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Western Sahara: Nonviolent Intifada - Diplomatic Impasse

15 October 2008

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analysis

Washington, DC — In 1975, as the last prolonged stage of Africa's decolonization process began with the fall of Portuguese colonialism, Portugal's neighbor Spain decided to dispose of its colony of Western Sahara by handing it over to Morocco and Mauritania, defying a World Court decision in favor of self-determination. For thirty-three years, Morocco has continued its occupation, with military and diplomatic support from the United States and France.

Most recently, both the diplomatic and military balance have tipped even more deeply against the right to self-determination for Africa's last colony. On October 6, five former U.S. ambassadors to Morocco, under Reagan, George Bush, Clinton, and George W. Bush, lauded a declaration by UN envoy Peter van Walsum that independence was out of the question, and that negotiations should be based on Morocco's latest "autonomy" plan (see http://tinyurl.com/4j4pgh; for critiques see http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Sahara-Update).

That conclusion is still contested, however, both in Western Sahara and outside the country. Western Sahara, although it is occupied by Morocco, is a member of the African Union, while Morocco withdrew from the AU's predecessor Organization of African Unity in 1984 and has not yet returned.

This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains excerpts from a commentary by Stephen Zunes on the announcement of the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award to Aminatou Haidar, a nonviolent activist from Western Sahara and a key leader in her nation's struggle against the 33-year-old U.S.-backed Moroccan occupation of her country.

Also included are excerpts from the October 10, 2008 debate in the United Nations General Assembly's Fourth Committee, on decolonization, with statements by Morocco, Algeria, and other African countries.

For previous articles by Stephen Zunes on Western Sahara, see http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/1560 (2003) and

http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4410 (2003)

The most comprehensive sites for current news and commentary on Western Sahara, in English, Spanish, and French, are http://www.arso.org, http://saharaoccidental.blogspot.com, and http://www.vest-sahara.no

For information on the role of the United Nations, see the Global Policy Forum background pages at http://tinyurl.com/535bys and the United Nations mission website at http://www.minurso.unlb.org/mission.html

For additional background links visit

http://www.africafocus.org/country/westernsahara.php

For a well-informed account of the Western Sahara conflict, with an introduction by Nobel Laureate Jos‚ Ramos Horta of East Timor, see Toby Shelley's Endgame in the Western Sahara, available at http://www.africafocus.org/books/isbn.php?1842773410

Haidar's Struggle

Stephen Zunes | October 7, 2008

Editor: John Feffer

Foreign Policy In Focus

http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5578

Stephen Zunes, a Foreign Policy In Focus senior policy analyst, is a professor of politics and chair of Middle East Studies at the University of San Francisco. He is the co-author, along with Jacob Mundy, of Western Sahara: Nationalism, Conflict, and International Accountability, forthcoming in 1009 from Syracuse University Press.

Aminatou Haidar, a nonviolent activist from Western Sahara and a key leader in her nation's struggle against the 33-year-old U.S.-backed Moroccan occupation of her country, won this year's Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award.

This recognition of Haidar and her nonviolent freedom campaign is significant in that the Western Sahara struggle has often gone unnoticed, even among many human rights activists. ...

Unfortunately, given its role in making Morocco's occupation possible, the U.S. government has little enthusiasm for Haidar and the visibility her winning the RFK prize gives to the whole Western Sahara issue.

Moroccan Occupation

In 1975, the kingdom of Morocco conquered Western Sahara -- on the eve of its anticipated independence from Spain -- in defiance of a series of UN Security Council resolutions and a landmark 1975 decision by the International Court of Justice upholding the right of the country's inhabitants to self-determination. With threats of a French and American veto at the UN preventing decisive action by the international community to stop the Moroccan invasion, the nationalist Polisario Front launched an armed struggle against the occupiers. The Polisario established the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic in February 1976, which has subsequently been recognized by nearly 80 countries and is a full member state of the African Union. The majority of the indigenous population, known as Sahrawis, went into exile, primarily in Polisario-run refugee camps in Algeria.

Thanks in part to U.S. military aid, Morocco eventually was able to take control of most of the territory, including all major towns.

It also built, thanks to U.S. assistance, a series of fortified sand berms in the desert that effectively prevented penetration by Polisario forces into Moroccan-controlled territory. In addition, in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, Morocco moved tens of thousands of settlers into Western Sahara until they were more than twice the population of the remaining indigenous Sahrawis. Yet the Polisario achieved a series of diplomatic victories that generated widespread international support for self-determination and refusal to recognize the Moroccan takeover. In 1991, the Polisario agreed to a ceasefire in return for a Moroccan promise to allow for an internationally supervised referendum on the fate of the territory.

Morocco, however, refused to allow the referendum to move forward.

French and American support for the Moroccan government blocked the UN Security Council from providing the necessary diplomatic pressure to move the referendum process forward. The Polisario, meanwhile, recognized its inability to defeat the Moroccans by military means. As a result, the struggle for self-determination shifted to within the Moroccan-occupied territory, where the Sahrawi population has launched a nonviolent resistance campaign against the occupation.

Nonviolent Resistance

Western Sahara had seen scattered impromptu acts of open nonviolent resistance ever since the Moroccan conquest. In 1987, for instance, a visit to the occupied territory by a special UN committee sparked protests in the Western Saharan capital of El Aai£n. The success of this major demonstration was all the more remarkable, given that most of the key organizers had been arrested the night before and the city was under a strict curfew. Among the more than 700 people arrested was the 21-year-old Aminatou Haidar.

For four years she was "disappeared," held without charge or trial, and kept in secret detention centers. In these facilities, she and 17 other Sahrawi women underwent regular torture and abuse.

Most resistance activity inside the occupied territory remained clandestine until early September 1999, when Sahrawi students organized sit-ins and vigils for more scholarships and transportation subsidies from the Moroccan government. Since an explicit call for independence would have been brutally suppressed immediately, the students hoped to push the boundaries of dissent by taking advantage of their relative intellectual freedom. Former political prisoners seeking compensation and accountability for their state-sponsored disappearances soon joined the nonviolent vigils, along with Sahrawi workers from nearby phosphate mines and a union of unemployed college graduates. The movement was suppressed within a few months. Although the demands of what became known as the first Sahrawi Intifada appeared to be nonpolitical, it served as a test of both the Sahrawi public and the Moroccan government. It paved the way for Sahrawis to press for bolder demands and engage in larger protests in the future that would directly challenge the Moroccan occupation itself.

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