Moroccan king not ready to give Western Sahara Independence

When Morocco’s King Mohammed VI visited Western Sahara on November 6, he brought to fore a controversial issue relegated to the sands of time: that of the Sahara’s independence.

While launching a development project in the territory, the King said that “those who are waiting for any other concession on Morocco’s part are deceiving themselves,” according to the Associated Press (AP). Morocco, he said, “has given all there was to give.”

Mohammed VI’s statement echoes the actions of his government, which recently prevented IKEA, the Swedish multibillion-dollar company, from opening its first store in the country.

Even though Moroccan authorities said the reason for the halt was that the store lacked a “certificate of conformity”, media sources close to the government reported that the decision was linked to the Swedish government’s support for self-determination in Western Sahara.

Sweden has never fully recognized the Sahrawi government, though it has placed the issue under an internal review.

ANNEXATION

Previously a Spanish colony, Western Sahara was annexed by Morocco and Mauritania after Spain left in 1975.

The Polisario Front, a rebel group with backing from Algeria, promptly started waging war against the two occupying forces.

In 1979, Mauritania relinquished its side of the territory, and Morocco moved in to assert its authority in most of the land, although it lacked international backing.

After a decade and a half of conflict, the United Nations brokered a ceasefire between the two sides in 1991, setup a peacekeeping mission with the aim of conducting a referendum that would grant the Sahrawi people either integration or independence from Morocco.

Twenty-four years later, and following almost a dozen rounds of talks, the referendum is yet to take place.

For decades, Western Sahara has remained on the UN’s list of non-self governing territories, with many calling it “Africa’s last colony,” and occasionally lumping it with the “forgotten conflicts” of the world. Its population of over half-million live separated by a1600-mile sand berm lined with fences and landmines.

SAHRAWI GOVERNMENT

Sahrawis live either under Moroccan rule in the southern provinces, in the Polisario-controlled areas in the Free Zone, or in the Tindouf refugee camp across the border in Algeria.

The SADR government, or the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, oversees the sliver of land that is not under Moroccan control.

Formed in exiled in 1976, it is rooted in a strong history of socialism and leftist politics, and has also won formal recognition from the African Union and a slew of other nations.

Described as a desert backwater, Western Sahara has no official currency, no international telephone code, and doesn’t appear in either the UN’s Human Development Index or the World Bank’s list of Development Indicators. (The West Bank and Gaza appear in the latter.)

“They have a functioning government, operating in a refugee camp, waiting for a country,” said Milton Allimadi, an American journalist who visited the territory in December 2014.

RIGHT TO SELF-DETERMINATION

The weekend following the Moroccan government’s decision to block IKEA, protesters held a sit-in in front of the Swedish embassy in the capital Rabat, calling for the boycott of Swedish brands, including auto company Volvo, communications technology and services provider Ericsson, and clothing line H&M.

The renewed controversy in the Sahara helps reinforce the message that “Western Sahara is not a third world issue, but one that some of the European countries recognize as well,” said Stephen Zunes, the Coordinator of the Middle Eastern Studies program at the University of San Francisco.

The issue, he added, is about the right to self-determination, “a fundamental principle of international law, and going back to the founding of the United Nations.”

NO LEGAL 'TIES' FOR MOROCCO'S SOVEREIGNTY

The tug of war between Morocco and Western Sahara is also as much socio-political and cultural as it is economical.

Observers argue that Morocco’s claim is shaped by its opinion that its sultans once extended their administrative rule across the region in pre-colonial times — albeit inconsistently and unevenly.

The Sahrawis, in turn, argue that they lived as independent communities for centuries, establishing their own norms and culture.

In a historic October 1975 ruling, the International Court of Justice found no “ties” or "legal” basis for Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara.

NATURAL RESOURCES

The Moroccan government responded by organizing the Green March, a protest that called for hundreds of thousands of unarmed Moroccan civilians to cross into Western Sahara and demand its annexation.

Economic resources also play an important role in the deadlock that has loomed large over Western Sahara.

Sources differ on the quantity of natural resource reserves in the territory, but almost all agree that Western Sahara has substantial deposits of phosphates and iron ore.

The shores along the Mediterranean coast are also rich in fisheries, with the Moroccans exporting octopus, squid and sardines to Europe and beyond.

In September this year, the African Union issued a legal opinion calling any exploration and exploitation of natural resources in Western Sahara by Morocco as “null” and “illegal.”

The Moroccan government also underwrites economic activity in the region by $800 million a year, giving tax breaks to businesses and subsidizing sugar, wheat and fuel, according to diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks in 2005.

KING MOHAMMED'S PROJECTS

On November 7, this year, the AP reported that King Mohammed VI proposed several infrastructural projects including those of a port and a railway.

These economic injections have served as a powerful incentive that has “brought thousands of jobseekers to the territory in recent years,” a move that could have a consequential effect in case a referendum is held in the future.

Holding a referendum might be easier said than done. Till Bruckner, a researcher and expert on political control, democratic accountability and social change currently based in Mauritania says: “The only referendum that Morocco will ever permit, if any, is a referendum whose outcome is a foregone conclusion.” Moroccan policy, he added, “has been completely consistent on this question for decades, and will remain so.”

Over the last few years, Sahrawis have signaled a possibility of rescinding nonviolent resistance and returning to war to agitate for their right to self-determination.

UPRISING AGAINST MOROCCO GOVT

For disgruntled young Sahrawis, serious economic challenges, coupled with lack of political and social rights, could be a catalyst for an uprising against the Moroccan government, Arab Spring style.

Samia Errazzouki, a researcher and the Maghreb page co-editor at the e-zine Jadaliyya, says, “The Western Sahara issue is one that transcends the uprising that took place in the region, simply by virtue of the fact that it deals with an ongoing occupation and the denial of self-determination.”

The uprising, she adds, offers “an opportunity to give the Western Sahara question greater media coverage and tie it into more broader topics affecting the region.”

Freedom House, a U.S.-based organization that conducts research on political freedom, deems Western Sahara not free, giving it the worst rating in the categories of freedom, civil liberties and political rights.

Within Morocco, the government also exercises control over journalists, the judiciary and academia when dealing with Western Sahara.

For Morocco, the main claim is that if it “loses the Sahara, the whole region will go to hell,” saysAboubakr Jamaï, a veteran Moroccan journalist and publisher, whose newspaper was banned for covering issues related to Western Sahara. “The referendum approach is a win-lose situation. So the whole thing is to break this win-lose approach, and have some kind of win-win approach.”

SAHRAWIS HOPE

For the Sahrawis, Jamaï added, the sheer size of their land, coupled with their small population, sufficient natural resources and a few tourist spots along the Atlantic Ocean, affords them contemplation that they “will be Liechtenstein. Why would I want to stay with these Moroccans? … This is the choice they have.”

Nadir Bouhmouch, a Moroccan filmmaker who visited the Moroccan-occupied side of the territories in October 2013, says the situation there is “getting tense."

Bouhmouch produced a short, intimate documentary, The Other Dakhla, about his experiences. “Many of the youth are in disaccord with the Polisario leadership. They are calling for a return to war. They have had enough of the status quo.”

On his trip to Western Sahara, journalist Allimadi talks about visiting the museum of the Sahrawi People’s Liberation Army.

On display at the parched, sun-scorched compound were armoured vehicles and weapons captured from the Moroccans before the UN-brokered ceasefire in 1991.

Afterwards, he remembers talking to an official who asked him, “Did you visit the war museums?” And when Allimadi replied in the affirmative, the Sahrawi official went on, “If our army was capable of doing it then, they will be capable of doing it in the future.”