Western Sahara: Morocco makes its move

Your Proximities deep dive

Hello everyone,

As you’ll have noticed, the subject lines for my weekday emails are just a list of three countries. I like that it’s to the point but some people tell me I should be a bit more clickbaity: “This story about Burkina Faso will BLOW your mind.”

Nah, I think I’ll stick with the current format.

Fairly frequently, though, the places named in the subject lines are not formally recognized as countries by everyone.

Some examples: Somaliland, Taiwan, Palestine, and another that has been frequently covered in Proximities: Western Sahara or the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).

As we highlighted earlier this month, a growing number of countries are now backing a Moroccan plan to give SADR a measure of autonomy.

In the last two days, Britain reaffirmed its support for the proposal during a visit to London by the Moroccan foreign minister, Nasser Bourita. The next day, Bourita was in Vienna, where he won Austria’s backing.

With this strong diplomatic push underway, it seems a good time for a Q&A on one of the world’s longest-running and most under-reported conflicts.

Until next week,

Barry.

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So given what you’ve said, Morocco occupies Western Sahara?

Well, that depends on who you talk to. The dispute, like so many in the world, has its roots in colonial times. Morocco annexed much of what was then Spanish Sahara shortly after Spain withdrew in 1975, sparking the African continent’s longest-running territorial dispute. It claimed the entire region as its own in 1979.

But the Algeria-backed Polisario Front, which says it represents the Sahrawi people who are indigenous to Western Sahara, fought for independence and declared the formation of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).

Rabat currently controls about 80 percent of the territory, which is separated from the remaining Polisario Front-held areas by a fortified barrier.

Morocco and the countries now backing its limited autonomy plan clearly do not see Rabat as an occupier. But key organizations and international law do.

The African Union admitted SADR as a member in 1982 and considers it a country that needs to be decolonized and the self-determination of its people recognized. The United Nations lists Western Sahara as a non-self-governing territory. Under the U.N. Charter those territories are classified as places “whose people have not yet attained a full measure of self-government.” And the right to self-determination is enshrined by several international laws.

Western Sahara is clearly occupied. It is a colony.

What does the Moroccan plan entail?