Western Saharans Resist Moroccan Occupation
Stephen Zunes is a professor of Politics at the University of San Francisco and the author, along with Jacob Mundy, of Western Sahara: Nationalism and Conflict in Northwest Africa, forthcoming from Syracuse University Press, www.stephenzunes.org.
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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 ñ despite pledges of fealty to the Moroccan sultan back in the 19th century by some tribal leaders bordering the territory and the close ethnic ties between some Sahrawi and Mauritanian tribes ñ the right of self-determination was paramount. A special Visiting Mission from the United Nations reported that the vast majority of Sahrawis supported independence, not integration with Morocco or Mauritania.
Independence from Spain, Mauritania, and Morocco
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. Meanwhile, the Polisario ñ which had been driven from the more heavily populated northern and western parts of the country ñ declared independence as the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).
The Polisario guerrillas fought fairly successfully against both occupying armies, in part because of the Algerians, who provided significant amounts of military equipment and economic support. Mauritania was defeated by 1979, agreeing to turn its 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 its armed struggle against Morocco and, by 1982, had liberated nearly 85% of the 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, which dramatically increased their support for the Moroccan war effort, with US 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 ñ including virtually all the territory's major towns and natural resources ñ 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 were ethnically Sahrawi -- to immigrate to Western Sahara. By the early 1990s, these Moroccan settlers outnumbered the remaining Sahrawis indigenous to the territory by a ratio of more than two to one.
While rarely able to enter Moroccan-controlled territory, the Polisario continued regular assaults against Moroccan occupation forces stationed along the wall until 1991. In 1991, a cease-fire went into effect under provisions that would include a return of Sahrawi refugees to Western Sahara followed by a UN-supervised referendum on the fate of the territory.
Under the agreement, ratified by the UN Security Council, the Sahrawis native to Western Sahara would be given the choice of voting in favor of either independence or 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 that 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 US Secretary of State James Baker as his special representative to help resolve the impasse. Morocco, however, continued to ignore repeated demands from the United Nations that they cooperate with the referendum process. French and US veto threats 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 original referendum plan and to accept instead Moroccan demands that Moroccan 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, leading some analysts to note that it was only appropriate that he would put forth a plan that would effectively 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 set a precedent for placing the fate of a non-self-governing territory in the hands of the occupying colonial power.
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 both integration and independence would 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 Moroccan Government - unwilling to allow the territory to enjoy even a brief period of autonomy and risk the possibility it 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 widely been interpreted as rewarding Morocco for its intransigence, the Bush administration subsequently designated Morocco as a "major non-NATO ally" in June of 2004, 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 85-13 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 ñ in a potentially significant precedent ñ Congress insisted that it not include products from the Western Sahara.
US aid to Morocco has gone up five-fold since the Bush administration came to office, ostensibly as a reward for the kingdom's undertaking a series of neo-liberal "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 Sahrawis have fought for their national rights primarily by legal and diplomatic means, not through violence. Unlike some Palestinians and a number of other groups engaged in national liberation struggles, the Sahrawis have never committed acts of terrorism. Even during their armed struggle against the occupation, which ended fifteen years ago, Polisario forces restricted their attacks exclusively to the Moroccan armed forces, never towards civilians.
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 a high degree of participatory democracy and collective economic enterprises within a limited market economy. Though devoutly Muslim, Sahrawi women 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.
Over the past three decades, the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic has been recognized as an independent country by more than 80 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 since 1984 and most of the international community recognizes Western Sahara as Africa's last colony. (By contrast, with only a few exceptions, the Arab states ñ despite their outspoken opposition to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian and Syrian land ñ have supported Morocco's occupation of Western Sahara.)
With Morocco's rejection of the second Baker Plan and the threat of a French and US 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.
Nonviolent Resistance
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.
One of the first major nonviolent uprisings in the occupied territory began in early September 1999 when Sahrawi students in Laayoune, Western Sahara, organized sit-ins and vigils for more scholarships and transportation subsidies. Former political prisoners seeking compensation and accountability for state-sponsored disappearances soon joined the nonviolent vigil, along with Sahrawi workers from nearby phosphate mines and a union of unemployed college graduates.
The students set up tents from which they held a round-the-clock vigil, similar to the tent cities that emerged during the Orange Revolution in Ukraine and the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon. On the twelfth day of the sit-ins, the Moroccan authorities moved in to break up the tent camp, beating and arresting demonstrators. Five days later, a larger demonstration was held, which included pro-referendum and independence slogans. This too was suppressed.
Though the Polisario had organized active cells in the occupied areas since the Spanish colonial period, independent groups were beginning to emerge stressing international humanitarian law. Though still committed to self-determination and independence, they avoided advocating these positions openly since it would lead to repression. By focusing exclusively on human rights, however, they hoped to help create enough of a political opening to allow issues of self-determination to be discussed and eventually make possible more open advocacy for independence. Through such efforts, Sahrawis began to become more aware of their rights.
A second Sahrawi intifada began in May 2005, as thousands of Sahrawi demonstrators, led by women and youths, took to the streets protesting the ongoing Moroccan occupation and calling for independence. The largely nonviolent protests and sit-ins were met by severe repression by Moroccan troops and Moroccan settlers, with leading Sahrawi activists kidnapped and disappeared. Sahrawi students at Moroccan universities organized solidarity demonstrations. For the first time, ethnic Sahrawis from southern Morocco -- long considered loyal to the king -- have joined their kin within the occupied territories in protesting Moroccan rule.
Hundreds of Sahrawis were arrested, scores were "disappeared," and a Sahrawi youth by the name of Hamdi Lembarki was beaten to death by Moroccan security forces in the middle of a high school playground.
Since the larger and longer demonstrations are generally broken up by force, the resistance has more recently opted primarily for smaller protests. Other tactics include leafleting, graffiti (including at homes of collaborators) and cultural celebrations with political overtones. There is usually at least some minor public act of protest every day.
The most recent major action was a Human Rights Day demonstration on December 10, 2006. When marchers found their route blocked by military police, they held a sit-in in front of a hotel where UN personnel were headquartered. They were violently attacked, with scores arrested. Most received beatings and other abusive treatment while in custody.
There have been a number of innovative tactics employed by the resistance. Activists have clandestinely changed the French street names (the preferred colonial language of Morocco) in the former Spanish colonial towns back to the original Spanish. And, during one demonstration, activists confronting Moroccan occupation troops released dozens of feral cats with Sahrawi flags tied to their tails. Soldiers in full riot gear chased the cats through alleys in an unsuccessful effort to catch them and remove the flags.
Morocco's prisons, in which hundreds of nonviolent Sahrawi activists have spent many years, have become educational centers for new activists. Court hearings have been used as rare opportunities to denounce the occupation publicly. On several occasions, prisoners have engaged in total non-cooperation at their hearings to protest beatings and other abuses while in custody.
In August of 2005, 37 Sahrawi political prisoners launched a hunger strike to protest the conditions of their imprisonment and to publicize their torture and maltreatment.
Though the nonviolent resistance movement is broad-based and decentralized, some prominent leaders have emerged, such as Aminatou Haidar, a charismatic advocate for women's rights and independence. She has been in and out of prison for most of her adult life for her activism and has been subjected to severe beatings and torture, but has maintained her commitment to nonviolence.
Her release from the notorious "black prison" early last year resulted in widespread public celebration in Western Sahara and great relief from European human rights advocates who had campaigned for her freedom.
There is a sizable movement in Europe supporting the Sahrawis' right to national self-determination. By contrast, there is relatively little activism on Western Sahara here in the United States. Even among those in the progressive community concerned with foreign affairs, very few people are familiar with the Sahrawi struggle and the culpability of the US government in maintaining Morocco's occupation.
This can change: Just ten years ago there was relatively little activism in this country regarding East Timor either. Yet the East Timorese worked in conjunction with peace and human rights activists in Canada, Great Britain, Australia, and the US who supported self-determination, and eventually forced the United States and these other governments to end their support for the Indonesian occupation. As a result, East Timor, although still struggling, is now independent of Indonesia. A similar campaign may be the best hope for the people of Western Sahara.
A US campaign could have broader implications as well. By organizing against the Moroccan occupation, activists and organizations would be consistently opposing occupation as a moral and legal principle, and would thereby help refute claims that the peace movement unfairly singles out Israel.
In addition, negative stereotypes in this country about Muslims and Arabs can be challenged by raising awareness that there is an Arab Muslim people engaged in a nonviolent struggle for freedom and democracy.
Morocco is now trying to gain international support for a unilateral "autonomy" plan in an effort to have the world community legitimize its illegal conquest and annexation of a neighboring country.
The Moroccan government is challenging the vitally important post-World War II principle, enshrined in the United Nations Charter, forbidding any country from expanding its territory through military force. We need to fight against this dangerous encroachment.
The nonviolent resisters in Western Sahara need our support. It is therefore critical that we mobilize to help free the Sahrawi people from foreign military occupation.
Resources on the conflict in Western Sahara not listed in printed edition:
Stephen Zunes home page, http://stephenzunes.com
Article on nonviolent resistance in Islamic world, published in the Nonviolent Activist by Stephen Zunes
The Sahrawi Association of Victims of Grave Human Rights Violations Committed by the Moroccan State
Human Rights Watch report on Morocco/Western Sahara, 2006
One hump or two, blog with links to videos of Sahrawi protest
