The reactivation of the war in the former colony leaves Madrid with little room for maneuver due to the migratory wave arriving to the Canary archipelago
Spain has never had an easy role in the Western Sahara conflict. Its departure from that North African territory took place in a context of decolonization haste on the part of a UN that then preferred to take its time in the process. Spain has been stuck between the defense of the rights of the Saharawis and the convenience of not harming the complicated neighborhood with Morocco. Now that the Polisario Front has reopened the war, in order to get something moving internationally around the conflict, Spain is tied up in the crisis of the arrival of migrants in the Canary Islands, an archipelago located in front of the dividing line of Morocco and Western Sahara. Here is summary of the latest developments in the Saharawi question.
December 4, 2020
article / Irene Rodríguez Caudet
The Polisario Front has declared war on Morocco after 29 years of peace. This organization, created primarily to defend the independence of Western Sahara from Spain, represents an important part of the Saharawi population seeking self-determination for its people.
The Alawite kingdom, for its part, claims sovereignty over the territories. It undertook measures that triggered the recent conflict at the Guerguerat border crossing, where demonstrators cut off the road linking Western Sahara to Morocco. The Moroccan military fired on the demonstrators on November 13 and the Polisario Front declared a state of war.
Western Sahara is a territory in a state of decolonization since 1960 under the auspices of the UN as part of the processes carried out during the second half of the 20th century to put an end to the European colonial empires. This process continued until 1975, the year of the Green March, in which an army of 350,000 Moroccan civilians marched into the former colony to claim it as their own, alongside Mauritania. At that time, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el Hamra and Rio de Oro (Polisario Front) began a guerrilla war that would not find a cease-fire until 1991.
Despite Morocco's efforts to possess the former Spanish colony, the Saharawis have had their own proclaimed republic since 1976, the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (also known under the acronym SADR), recognized by several states - 84 in total, although more than half of them have cancelled, frozen or suspended recognition given the violation of their international obligations - and presided over by Brahim Gali.
Since Spain left the territory, the UN has issued several resolutions calling for a referendum on self-determination that would mark the future of Western Sahara as an independent country or propose other alternatives.
In this conflict, the different parties involved follow different strategies. Morocco, for its part, intends to prolong the conflict in order to consolidate its power in the Saharawi territory. It does not envisage independence for the former Spanish colony, but promotes plans for limited autonomy in a project of agreement framework known as the "third way" for what it considers its southern provinces. In addition, it occupies these provinces militarily, through border crossings, six military instructions and with more than half of the Saharawi territory under its control.
Frustrated by the immobile position of the United Nations, the Polisario Front has always counted on the threat of resuming armed conflict. SADR consists of only a few territories that are fully supervised by it - about a quarter of Western Sahara - and has gained less worldwide recognition than the Polisario Front as an organization, which the UN admits as the representative of the Saharawi people.
The lack of new and more imaginative proposals from the UN, together with the attitude of the parties involved, particularly the Moroccan, have made progress towards a satisfactory solution to the conflict impossible. The lack of progress, however, is not only due to these reasons. It is also necessary to take into account the Saharawi refugees in Tindouf, Algeria. This is the longest humanitarian crisis in history, which has been dragging on for 45 years and affects 173,600 refugees, many of whom have known no other life.
The violent strategy, which prevailed for more than fifteen years, was set aside in 1991 to maintain a cease-fire and to move on to negotiation tactics that are not proving very fruitful. Despite attempts at peaceful agreements, in mid-November of this year, the Polisario Front decreed a state of war, putting an end to a peace that had lasted for almost 20 years.
Morocco claims the Saharawi territories as its own and goes so far as to include them unabashedly as part of Morocco in the most recent official maps of the Kingdom, similar to those of the early twentieth century, when the Maghreb country had control over the Sahara. For that reason, after the Spanish colonization and subsequent decolonization, Morocco claims the former colony. According to its authorities, the so-called "Saharawi provinces" have always been under its sovereignty.
The conflict not only pits Rabat against El Aaiun, but also involves the parties supporting one leader or the other. On the one hand, there are the Arab countries - Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates or Kuwait - that support Morocco, and on the other hand a nation, which despite having a very express desire to exercise its own sovereignty and claim the legitimacy of SADR, has little or no international support.
In 2021, MINURSO, the mission statement deployed by the UN to guarantee peace and the holding of the referendum of self-determination, will be 30 years old since it began its deployment; to date it has 240 observers, but has not seen its goal. The Saharawis argue that the UN has not been effective in any aspect and that it has only allowed the Moroccan plundering of the natural resources of the Sahara. Nor has there been any progress on the referendum of self-determination, and the lack of action has led to the lifting of the cease-fire by the Saharawi government. The Polisario Front has now chosen to undertake these measures as the lack of progress by the UN's mission statement becomes increasingly evident.
The country of Mohammed VI sent troops to quell the demonstrations in the main Saharawi towns and on the roads connecting Morocco to Western Sahara. Meanwhile, its counterpart claims to have caused material and human losses in the Moroccan military instructions located in Saharawi territory. Morocco does not recognize any of these allegations, but defends itself with fire against the threat of the Polisario Front.
Meanwhile, Dakhla, the second most populated city in Western Sahara, is serving as a corridor for small boats and cayucos, which in recent days have been arriving in large numbers at the port of Arguineguín, in Gran Canaria. This fact causes Morocco and Spain to be even more aware of the status in the Sahara and to have to face this problem jointly, something complicated due to the historical confrontations between the two countries because of the Saharawi conflict. However, while some are passing through, leaving, others are returning to their native land: the Polisario Front has appealed to all Saharawis living in national and foreign territory to join the struggle.
The status of Western Sahara is pending new developments in the conflict and the decisions taken by Morocco. While there are international positions that continue to call for the holding of a referendum on self-determination, the status quo will end up influencing the UN to accept the proposal autonomy proposal made by Morocco. The Spanish government has avoided pronouncing itself in favor of the plebiscite, although in this there is division between the PSOE and Podemos, training which urges the holding of the enquiry. Although the migratory crisis in the Canary Islands obeys more complex dynamics, the suspicion that Morocco has allowed the arrival of more refugees in decisive moments of the reopened Sahara conflict obliges Spain to be cautious.
