Western Sahara

WESTERN SAHARA

Former Spanish colony in northwest Africa; once called Spanish Sahara.

This area of some 102,700 square miles (266,000 sq km) is bordered by Morocco, Algeria, Mauritania, and the Atlantic Ocean. It has been the subject of a dispute involving the POLISARIO (Frente Popular para la Liberación de Saguia el-Hamra y de Río de Oro; Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el-Hamra and Río de Oro) independence movement, Morocco, Algeria, Mauritania, and Libya. In 2003 Western Sahara remained the last colonial territory on the African continent whose political status had not been definitively determined and legitimized by the international community. To rectify this, the United Nations has been attempting since 1986, when the Western Sahara War was still raging, to negotiate and implement a referendum among the inhabitants.

Geography and Population

The Western Sahara territory is part of the Sahara desert and consists of hammada (mostly barren rocky plateaus), coarse gravel, and sandy plains. It is extremely arid, receiving an average of less than 2 inches (5.1 cm) of rainfall annually, but rich in natural resources such as phosphates, minerals, and coastal fishing grounds. It is sparsely populated—Spain's 1974 census counted 73,497 persons, which was probably an underestimate; a U.S. Central Intelligence Agency publication placed the 1991 population at 196,737, including, presumably, the tens of thousands of Moroccans who have settled there since 1976. The annual growth rate was put at 2.6 percent. The capital is Laayoune (El-Aiun or alAyun).

The indigenous Sahrawi population is a mixture of Berber tribes (whose presence in the region dates from at least the first century b.c.e.) and thirteenth-century Arab migrants from southern Arabia. Until the twentieth century, social organization was tribal, along the lines of confederations, factions, and subfactions. Linguistically, the Hasaniyya dialect of Arabic, brought by the Arabian tribes, gradually supplanted Berber dialects. Economically and socially, the tribes were entirely nomadic. Calling themselves the "sons of the clouds," the Sahrawis roamed constantly in search of grazing land and water for their herds, traded with neighboring sedentary groups, engaged in livestock raiding from one another, and participated in the trans-Saharan caravan trade. Since the nineteenth century, the Reguibat have been the largest tribal grouping.

The nomadic way of life did not fit comfortably with European-introduced notions of fixed territorial delimitations. When coupled with twentieth-century events—prolonged droughts, fighting against French and Spanish colonialism, gradual sedentarization, economic change, and, finally, the outbreak of war following Spain's departure—probably as many Sahrawis came to live in neighboring countries (whose boundaries were themselves of twentieth-century origin) as within Western Sahara.

Political History

The political status of the area was rarely defined, since it belonged to what is known in Moroccan history as bilad al-siba, the lands of dissidence, as opposed to bilad al-makhzan, the areas of central, sultanic authority. (Ironically, the Almoravid Empire, the first dynasty to unite Morocco during the eleventh century, originated in Western Sahara and Mauritania.) Political linkages and affiliations with Moroccan sultans in the north varied, depending on the relative strength of the sultan and the various tribes, the relations between individual tribes and the government in the north, and relations among the tribes themselves.

Spain proclaimed a protectorate over part of the region in 1884. The Moroccan nationalist movement, which first emerged in the 1930s, claimed the area as part of its natural patrimony (along with Mauritania and parts of Algeria and Mali as well). The area's status was changed by Spain in 1958 from colony to overseas province. From the late 1950s, the newly emerging state of Mauritania also claimed it, partly to deflect Morocco's threat against Mauritania itself. POLISARIO's emergence in 1973 linked for the first time the notions of decolonization and independence for the territory, setting the stage for conflict. Spain agreed to relinquish the area in 1975, and it was divided between the two neighboring claimants, Mauritania and Morocco. Mauritania gave up its claim in 1979. Morocco has occupied the bulk of the territory since then.

In 1976, the POLISARIO established the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) and organized a government-in-exile. During the following years, with Algeria's support, dozens of states, mainly developing and nonaligned countries, recognized the republic. After war broke out between Morocco and the POLISARIO, between 50,000
and 150,000 Sahrawi refugees fled to the Algerian Tindouf region, and as of 2003 remained there under the administration of the POLISARIO.

From the mid-1970s on, in his effort to fully integrate the Saharan provinces into Morocco, King Hassan II launched investment projects aimed at promoting the economic development of the territory and attracted settlement with special incentives. Civilian and military expenditures related to Western Sahara represented a considerable burden for Morocco's state budget, particularly from the late 1970s to the mid-1980s.

Morocco's claim over the Saharan territory helped King Hassan II build a national consensus in a period of internal instability. At the regional level, however, it has severely affected Moroccan relations with neighboring Algeria, which was a staunch supporter of the Sahrawis' right to self-determination. Consequently, the process of regional integration, which had been inaugurated with great fanfare in 1989 with the creation of the Arab Maghreb Union (UMA), remained stalled as of 2003.

Toward a Negotiated Settlement

It was not until 1991 that the parties officially accepted a UN-sponsored ceasefire, allowing it to set up MINURSO (United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara). Besides monitoring the ceasefire, the objective of this UN mission was to prepare a list of people eligible to vote in the referendum on self-determination, which it would oversee, that would put an end to the conflict. According to the original settlement plan, the referendum should have taken place in 1992. Morocco and the POLISARIO, however, disagreed over voter eligibility criteria.

The situation remained deadlocked until 1997, when UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in an attempt to break the stalemate, appointed former U.S. Secretary of State James A. Baker as his personal envoy to try to settle the differences between the parties in conflict. After four rounds of negotiations, Baker managed to get an agreement between Morocco and the POLISARIO to resume the voter identification process, as well as a code of conduct to govern the parties during the referendum campaign.

However, the voter identification process still encountered serious difficulties, forcing continued postponement of the referendum and a continued presence for MINURSO in the disputed territories. When in early 2000 the UN mission finally made public the official list of voters, Morocco expressed its disagreement because a low percentage of its proposed candidates was accepted. The ensuing appeals process again delayed the referendum. The UN secretary-general subsequently concluded that the settlement plan was not a viable solution and suggested exploring other ways of ending the dispute.

Overall, the incompatibility of Morocco's discourse on territorial integrity and the POLISARIO's defense of the Sahrawi right to self-determination, coupled with geopolitical developments, had, as of 2003, left the dispute unresolved. Baker's latest UN-sponsored plan was to establish a transitional autonomous regime over a period of five years, at the end of which a referendum on self-determination would be scheduled. Participation was to include at least some of the Moroccans who had settled in the area. After considerable Algerian prodding, POLISARIO accepted the plan. Morocco, however, rejected the idea, fearing that its claim to sovereignty would be undermined.

see also baker, james a.; polisario; western sahara war.

Bibliography

Damis, John. Conflict in Northwest Africa: The Western Sahara Dispute. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1983.

Hodges, Tony. Historical Dictionary of Western Sahara. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1982.

Hodges, Tony. Western Sahara: The Roots of a Desert War. Westport, CT: L. Hill, 1983.

Zoubir, Yahia H., and Volman, Daniel. International Dimensions of the Western Sahara Conflict. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1993.

bruce maddy-weitzman
updated by ana torres-garcia