Western Sahara\u2019s moment in the sun
\nHow the UN chief waded into a forgotten conflict with no end in sight
\nBy Annie Slemrod, Middle East Editor
\nJERUSALEM, 14 April 2016
\nhttp:\/\/www.irinnews.org\/analysis\/2016\/04\/14\/western-sahara%E2%80%99s-moment-sun<\/p>\n
Of all of the world\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
But last month, the world\u2019s 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\u2019s presence there an \u201coccupation.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u2019s comments, saying it had all been a \u201cmisunderstanding\u201d born of his \u201cspontaneous, personal reaction\u201d to the situation of the Sahrawi refugees.<\/p>\n
\u201cWithout meaning to do so, Ban has awoken a sleeping dog,\u201d Marina Ottoway, senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center think tank, said of the secretary-general\u2019s actions.<\/p>\n
But does that mean there could finally be progress in resolving one of the world\u2019s most intractable conflicts, one that has rumbled on largely unnoticed for more than 40 years?<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a look at the long-neglected Western Sahara dispute and the Sahrawi refugees stuck in the middle.
\nWhat is Western Sahara?<\/p>\n
Western Sahara\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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 \u201cliberated\u201d, and the international community tends to call a no-man\u2019s land.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no official count of how many Sahrawi refugees live in the camps \u2013 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.<\/p>\n
Some live in tents, others in mud brick homes. They are extremely vulnerable to inclement weather \u2013 in October 2015 more than 17,000 homes were destroyed or severely damaged in flooding that affected both sides of the wall.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s investment in development there.<\/p>\n
Human rights groups regularly report on Morocco\u2019s heavy-handed way of dealing with Sahrawi dissidents, and there is concern that the Polisario Front does not tolerate dissent particularly well either.<\/p>\n
What do the parties want?<\/p>\n
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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
By the time MINURSO came up with a list\u2013 reportedly kept in Geneva for safekeeping \u2013 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\u2019s refusal to implement a plan it had approved.<\/p>\n
The Polisario Front still wants some sort of vote on independence, but most experts see this as an unlikely prospect.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou will never be able to determine who is entitled to vote in that referendum,\u201d explained Ottoway.<\/p>\n
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.
\nWhat next?<\/p>\n
Both groups have proved intransigent in negotiations, and the UN has utterly failed at moving the process forward.<\/p>\n
Part of the problem is that it\u2019s an easy place for major powers to ignore. \u201cLooked at from Washington, Morocco and Algeria fighting over the Western Sahara is like two bald men fighting over a comb,\u201d said Ottoway.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s controversial black sites. This brings the US closely into line with France, already staunchly on Morocco\u2019s in the dispute.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnytime Morocco is feeling the pressure on Western Sahara, they probably find ways of making themselves very useful to the United States,\u201d Mundy explained.<\/p>\n
On Algeria\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe real issue is whether or not any country on the Security Council is going to expend political chips on the issue of Western Sahara,\u201d Baker said, shortly after his resignation back in 2004. \u201cThat\u2019s what makes this so difficult; because the profile of the issue is so very low and they\u2019re 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\u2019re not willing to ask either or one or both of the parties to do something they don\u2019t want to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anna Theofilopoulou, an independent political analyst who was part Baker\u2019s team, believes diplomacy over Western Sahara does need some shaking up but that Ban\u2019s move was the wrong one.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t use the big guns unless you know that you are going to get good results,\u201d Theofilopoulou told IRIN. \u201cThat\u2019s one basic rule of diplomacy.\u201d<\/p>\n
While we shouldn\u2019t have any illusions about whether Ban\u2019s move will change a conflict that has been stubbornly unmoving for decades, there is a slim chance of an opening ahead.<\/p>\n
MINURSO\u2019s 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think maybe this is time for the secretariat to play hardball,\u201d Theofilopoulou said, suggesting that Ban should apply pressure on the Security Council.<\/p>\n
Mundy is of a similar mind. \u201cIt would be interesting if the secretariat just dropped it in the Security Council\u2019s lap and said, \u2018you guys refuse to take a firm position and also expect the mediators to work. What do you expect?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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\u2019s controversial black sites. This brings the US closely into line with France, already staunchly on Morocco\u2019s in the dispute. \u201cAnytime Morocco is feeling the pressure on Western Sahara, they probably find ways of making themselves very useful to the United States,\u201d Mundy explained.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[10,19,80,91,121,132],"class_list":["post-627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-algeria","tag-ban-ki-moon","tag-morocco","tag-occupation","tag-un-secretary-general","tag-western-sahara"],"yoast_head":"\n