Western Sahara: sand or ashes

The UN hopes the fifth round of the informal negotiations between Morocco and the Polisario Front will take place in the beginning of November. The latter represents the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic in Western Sahara (SADR), which Morocco considers as an inseparable part of its territory. The personal representative of the UN general secretary Christopher Ross was full of optimism during his trip in Morocco, Algeria and Mauritania — the main parties involved in the still frozen conflict.

One may ask why should we care about this exotic conflict, which few know anything about. Such as opinion is actually behind the international community’s 35-year-long procrastination. But in the recent years the situation changed dramatically. First of all, the reason lies in globalization processes and the activity of extremist groups in the Maghreb region, which are interested in creating a belt of instability in Northern Africa that would stretch from the Atlantic to the Red Sea. However, there is also the threat of the “Western-Sahara issue” affecting the domestic issues of many countries, first of all, the post-Soviet republics.

First one must start with a bit of history. Western Sahara was a colony of Franco’s Spain until 1976. UN resolutions demanded its decolonization, and the security council stopped Spain and Mauritania from engaging in the armed conflict. Finally, together with Mauritania they signed an agreement about terminating Spanish dominance and territorial division (state borders in Northern Africa, as we can see on a map, are drawn with a ruler — a colonial legacy). But Algeria did not recognize the shady affair. It supported the “Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el-Hamra and Rio de Oro” (Polisario), which was established two years before that, and embarked on an armed struggle against Moroccan and Mauritanian troops. After the coup d’etat Mauritania refused the claims and, moreover, recognition of the self-proclaimed SADR. Being supported by Algeria, which was known to be a flagman of the national liberation movement under the anti-imperialistic and anti-colonial slogans, Polisario received support in many third-world countries and those in the non-alignment movement: thus, SADR was recognized by several dozens of the African and Latin American countries. The US and the USSR withheld from confrontation on the “Western Sahara issue,” but it is clear that there was correspondent sympathy and collaboration, including military collaboration, with Morocco and Algeria.

Finally, in 1991 fighting between Morocco and Polisario forces came to an end, the UN mission on holding a referendum was established in Western Sahara (MINURSO), and both sides agreed on it. However, there was no agreement on who was allowed to vote. Polisario insists that voters comprise 160,000 “native Saharians,” who currently live in four camps in Tindouf, Algeria (arguments about it almost led to a full-scale war in the 1960s), but not the 250,000 Moroccans who live in Western Sahara and make up 85 percent of the population. Conversely, Rabat argues that using the old Spanish census is inappropriate as the population of the region consisted of nomadic tribes that actively migrated across the entire Northern Sahara. Thus, all the attempts to agree on the organization of the plebiscite failed.

In 2007 Mohammed VI of Morocco offered to give Western Sahara as much as possible of the autonomy within the borders of the kingdom. It is worthy of mentioning that there were substantial changes in the kingdom then. In the late 1990s the king started a large-scale democratization of the country. First, he divided authorities among the branches of power and strengthened the role of the parliament and the government, decentralized management, provided civil and political rights and freedoms. That is why the Independent Committee on Equality and Reunion was created, which investigates all the cases of the human rights violations and is headed by a communist, a long-term political prisoner. The kingdom expects to receive the privileged EU partnership status, fundamental to 60 percent of the kingdom’s trade, and recognition by NATO as a strategic partner. Meanwhile, refugees in Algeria are gradually moving back to Western Sahara. What is more, already two dozens of former leaders of Polisario and SADR disavowed their former positions, moved to Morocco and became active advocates of the king’s plan of large autonomy. If earlier the human rights activist’s reports concerned only the violations caused by the Moroccan side, now reports inform more and more about systematic civil rights violations and repressions in the refugee camps by the Polisario Front itself.

What does Mohammed VI offer? Almost complete self-government in Western Sahara: their own legislative, executive and judicial authorities, local law enforcement agencies, own budget and tax policy. The autonomy receives all the income from exploitation of local resources, including 25 percent of the world’s supplies of phosphates (by the way, Ukrainian and Russian experts have the processing technologies for this type of phosphates, which is why Russia pays extra attention to this region), rich fish resources and easily accessible oil deposits on the Atlantic coast, uranium and gold deposits. The kingdom keeps only the issues of the defense, foreign policy, national security, supremacy of the king, national currency, flag and anthem.

Considerable changes took place in the world as well. Many countries that recognized SADR and opened embassies on their territories, revoked their decisions. Thus, ex-Yugoslavia was pro-Polisarian but its successor Serbia revoked the recognition, because of the Kosovo problem. At the regular UN General Assembly the resolution on the support of “the right to self-determination of Western Sahara nation” was adopted. But in recent years the number of countries abstaining from voting, increased and now it prevails over the quantity of “pro” voters. Thus, all the post-Soviet countries like Georgia, Moldova and Azerbaijan, on the territory of which new self-proclaimed republics appeared, did not vote for the resolution. Ukraine did not vote either, while Russia and Armenia voted “pro.” At the end of September, at the meeting in Algeria “factual mutual recognition of independence” was announced by the SADR and South Ossetia representatives. The special representative of the South Ossetian president called it an “African breakthrough” and claimed that soon an “avalanche-like process of recognition” will affect not only South Ossetia and Abkhazia, but also Transnistria and Nagorno-Karabakh. He emphasized that the recognition in Algeria is very significant on the eve of the first visit of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to this country.

In a word, the key to resolve an old conflict is in relationships between Morocco and Algeria that treat each other, to put it mildly, with suspicion. And taking into account intensified modernization and rearmament of the armies of these countries, it does not exclude the worst scenario. Mohamed Charkaoui describes the apocalyptic scenario, “in case of a military conflict the consequences will be catastrophic: both countries will be destroyed, weakened and, probably, will collapse, while the extremist groups will take advantage of the situation.”