Indeed, a close reading of the proposal raises questions about how much autonomy Morocco is even initially offering, such as whether the Western Saharans will control the territory’s natural resources or law enforcement beyond local matters. In addition, the proposal appears to indicate that all powers not specifically vested in the autonomous region would remain with the kingdom. Indeed, since the king of Morocco is ultimately vested with absolute authority under Article 42 of the Moroccan Constitution, the autonomy proposal’s insistence that the Moroccan state “will keep its powers in the royal domains, especially with respect to defense, external relations, and the constitutional and religious prerogatives of His Majesty the King” appears to give the monarch considerable latitude in interpretation.

Civil Resistance in the Occupied Territory

As happened during the 1980s in both South Africa and the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, the locus of the Western Sahara freedom struggle has shifted during the past decade from the military and diplomatic initiatives of an exiled armed movement to a largely unarmed popular resistance from within. Young activists in the occupied territory and even in Sahrawi-populated parts of southern Morocco have confronted Moroccan troops in street demonstrations and other forms of nonviolent action, despite the risk of shootings, mass arrests, and torture. Sahrawis from different sectors of society have engaged in protests, strikes, cultural celebrations, and other forms of civil resistance focused on such issues as educational policy, human rights, the release of political prisoners, and the right to self-determination. They also raised the cost of occupation for the Moroccan government and increased the visibility of the Sahrawi cause. Indeed, perhaps most significantly, civil resistance helped to build support for the Sahrawi movement among international NGOs, solidarity groups, and even sympathetic Moroccans.

Internet communication became a key element in the Saharawi movement, with public chat rooms evolving as vital centers for sending messages, as breaking news regarding the burgeoning resistance campaign reached those in the Sahrawi diaspora and international activists. Despite attempts by the Moroccans to disrupt these contacts, the diaspora has continued to provide financial and other support to the resistance. Though there have been complaints from inside the territory that support for their movement by the older generation of Polisario leaders was inadequate, the Polisario appears to have recognized that by having signed a cease-fire and then having had Morocco reject the diplomatic solution expected in return, it has essentially played all its cards. So there has been a growing recognition that the only real hope for independence has to come from within the occupied territory in combination with solidarity efforts from global civil society.

After the Moroccan authorities’ use of force to break up the large and prolonged demonstrations in 2005-2006, the resistance subsequently opted mainly for smaller protests, some of which were planned and some of which were spontaneous. A typical protest would begin on a street corner or a plaza where a Sahrawi flag would be unfurled, women would start ululating, and people would begin chanting pro-independence slogans. Within a few minutes, soldiers and police would arrive, and the crowd would quickly scatter. Other tactics have included leafleting, graffiti (including tagging the homes of collaborators), and cultural celebrations with political overtones. Such nonviolent actions, while broadly supported by the people, appear to have been less a part of coordinated resistance than a result of action by individuals. Still, the Moroccan government’s regular use of violent repression to subdue the Sahrawi-led nonviolent protests suggests that civil resistance is seen as a threat to Moroccan control. There have been some small victories, such as the successful campaign which led to Sahrawi nonviolent resistance leader Aminatou Haidar securing the 2008 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award, as well as forcing Moroccan authorities to reverse their expulsion order in December 2009, which resulted in her near-fatal thirty-day hunger strike.

Furthermore, as inadequate as the Moroccan autonomy proposal may be, it nevertheless constitutes a reversal of Morocco’s historical insistence that Western Sahara is as much a part of Morocco as other provinces, by acknowledging that it is indeed a distinct entity. Protests in Western Sahara in recent years have begun to raise some awareness within Morocco, especially among intellectuals, human rights activists, pro-democracy groups, and some moderate Islamists – long suspicious of the government line in a number of areas – that not all Sahrawis see themselves as Moroccans, that it is not simply an Algerian plot, and that there exists a genuine indigenous opposition to Moroccan rule.

In the occupied territory, Moroccan colonists and collaborators are given preference for housing and employment and the indigenous people receive virtually no benefits from their country’s rich fisheries and phosphate deposits. In September 2010, in a precursor to the “Arab Spring,” Sahrawi activists erected a tent city about fifteen kilometers outside of Laayoune, the former colonial capital and largest city in the occupied territory. Since any protests calling for self-determination, independence, or enforcement of UN Security Council resolutions are brutally suppressed, the demonstrators pointedly avoided such provocative calls, instead simply demanding economic justice. Even this was too much for the Moroccan monarchy, which was determined to crush this nonviolent act of mass defiance. The Moroccans tightened the siege in early October, attacking vehicles bringing food, water, and medical supplies to the camp, resulting in scores of injuries and the death of a fourteen-year old boy. Finally, on 8 November, the Moroccans attacked the camp, driving protesters out with tear gas and hoses, beating those who did not flee fast enough, and killing as many as two dozen people. In response, violent anti-occupation rioting erupted, resulting in the first Moroccan fatalities at the hands of Sahrawis since the 1991 ceasefire. This then triggered the burning and pillaging of Sahrawi homes and shops and the shooting and arresting of suspected activists, some of whom were charged with treason and hauled before military courts.

One of the obstacles to the internal resistance is that Moroccan settlers outnumber the indigenous population by a ratio of more than three to one and by more in the major cities, making certain tactics used effectively in similar struggles more problematic. For example, although a general strike could be effective, the large number of Moroccan settlers, combined with the minority of indigenous Sahrawis who oppose independence, could likely fill the void resulting from the absence of much of the Sahrawi workforce. Although that might be alleviated by growing pro-independence sentiments among ethnic Sahrawi settlers from the southern part of Morocco, it still presents challenges that have not been faced by largely nonviolent struggles in other occupied lands–among them East Timor, Kosovo, and the Palestinian territories.

Earlier this month, the United States, for the first time, included renewing the mandate of MINURSO, a provision giving the UN peacekeepers the authority to monitor the human rights situation in both the Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara and the Polisario-administered refugee camps, in its draft of the biannual UN Security Council resolution. Currently, MINURSO is the only UN peacekeeping operation in the world without a human rights mandate. Under pressure from Morocco, France, and some pro-Moroccan sectors of the Obama administration and Congress, the United States dropped the human rights provisions in the resolution renewing MINURSO.

In response, recent weeks have witnessed some of the largest demonstrations in the history of the occupation, despite ongoing repression by Moroccan occupation forces.

Morocco has been able to persist in flouting its international legal obligations toward Western Sahara largely because France and the United States have continued to arm Moroccan occupation forces and block the enforcement of resolutions in the UN Security Council demanding that Morocco allow for self-determination or even simply allow human rights monitoring in the occupied country. So now, at least as important as nonviolent resistance by Sahrawis, is the potential of nonviolent action by the citizens of France, the United States, and other countries that enable Morocco to maintain its occupation. Such campaigns played a major role in forcing Australia, Great Britain, and the United States to end their support for Indonesia’s occupation of East Timor, finally enabling the former Portuguese colony to become free. The only realistic hope to end the occupation of Western Sahara, resolve the conflict, and save the vitally important post-World War II principles enshrined in the United Nations Charter, which forbid any country from expanding its territory through military force, may be a similar campaign by global civil society.

http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/11992/the-last-colony_beyond-dominant-narratives-on-the-

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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/