Month: June 2001

Overview of Self-Determination Issues in the Middle East

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As in much of the third world, many of the national boundaries of the Middle East and North Africa are artificial creations of the colonial era. Because most of the region’s inhabitants are Muslim Arabs and thanks to relatively high tolerance levels for minorities in traditional Islamic societies, the denial of self-determination has not been as widespread as in many parts of the world. Still, disputes in the Middle East involving people struggling for the right of self-determination remain some of the most dangerous and intractable conflicts in the world today.

The Ottoman Empire ruled most of the Middle East for nearly five centuries. Religious minorities were granted a high level of self-governance, including their own court systems. In some of the farther reaches of the empire, the Ottoman presence was little more than a customs house, so traditional patterns of self-governance remained, despite nominal Ottoman rule. The decline of the empire resulted more from its own internal weaknesses and from pressures by Western powers than from demands by Arab nationalists and others for self-determination.

Partly as a result, the Middle East has historically experienced less ethnic strife than many parts of the world. For example, for centuries, Jews faced far less overt persecution in the Arab Islamic world than in the European Christian world. Displaced minorities from just beyond the region, suppressed in their struggles for self-determination—such as Armenians and Circassians—often found refuge in the Arab Middle East. Meanwhile, non-Arab or non-Muslim minorities indigenous to the Middle East, such as the Berbers of the Maghreb and the Maronite Christians and Druzes of the Levant, were often able to create their own sanctuaries in mountainous regions.

Arab Self-Determination

Arab nationalism, from its origins in the late 19th century through today, has been based on the ideal that true self-determination can come only through Arab unity. This has been a decidedly secular vision that has included both Muslims and Christians. The individual Arab nation-states were perceived as attempts by Western colonial powers to divide and rule. Several Pan-Arabist endeavors, such as the Baath movement, surfaced during the twentieth century in pursuit of the goal of one united Arab nation-state. Pan-Arabism reached its zenith between the mid-1950s and early 1970s under the leadership of Gamal Abdul-Nasser of Egypt. Nasser created the United Arab Republic, which joined Egypt and Syria into one country in 1957. Perceived Egyptian domination led Syria to withdraw within a few years. Subsequent attempts by Nasser, and later by Muammar Qaddafi of Libya, to unify their countries with various Arab neighbors also failed to materialize.

Many Arabs felt Nasser’s megalomania may have compromised his vision, yet he remains an icon for many in the region who are bitter at the division of what is still widely viewed as the once-unified Arab nation. Israel and the West have been openly fearful of such Arab unity and have been accused of undermining Arab leaders and popular movements that support Pan-Arabism, which many still see as the most authentic form of Arab self-determination. Indeed, Israel and some Western powers have used their influence not just to maintain the division of the Arab world into the current states carved out by the old colonial administrations but also to encourage subnationalist movements—such as the Maronite Christians in Lebanon—to form their own de facto statelets in an effort to subdivide the Arab world still further.

Though strong Arab identity has been promoted as a progressive act of self-determination against colonialism and its agents in the region, Arabism has often run counter to the interests of non-Arab minorities. The Berber peoples of Morocco and Algeria have had to resist the Arabization of their language, culture, and school curricula; occasional violent clashes continue in Algeria to this day. In southern Algeria, the Tuaregs and other non-Arab nomadic tribes have periodically launched armed revolts against overly centralized control by Algiers. The once-tolerant attitude toward the region’s large Jewish community was dramatically reversed in reaction to the creation of the Jewish state of Israel in 1948 in what was seen as the Arab heartland; the vast majority of Middle Eastern Jews emigrated—under varying degrees of duress—in subsequent years, most ending up in Israel.

Islam

The vacuum created by the failure of Pan-Arabism occasioned the rise of Pan-Islamic movements in the Middle East. Though some of these movements have constrained non-Muslim populations, such as the six-million-strong Coptic Christian community in Egypt, their emphasis on religious solidarity over ethnic divisions has actually eased pressure on certain Muslim ethnic minorities. Nonetheless, there have been splits within Islam that have raised serious issues affecting self-determination.

There has been some opposition, for example, by Shi’ite populations in Kuwait, Yemen, and northeastern Saudi Arabia resisting domination by Sunni Muslims. Shiites are actually the majority of the Arab populations of Sunni-ruled Iraq and Bahrain. Their demands for greater autonomy—or even simply greater democracy—have been severely repressed. In Iraq, an armed uprising by Shi’ite Muslims in March 1991 in the aftermath of the Gulf War succeeded in temporarily forcing out Iraqi government troops, yet the rebellion was soon crushed, with the apparent acquiescence of the victorious Gulf War allies. The United States and Great Britain have imposed a no-fly zone in the south, ostensibly to protect the civilian population from government air strikes, though Western countries strongly oppose any independent Shi’ite state in southern Iraq. Severe repression by the Iraqi government, including the forced dislocation of the “marsh Arabs” by drying up their wetlands, continues.

In Bahrain, the Shi’ite majority has long been restive toward the Sunni monarchy, which has cracked down on demands for a more representative system. In this island sheikdom, as elsewhere in the region, the ruling elites and their American allies fear Iranian interference. Although Iran, particularly in the years immediately following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, did support dissident Shi’ite groups in Bahrain and other countries, U.S. charges of Iranian subversion have often been exaggerated in an effort to distract attention from legitimate internal grievances by the Shi’ite population against Washington’s autocratic Sunni allies.

The Triumph of the Nation-State

Ironically, the nation-state proved surprisingly resilient during the Iran-Iraq War. In the earlier phase of the war, when Iraq occupied parts of western Iran, the invading Iraqis hoped that the region’s ethnic Arabs would side with Iraq’s Arab government. Similarly, later in the war when Iran occupied parts of southeastern Iraq, there were hopes that the Shi’ite Arabs would side with their co-religionists in Teheran. Both peoples, however, tended to remain loyal to their respective governments in the face of foreign invaders.

Another example of nationalist loyalty is seen among the Druzes of the Levant, who practice an offshoot of Islam. The Druzes in Lebanon have been leaders in the nationalist resistance to foreign domination of their country. The Druzes in both Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights have strongly identified with Syrians. And the Druzes in Israel have largely remained loyal to the Jewish state and are the only Muslim people allowed in the Israeli armed forces.

As in many parts of the world, popular consciousness and support of a national identity in the Middle East has been surprisingly strong, no matter how recent or artificial the modern nation-state might be. Jordan, for example, was carved out of the Syrian desert by the British to appease an Arabian tribal chief who had sided with the allies in World War I by giving him a country to rule. Yet the Arabs of this colonially imposed entity have embraced their Jordanian identity strongly, in part as a response to the influx of Palestinian refugees expelled during the creation of Israel in 1948, who—along with their descendants—now form the majority of Jordan’s inhabitants. The close family and historical linkages between Jordanians and Palestinians have afforded the refugees far greater incorporation into Jordanian society than has occurred in other Arab states with Palestinian refugee populations, yet the Jordanian monarchy has cracked down quite decisively against Palestinian nationalist aspirations when they were perceived to threaten the throne and its pro-Western orientation. Such repression occurred, for example, during a bloody civil war in 1970-71.

Israeli-occupied Territories

The most contentious area of self-determination in the Middle East involves the Palestinian Arabs, whose denial of national rights came as a direct result of the creation of the state of Israel. Zionism, or Jewish nationalism, grew out of the desire for national self-determination by Jews, who had been living in a diaspora for centuries. However, since the Zionist movement was backed by Western powers and had originally been an almost exclusively European movement, many Arabs viewed Israel not as a legitimate manifestation of self-determination, but as a colonial-settler state.

A 1947 UN plan that would have partitioned Palestine in half, granting both Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs their own states, resulted in a war that led to Israeli control of 78% of the country. The remaining Palestinian areas, which became known as the West Bank and Gaza Strip, came under Jordanian and Egyptian control. The majority of the Palestinian population of Israel was expelled and remain refugees to this day, often being used as political pawns by various Arab regimes. Israel seized the remaining Arab areas of Palestine in the 1967 war.

Although long-determined to reclaim all of historical Palestine, in more recent years the Palestinian leadership has simply demanded statehood for the 22% of Palestine outside Israel’s internationally recognized borders. However, Israel—with U.S. approval—has offered the Palestinians only part of that land in a patchwork arrangement amid large Israeli settlements and military outposts. Furthermore, the U.S. and Israel refuse to recognize the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes.

Although international legal conventions and a series of UN Security Council resolutions support Palestinian claims for a full Israeli withdrawal and repatriation of refugees, strong U.S. support of Israel and a corrupt and inept Palestinian leadership have resulted in a violent stalemate. An autonomous Palestinian Authority currently controls many of the urban areas of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, though Palestinian-Israeli fighting has been ongoing since September 2000, amid severe repression by Israeli occupation forces.

In the Golan Heights, the southwestern corner of Syria occupied by Israel since 1967, most of the Arab population was forcibly expelled at the end of the war. However, the Druzes—many of whom are separated from family members—have engaged in periodic nonviolent resistance against Israeli occupation forces and demand to be reunited with Syria. Neither Israel nor the United States—the principal broker in the Israeli-Syrian peace talks—considers the Druzes’ desire for self-determination to be a relevant factor in the negotiations.

Kurdistan

The Kurds are the world’s largest national ethnic group without its own state. More than twenty million Kurds—who constitute the majority of the population in southeastern Turkey, northern Iraq, the far northeastern corner of Syria, and the far northwestern corner of Iran—have been denied basic political rights and, in the case of Turkey, even basic cultural rights. The divisions within the Kurdish nationalist movement have been exacerbated by the manipulation of outside powers. In Turkey, which hosts the largest Kurdish population, the U.S.-backed Turkish military—until a recent cease-fire—has engaged in severe repression against Kurdish nationalists. A radical nationalist guerilla group known as the PKK has suspended its armed struggle and has been negotiating a cease-fire and greater cultural and political rights. Despite the desire of many Turkish Kurds for an independent state, most Kurds are now scattered throughout the country to such a degree that carving out a separate Kurdish entity would be highly problematic.

The Kurds of Iraq constitute the largest percentage of the population of any Kurdish-populated country and were subject to severe repression, including widespread massacres and forced relocation by the Iraqi government, particularly in the late 1980s. Over the past ten years, autonomy for part of Iraqi Kurdistan has been preserved through an internationally enforced safe haven, established in response to an Iraqi crackdown on an almost-successful Kurdish uprising in March 1991. Internal divisions, along with efforts by the United States and other countries to use the Kurds in their fight against Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, have weakened the Kurdish movement for autonomy or independence.

Other Conflicts

Lebanon’s unique experiment in maintaining the distinct identity of its diverse ethnic and religious communities ended in a disastrous civil war from 1975 to 1990. Rather than encouraging political pluralism and authentic self-determination, the representation system imposed by the departing French colonialists created competing fiefdoms between the elites of each community and with effective domination by the Maronite minority. Foreign powers—including Israel, Syria, Iraq, Iran, France, and the United States as well as the exiled Palestinian community within Lebanon—manipulated these divisions in an attempt to advance their own interests. Such foreign meddling included full-scale invasions by Syria in 1976 and Israel in 1982 as well as U.S. military intervention on the side of a right-wing Maronite government in 1983-84. Israel maintained a violent occupation of southern Lebanon until 2000. Syrian forces today remain in Lebanon, exerting strong influence on the policies of the Lebanese government, resulting in growing demands for greater self-determination by Lebanese from a variety of ethnic and religious backgrounds. The Syrians justify their role by explaining that Lebanon was carved out of Syria by the French in an effort to take advantage of the country’s potentially Francophile minorities.

In Iran, the dominant Persians are actually outnumbered by non-Persian peoples, which include Kurds, Azeris, Baluchis, and Arabs. Attempts at the creation of Azeri and Kurdish vassal states by the Soviet Union at the end of World War II were aborted at U.S. insistence. Resentment at Persian domination and theocratic rule from Teheran persists, though—except for the Kurds—there are currently no major movements for self-determination.

The peoples of the country of Western Sahara have been battling for self-determination for over thirty years, initially against Spanish colonialists and, since Morocco’s 1975 invasion, against Moroccan occupation forces. Backed by France and the United States, Morocco has refused to proceed with a UN-mandated referendum on the fate of the territory, fearing the likely vote in favor of independence. The Sahrawis, through the Algerian-supported Polisario Front, engaged in a guerilla war against the Moroccans until a cease-fire was declared in 1991. Most Sahrawis live in Polisario-controlled refugee camps in western Algeria. Meanwhile, Morocco has colonized Western Sahara with tens of thousands of its own citizens. As with Palestine, the right of self-determination has been blocked partly because the occupying power has powerful friends and partly because the occupying power has colonized the territory with its own citizens in violation of international law.

The artificiality of colonial boundaries is particularly pronounced in peripheral areas of the Middle East, as exemplified by the extreme tensions and violence in the states of the Sahel: Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Chad, and—most tragically—Sudan. In these countries, the Muslim Arab peoples of the north have often fought with the black peoples of the south, many of whom are non-Muslim. In Mauritania and Sudan, incidents of slavery are not uncommon to this day. Discrimination and repression against black Christians and animists in the south by the Arab-dominated Sudanese government have varied in severity during the nearly fifty years of that country’s independence, with civil wars raging periodically for greater southern autonomy or independence. The repression by Khartoum’s extremist Islamic military government in recent years has been particularly severe, and pro-independence rebel groups control much of the southern part of the country. The death toll in Sudan from war and war-related shortages of food and medicine has reached the hundreds of thousands.

Conclusion

Much of the ongoing violence in the Middle East is related to aborted struggles for self-determination and is rooted in the colonial legacy. These conflicts are exacerbated by Western powers taking advantage of ethnic and cultural divisions to maintain their influence in the region. Indeed, the region’s ongoing strategic importance and its role as the world’s largest consumer of Western arms exports magnify even local and regional struggles to international importance.

Even though the Gulf War was fought ostensibly in the name of self-determination—freeing Kuwait from its Iraqi occupiers—few people in the region believe that the United States and its allies actually fought the war primarily for such an ideal. If the United States is truly interested in promoting peace, Washington must suspend military and economic aid to regimes that deny self-determination to captive peoples, and the Bush administration must pursue arms control for the region. The United States should encourage enforcement of UN Security Council resolutions not just regarding adversaries but allies as well. Peace negotiations should be facilitated by the United Nations, or another party without strong strategic and economic interests in the region, based on the recognition that self-determination is a fundamental right. Otherwise, the continued denial of self-determination for Palestinians, Kurds, and others will spark further violence that could engulf the entire region.

http://selfdetermine.irc-online.org/regions/mideast.html

UN Betrayal of Western Sahara

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When a country violates fundamental principles of international law and when the UN Security Council demands that it cease its illegal behavior, one might expect that the world body would impose sanctions or other measures to foster compliance. This has been the case with Iraq, Libya, and other international outlaws in recent years.

One would not expect for the United Nations to respond to such violations by passing a series of new and weaker resolutions that essentially allow for the transgressions to stand.

However, this is exactly what appears to be taking place in the case of Morocco and its 25-year occupation of Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), better known as Western Sahara. Soon after the International Court of Justice ruled against Morocco’s claims to the territory and the right of the Sahrawis for self-determination, Morocco invaded Western Sahara in November 1975. At that time the UN passed UN Security Council Resolution 380 calling for Morocco to withdraw immediately from the territory. The U.S. and France not only blocked the UN from imposing sanctions and otherwise enforcing its resolution, but they also sent military advisers and hundreds of millions of dollars worth of arms in subsequent years to support Morocco’s conquest. As a result, the majority of the country’s population was forced into exile in neighboring Algeria.

By 1991 the UN had dropped its insistence insisting that Moroccan forces withdraw unilaterally. Instead it called for a UN-sponsored plebiscite involving the Saharis themselves on the fate of the territory. UN Security Council Resolution 690 outlined the process for registering voters and proceeding with the plebiscite. Recognizing that the Sahrawis would likely vote for independence, Morocco stacked the voter rolls with Moroccan citizens who had immigrated into the occupied territory or otherwise claimed had ancestral ties to the area. Using their power on the Security Council, the United States and France repeatedly blocked the UN from enforcing its mandate for a Sahrawi plebiscite.

In September 1997, the diplomatic stalemate appeared to be broken through the efforts of UN Special Envoy and former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker that appeared to have worked out the registration process obstacles, which included some further concessions to the Moroccans. This was endorsed in UN Security Council Resolution 1133. Still fearing it would lose, however, Morocco has refused to implement this agreement as well.

With the diplomatic umbrella of France and the United States protecting the monarchy from its international obligations, it now appears that Baker will soon be recommending that the UN drop the idea for a plebiscite and replace it with a settlement providing Western Sahara with limited autonomy for an interim period while recognizing its annexation to Morocco.

The Western Saharan government-in-exile has rightly dismissed this proposal as a fundamental violation of right of Sahrawi self-determination, the UN charter, and basic principles of international law. Indeed, it has threatened to go to war, possibly with the support of Algeria, rather than have Morocco’s conquest stand uncontested. The SADR has been recognized by more than 75 countries and is a full member state of the Organization of African Unity. There is likely to be strong resistance against a Western-led effort to legitimize what most African states see as an act of colonialism.

Should Baker’s proposal be accepted, it could not only provoke a regional war but would also set a dangerous precedent of rewarding the conquest of territory by force and likely embolden potential aggressors around the world. As with the analogous case of East Timor, it may take a mass mobilization by human rights activists around the world to force the major powers to allow the UN to enforce its obligations and allow an oppressed people their right to self-determination.

Palestine

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History

The land long considered by many Jews of the diaspora as their homeland had also been inhabited for centuries by Palestinian Arabs. Zionism emerged in Europe during the late 19th century as a movement for the ingathering of Jews to their ancestral land, with immigration increasing during theBritish mandate period following the demise of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I. A 1947 UN plan that would have partitioned Palestine in half, granting both Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs their own states, resulted in a war that led to Israeli control of 78% of the country. The remaining Palestinian areas, which became known as the West Bank and Gaza Strip, came under Jordanian and Egyptian control. The new state of Israel expelled the majority of the Palestinian population, creating a large and permanent refugee community in neighboring countries. Israel seized the residual Arab areas of Palestine in the 1967 war, and Palestinian efforts for self-determination were severely repressed. Exiled Palestinian nationalists, through the Palestine Liberation Organization, promoted Palestinian self-determination using tactics ranging from diplomatic initiatives to terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians. A civil uprising in the occupied territories between 1987 and 1993 forced Israel to consider partial withdrawal. The 1993 Memorandum of Understanding signed in Oslo between Israel and the PLO initiated steps that would lead to greater Palestinian autonomy in the occupied territories. Meanwhile, the Palestinian leadership has given up claiming all of historic Palestine and has simply demanded statehood on the 22% of Palestine outside Israel’s internationally recognized borders. In September 2000, violent clashes erupted between Palestinians and Israeli occupation forces and settlers.

Main Actors

The State of Israel: established on 78% of historic Palestine and military occupier of much of the remaining Palestinian territory

Palestine National Authority: governing entity of most Palestinian-populated urban areas in the West Bank and Gaza Strip

Fatah: the leading Palestinian nationalist party

Hamas: a radical Palestinian Islamic grouping

The U.S.: principal military, economic, and diplomatic supporter of Israel and chief mediator in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process

Proposed Solutions and Evaluation of Prospects

The international consensus for Israeli-Palestinian peace has centered on a complete Israeli withdrawal to within its internationally recognized borders in exchange for security guarantees from its Arab neighbors in accordance with UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338. An independent Palestinian state would be created on the West Bank and Gaza Strip. A special status would be established for Jerusalem–seen by both peoples as their capital and important for commercial and religious reasons–whereby both Israel and Palestine could share the city in an equitable fashion allowing for freedom of movement. Israel would withdraw its colonists from illegally established settlements in the occupied territories in accordance with the Fourth Geneva Convention and UN Security Council resolutions 446 and 465. The right of return for Palestinian refugees–in accordance with the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol on the Status of Refugees–would be recognized, though the dramatic demographic changes in the ensuing decades would likely result in Israeli resettlement, primarily within the new Palestinian state, with compensation by Israel.

Though the Palestinian Authority and virtually the entire international community support such a resolution, Israel–which occupies much of the territory in question and has armed forces vastly superior to its neighbors–does not. Similarly, the U.S.–the primary facilitator of the peace process and the guarantor of the Oslo Accords–also opposes the international consensus and has blocked enforcement of UN Security Council resolutions. Meanwhile, the inept and corrupt leadership of the Palestinian Authority and its inability or unwillingness to curb violent attacks against Israeli occupation forces and Israeli civilians have strengthened anti-Palestinian sentiment in Israel and the United States.

Role of U.S.

The U.S. has long rejected the international consensus for Israeli-Palestinian peace and has opposed the Palestinians’ right to self-determination. The U.S. barred the PLO from participation in the peace process until the Israelis unilaterally called for its inclusion in 1993. Previously, Washington had even barred any PLO representatives from visiting the United States. In the 1991 Middle East peace talks in Madrid, instigated by the U.S., the Palestinians were denied the right to their own delegation even outside the PLO. Palestinians were allowed to participate only as a subset of the Jordanian delegation, and none of them could be residents of Israel, Jerusalem, or the diaspora. The U.S. has historically opposed Palestinian statehood, though since 1993 Washington has considered the possibility under strictures agreed upon by Israel.

Washington is the primary military, economic, and diplomatic supporter of the Israeli occupation. The U.S. has frequently used or threatened to use its veto power in the UN Security Council to prevent the UN from forcing Israel to recognize the Palestinians’ right to self-determination alongside Israel. Despite this, Washington has taken upon itself the role of the chief mediator and facilitator of the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. The U.S. argues that the parties must work out a solution among themselves, ignoring the gross asymmetry of power between the Palestinians and their Israeli occupiers. The current U.S. position opposes Palestinian refugees’ right of return, supports Israeli control of most of Arab East Jerusalem, allows for the bulk of the illegal Israeli settlements and military outposts in the West Bank and their surrounding areas to be annexed to Israel, and accedes to the establishment of a rump Palestinian state on the noncontiguous territories that remain.

http://www.fpif.info/fpiftxt/320

The Failure of U.S. Policy Toward Iraq and Proposed Alternatives

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Current U.S.-UN policy regarding Iraq has failed and has largely lost credibility. It is widely viewed internationally as reflecting U.S. (and, to a lesser degree, British) insistence on maintaining a punitive sanctions-based approach regardless of the humanitarian impact and it is increasingly regarded as having failed to bring about either democratic changes in Iraq or security for the Persian Gulf region. Numerous countries are challenging, if not directly violating, the sanctions regime, and international support has largely eroded.

The U.S. is the driving force behind UN policy, since Washington wields effective veto power over any proposed changes. The U.S. is becoming increasingly isolated in the world body, with only Great Britain remaining in support of the American position. There is little question that a change to a more humane and practical policy by the U.S. would quickly be accepted by the UN Security Council as a whole.

U.S. policy toward Iraq has also failed to take into account the consequences of widespread opposition in the Middle East—across the region at the street level and increasingly at the governmental level as well.

The administration of President George W. Bush has tacitly acknowledged this failure through Secretary of State Colin Powell’s advocacy of “smart sanctions.” The Bush position is often portrayed as a major shift toward a more targeted and humane means of enforcing a sanctions regime against the Iraqi government. However, since the new formula is based upon ongoing UN Security Council supervision over Iraq’s oil exports and revenues and includes vigorous inspections of any and all international commerce, it appears designed more to halt the growing violations of the sanctions regime than to ease the suffering of the Iraqi people. The Iraqi government has rejected the proposal and there appears to be little support from foreign governments.

In the U.S., neither the current policy nor the proposed modifications have much support, but there has been strong opposition to ending the sanctions, based on charges that doing so would be considered “soft on Saddam Hussein.” The result has become a largely politically driven inertia, with the cost-benefit assessment limited to whether changing the policy carries a higher or lower domestic political price than maintaining the current failed policy.

Also of concern are U.S. policies that fall outside the UN framework, such as the campaign of air strikes and the enforcement of “no-fly zones,” which both violate international law and harm the populations they are supposedly trying to protect, as well as Washington’s renewed effort to support an armed Iraqi opposition to the regime of Saddam Hussein.

The following provides a framework and a set of proposed policy options around six key areas deemed central to U.S. policy toward Iraq: arms control, economic sanctions, human rights, no-fly zones, the Iraqi opposition, and depleted uranium.

Arms Control

Framework:

The United Nations Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM) was formed to oversee the dismantling of Iraq’s potential for the development of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and their delivery systems. UNSCOM withdrew in December 1998 on the eve of Operation Desert Fox, an intense four-day bombing campaign by the U.S. and Great Britain, and Iraq has not permitted UNSCOM’s return. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has continued its inspection of Iraqi nuclear-related facilities, as it has with other signatories of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

The Iraqi regime amassed significant conventional military capacity and made serious efforts toward WMD capability before August 1990. The heavy bombing during the Gulf War in 1991 and the December 1998 attacks destroyed much of Iraq’s conventional capacity, and UNSCOM and the IAEA have thoroughly disempowered Iraq’s WMD capacity. On the conventional side, the military remains a power within Iraq but is strategically weakened relative to surrounding countries. On the WMD side, the last UNSCOM assessments in 1998 concluded that Iraq was free of nuclear weapons and missiles, almost free of chemical weapons, and questionable regarding biological weapons. Most weapons experts agree that the Iraqi regime probably desires to rebuild its WMD capacity, if that were possible (in part, because of Israel’s nuclear arsenal), but that it does not have access to the materials to do so. Most strategic analysts acknowledge that Iraq today is neither a threat either to the U.S. nor to Iraq’s neighbors. Reflecting that reality, the current disarmament goal should be to prevent future rebuilding of the WMD programs rather than attempting to finalize UNSCOM’s accounting of Iraq’s entire arsenal. In short, the focus should be upon qualitative rather than quantitative WMD disarmament.

Existing U.S. policy, which plays a key role in the development of UN policy, has undermined actual disarmament progress by maintaining an all-stick/no-carrot approach to the economic sanctions and by ignoring the regional and supplier components of arms control. By contrast, a partial lifting of sanctions in return for partial compliance would have allowed an incentive for greater Iraqi cooperation and would have avoided the current stalemate, which has resulted in a sanctions regimes that disproportionately impacts the civilian population and yet fails to win Iraqi compliance with demands for international inspections outside the NPT.

Article 14 of UN Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 687 (the sanctions resolution) identifies the goal of “establishing in the Middle East a zone free of weapons of mass destruction and all missiles to deliver them, and the objective of a global ban on chemical weapons.” But this UN goal, which the U.S. formally endorsed, remains an unfulfilled ideal in the context of regional Middle East security. As of 2000, 20% of the $80 billion international arms trade is imported by the six pro-Western monarchies of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). Rather than working toward regional arms control, the U.S. remains the largest supplier of arms of all kinds to this already arms-glutted region.

ALTERNATIVE U.S. POLICY PROPOSALS:
* The U.S. should continue a unilateral ban on arms transfers to Iraq.

* The IAEA and the UN (through the Conference on Disarmament and through Security Council-appointed inspectors and those drawn from the chemical weapons treaty organizations) should conduct regular inspections inside Iraq, along Iraq’s borders, and—with the voluntary consent of the relevant governments—inside its immediate neighbors (Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Syria). The inspections would be designed to identify and halt any efforts by Iraq or its neighbors to build new WMDs or to import material to do so. This would involve the establishment of an inspection agency modeled after the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and empowered, by agreement from all governments in the region, with the right to make spot-checks, especially at border crossings.

* The U.S. should encourage the establishment of a regional security regime for all eight littoral states of the Persian Gulf (the six GCC states plus Iran and Iraq) that could include such confidence building measures as: a regional early warning network, arms control, a regional cooperation framework comparable to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, other conflict-prevention protocols, and a regional open skies policy.

* The U.S. should, as prescribed by Article 14 of UNSC Resolution 687, initiate negotiations among the major arms supplying nations to stop all advanced arms transfers to Iraq’s neighbors—including Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, and Kuwait—and should set an example by immediately announcing a moratorium on such arms transfers.

* The U.S. should initiate, or support others initiating, Article 14 negotiations involving all Middle East countries regarding the creation of a Middle East WMD-free zone covering all WMDs, including Israel’s uninspected nuclear arsenal. Arms control, including the elimination of WMD programs, should also become a priority in the U.S.-led peace process between Israel and its neighbors.

Economic Sanctions

FRAMEWORK:
Economic sanctions imposed under UNSC Resolution 687 were ostensibly designed to pressure Iraq to cooperate with UNSCOM in finding and eliminating Iraq’s WMD programs. Although UNSCOM and the IAEA were in fact able to find and eliminate the vast majority of Iraq’s WMD programs, the sanctions have failed to insure the Iraqi government’s complete cooperation, and, ten years later, there is no indication that economic sanctions are even slightly effective in advancing disarmament goals. Meanwhile, innocent Iraqi civilians are suffering as a result.

The economic sanctions imposed on Iraq over the last decade are the most comprehensive and tightly enforced of any sanctions regime in recent history. The U.S. position of linking the sanctions to the end of Saddam Hussein’s regime has significantly undermined the legitimacy of the UN’s more limited goal of imposing sanctions until the UN could verify that Iraq had ended its WMD production. Combined with the devastation caused by the 1991 bombing during Operation Desert Storm, the sanctions regime has left the Iraqi leadership weakened in military capacity and in international credibility (though in the Middle East, the latter is rapidly being reversed). Domestically, however, sanctions have served to significantly strengthen the regime. This has occurred because sanctions have: restricted the outside influences, access, and contacts of ordinary Iraqis; made the population dependent on the government for the supply of the minimal food and medicine available; and destroyed Iraq’s middle class, traditionally the social group in the forefront of efforts to promote regime changes in the Arab world.

The sanctions regime itself—most notably the lack of access to the massive funds required for infrastructure repair and replacement—is responsible for the deaths of thousands of the most vulnerable Iraqis, particularly children. Funds generated through gray and black markets in smuggled oil—estimated at up to a half billion dollars each year in the hands of the Iraqi government—are not always made available to the civilian population and, even under the best of circumstances, would be insufficient to meet a significant fraction of the domestic needs of Iraq’s 23 million people. Official U.S. statements blaming the Iraqi regime for the humanitarian crisis in the country are exaggerated, not because the top leadership of the regime makes the well-being of its citizens its top priority, but because the regime does not have the financial ability to significantly improve their lot. (It should be noted, as well, that while staying in power remains the top goal, sustaining a level of physical well-being for the population as a whole has been part of Ba’ath Party’s political survival strategy since it came to power.) Although it is true that the regime has callously diverted much of its own funds away from civilian use and toward political and military investment, this cannot justify the continuation of an international sanctions regime that is directly responsible for much of the human suffering. A full 25% of Iraq’s legal oil revenues that go into the UN’s escrow account are diverted by the UN Compensation Commission. This Commission adjucates claims made by Kuwait and other parties for damages suffered during Iraq’s invasion and occupation. Although the principle of compensation is a sound one, sending money to a wealthy country like Kuwait should be secondary to preventing the deaths of innocent children in Iraq.

What is needed to rebuild Iraq’s devastated social fabric is a massive infusion of cash for the multibillion-dollar reconstruction effort. A sanctions regime that attempts to control a country’s economy from the outside simply will not provide such funds; the artificial economy created from such outside control cannot survive. Ironically, the U.S.-backed economic sanctions have created in Iraq one of the tightest centralized economic systems of any country in the world.

The black market in Iraq, a virtual inevitability under any tight sanctions regime, has further distorted the Iraqi economy. Pre-sanctions Iraq had one of the narrowest wealth-poverty gaps in the region, but the small sector of black marketeers who have profited enormously from the sanctions regime now fuel new and continuing social tensions. Among the Iraqi population, responsibility for economic and social deprivation is largely blamed on the sanctions; when the sanctions are lifted, extraordinary pressure is likely to be directed at the Ba’athist leadership, in contrast to the current level of passive acquiescence to the regime. In short, an end to the sanctions regime would likely weaken, not strengthen, Saddam Hussein’s rule.

The sanctions are imposed in the name of the UN, but in fact have little international support. Numerous countries, including important U.S. allies, are challenging, if not directly violating, the sanctions, and international legitimacy has long since eroded. There is little question that once Washington seeks an end to the economic sanctions, the rest of the UN member states will join in supporting that new stance.

The sanctions currently have and will continue to have a residual effect on U.S. companies, particularly oil companies, competing with European and Asian companies for access to the post-sanctions Iraqi market. The new Bush administration is contending with two competing factions within the administration regarding Iraqi policy: those who oppose sanctions on free trade grounds and those who still demonize the Iraqi regime.

The current sanctions resolution, UNSC 1284, passed reluctantly by the Security Council in December 1999, continues the problems of earlier sanctions resolutions in that it fails to delineate steps toward gradual compliance and does not acknowledge examples of partial compliance but rather includes only open-ended demands that cannot clearly be satisfied. It also does not provide for the actual lifting of economic sanctions—only their temporary suspension. Under this scenario, the default position of reimposed sanctions remains, absent continuing affirmative decisions by the Security Council, thus preventing Iraq access to the large-scale (oil company) investments required to rebuild its infrastructure. UNSC 1284’s failure should be recognized and new discussions opened for a post-sanctions UN policy toward Iraq.

ALTERNATIVE U.S. POLICY PROPOSALS:
* There should be a delinking of military sanctions from economic sanctions.

* There should be an immediate end to the diversion of the 25% of oil-for-food funds that currently goes to the Compensation Commission, until such time as UNICEF and other international agencies can certify that Iraq’s humanitarian crisis is over.

* There should be an immediate end to the UN’s control of contracts on imports. The UN committee responsible for overseeing military sanctions should be notified of contracts when those contracts are being sent for fulfillment. If the U.S. or any other Security Council member has concerns regarding the possibility of dual use for a particular item, the item should remain in the contract and fulfillment should be implemented, but a mechanism should be created to notify UN monitors in Iraq to impose a higher level of tracking to insure appropriate end-use of the item.

* There should be a lifting of economic sanctions. This must include the removal of obstacles to the economic rehabilitation of Iraq, including abolishing the UNSC 661 Sanctions Committee. This body reviews all oil-for-food contracts and is currently holding up over $2 billion in humanitarian supplies. Furthermore, the UN escrow account should be closed simultaneously with Baghdad’s acceptance of the regional disarmament and inspection regime described above. Although there are some widespread and legitimate concerns that the Iraqi regime might use some of these funds to rearm and to enhance its repressive apparatus, strict monitoring and pressures on potential suppliers should keep such potential abuses to a minimum.
Human Rights

FRAMEWORK:
Serious violations of political and civil rights have been a feature of the Iraqi regime since it came to power over twenty years ago. Unfortunately, U.S. government initiatives to challenge past or present Iraqi human rights violations have little credibility, because: 1) the U.S. continued to provide military, diplomatic, and economic support to Iraq throughout the periods of the worst Iraqi violations (including the Anfal campaign in the late 1980s) without seriously challenging the Iraqi regime’s repression; 2) the U.S., through its enforcement of UN sanctions and its continued bombing, is itself responsible for ongoing human rights violations against the Iraqi people, which have caused far more civilian deaths than the total directly attributable to the Iraqi regime; and, 3) the current U.S. policy of singling out Iraq for its human rights violations while supporting other repressive regimes in the region casts doubt on the sincerity of Washington’s stated concern for universally recognized human rights.

The goal of any human rights campaign should be a focus on accountability based on international law and enforced by appropriate international institutions. The U.S. record on human rights toward Iraq and toward the Middle East in general has damaged U.S. credibility to the point where U.S. leadership would likely prove counterproductive. Similarly, though there are indeed aspects of Iraq’s human rights records that are qualitatively worse than even those of its autocratic neighbors, failure to simultaneously promote human rights throughout the entire region will make any efforts to hold the Iraqi regime accountable for its human rights abuses appear more like a political vendetta than an effort based upon legitimate moral and legal foundations.

ALTERNATIVE U.S. POLICY PROPOSALS:
* The U.S. should support the dispatch of UN human rights monitors to Iraq, as mandated by UNSC Resolution 688 to investigate human rights conditions of Iraqi civilians, including violations by any party of political, civil, economic, social, or cultural rights. Investigation should includepolitical prisoners; torture and executions; prohibitions on free speech, opposition political organizations, etc.; denial of adequate food, clean water, health care, and education; restrictions on travel; and, other denials of basic rights. Such investigations, whether in a tribunal form orotherwise, should be focused on establishing accountability for violations, regardless ofperpetrator, and should be an ongoing monitoring program to protect the Iraqi population.

* The U.S. should support international initiatives (tribunals or other forums) designed to holdindividuals and governments (Iraq, U.S., and others) accountable for violations of all categories of human rights in Iraq or occupied Kuwait. A timeline from the mid-1980s to the present would provide a framework for a tribunal or other accountability process to investigate the most egregious allegations of violations of international law and/or UN resolutions. A major focus would be violations of the laws of war, which would include Iraq’s invasion and occupation of Kuwait, its use of chemical weapons, and its failure to account for missing prisoners-of-war. Other focuses would include violations of civil and political rights, which would include the Iraqi regime’s widespread use of arbitrary arrest, torture, extrajudicial killings, and forced relocation or expulsion from homes, as well as violations of economic and social rights including the impact of economic sanctions.

* The U.S. should initiate internal investigations to determine the accountability of U.S. officials responsible for crafting or implementing policies in Iraq that have violated the human rights of the Iraqi population and should take steps to prevent such policies from being imposed in the future. Such an investigation should analyze violations of the laws of war, which would include attacks against nonmilitary and retreating Iraqi troops by allied forces during the Gulf War and the ongoing bombing of Iraq. There should also be a focus on large-scale violations of economic, social, and cultural rights from the allied bombing andsanctions regime, including the denial of a civilian population’s access to sufficient food, water,medicine, and education, as well as the destruction of educational, medical, and cultural institutions.

* All of the above should be part of a shift in U.S. policy toward making the promotion of human rights a higher priority in America’s relationship with all countries of the Middle East region.

No-Fly Zones

FRAMEWORK:
The U.S., Great Britain, and France unilaterally initiated “no-fly zones” in northern and southern Iraq ostensibly in response to popular concern over the humanitarian crisis generated by the Iraqi government’s severe repression of the Kurdish and Shi’a communities following their March 1991 antigovernment uprisings. The two no-fly zones were originally designed to protect these areas from Iraqi air strikes by banning all Iraqi military flights. These no-fly zones have no precedence in international law and no authorization from the United Nations. France has subsequently quit the enforcement efforts.

Subsequently, the U.S. and Britain escalated their military role to include assaults on antiaircraft batteries that fired at allied aircraft enforcing the zones. This role was escalated still further when antiaircraft batteries were attacked simply for locking on their radar screens on allied aircraft, even without firing. Then, the Clinton administration began attacking radar installations and other military targets within the no-fly zone, even when they were unrelated to alleged Iraqi threats against U.S. aircraft. Now, the new Bush administration has escalated things still further, targeting radar and command-and-control installations well beyond the no-fly zone.

According to 1994 and 1996 State Department reports, the creation and military enforcement of no-fly zones have not successfully protected the Iraqi Kurdish and Shi’a populations. The fact that the U.S. and UK routinely allow the Turkish Air Force to conduct bombing raids against Kurdish targets in the northern no-fly zone indicates that there is not a genuine concern about protecting this vulnerable minority. U.S.-UK air strikes have also failed to accurately pinpoint Iraqi military targets. In 1999 alone, UN officials documented 144 civilians killed in the U.S.-UK bombing raids. Enforcement of the no-fly zones is increasingly viewed by many in the U.S. Air Force as both strategically useless and too costly in terms of personnel and funding.

U.S. military enforcement of no-fly zones is not authorized by the UN and is therefore a violation of international law. Internationally, many governments, particularly in Europe and in the Arab world, are strongly opposed. Most of Washington’s Middle Eastern allies are reluctant supporters and face growing domestic pressure to end support for the U.S.-UK flights. Particularly troubling for some gulf states with restive Shi’a populations of their own, is the fear that the no-fly zone for the Shi’a areas of southern Iraq could lead to the breakup of the country along sectarian lines.

ALTERNATIVE U.S. POLICY PROPOSALS:
* The U.S. must stop the bombings and end military enforcement of the no-fly zones.

* The U.S. should call on Turkey to respect its own borders and to keep its air force and ground troops out of Iraqi territory.

* The U.S. should encourage other third parties (such as the European Union, Jordan, Qatar, and France) to work through the UN to initiate discussions with the Iraqi government regarding protection of the Iraqi Kurdish population and other threatened communities within the no-fly zones in Iraq. Since the EU is already involved in discussions regarding Turkey’s treatment of its Kurdish minority, broadening those talks in such a way as to include protecting the rights of Iraqi as well as Turkish Kurds might be a useful beginning.

Iraqi Opposition

FRAMEWORK:
A centerpiece of U.S. policy, particularly since the new Bush administration has come to office, has been Washington’s efforts to bolster political and military opponents of Saddam Hussein, both within Iraq and in exile. The 1998 Iraq Liberation Act, which called for direct U.S. support for Iraqi opposition groups, was largely designed to placate claims that the Clinton administration was “soft” on Iraq.

The Kurds in Iraq, like those in surrounding states, have long faced discrimination and sometimes savage repression, especially after nationalist uprisings. Despite this, Kurdish groups have over the years been in negotiations with Baghdad over access to various rights and privileges. The U.S. in recent decades has a record of seducing, then abandoning, Kurdish leaders and their movements and thus is poorly positioned to claim the moral high ground of “protecting” the Iraqi Kurds. Today the Iraqi Kurdish leadership from both major parties is actively cooperating with the Iraqi regime regarding the income from oil sold through Turkey and other matters of mutual interest.

There has also been serious opposition to Saddam Hussein’s regime within the country’s Arab majority. However, the Iraqi regime has largely succeeded in squelching most serious internal opposition, and the only opposition organization with a functional base of support inside the country, the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution, is closely tied to Iran. The exiled opposition figures are seriously divided. Most have little or no credibility inside Iraq, and a large component represent a range of unsavory characters from corrupt bankers to supporters of the ousted monarchy. The Iraqi National Congress, based in London, is a coalition of exile groups without a clear political agenda and is united largely in the search for access to U.S. aid money.

One of the new Bush administration’s first actions was a reenergized embrace of military support for the Iraqi “contras,” with some officials going so far as to compare them to the “victorious” Nicaraguan contras. Such a policy is fraught with dangers. First, any democratic forces inside the country risk losing their credibility if they accept U.S. government money. Second, such a strategy signals a U.S. commitment to an illegal policy of overthrowing a foreign government. Top Bush administration officials, including Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz, have been supporters of the Iraq Liberation Act. Such a policy antagonizes U.S. allies and is a clear violation of international and U.S. law, as well as a number of treaty obligations. Third, despite the greatly reduced power of Saddam Hussein’s military as a result of the war, the sanctions, and the inspection regime, the Iraqi government still has an armed force quite capable of crushing virtually any internal rebellion. Encouraging armed resistance would simple lead to more killings and destruction without loosening the regime’s grip on power. Indeed, some top Pentagon officials, including former U.S. Central Command head General Anthony Zinni, argue that the opposition is simply incapable of seriously weakening, let alone overthrowing, the Iraqi regime.

ALTERNATIVE U.S. POLICY PROPOSALS:
* There should be no U.S. support for armed Iraqi opposition groups. Since the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act does not include specific requirements for implementing its provisions, the White House can and should reverse its current position of support for the act and announce its intention to disregard it.

* The U.S. should reassert its commitments to abide by the UN Charter and other international legal prohibitions against efforts to overthrow other countries’ governments.

* U.S. funds should be provided only to Arab League, European Union, UN, or other multilateral efforts to provide economic and humanitarian aid to civil society organizations and humanitarian institutions inside Iraq; Washington should provide no funds to unilaterally selected recipients or campaigns, including propaganda or political campaigns.

* The best way to protect Kurdish interests would be through a reconciliation process aimed at establishing a nondiscriminating regional autonomy agreement with the Iraqi Kurds and guaranteeing that, with the lifting of sanctions, the region’s economic well-being is protected. The fact that the leaders of both Kurdish parties are currently engaged in ongoing dialog and negotiations with the Baghdad regime makes such an effort viable.

Depleted Uranium and Other Health and Environmental Concerns

FRAMEWORK:
The uncertainty regarding the dangers of depleted uranium (DU) for U.S. veterans of the Gulf War and their children, and most recently for European peacekeeping troops exposed to DU weapons in the Balkans, has made it one of the top domestic consequences of the Gulf War. There is considerable anecdotal evidence that DU is also responsible for dramatic growth rates incertain cancers and other health problems among the civilian population in southern Iraq near the area where allied forces used DU weapons. Recently revealed Pentagon concerns from 1991-92 about the deleterious health threats and the likelihood of plutonium contamination from DU ammunition, warrants a serious, epidemiologically sound study to definitively determine whether DU has a causal link to leukemia, other cancers, or other aspects of Gulf War Syndrome.

The fears regarding DU have been magnified by the Pentagon’s refusal to initiate such a comprehensive study, its resistance to providing background information to NATO-member governments concerned about post-Balkans indications of a link, and its overall lack of concern regarding the health of the U.S. veterans who fought in the Gulf War. In such an atmosphere, it has become virtually impossible to dispassionately examine the separate roles of DU, the fumes from oil fires that spread across Kuwait, the chemical weapons components that may have been released when U.S. troops destroyed Iraqi storehouses, and the vaccine cocktail administered to GIs, let alone the effect of their interactions.

ALTERNATIVE U.S. POLICY PROPOSALS:
* The U.S should support efforts by the UN and other appropriate international agencies to investigate long-term effects of weapons of mass destruction and other toxic weapons including depleted uranium, deployed in the Iraq theatre of conflict since 1980.

* The Pentagon should immediately provide completely open acess to its research and development findings regarding DU for scientists, veterans’ organizations, journalists, and other interested parties in the United States, Europe, the Middle East or elsewhere.

* The U.S. should support international efforts to remove sources of ongoing contamination that may be continuing to harm civilian populations throughout Iraq and in neighboring countries.

* The Pentagon should undertake a large-scale epidemiological survey of all the U.S. GIs who served in the gulf region.

* The U.S. should support a moratorium on the production and use of chemical, biological, and radiological weapons, and should support additional studies on the long-term effects of these weapons, including DU.

http://www.fpif.org/articles/the_failure_of_us_policy_toward_iraq_and_proposed_alternatives

Western Sahara (Conflict Profile)

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History

Traditionally inhabited by nomadic Arab tribes with a long history of resistance to outside domination, the area known as Spanish Sahara was occupied by Spain during much of the twentieth century and held for more than a decade after most African countries achieved their independence. The nationalist Polisario Front launched an armed independence struggle against Spain in 1973, and Madrid eventually promised to grant independence. Irredentist claims by Morocco and Mauritania were brought before the International Court of Justice, which ruled in 1975 that the right of self-determination was paramount. A UN Commission visited the territory that same year and reported that the vast majority of Sahrawis supported independence. Despite this and its earlier pledge to the Polisario, Spain partitioned the territory between Morocco and Mauritania in November 1975. Most of the population fled into refugee camps administered by the Polisario in neighboring western Algeria. The Polisario proclaimed independence as the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic and–with Algerian-supplied weaponry–fought the occupying armies. By 1982, the Polisario had liberated most of the territory, but large-scale French and American military aid reversed the war in Morocco’s favor, resulting in Moroccan control of virtually the entire country, including the establishment of an 800-mile “wall” to exclude the Polisario from their own country. Meanwhile, Rabat was encouraging thousands of Moroccan settlers to emigrate to Western Sahara. A military stalemate continued until 1991, when a cease-fire was declared and plans were established for a UN-supervised referendum on the fate of the territory. Morocco, however, has prevented the referendum from proceeding by insisting upon stacking the voter rolls with Moroccan citizens that it claims have tribal links to the Western Sahara.

Main Actors

Kingdom of Morocco–occupies Western Sahara

Polisario Front–nationalist movement of Western Sahara

Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic–government-in-exile of Western Sahara led by the Polisario Front, recognized by more than 70 countries

Islamic Republic of Mauritania–granted administration of southern third of Western Sahara in 1975; renounced claim in 1978 after defeat by the Polisario

Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria–principal backer of the Polisario and home to most of the Sahrawi refugee population

Republic of France–major military and diplomatic supporter of Morocco

United States–major military and diplomatic supporter of Morocco

Kingdom of Spain–colonial ruler of Western Sahara

Proposed Solutions and Evaluation of Prospects

Despite initial demands by the UN Security Council in 1975 for Morocco to withdraw its occupation forces unconditionally and respect the Sahrawi’s right to self-determination, the UN agreed in 1991 to organize and oversee a referendum whereby voters in the territory could choose between independence or incorporation into Morocco. The UN established a special force, known as MINURSO, to supervise the cease-fire, help with the repatriation of refugees, and make preparations for the plebiscite. Both parties agreed to base the voter rolls on residents tabulated in a 1974 Spanish census and their descendants. However, Morocco has insisted on also including large numbers of Moroccans who could trace their ancestry to Sahrawi tribes, effectively stacking the electorate in favor of incorporation. Meanwhile, Moroccan troops remain in Western Sahara, and any pro-independence political activity is severely repressed. The refugees remain in their Polisario-managed camps in Algeria.

Both France and the United States have blocked the UN from imposing sanctions or putting pressure on the Moroccans to compromise. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, through his special envoy, former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker, has been engaged in seeking a resolution. Despite Polisario threats to return to war, Algeria–which has undergone serious internal conflict over the past decade–is unlikely to provide military assistance necessary to challenge Moroccan control.
Role of U.S.

The United States, along with France, has been the principal military backer of Morocco in its 25-year occupation of Western Sahara. U.S. counterinsurgency advisers and equipment played a key role in reversing the war in Morocco’s favor in the 1980s. Morocco has long been considered a strategic ally of the West, initially during the cold war as an anticommunist force and more recently as an asset against Islamic militancy. So far, the U.S. has rejected the increasingly moderate and pro-Western tone of the Polisario, though a coalition of liberal and conservative members of Congress has begun to pressure the administration to support Sahrawi self-determination. Successive U.S. administrations have feared that should Morocco lose a fair referendum–a likely scenario–it could mean the downfall of Morocco’s pro-Western monarchy, which has staked its political future on incorporating what it refers to as “the southern provinces.” As a result, although Washington gives lip service to Baker’s mission and related UN efforts and provides a few dozen military and civilian personnel to MINURSO, the U.S. is unlikely to encourage a peaceful resolution to the conflict, Africa’s longest-running and final anticolonial struggle.

Stephen Zunes is a senior analyst for FPIF, and an associate professor of Politics and chair of the Peace & Justice program at the University of San Francisco.

http://selfdetermine.irc-online.org/conflicts/sahara.html

PDF http://stephenzunes.org/articles/OVsahara.pdf

UN Betrayal of Western Sahara Appears Imminent

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When a country violates fundamental principles of international law and when the UN Security Council demands that it cease its illegal behavior, one might expect that the world body would impose sanctions or other measures to foster compliance. This has been the case with Iraq, Libya, and other international outlaws in recent years.

One would not expect for the United Nations to respond to such violations by passing a series of new and weaker resolutions that essentially allow for the transgressions to stand.

However, this is exactly what appears to be taking place in the case of Morocco and its 25-year occupation of Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), better known as Western Sahara. Soon after the International Court of Justice ruled against Morocco’s claims to the territory and the right of the Sahrawis for self-determination, Morocco invaded Western Sahara in November 1975. At that time the UN passed UN Security Council Resolution 380 calling for Morocco to withdraw immediately from the territory. The U.S. and France not only blocked the UN from imposing sanctions and otherwise enforcing its resolution, but they also sent military advisers and hundreds of millions of dollars worth of arms in subsequent years to support Morocco’s conquest. As a result, the majority of the country’s population was forced into exile in neighboring Algeria.

By 1991 the UN had dropped its insistence insisting that Moroccan forces withdraw unilaterally. Instead it called for a UN-sponsored plebiscite involving the Saharis themselves on the fate of the territory. UN Security Council Resolution 690 outlined the process for registering voters and proceeding with the plebiscite. Recognizing that the Sahrawis would likely vote for independence, Morocco stacked the voter rolls with Moroccan citizens who had immigrated into the occupied territory or otherwise claimed had ancestral ties to the area. Using their power on the Security Council, the United States and France repeatedly blocked the UN from enforcing its mandate for a Sahrawi plebiscite.

In September 1997, the diplomatic stalemate appeared to be broken through the efforts of UN Special Envoy and former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker that appeared to have worked out the registration process obstacles, which included some further concessions to the Moroccans. This was endorsed in UN Security Council Resolution 1133. Still fearing it would lose, however, Morocco has refused to implement this agreement as well.

With the diplomatic umbrella of France and the United States protecting the monarchy from its international obligations, it now appears that Baker will soon be recommending that the UN drop the idea for a plebiscite and replace it with a settlement providing Western Sahara with limited autonomy for an interim period while recognizing its annexation to Morocco.

The Western Saharan government-in-exile has rightly dismissed this proposal as a fundamental violation of right of Sahrawi self-determination, the UN charter, and basic principles of international law. Indeed, it has threatened to go to war, possibly with the support of Algeria, rather than have Morocco’s conquest stand uncontested. The SADR has been recognized by more than 75 countries and is a full member state of the Organization of African Unity. There is likely to be strong resistance against a Western-led effort to legitimize what most African states see as an act of colonialism.

Should Baker’s proposal be accepted, it could not only provoke a regional war but would also set a dangerous precedent of rewarding the conquest of territory by force and likely embolden potential aggressors around the world. As with the analogous case of East Timor, it may take a mass mobilization by human rights activists around the world to force the major powers to allow the UN to enforce its obligations and allow an oppressed people their right to self-determination.
Recommended Citation:

Stephen Zunes, “UN Betrayal of Western Sahara Appears Imminent” (Washington, DC: Foreign Policy In Focus, June 1, 2001)