Category: Western Sahara/Morocco

Western Sahara/Morocco

Western Sahara: Self-Determination and International Law

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The failure of the Kingdom of Morocco and the Polisario Front to agree on the modalities of the long-planned United Nations-sponsored referendum on the fate of Western Sahara, combined with a growing nonviolent resistance campaign within the territory against Morocco’s 31-year occupation, has led Morocco to propose granting the former Spanish colony special autonomous status within the kingdom.

The plan has received the enthusiastic support of the American and French governments as a reasonable compromise to the abiding conflict, which has caused enormous suffering to the Sahrawi people — over half of whom live in refugee camps in neighboring Algeria — and has seriously crippled efforts to advance badly-needed economic and strategic cooperation between Morocco and Algeria as both face the challenges of struggling economies and rising Islamist militancy.

Morocco has failed to live up to the terms of the 1991 UN-supervised ceasefire agreement with the Polisario, which called for a free and fair referendum on the fate of the territory. A series of resolutions by the UN Security Council and the UN General Assembly, as well as a landmark 1975 advisory ruling by the International Court of Justice, have reaffirmed the right of the people of Western Sahara to self-determination. However, France and the United States have blocked the Security Council from enforcing its resolutions as part of their perceived need to strengthen the Moroccan monarchy, seen as a bulwark against Communism and radical Arab nationalism during the Cold War and, in more recent years, an important ally in the struggle against Islamist extremism.

Unfortunately, the Moroccan plan for autonomy falls well short of what is required in bringing about a peaceful resolution to the conflict. Moreover, it seeks to set a dangerous precedent that threatens the very foundation of the post-World War II international legal system.

To begin with, the proposal is based on the assumption that Western Sahara is part of Morocco, a contention that has long been rejected by the United Nations, the International Court of Justice, the African Union, and a broad consensus of international legal opinion. To accept Morocco’s autonomy plan would mean that, for the first time since the founding of the United Nations and the ratification of the UN Charter more than 60 years ago, the international community would be endorsing the expansion of a country’s territory by military force, thereby establishing a very dangerous and destabilizing precedent.

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 — according to knowledgeable international observers — favor outright independence.

Even if one takes a dismissive attitude toward international law, there are a number of practical concerns regarding the Moroccan proposal as well.

One is that the history of respect for regional autonomy on the part of centralized authoritarian states is quite poor, and has often led to violent conflict, as witnessed by the tragic results from the Ethiopian decision to revoke Eritrea’s autonomy in 1961 and the Serbian decision to revoke Kosovo’s autonomy in 1989.

Based upon Morocco’s record of breaking its promises to the international community regarding the UN-mandated referendum for Western Sahara and related obligations based on the ceasefire agreement 17 years ago, there is little to inspire confidence that the Kingdom would live up to its promises to provide genuine autonomy for Western Sahara.

Indeed, a close reading of the proposal raises questions as to how much autonomy is even being offered. Important matters such as control of Western Sahara’s natural resources and law enforcement (beyond local jurisdictions) remain ambiguous.

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 invested with absolute authority under Article 19 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 afford the monarch considerable latitude of interpretation.

There appears to be a growing consensus within the international community that some sort of compromise, or “third way” between independence and integration, is necessary to resolve the conflict and that a “winner take all” approach, such as a referendum on independence, is unworkable.

While encouraging such compromise and trying to find a win/win situation is certainly the preferable way to pursue a lasting peaceful settlement regarding ethnic conflict and many international disputes, Western Sahara is a clear-cut case of self-determination for a people struggling against foreign military occupation. The Polisario Front has already offered guarantees to protect Moroccan strategic and economic interests if allowed full independence. To insist that the people of Western Sahara must give up their moral and legal right to genuine self-determination, then, is not a recipe for conflict resolution, but for far more serious conflict in the future.

As a result of the French and American veto threats, the UN Security Council has failed to place the Western Sahara issue under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which would provide the international community with the power to impose sanctions or other appropriate leverage to force the Moroccan regime to abide by the UN mandates it has up until now disregarded.  The Polisario’s unwillingness to compromise the right of the Western Saharan people to self-determination, therefore, should not be seen as the major obstacle impeding the resolution of the conflict.

In the comparable case of East Timor, it was only after human rights organizations, church groups, and other activists in the United States, Great Britain, Australia, and elsewhere successfully pressured their governments to end their support for Indonesia’s occupation that the Jakarta regime was finally willing to offer a referendum which gave the East Timorese their right to self-determination. It may take a similar grassroots campaign in Europe and North America to ensure that Western powers live up to their international legal obligations and pressure Morocco to allow the people of Western Sahara to determine their own destiny.

The Future of Western Sahara

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Morocco’s ongoing refusal to allow for the long-planned UN-sponsored referendum on the fate of Western Sahara to move forward, combined with a growing nonviolent resistance campaign in the occupied territory against Moroccan occupation authorities, has led Morocco to propose granting the former Spanish colony special autonomous status within the kingdom.

The kingdom of Morocco, generously supplied with American-made weapons, invaded the largely desert nation – then known as Spanish Sahara – more than three decades ago. It has controlled much of the territory ever since. More then 75 nations have recognized the government-in-exile of Western Sahara, led by the nationalist Polisario Front, and it is a full member state of the African Union.

A series of resolutions by the UN Security Council and the UN General Assembly, as well as a landmark 1975 advisory ruling by the International Court of Justice, have recognized the right of self-determination by the people of Western Sahara. However, France and the United States have blocked the Security Council from enforcing its resolutions. Both countries have perceived a need to strengthen the Moroccan monarchy as a bulwark against Communism and radical Arab nationalism during the Cold War and, in more recent years, as an important ally in the struggle against Islamist extremism.

The ongoing conflict between Morocco and the Western Sahara nationalists, led by the Polisario Front, has resulted in enormous suffering by the Western Saharan people, over half of whom live in refugee camps in neighboring Algeria. It has seriously crippled efforts to advance badly needed economic and strategic cooperation between the states of the Maghreb region facing challenges from struggling economies and rising Islamist militancy.

The Bush administration and a bipartisan group of congressional leaders have enthusiastically supported the Moroccan autonomy plan as a means of ending the conflict. But Morocco’s plan for autonomy falls well short of what is necessary to bring about a peaceful resolution to the conflict. It also poses a dangerous precedent that threatens the very foundation of the post-World War II international legal system.

Morocco’s “Autonomy” Plan

The autonomy plan is based on the assumption that Western Sahara is part of Morocco, a contention that the United Nations, the World Court, the African Union, and a broad consensus of international legal opinion have long rejected. 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 more the 60 years ago, the international community would be endorsing the expansion of a country’s territory by military force, thereby establishing a very dangerous and destabilizing precedent.

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 – according to knowledgeable international observers – 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 to violent conflict. In 1952, the UN granted the British protectorate (and former Italian colony) of Eritrea autonomous status federated with Ethiopia. In 1961, however, the Ethiopian emperor revoked Eritrea’s autonomous status, annexing it as his empire’s 14th province. The result was a bloody 30-year struggle for independence and subsequent border wars between the two the countries. Similarly, the decision of Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic to revoke the autonomous status of Kosovo in 1989 led to a decade of repression and resistance, culminating in the NATO war against Yugoslavia in 1999.

Moreover, there are no enforcement mechanisms included in the proposal, and Morocco has a history of breaking its promises to the international community regarding the UN-mandated referendum for Western Sahara and related obligations based on the ceasefire agreement 16 years ago. Indeed, a close reading of the proposal raises questions as to how much autonomy is even being offered initially, such as control of Western Sahara’s natural resources and 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 invested with absolute authority under Article 19 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.

In any case, the people of Western Sahara will not likely accept autonomy rather than independence. For years, they have engaged in pro-independence protests only to be subjected to mass arrests, beatings, torture, and extra-judicial killings. There is little reason to expect that the Moroccan authorities would change their ways under “autonomy.”

U.S. Defends the Moroccan Proposal

Despite all these serious problems with the Moroccan proposal, both the Bush administration and congressional leaders of both parties have rushed to try to legitimize what amounts to an illegal annexation of one country by another. U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicolas Burns called it “a serious and credible proposal to provide real autonomy for the Western Sahara,” a point underscored before the House International Relations Committee by assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs David Welch. Although the well-organized refugee camps are largely demilitarized and, even during the 16 years of armed struggle against Morocco, the Polisario never engaged in acts of terrorism, Welch warned in the course of his testimony that the camps present “a potentially attractive safe haven for terrorist planning or activity.”

Congressional leaders of both parties appear to be allying themselves with administration hard-liners. Congressman Tom Lantos of California, whom the Democrats have chosen to chair the House International Relations Committee, referred to the Moroccan proposal as “reasonable and realistic” and called on the Polisario to accept it. He was joined by 172 other members of the House, who signed a letter declaring it “a breakthrough opportunity” and a “realistic framework for a political solution.” Given the widespread opposition in the international community to legitimizing Morocco’s act of aggression, the letter concludes by urging President Bush to “embrace this promising Moroccan initiative so that it receives the consideration necessary to achieve international acceptance.”

The letter was drafted and circulated by Congressman Gary Ackerman of New York, whom the Democrats have chosen to chairman of the House Subcommittee on the Middle East. Other Democratic leaders joining their foreign policy leadership in supporting Morocco’s right of conquest included Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and Democratic Caucus Chair Rahm Emanuel. Prominent Republicans signing the letter included Minority Leader John Boehner, House Republican Whip Roy Blunt, and former House Speaker Dennis Hastert. Indeed, more than 80 of the signers are either committee chairmen or ranking members of key committees, subcommittees and elected leadership of the U.S. House of Representatives, yet another indication in this post-Cold War era of a growing bipartisan effort to undermine the longstanding principle of the right of self-determination.

Former Clinton administration officials have also weighed in to support the contention that the people of Western Sahara should give up on their widely acknowledged claim to independence and instead accept the suzerainty of the autocratic Moroccan monarchy. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, in an open letter to President Bush, also encouraged him to back the Moroccan plan, which she claimed gave “the people of the Western Sahara a true voice in their future through the full benefits of autonomy as presented by Morocco, a credible political solution can be achieved.” The letter was signed by a host of other prominent Democrats.

Distorting the Facts

Prominent Democrats have joined the Bush administration in distorting the facts of the conflict. For example, UN monitors report that the Polisario has scrupulously honored its 1991 ceasefire agreement with Morocco despite the Moroccans’ refusal to honor their reciprocal commitment to allow the holding a referendum on independence to take place. Nevertheless, Lantos has insisted that “peace has been summarily rejected by the rebel Polisario Front in favor of . . .guerrilla ambushes.” The House Democrats’ chief foreign policy spokesman also blames the Polisario for forcing most of the Western Saharan population to live in “arid refugee camps,” ignoring that they are living in these camps as a direct result of Moroccan repression.

Despite well-documented reports by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and other reputable human rights groups monitoring the situation in the occupied territory that public expressions in support for self-determination are routinely suppressed, Lantos has also expressed his confidence that “Morocco will do nothing to stifle debate among the people of Western Sahara.”

In a prominent op-ed column in The New York Times this past March backing Morocco’s autonomy plan, President Bill Clinton’s ambassador to Morocco Frederick Vreeland falsely claimed that the Polisario Front, which has led Western Sahara’s independence movement since the territory was under Spanish control, was a creation of Algeria in order to advance its own irredentist claims. In reality, the Polisario grew out of earlier anti-colonial movements that long pre-dated the establishment of the independent Algerian state and only began receiving substantial Algerian assistance after the Moroccan conquest in 1975.

Vreeland also claimed that the Polisario-administered refugee camps in Algeria are potential recruiting grounds for al-Qaeda and other Islamic extremists. In reality, the Polisario Front is a secular nationalist organization, the Western Saharans tend to observe a relatively liberal interpretation of Islam, and the Algerian government – which has only recently emerged from a hard-fought war against Islamist insurgents – would certainly crack down decisively at even a hint of such extremist activities within its territory. Indeed, there have been no credible reports of any radical Islamist activities by the many hundreds of UN officials, scholars and relief workers – including those from U.S. evangelical Christian groups – who have spent time in the camps.

Nor would an independent Western Sahara, endowed with generous natural resources and governed by the Polisario Front’s increasingly pro-Western leadership, constitute “a weak independent state” that “would likely morph into a terrorist-controlled one” as Ambassador Vreeland ominously predicted in his article.

Interestingly, The New York Times refused to run any of the op-eds submitted in subsequent weeks by a number of reputable North African scholars refuting Vreeland’s claims or raising objections about Morocco’s autonomy plan. Nor did the newspaper of record bother to mention that Ambassador Vreeland now serves as chairman of an energy company with contracts with the Moroccan government to develop energy resources in occupied Western Sahara.

Other former officials have had to be more open about their affiliations. Former Connecticut Congressman Toby Moffet, who has lobbied his fellow Democrats to back the Moroccan plan by raising the specter of a growing al-Qaeda threat in North Africa if it’s not accepted, has had to register as an agent of a foreign government for his services on behalf of the Moroccan monarchy. On the Republican side, former Florida Republican Party chairman Alberto Cardenas, who co-chaired 2004 re-election campaign, in that state, has also been hired by the Moroccans.

Implications of U.S. Support

Support for Morocco’s autonomy plan for Western Sahara is indicative of a growing bipartisan rejection of the international legal norms that have governed international relations since the end of the Second World War. At that time, when the victorious allies agreed to never again allow invading armies to conquer other peoples without a collective response. While some have tried to blame the bipartisan congressional support for Israel’s efforts to annex East Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, and parts of the West Bank as a consequence of the alleged power of “the Jewish Lobby,” the strong bipartisan Congressional support for the annexation of Western Sahara by the Arab kingdom of Morocco demonstrates that members of Congress are nowadays quite willing to support the illegal conquests by U.S. allies of their weaker neighbors even without pressure from a well-organized ethnic minority.

Ironically, the majority of House members who were in Congress in 1991 and have gone on record seeking to legitimize Morocco’s aggression against Western Sahara voted to authorize the Gulf War on the grounds that Iraq’s aggression against Kuwait was so egregious that it justified a massive military response.

Most supporters of Morocco’s autonomy plan deny that they are legitimizing aggression. They argue that some sort of compromise, or “third way” between Western Saharan independence and integration with Morocco, is necessary to resolve the conflict and that a “winner take all” approach is unworkable. Encouraging such compromise and trying to find a win/win situation is certainly the preferable way to pursue a lasting peaceful settlement regarding most ethnic conflicts and many international disputes. However, Western Sahara is a clear-cut case of self-determination for a people struggling against foreign military occupation. The Polisario Front has already offered guarantees to protect Moroccan strategic and economic interests if allowed full independence. To insist that the people of Western Sahara must give up their moral and legal right to genuine self-determination, then, is not a recipe for conflict resolution, but for far more serious conflict in the future.

The irresolution to the conflict is not a result of the Polisario’s unwillingness to compromise. Rather, it represents the failure of the UN Security Council – as a result of the French and American veto threats – to place the Western Sahara issue under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. Such an action would give the international community the power to impose sanctions or whatever appropriate leverage is required to force the Moroccan regime to abide by the UN mandates it has up until now been able to disregard thanks to its friends in Paris and Washington.

In the comparable case of East Timor, only after human rights organizations, church groups, and other activists forced the U.S. government to end its support for Indonesia’s occupation did the Jakarta regime finally offer a referendum that gave the East Timorese their right to self-determination. It may take similar grassroots campaigns to ensure that the United States lives up to its international legal obligations and pressures Morocco to allow the people of Western Sahara to determine their own destiny.

Stephen Zunes (www.stephenzunes.org) is a professor of politics at the University of San Francisco and the Middle East editor for Foreign Policy in Focus. He is the author of Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism (Common Courage Press, 2003) and the forthcoming book, co-authored by Jacob Mundy, Western Sahara: Nationalist and Conflict Irresolution in Northwest Africa (Syracuse University Press.)

Recommended Citation: Stephen Zunes, “The Future of Western Sahara” (Washington, DC: Foreign Policy In Focus, July 20, 2007)

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

More harm than good

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The failure of the Kingdom of Morocco and the Polisario Front [8] to agree on the modalities of the long-planned United Nations-sponsored referendum on the fate of Western Sahara, combined with a growing nonviolent resistance campaign in the occupied territory against Morocco’s 31-year occupation, has led Morocco to propose [9] granting the former Spanish colony special autonomous status within the kingdom.Stephen Zunes [10] is a professor of Politics at the University of San Francisco and the Middle East / North Africa editor for Foreign Policy in Focus [11].

Friends in big places

The plan has received the enthusiastic support of the American and French governments as a reasonable compromise to the abiding conflict, which has caused enormous suffering to the Sahrawi people – over half of whom live in refugee camps [13] in neighboring Algeria – and has seriously crippled efforts to advance badly-needed economic and strategic cooperation between Morocco and Algeria as both face the challenges of struggling economies and rising Islamist militancy.

Morocco has failed to live up to the terms of the 1991 UN-supervised ceasefire agreement [14] with the Polisario – a secular nationalist movement that waged an armed struggle against Spanish colonialists and later against Moroccan occupiers – which called for a free and fair referendum on the fate of the territory. A series of resolutions by the UN Security Council and the UN General Assembly, as well as a landmark 1975 advisory ruling [15] by the International Court of Justice, have reaffirmed the right of the people of Western Sahara to self-determination.

However, France and the United States have blocked the Security Council from enforcing its resolutions as part of their perceived need to strengthen the Moroccan monarchy, seen as a bulwark against Communism and radical Arab nationalism during the Cold War and, in more recent years, an important ally in the struggle against Islamist extremism.

Creating more problems than it solves

Unfortunately, the Moroccan plan for autonomy falls well short of what is required in bringing about a peaceful resolution to the conflict. Moreover, it seeks to set a dangerous precedent which threatens the very foundation of the post-World War II international legal system.

Recently on toD on self-determination and referenda:

Abhoud Syed M. Lingga – “Determining factors” [16], 13 July, 2007To begin with, the proposal is based on the assumption that Western Sahara is part of Morocco, a contention that has long been rejected [17] by the United Nations, the World Court, the African Union and a broad consensus of international legal opinion. To accept Morocco’s autonomy plan would mean that, for the first time since the founding of the United Nations and the ratification of the UN Charter [18] more than sixty years ago, the international community would be endorsing the expansion of a country’s territory by military force, thereby establishing a very dangerous and destabilising precedent.

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 – according to knowledgeable international observers – favour [19] outright independence.

A history of failure

Even if one takes a dismissive attitude toward international law, there are a number of practical concerns regarding the Moroccan proposal as well:

One is that the history of respect for regional autonomy on the part of centralised authoritarian states is quite poor, and has often led to violent conflict. In 1952, the United Nations granted the British protectorate (and former Italian colony) of Eritrea autonomous, federated status within Ethiopia. In 1961 [20], however, the Ethiopian emperor revoked Eritrea’s autonomous status, annexing it as his empire’s fourteenth province, resulting in a bloody 30-year struggle for independence and subsequent border wars between the two countries.

Similarly, the decision of Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic to revoke the autonomous status of Kosovo in 1989 [21] led to a decade of repression and resistance, culminating in the NATO war against Yugoslavia in 1999.

Based upon Morocco’s habit of breaking its promises to the international community regarding the UN-mandated referendum for Western Sahara and related obligations based on the cease fire agreement sixteen years ago, there is little to inspire confidence that Morocco would live up to its promises to provide genuine autonomy for Western Sahara.

Pyrrhic autonomy

Indeed, a close reading of the proposal [9] raises questions as to how much autonomy is even being offered. Important matters such as control of Western Sahara’s natural resources and law enforcement (beyond local jurisdictions) remain ambiguous.

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 invested with absolute authority under Article 19 [22] 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 afford the monarch considerable latitude of interpretation.

There appears to be a growing consensus within the international community that some sort of compromise, or “third way” between independence and integration, is necessary to resolve the conflict, and that a “winner take all” approach is unworkable.

While encouraging such compromise and trying to find a win/win situation is certainly the preferable way to pursue a lasting peaceful settlement regarding ethnic conflict and many international disputes, Western Sahara is a clear-cut case of self-determination for a people struggling against foreign military occupation. The Polisario Front has already offered guarantees to protect Moroccan strategic and economic interests if allowed full independence. To insist that the people of Western Sahara must give up their moral and legal right to genuine self-determination, then, is not a recipe for conflict resolution, but for far more serious conflict in the future.

As a result of the French and American veto threats, the UN Security Council has failed to place the Western Sahara issue under Chapter VII [23] of the UN Charter, which would give the international community the power to impose sanctions or other appropriate leverage to force the Moroccan regime to abide by the UN mandates it has up until now disregarded. Polisario’s unwillingness to compromise should not be seen as the major obstacle impeding the resolution of the conflict.

In the comparable case of East Timor, it was only after human rights organizations, church groups and other activists in the United States, Great Britain and Australia successfully pressured their governments to end their support for Indonesia’s occupation that the Jakarta regime was finally willing to offer a referendum which gave the East Timorese their right to self-determination. It may take similar grassroots campaigns [24] in Europe and North America to ensure that western powers live up to their international legal obligations and pressure Morocco to allow the people of Western Sahara to determine their own destiny.

Links:
[1] http://www.opendemocracy.net/opensecurity
[2] http://www.opendemocracy.net/authors/stephen_zunes
[3] http://www.opendemocracy.net/copyright/creative-commons-normal
[4] http://www.opendemocracy.net/terrorism_opendemocracy_tags/rule_of_law
[5] http://www.opendemocracy.net/terrorism_opendemocracy_tags/insurgency
[6] http://www.opendemocracy.net/terrorism_opendemocracy_tags/non_violent_action
[7] http://www.syracuseuniversitypress.syr.edu/spring-2010/western-sahara.html
[8] http://www.wsahara.net/polisario.html
[9] http://w-sahara.blogspot.com/2007/04/moroccos-plan-full-text.html
[10] http://www.stephenzunes.org/
[11] http://www.fpif.org/
[12] http://www.amazon.com/Tinderbox-Stephen-Zunes/dp/1567512267
[13] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/264052.stm
[14] http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/missions/minurso/background.html
[15] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Court_of_Justice_Advisory_Opinion_on_Western_Sahara
[16] http://www.opendemocracy.net/madrid11/philippines_130707
[17] http://www.fpif.org/briefs/vol3/v3n42mor.html
[18] http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter/
[19] http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n04/print/hard01_.html
[20] http://www.onwar.com/aced/data/echo/eritrea1961.htm
[21] http://emperors-clothes.com/milo/milosaid.html
[22] http://www.al-bab.com/maroc/gov/con96.htm
[23] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapter_VII_of_the_United_Nations_Charter
[24] http://www.etan.org/

http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/more_harm_than_good

Western Sahara: The Other Occupation

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Imagine an Arab Muslim nation, most of whose people have lived in the squalor of refugee camps for decades in exile from their homeland. Most of the remaining population suffers under foreign military occupation, with a smaller number living as a minority within the legally-recognized territory of the occupier. The occupying power is in violation of a series of UN Security Council resolutions, has illegally brought in tens of thousands of settlers into the occupied territory, routinely violates international standards of human rights, has built a heavily-fortified separation barrier deep inside the occupied territory, and continues to defy a landmark decision of the International Court of Justice. Furthermore, and despite all this, the occupying power is considered to be a close ally of the United States and receives substantial American military, economic, and diplomatic support to maintain its occupation and colonization of the territory.

This certainly describes the situation regarding Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian West Bank (including greater East Jerusalem) and Syria’s Golan region, as well as its quasi-occupation of the Gaza Strip. But it also describes the thirty-year occupation of Western Sahara by the Kingdom of Morocco. Despite all the well-deserved attention to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the importance of working to end Israel’s occupation, the failure of the international community—including progressive movements in the United States and elsewhere—to also address the Western Sahara conflict raises questions as to why Morocco is getting away with its ongoing violation of human rights and international law with far less world attention than Israel receives.

Western Sahara: A Brief History

Western Sahara is a sparsely-populated territory about the size of Colorado, 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, 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, and Madrid eventually promised 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. Irredentist claims by Morocco and Mauritania were brought before the International Court of Justice, which ruled in October of 1975 that the right of self-determination was paramount, 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. 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, not integration with Morocco or Mauritania.

During this same period, Morocco was threatening war with Spain over the territory. Though the Spaniards had a much stronger military, they were at that time dealing with the terminal illness of their longtime dictator General Francisco Franco as well as 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, despite its earlier pledge to hold a referendum with the assumption that power would soon thereafter be handed over to the Polisario, Spain instead agreed in November 1975 to partition the territory between the pro-Western countries of Morocco and Mauritania.

As Moroccan forces moved into Western Sahara, most of the population fled into refugee camps in neighboring Algeria. Morocco and Mauritania rejected a series of unanimous UN 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. Mauritania was defeated by 1979, agreeing to turn their third of Western Sahara over to the Polisario. However, the Moroccans then annexed that remaining southern part of the country as well.

The Polisario then focused their armed struggle against Morocco and by 1982 had liberated nearly 85 percent of their country. Over the next four years, however, the tide of the war was reversed in Morocco’s favor thanks to the United States and France dramatically increasing their support for the Moroccan war effort, with U.S. forces providing important training for the Moroccan army in counter-insurgency tactics. In addition, the Americans and French helped Morocco construct an 800-mile “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 Sabrawi 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 UN peacekeeping force known as MINURSO. The agreement included provisions for the return of Sahrawi refugees to Western Sahara followed by a UN-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. Perhaps in part to help solicit American cooperation with United Nations efforts to resolve the conflict, Secretary General Kofi Annan enlisted former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker as his special representative to help resolve the impasse. (Baker’s principal deputy was none other than John Bolton, now the infamous interim U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.) 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 Clinton administration 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 to accept Moroccan demands that settlers be allowed to vote on the fate of the territory along with the indigenous Sahrawis. This proposal was incorporated in the first Baker Plan presented in early 2001, which would have held the plebiscite under Moroccan rule after a four- to five-year period of very limited autonomy with no guarantee that independence would be one of the options on the ballot. The Baker Plan received the enthusiastic backing of the new Bush administration, which had come to office in part through Baker’s role as lead counsel for the Bush campaign regarding the disputed Florida vote the previous November. This connection led some analysts to note that it was only appropriate that Baker would put forth a plan that would give legitimacy to a rigged election. Most of the international community roundly rejected the proposal, however, since it would have effectively abrogated previous UN resolutions granting the right of self-determination with the option of independence and would have led to the unprecedented action of the United Nations placing the fate of a non-self-governing territory in the hands of the occupying colonial power.

As a result, Baker then proposed a second plan in which, as with his earlier proposal, 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 far more significant autonomy for the four-to-five years prior to the vote. Independence would be an option on the ballot, 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 UN Security Council approved the second 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.

In what has been widely interpreted as rewarding Morocco for its intransigence, the Bush administration subsequently designated Morocco as a “major non-NATO ally,” a coveted status currently granted to only fifteen key nations, such as Japan, Israel, and Australia. The following month, the Senate ratified a free trade agreement with Morocco by an 85 to 13 margin, 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.

U.S. aid to Morocco has gone up five-fold since the Bush administration came to office, 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. Unlike the Palestinians and a number of other peoples engaged in national liberation struggles, the Sahrawis have never committed acts of terrorism. Even during their armed struggle against the occupation, a conflict that ended fifteen years ago, Polisario forces restricted their attacks exclusively to the Moroccan armed forces, never towards 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.

The majority of the Sahrawi population lives in exile in the desert of western Algeria in refugee camps under Polisario administration. The 150,000 Sahrawis living in these desert camps have developed a remarkably progressive political and social system governed by participatory democracy and collective economic enterprises within a limited market economy. Though devoutly Muslim, Sahrawi women are unveiled; enjoy equal rights with men regarding divorce, inheritance, and other legal matters; and hold major leadership positions in the Polisario and the SADR, including posts as cabinet ministers. While the Bush administration claims it seeks to establish such democratic governance throughout the Arab and Islamic world, in reality the U.S. government is actively preventing the Sahrawis from establishing 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 Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic has been recognized as an independent country by more than eighty governments, with Kenya and South Africa becoming the latest to extend full diplomatic relations. The SADR has been a full member state of the African Union (formerly known as the Organization for African Unity) since 1984 and the international community recognizes Western Sahara as Africa’s last colony. 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.

With Morocco’s rejection of the second Baker Plan and the threat of a French and American 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.

As happened during the 1980s in both South Africa and the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, the locus of the Western Sahara freedom struggle has recently shifted from the military and diplomatic initiatives of an exiled armed movement to a largely unarmed popular resistance from within. In recent months, young activists in the occupied territory and even in Sahrawi-populated parts of southern Morocco have confronted Moroccan troops in street demonstrations, despite the risk of shootings, mass arrests, and torture. Yet, here in the United States, a country that has played such a significant role over the past three decades in perpetuating Morocco’s illegal occupation, this revolution is not being televised. Even within the progressive community and among those well-versed in foreign affairs, very few people are aware of the Western Sahara struggle or could even find Western Sahara on a map. However, despite the lack of media coverage, the Sahrawi intifada will likely intensify as a result of the international community’s failure to resolve the conflict.

Building an Anti-Occupation Movement

Israel and Morocco are unique among the world’s occupying powers. While Turkey and Armenia have also violated a series of UN Security Council resolutions regarding their illegal conquests of territories belonging to other sovereign states and should be similarly obliged to withdraw, the vast majority of the peoples native to those territories are of the same ethnicity as, and largely supportive of, their conqueror. Likewise, there are other occupied nations whose peoples deserve statehood, such as Tibet and Chechnya, but these nations are legally recognized by the United Nations and the international community as part of the sovereign territory of their occupier.

Western Sahara is the only land—outside of the remaining territories still held by Israel since the June 1967 war—that is recognized by the United Nations as being illegitimately under the rule of a foreign power against the will of the subjected population. (The only other cases in recent years have been East Timor, which finally won independence four years ago following a quarter century of brutal Indonesian occupation; Namibia, which became free from occupation by the then-white minority government of South Africa in 1990; and Kuwait, which was liberated from six months under Iraqi occupation by a massive American-led military operation in February 1991.)

The moral and legal arguments in support for Western Sahara’s freedom from Moroccan rule and the culpability of the U.S. government in maintaining Morocco’s illegal occupation and colonization of the territory are reason enough to make this a priority for the peace and human rights community in the United States. There is a particularly strong imperative, however, for those of us supporting Israeli-Palestinian peace to address the Western Saharan conflict as well.

One of the major accusations leveled against those of us working to end Israel’s policies of occupation and colonization is that we are somehow “anti-Israel.” While such attacks in most cases are unfair and inaccurate, it is unfortunately true that a significant minority of those active in solidarity efforts with the Palestinians are not simply anti-occupation but are also ideologically opposed to Zionism and to Israel’s very existence as a Jewish state. To counter such suspicions, it would help those involved in the various campaigns to end Israel’s occupation and to stop unconditional U.S. support for the Israeli government to also address Morocco’s occupation and unconditional U.S. support for the Moroccan government.

Imagine, for example, if a divestment campaign included not just Caterpillar, Motorola, and other American companies backing the Israeli occupation and colonization of the West Bank, but also Kerr-McGee, the U.S. energy conglomerate prospecting for oil in the Western Sahara on behalf of the Moroccan occupiers, or Westinghouse, which provides the electronic surveillance equipment along Morocco’s separation barrier? Or a campaign for conditioning U.S. military aid to Israel on the Israeli government ending its occupation that also demanded the same conditions regarding U.S. military aid to Morocco?

Rather than provoking divisive and polarizing arguments along the false dichotomy of “pro-Israel” versus “pro-Palestine,” the debate on college campuses and within labor unions, Christian denominations, and other institutions could instead center on the real issues: the right of self-determination, the repressive nature of foreign military occupation and colonization, and the illegitimacy of invading and annexing neighboring lands. With such an anti-occupation movement also targeting an Arab Muslim country, it would be less likely to provoke the backlash that has occurred against a movement that solely targets the world’s only Jewish state.

There is a sizable movement in Europe supporting the Sahrawis’ right to national self-determination, often working in conjunction with those supporting the Palestinians. By contrast, there is relatively little activism on Western Sahara here in the United States. Yet this can change: just ten years ago there was relatively little activism in this country regarding East Timor either. Working in conjunction with fellow peace and human rights activists in Canada. Great Britain, and Australia, however, supporters of East Timorese self-determination eventually forced the United States and these other governments to end their support for the Indonesian occupation. As a result, East Timor is now free.

A similar campaign may be the best hope for the people of Western Sahara and the best hope we have to save the vitally important post-World War II principles enshrined in the United Nations Charter—currently being challenged most seriously by Israel and Morocco—which forbids any country from expanding its territory through military force. Increased activism in support of the Sahrawis’ right of self-determination will also enhance the struggle for Israeli-Palestinian peace by helping to redirect the debate from bitter ideological disputes unique to that conflict to the defense of universal moral and legal principles. Focusing on the U.S. role in maintaining the Moroccan occupation will also further expose the Bush administration’s false claims that its Middle East policy is based upon supporting freedom and democracy and upholding the rule of law.

In short, supporting the campaign to free Western Sahara from the Moroccan occupation is both an important moral imperative and a smart strategic move for all those who care about peace and human rights.

Stephen Zunes is a professor of politics at the University of San Francisco and a member of the advisory board for the Tikkun Community. He is the Middle East/North Africa editor for the Foreign Policy in Focus Project (www.fpif.org) and the author of Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism (Common Courage Press, 2003.) His forthcoming book on Western Sahara, co-authored with Jacob Mundy, will be published by Syracuse University Press in 2006.

Source Citation: Zunes, Stephen. 2006. Western Sahara: The other occupation. Tikkun 21(1):49.

http://www.tikkun.org/article.php/Zunes-westernsahara-the-other-occupation

Self Determination Struggle in the Western Sahara Continues to Challenge the UN

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Ian Williams contributes frequently to Foreign Policy in Focus (online at www.fpif.org) on UN and international affairs. Stephen Zunes is the Middle East editor for Foreign Policy in Focus (online at www.fpif.org). He serves as an associate professor of Politics and chair of the Peace & Justice Studies Program at the University of San Francisco and is the author of Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism.

After much wrangling from the French, the UN Security Council unanimously passed resolution 1495 right on the July 31st deadline for the rollover of the MINURSO peacekeeping operation in Western Sahara. In the best diplomatic tradition, the resolution affirmed the commitment to provide for the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara, even while it seriously compromised on it by supporting a peace plan that would allow the Moroccan settlers in the territory to vote on independence in five years. As with Israeli settlers on the West Bank, these Moroccan colonists are there in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits countries from transfering their civilian population onto territories seized by military force.

The Security Council had fought off a similar plan last year, but this time former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan’s special representative, adjusted the plan to provide for a genuine Sahrawi autonomy in the five years before the proposed referendum. This was an ominous sign for the increasingly autocratic rule of King Mohammed in Morocco itself, not to mention leading to uncertainty about the result of the referendum: one fixed principle of Rabat’s policy has been never to allow a vote that its principals cannot control.

The Polisario Front and its principal ally Algeria had surprised everyone two weeks earlier by supporting the new plan. It may even be that they supported the plan precisely because they knew Rabat would oppose it. For weaker states, it is sound diplomatic strategy to maneuver your opponents into defying the United States and the rest of the world.

In the longer term, it looks as if Polisario and Algeria have scored a significant diplomatic victory by playing along with Baker’s peace proposals and the resolution that was moved by the United States. Morocco’s one small victory was that the resolution cited Chapter VI of the UN Charter dealing with the peaceful settlement of disputes, rather than Chapter VII which would have implied mandatory implementation of UN decisions.

Disturbing Principles

In the run up to the vote, France alleged a novel and disturbing principle: the Security Council cannot impose its decisions on parties if they disagree. They claimed there was a tradition of using consensus on Western Sahara, which was a bit like the apocryphal prisoner who had killed his parents and then asked for the court’s sympathy because he was an orphan. Any such “tradition” developed in response to constant French and American attempts to railroad a pro-Moroccan position past the other Security Council members in defiance of all previous decisions.

French foreign minister Dominique De Villepin may have made an eloquent case against the legality of the Iraq war, but there is nothing Cartesian about Paris’s uncritical support for the King of Morocco. Late last year, France had joined with the United States and Great Britain in attempting to disregard all previous decisions and force through Baker’s first draft, which would in effect have legalized the Moroccan occupation against the wishes of the Sahrawi people. As a sort of Solomonic approach, Baker also suggested partition, which the Algerians toyed with, but which all sides eventually rejected–for the time being.

As an Irish diplomat on the Council at the time said,”The original draft was utterly one-sided in its approach: it was in violation of international legal principles, and had already been rejected by one party to the dispute. It was also clear that the movers could not muster more than six or seven votes in the Council, so they could not get a majority for it.” He added, “We don’t mind if the Western Sahara becomes part of Morocco–as long as that’s what the Sahrawis want.” In the end, the doubters withstood American, French, and British pressure and stopped adoption of the plan.

This July, Baker returned with a revised version, which was on the face of it, very similar, but he added some crucial safeguards that won Polisario and Algerian support. The degree of autonomy for the five-year interim stage was much stronger, with better international guarantees against Moroccan interference. Only Sahrawis would vote for the interim authority, even if all residents would vote in the final referendum.

The Moroccans did not like these restrictions, and were apparently not even sure that they could count on the settlers to vote with them. So, for the last weeks of July, French diplomats worked hard to avert the revised peace plan, and the King himself called everyone from Tony Blair to George W Bush. Jaccques Chirac himself hit the telephones on behalf of his client. However, it did not help much. The King was upset at the reference to self-determination as a ballot option, which was of course absurd. The whole ten-year peace process has been predicated on a vote for or against independence.

Having briefly enlisted Bulgaria, the isolated French delegation eventually compromised and accepted some minor concessions from the Americans in resolution1495 which “supported strongly” the peace plan put forward by James Baker rather than “endorsed” it as the original wording had it. In fairly typical fashion, Morocco reacted peremptorily to the resolution by saying “We rejected the Baker plan, and are still rejecting it.”

It is easy to wonder what the fuss is all about with the endless acres of sand and sparse population of Western Sahara. However, like East Timor, a problem that also first hit the UN agenda three decades ago, it involves major issues of international law, self-determination, and respect for UN decisions. It has also cost the UN over half a billion dollars to maintain a force whose job is to supervise a referendum on self determination that Morocco has delayed for more than a dozen years.

History

In the fall of 1975, in the face of a landmark ruling by the International Court of Justice rejecting Moroccan claims to Western Sahara and categorically ruling that the Sahrawis were entitled toself-determination, Morocco invaded the territory on the verge of its scheduled independence from Spain. Most of the Sahrawi population was forced into refugee camps in neighboring Algeria. While not formally recognizing Morocco’s annexation, the United Statees had actively encouraged the Spaniards and Moroccans to deny independence to the Sahrawis, who strongly supported the left-leaning independence movement known as the Polisario Front.

In response to the Moroccan invasion, the UN Security Council passed resolutions 379 and 380, which explicitly and unconditionally called on Morocco to withdraw from Western Sahara. However, the French and Americans blocked the Security Council from enforcing these resolutions. According to then-U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Daniel Patrick Moynihan, “The Department of State desired that the United Nations prove utterly ineffective in whatever measures it undertook. The task was given to me, and I carried it forward with no inconsiderable success.”

By 1982, after seven years of war, the Algerian-backed Polisario was on the verge of liberating their country from Moroccan occupation. Howeover, large-scale U.S. and French military aid, including counterinsurgency equipment and training, reversed the tide of the war. Morocco’s allies also helped its occupation forces construct a wall, which eventually separated most of the territory from the exiled Sahrawi population.

With the war at a stalemate, the Moroccans and the Polisario agreed to a cease-fire in 1990, followed by a UN-supervised referendum. The UN set up a peacekeeping operation known as MINURSO to oversee the plebiscite, where eligible voters among the refugees and the minority of Sahrawis that had stayed in the territory would be determined based on a 1974 Spanish census. However, the Moroccans insisted that anyone who could trace their ancestry to tribal groups with links to the territory should be added to the voter rolls, with the result that twice as many Moroccans as Sahrawis would be allowed to vote. The Polisario understandably rejected such Moroccan demands and the United States and France blocked the Security Council from forcing Morocco to go along with the original plan. As a result, the referendum was never held.

Now, faced with the prospect of being forced to accept a referendum where Moroccan settlers–who now outnumber the indigenous Sahrawis–would be allowed to vote, the Polisario have stolen a march on Morocco by aligning themselves with the United States on the latest resolution. Polisario’s UN representative Ahmed Boukhari candidly admitted that the new offer “was not paradise: it’s a very risky proposal for us,” but it was a pragmatic recognition that the cards were stacked. “We are in the weakest position, so of course, they always want us to compromise, regardless of the law.”

The issue resurfaces again in October, by which time Baker will have done more work, the various parties will do more maneuvering, and more Sahrawis will be born and die in the bleak wastes around their headquarters in the deserts of western Algeria wondering if they will even be given the right of self-determination promised for so long by the international community.

Why the U.S. and France Support the Moroccan Takeover

There are some striking similarities between Morocco’s takeover of Western Sahara and Indonesia’s takeover of East Timor that same year, giving some hope that–as with East Timor–international law and basic principles of justice might win out over realpolitik. Indeed, the Polisario has had far more diplomatic support than the Fretilin ever did, with their Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic being formally recognized by 75 countries and the SADR sitting as a full member state in the Organization of African Unity.

However, there are two factors working against Sahrawi independence. One is that despite their impressive efforts at building well-functioning democratic institutions in the self-governed refugee camps where the majority of their people live, the Sahrawis have never had the degree of international grassroots solidarity that the East Timorese were able to develop, which eventually eroded support of the Indonesian occupation by Western powers. Secondly, the Moroccan monarchy from the beginning has used its conquest of what it calls “the Sahara provinces” as a means of maintaining its nationalist credentials and popular support despite its autocratic and corrupt rule and the nation’s struggling economy.

The United States has long seen the Moroccan monarchy as a linchpin in advancing Western interests in the region, first as a bulwark against Communist influence and more recently against radical Islam. If Morocco lost the referendum for Western Sahara after pouring in such a tremendous amount of financial resources and lives for the sake of controling the territory, it could lead to enormous instability and perhaps even the monarchy’s overthrow.

In addition, there is the economic interest in the mineral-rich territory: The Moroccans have just given an exploration contract in the territory to an American oil company, Kerr McGee, which has strong links to Vice President Dick Cheney and the Texas oil gang in the administration, which includes Baker. Of course, one would, in the best spirit of Casablanca, be shocked, shocked, to think that this had anything to do with his or the administration’s public espousal of the Moroccan position. The granting of a concession to TotalFinaElf naturally helped make France’s already strong support even more fervent.

However, Morocco’s case was hindered rather than helped by the contracts. In response, the Security Council asked for a legal opinion from UN Under Secretary General for Legal Affairs, Hans Corell. His low-key report was nevertheless devastating for the Moroccan legal position, reminding council members that Morocco’s occupation was in defiance of rulings by both the International Court of Justice and the Security Council itself, since no valid act of self-determination has yet to take place.

In Kerr McGee’s favor, Corell did determine that exploration contracts were legal–but that exploitation contracts would not be without the support of the people of Western Sahara. There have been successful moves to disinvest from the companies involved. This raises interesting questions for the United States, which is indeed eager for alternative sources of oil outside the Middle East.

After alienating much of the international community for undermining the United Nations’ authority and running roughshod over international legal principles in regard to Israel/Palestine and Iraq, the Bush administration may be reluctant to push its luck too far in making it possible for its Moroccan ally to get away with such an illegitimate territorial aggrandizement. Such moderation in U.S. foreign policy, however, may be possible only if the international community and the American public make it politically difficult for the Bush administration to do otherwise.

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.

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)

Morocco and Western Sahara

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Key Points

Morocco has occupied Western Sahara since 1975 in violation of resolutions by the UN Security Council and a decision by the International Court of Justice.

The United States has provided military, economic, and diplomatic support for Morocco’s war effort.

A cease-fire and proposed referendum bring promise for peace in the territory, but U.S. leadership is needed to insure its implementation.

On Africa’s Atlantic coast, at the western extremity of the Arab world, lies Western Sahara, site of Africa’s longest post-colonial conflict. While more than one billion people have been decolonized over the past fifty years, Western Sahara is still recognized by the international community as a “non-self-governing territory,” occupied for more than twenty years by its powerful neighbor, Morocco. Just prior to the scheduled end of Spain’s colonial administration in 1976, the territory—then known as Spanish Sahara—was partitioned between Morocco and Mauritania and, within three years, came under exclusive Moroccan control. This occurred despite the landmark October 1975 decision by the International Court of Justice that upheld the right of the people of Western Sahara to self-determination in the face Morocco’s irredentist claims.

Spain had promised the country independence, but pressure from Morocco and the U.S. forced the Spanish government, in the midst of its own delicate transition to democratic rule, to capitulate. The U.S. was concerned about the prospects of an independent Western Sahara under the Polisario Front, the left-leaning independence movement, and also wished to boost the political fortunes of Morocco’s pro-Western monarch, King Hassan II.

Moroccan forces invaded the territory, but initially suffered heavy losses to the Polisario. Mauritania was defeated outright and withdrew. By 1987, however, due in large part to large-scale American military support, Morocco succeeded in conquering virtually the entire territory, including the former Mauritanian sector. The U.S. blocked enforcement of the 1975 UN Security Council resolution demanding Morocco’s withdrawal and recognizing Western Sahara’s right to national self-determination. The country remains occupied today, with most of the indigenous population, known as Sahrawis, exiled in refugee camps in neighboring Algeria.

There has been a cease-fire in effect since 1991, but the promised UN-supervised referendum on the fate of the territory has yet to take place. The long-running diplomatic stalemate was broken through the efforts of UN Special Envoy and former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker in September 1997 in a historic agreement between representatives of Morocco and the Polisario Front. The parties agreed on an identification process for voters and a code of conduct for the long-awaited plebiscite to determine whether the territory becomes independent or is integrated into Morocco.

This breakthrough appears to have come not because of U.S. diplomacy, however, but despite it. And whether the referendum will finally take place as planned or (like previously scheduled votes) will be postponed, due to disputes between Morocco and the Polisario over eligible voters and other logistics, may depend on whether Washington is willing to exert the necessary leadership to pressure its Moroccan ally.

The U.S. and Morocco have a longstanding special relationship. They have had a treaty of friendship since 1787, the longest unbroken peace agreement the U.S. has maintained with any country in the world. Morocco has nearly thirty million people, making it the second largest Arab county, and is rich in mineral resources that may become important to the U.S. in coming years. It is strategically located in the northwest corner of Africa, bordering both the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts, and includes the Straits of Gibraltar. Since 1950, Morocco has received more U.S. aid than any other Arab or African country, except for Egypt. Indeed, since the beginning of the war over Western Sahara, Morocco has received more than one-fifth of all U.S. aid to the continent, totaling more than $1 billion in military assistance and $1.3 billion in economic aid.

In return, Morocco has remained one of Washington’s closest strategic allies in either Africa or the Arab world, particularly during the early years of the Reagan administration. Morocco allows the U.S. Navy access to its port facilities and grants the U.S. Air Force landing, refueling, and overflight rights. There has been close binational cooperation in intelligence and communications. Despite a history of close relations with Iraq, Morocco sent forces to Saudi Arabia in 1990 to support the U.S.-led war effort to liberate Kuwait. In addition, the United States and Morocco have cooperated militarily in supporting pro-Western regimes in Africa, and Morocco has engaged in destabilizing efforts against radical African states, with apparent close collaboration with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

Meanwhile, the U.S. has been largely silent about the Moroccan government’s ongoing human rights abuses against its own people, and Washington has prodded Morocco to pursue questionable neoliberal economic policies. With the demise of the anticommunist rationale for the cold war, Morocco is now being touted as a bulwark against Islamic extremism and as a model for U.S.-backed economic reforms.

Problems with Current U.S. Policy

Key Problems

U.S. support for Morocco’s invasion and occupation legitimizes territorial aggression, which serves as a dangerous precedent.

The ongoing occupation is a source of political instability both in Morocco and in the region as a whole.

The U.S. has supported an autocratic government in Morocco and is proffering questionable economic priorities.

Both the U.S. refusal to take a strong stand against the Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara and the Moroccan government’s ongoing reluctance to cooperate with the UN-mandated referendum establish dangerous precedents and send the wrong signal to potential aggressors elsewhere in the world. The United States organized and launched a devastating war against Iraq in 1991 on the grounds that such territorial conquests would not be tolerated. U.S. acquiescence to Moroccan aggression against its resource-rich southern neighbor not only raises serious questions regarding the actual motivations for the Gulf War, it also represents a dangerous precedent in U.S. foreign policy. Soon after the conquest, Allan Nanes, a specialist in U.S. foreign policy for the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress, identified the shift in U.S. policy whereby the U.S. “would not automatically reject a territorial transfer brought [about] by force.” Less than a month after Morocco was given the green light in Western Sahara, Indonesia launched a similar—and even more devastating—invasion in East Timor.

Just after Morocco’s invasion, Thomas Frank of the New York University Law School stated before Congress that the invasion “constitutes a particularly destabilizing precedent for Africa and indeed the whole world.” Fifteen years later, perhaps in reward for Morocco’s modest support during the Persian Gulf crisis, Washington back-pedaled on its initial support of the peace agreement when Morocco became recalcitrant soon after signing the accords. According to the Los Angeles Times, “The problems have been exacerbated by the evident unwillingness of the United States to put much pressure on King Hassan.” Indeed, then-Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs John R. Bolton acknowledged that Morocco had been “unhelpful” regarding the UN accords but that Morocco’s role in supporting U.S. foreign policy had to be taken into account in determining the U.S. response.

Despite recommendations by the 1992 Senate Foreign Relations Committee report urging Washington to pressure Morocco to comply with the terms of the accord, the shift in U.S. policy back toward the strong pro-Moroccan position of the Reagan administration was strengthened still further when President Clinton assumed office. As with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Clinton administration appears to have taken a position to the right of its immediate Republican predecessor. Indeed, there appears to have been a conscious shift on the part of President Clinton in favor of permanent Moroccan control over Western Sahara. In November 1995, the United States sponsored a UN Security Council resolution that would have forced the referendum to proceed without Polisario approval, based largely on Moroccan-supported voter rolls. This resolution was withdrawn, however, as a result of vigorous protests from Algeria and South Africa.

Given the leadership role the United States has taken in the United Nations regarding other violators of UN resolutions—such as Iraq, Libya, and Sudan—the apparent acquiescence to Morocco raises serious questions regarding Washington’s commitment to international law and its support of the United Nations as a neutral arbiter of international conflict. As with Israel, the Clinton administration appears quite willing to make exceptions for countries it deems to be strategic allies. In that sense, it seems that little has changed since the end of the cold war, during which the U.S. proved itself quite willing to sacrifice its more idealistic principles regarding international law, self-determination, and human rights for what were viewed as the strategic imperatives of anticommunism. Although communism is no longer a threat, the perceived need to support allied regimes—despite their rejection of both international law and the authority of the United Nations—remains unabated.

On a less global scale, the continued irresolution of the Western Sahara problem contributes to Morocco’s internal instability. Morocco has spent billions of dollars both in supplying tens of thousands of troops along a 1,200-mile berm to keep the Polisario out of the territory and in building and maintaining an infrastructure in a thus-far unsuccessful effort to win the hearts and minds of the remaining Sahrawi population. This drain on resources has exacerbated Morocco’s already-serious economic problems, encouraged dangerous ultranationalist demagoguery, strengthened the political role of the armed forces, and encouraged political repression, all of which contribute to political instability in this important country.

The Western Sahara standoff also constitutes the major obstacle to greater cooperation between the countries of northwestern Africa—known as the Maghreb—and has nearly triggered open warfare between Morocco and the neighboring states of Algeria and Mauritania. Such regional instability, particularly in light of the growing challenge of Islamic radicalism in the region, does not serve U.S. interests.

Meanwhile, U.S. insistence on economic liberalization in Morocco without concomitant political liberalization has only served to encourage political instability and the rise of radical anti-American movements. As in the Persian Gulf region, the United States—itself the product of a republican revolution—finds itself in the awkward position of defending an absolute monarchy against those who strive for a more democratic system. As with previous cases where the U.S. has identified itself with economic policies that disproportionately hurt the poor and with governments that are unpopular and autocratic, the likelihood that a successor regime will be strongly anti-American is greatly enhanced.

Toward a New Foreign Policy

Key Recommendations

The U.S. should pressure Morocco—possibly employing military and economic sanctions—to comply with UN Security Council resolutions and to proceed with a fair and internationally supervised referendum.

Closer diplomatic relations with the Polisario Front should be established as a means of strengthening the peace process.

The U.S. should encourage both political liberalization and efforts at sustainable and broad-based economic development in Morocco.

The Houston Agreement reiterates and strengthens the key aspects of the original UN settlement: refugee repatriation, troop confinement, release of prisoners, freedom to campaign, access for accredited international observers, equal access by the parties to the media, and UN authority to intervene to insure the fairness of the electoral process. The agreement’s definition of eligible voters appears to be much closer to the Polisario’s assumption of a legalistic territorial meaning than to Morocco’s rather vague ethnic referents. Whether it can actually be implemented remains to be seen.

Since there was an American presence in the thick of the negotiations, the Clinton administration did not feel a great need to interfere. At the same time, the administration did little to support Baker’s efforts. Although State Department and Defense Department officials privately hope for a fair referendum in Morocco’s favor, most realize that an unfair victory by Morocco would be highly problematic and would likely lead to a resumption of the fighting. As a result—unlike the Reagan administration in the 1980s—the U.S. has not tried to sabotage these peace efforts.

Whether the referendum will actually occur may depend on whether the Clinton administration is willing to take the leadership to insure that its Moroccan ally does not once again seek to delay and sabotage the peace process. There is some speculation that the Moroccans actually hope for open American pressure to help blunt the domestic reaction should the referendum not go in Morocco’s favor.

As was the case during the Bush administration, legislators are taking some initiative in the matter through an unusual coalition of liberal and conservative lawmakers from both parties. Congress has passed a resolution supporting a “free, fair, and transparent” referendum “held in the presence of international and domestic observers and international media without administrative or military pressure or interference” where “only genuine Sahrawis, as identified in the method agreed upon by both sides, will take part.” Lawmakers have furthermore requested that the Clinton administration fully support such a referendum process.

This is exactly the position the U.S. government needs to adopt. Washington must be willing to exhibit the same leadership it has shown in other international conflicts to insure that Morocco does not try to back out of the agreement. This might include the threat of military and economic sanctions against Morocco to insure compliance. The willingness of the United States to help guarantee the referendum process could be a litmus test for the credibility of U.S. diplomacy in North Africa and perhaps for the entire world.

A second policy shift that Washington should pursue is closer diplomatic ties with the Polisario Front. Soon after Morocco’s invasion, the Polisario declared an independent state of Western Sahara (the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic), which was subsequently recognized by 75 countries and is a full member of the Organization of African Unity. The U.S. has traditionally avoided close diplomatic contact with Polisario representatives and has pressured a number of countries to withhold recognition. Washington needs to recognize the Polisario as a legitimate actor in the conflict and must fully consider its perspectives in the ongoing peace process. Should Morocco continue to balk at proceeding with a fair referendum, the U.S. should consider establishing full diplomatic relations with the SADR.

Finally, involving Morocco itself, Washington needs to encourage a transition to a greater degree of democracy. Although a parliamentary system is in place, the king still remains an autocratic ruler. The U.S. should urge the release of political prisoners and should encourage a transition toward a more authentic and open democratic system. In addition, while continuing to endorse economic liberalization that challenges official corruption and dubious prestige projects, Washington needs greater sensitivity to the impact of other economic reforms on the large and growing poor segments of Moroccan society. Morocco’s economic growth in recent years has benefited primarily a small minority of the population. Only through a more even and sustainable development program can political and economic stability be enhanced.