The Sahara’s Cold War – Why Western Sahara will stay the way it
On most maps, there is a blank area labeled “no data available” in northwestern Africa. It’s a slab of land with a population of only roughly half a million, mainly uninhabited desert, but nonetheless it is a key focus in Morocco’s interests and ambitions. It comes at a heavy price – almost 50 years of ongoing conflict, 21,000 lost lives and over 80,000 displaced people.
This area is known are Morocco’s “southern provinces”, but internationally is usually referred to as Western Sahara. Colonized by Spain in 1884, it remained part of Spain until Franco’s administration, nearing its end, withdrew in 1975 thanks to the UN’s decolonization efforts. In 1957, Morocco had laid claim on the region, citing historical and cultural ties. Although the UN ordered Spain to conduct a referendum on self-determination, Spain ceded control over Western Sahara to Morocco and Mauritania. They soon faced resistance of the Polisario Front, established as the sole representative of the Saharawi people in 1973. Morocco brought the territorial dispute before the International Court of Justice in The Hague, who ruled that although Morocco had ties to the region, the Saharawis have the right to self-determination. The king launched a “green march”, 350,000 unarmed Moroccans, into Western Sahara to solidify Morocco’s claim to the region, and two months later, in December of 1975, Moroccan troops followed. The Polisario stepped up its guerilla warfare through 1976, and Algeria and Libya declare the Saharan Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), with its government in Algerian exile. Mauritania pulled out of the conflict in 1979, giving up the southern third of Western Sahara, and entering a ceasefire with the Polisario. Moroccan forces quickly annexed the territory. In 1984, the Organisation of African Unity decides to accept the SADR - Morocco leaves - 33 years later, in early 2017, Morocco re-joined the union. The war ended in 1991, when UN brokered a Morocco/Polisario ceasefire and launched the MINURSO peacekeeping mission, with the ultimate goal of setting up a referendum - which is yet to take place.
Morocco has set up a series of sand walls (berms) and minefields at the border between their occupied territory and the “Free Zone” of the Polisario front.
For now, the shaky peace deal is in place, although discontent among the Saharawis, many of whom live in refugee camps in Algeria, is growing because the referendum promised 42 years ago is yet to take place. They are calling for a continuation of the armed fight for independence. As the New York Times puts it: “Not since 1991 have they been closer to war”.
