The attitudes of the main protagonists remain unchanged. Morocco still wants the Territory incorporated into its own but has not yet received the international imprimatur. The independence front, Polisario, and its supporters living under Moroccan control, still call for the Territory's independence. Algeria still supports Polisario; France and the United States still support Morocco, mostly out of fear that ‘losing’ Western Sahara would destabilise Morocco and perhaps bring down the centuries old Alawi monarchy.
Little has changed in the Western Sahara conflict except the discourse. For almost twenty years, starting in 1981, the point of consensus was self-determination. The Moroccan government, Western Saharan nationalists and the United Nations agreed that a referendum on self-determination – a vote between independence and integration – was the way out of the military and diplomatic stalemate of the 1980s. Nationalists saw a self-determination vote as the easiest way to achieve independence. Morocco saw self-determination as the best way to legitimate its claim and its hold on Western Sahara. The International Community saw it as a fair and agreed way to settle the conflict.
That consensus broke down in 2000 for a variety of reasons. In the time since, especially after Baker's departure in June 2004, the terms of debate in Western Sahara have diverged and become antagonistic. For Morocco and its supporters, Western Sahara is now a matter of autonomy, not self-determination. For nationalists, it is now a matter of national Intifadah, a non-violent struggle to ‘shake off’ the Moroccan ‘occupation’.1
Understanding these trends towards autonomy and Intifadah requires an understanding of their genesis and evolution. One part of this is historical, seeing the conditions of their possibility. The second part is analysing these trends. This article aims to answer two questions: Why is autonomy being proposed? And, why are Western Saharan nationalists now using non-violent resistance against Morocco? It is difficult to be optimistic about prospects for a swift and peaceful resolution of the conflict.
Genesis of a stalemate
The war
The Western Sahara conflict dates back to November 1975, when Morocco's King Hassan II pressured Madrid out of its desert colony, Spanish Sahara. Morocco had raised a claim on Spanish Sahara in 1956, which was challenged by a Mauritanian counter-claim in 1960. In 1974, Rabat and Nouakchott joined forces to oppose Madrid's plans to hold a referendum on independence. The International Court of Justice, however, rejected their claims to historical title in October 1975. In the summer of 1975, Spain opened discussions with a two-year old native insurgency fighting for independence, Frente Popular para la Liberación de Saguia el-Hamra y Río de Oro (Polisario). Madrid started transferring control to Polisario in October 1975, but this was cut short by King Hassan's 350,000 civilian-strong ‘invasion’ of Spanish Sahara known as the Green March. Rather than risk a colonial war with Morocco, the Spanish government – under pressure from the United States and leaderless with General Franco in a coma – unilaterally passed its colony over to Rabat and Nouakchott without consulting the wishes of the Western Saharans (Mundy, 2006).
From late 1975 to early 1976, nearly half the native population fled into exile. Polisario soon received strong military and diplomatic backing from Algeria in its fight against Morocco and Mauritania. Polisario established its headquarters and four camps for refugees near Tindouf in Algeria. By 1979, Mauritania had withdrawn from Western Sahara and Polisario had driven Morocco into three isolated pockets. Calling on its allies, France, United States and Saudi Arabia for help, Rabat pushed back Polisario's fighters by constructing a large defensive barrier that now bisects Western Sahara from north to south. Yet with Polisario and the refugees safely housed in Algeria, Morocco could not destroy the nationalist movement, not without invading Algeria. Polisario, however, could not drive Morocco out of the Territory without a massive increase in conventional arms from Algeria (e.g., tanks and heavy artillery). The military situation had reached a stalemate, and it was in this context that both sides accepted the United Nations’ offer for mediation.
Internationalisation
In 1988 both Morocco and Polisario accepted a UN settlement proposal, yet this plan only built on previous African mediation efforts. The Organization of African Unity (OAU) led peacemaking efforts from 1976 to 1984. In 1979 the continental body proposed a ceasefire followed by a referendum on independence or integration with Morocco. Convinced that native Western Saharans favoured independence, Polisario has always accepted the idea of a referendum to resolve the conflict. King Hassan agreed in 1981, but would not work towards its implementation. With no other means of pressure, the OAU decided in 1984 to recognise the Polisario-led Saharan Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) as the legitimate government of Western Sahara. Deeply offended, Morocco left the organisation and a boycott of the OAU's successor organisation, the AU continues.
Using the OAU plan as an outline, the UN Secretary General took up the Western Sahara conflict in 1986. After several years of shuttle diplomacy, the Security Council approved a concrete proposal in 1991. It called for a ceasefire; a reduction and confinement of troops; a repatriation of the refugees; and finally a vote between independence and integration. While it seemed that peace was at hand, Polisario and Morocco did not actually agree on many of the plan's points, especially the all important question of who was qualified to vote in the referendum. The ceasefire took effect in September 1991 with the rest of the plan in dispute.
The United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) spent the first half of the 1990s negotiating a set of criteria for identifying potential voters; it then spent the second half of the decade vetting nearly 233,000 applications, most of them individually and in person (Seddon, 1992, 1996, 1999 and 2000; Jensen 2004). The process broke down in 1996 but was revived by former US Secretary of State James Baker, when he agreed to become Kofi Annan's Personal Envoy to Western Sahara in 1997. Once MINURSO had processed all the applicants, it arrived at a figure of 86,386 qualified voters in early 2000, a number that closely corresponded to Spain's 1974 census. The vast majority of Moroccan-sponsored applicants failed, which was a massive embarrassment for Rabat.
However, rather than hold the referendum, the Security Council abandoned it. For France and the United States, the political situation in Morocco was too dangerous for a referendum. Several months beforehand, in July 1999, King Hassan died and was replaced by his son, Mohammed VI. The young and inexperienced ruler was far less inclined to hold a vote than his father, especially one that was obviously pointing towards independence. The Security Council was also apprehensive given the August 1999 referendum in East Timor, which had shown all the ways in which a plebiscite could go wrong. Furthermore, as the Secretary General noted in February 2000,
… even assuming that a referendum were held pursuant to the settlement plan and agreements of the parties, if the result were not to be recognised and accepted by one party, it is worth noting that no enforcement mechanism is envisioned by the settlement plan, nor is one likely to be proposed, calling for the use of military means to effect enforcement (UN Security Council, 2000 paragraph 36).
Baker & the ‘third way’
Throughout the referendum process, all three Secretaries General had secretly favoured a negotiated political settlement over the winner-take-all referendum. The obvious compromise has been some form of autonomy for Western Sahara, whereby Morocco would devolve its authority to a locally elected government while retaining control over key duties like foreign policy and national defence. Another compromise option would be the division of the Territory into a Moroccan sector and a mini-Saharan state. As recently as 2002, Algeria suggested dividing the Territory, yet Morocco rejected it and the Security Council was worried about the precedent it would set.
Baker's quest for a negotiated compromise did not get far in 2000. Each successive meeting of Morocco and Polisario only served to increase their mutual animosity. Though Rabat had declared its willingness to consider alternatives to the 1991 Settlement Plan, it would not provide Baker with any specific proposal. Baker released his own ‘draft Framework Agreement’ in 2001. It proposed a four-year period of significant autonomy for the Territory followed by an ambiguous ‘final status’ referendum. In Morocco, the Framework Agreement was approved as high as King Mohammed, yet Polisario, clinging to the 1991 Settlement Plan, rejected it. Baker demanded a clear way forward from the Security Council but only received words of encouragement.
Baker made one more initiative. It took the form of his ‘Peace Plan for the Self-Determination of the People of Western Sahara’ to Morocco, Polisario and Algeria in early 2003. The Peace Plan reintroduced the idea of an independence-or-integration referendum following a similar four-year period of even greater autonomy. Baker hoped to get around Rabat's aversions to the question of independence by allowing Moroccan settlers the vote: they outnumber native Western Saharans by as much as two-to-one. Polisario's initial reactions were predictably negative yet they surprised almost all observers by accepting the Peace Plan in July 2003. Morocco had not formally rejected the plan, but did so when it became clear that Baker wanted it imposed by the Security Council.
As in 2000, the political situation in Morocco mid-2003 made it impossible for the Security Council to press King Mohammed too hard. That May, there had been the largest terrorist attack in Moroccan history in Casablanca. In the following months, just as the Security Council was considering Baker's Peace Plan, Rabat fought its own self-described ‘war on terror’. The discovery of a large number of Moroccans involved in transnational Jihadist organisations in the years after 11 September 2001 was already of concern, amplified after the Madrid bombings of March 2004. As always, the French government saw itself as the last guarantor of stability in Morocco, and the summer of 2003 was an especially sensitive time for King Mohammed. France led the effort to keep the Baker Plan from being imposed on Morocco. For the United States, Morocco was one of the few Muslim countries supporting its occupation of Iraq which was just starting to go sour. Even if Baker was backed by the State Department, and is close to the George W. Bush administration, his influence on Western Sahara obviously had its limits, and could not trump larger political and security concerns in the Middle East.2
Rather than ‘endorse’ the Peace Plan as the only way forward, the Security Council ‘strongly’ supported it as an ‘optimal’ solution in its July 2003 resolution. Though Baker had threatened to quit without a stronger mandate, he stayed on for another year. In that period, he worked with the Moroccan government to address their concerns with the Peace Plan. While Rabat took issue with the broad autonomy it offered, especially the local control over security, their major problem was the fact that it offered Polisario a shot – albeit a long one – at independence. Between the summers of 2003 and 2004, when Baker resigned, Morocco presented three secret counter proposals as ‘non-papers’. Baker, however, could not take them seriously as all three failed to offer a realistic autonomy and a clear act of self-determination. Indeed, the third Moroccan proposal was identical to the second, which convinced Baker that Morocco was not serious about working with him. Claiming that he had done all he could, Baker resigned in June 2004. Polisario knew that they had lost an honest broker; Morocco's foreign minister, Mohammed Benaissa, felt that ‘it was the outcome of the tenacity of Moroccan diplomacy’.
Peace process meltdown
In the year and a half since Baker's departure, the Western Sahara peace process has come undone. Alvaro De Soto, head of MINURSO starting in 2004, assumed Baker's responsibilities as lead negotiator, but Polisario and Algeria would not even meet with him. Their attitude was that the only thing De Soto needed to do was force Morocco to accept the Baker Plan. Rabat, on the other hand, has said that it was willing to accept autonomy for the Western Sahara so long as Morocco's ‘territorial integrity’ was respected.
On the question of self-determination, the Moroccan position against an independence option continued to present the greatest obstacle to peace. As the Secretary General noted in 2003:
It is difficult to envision a political solution that, as required by Security Council resolution 1429 (2002), provides for self-determination but that nevertheless precludes the possibility of independence as one of several ballot options’ (UN Security Council, 2003, paragraph 52). Resolution 1429 expressed [the Security Council's] readiness to consider any approach which provides for self-determination.
To make matters worse, the Secretary General has reported increased tension between the two sides along Morocco's defensive wall. It is not clear if either side is gearing up for war or if MINURSO is exaggerating the tension to justify its continued presence in the face of growing pressure to withdraw. When it first arrived in 1991, MINURSO was treated with suspicion by the Moroccans and warmly welcomed by Western Saharan nationalists. Many nationalists now feel that MINURSO serves to protect Moroccan control. Its limited mandate bars it from reporting on even the most obvious acts of Moroccan repression inside the Territory.
While Polisario's rank-and-file have pressed for a resumption of the armed conflict since the original referendum was abandoned in 2000, its long-time leader cooperated with Baker. Now Baker has gone Polisario is having a harder time justifying a non-violent approach to its constituents, especially the refugees. A ceasefire made all the more difficult for Polisario to support given Moroccan repression inside the Territory. The UN's military peacekeepers feel that even a small incident – perhaps just one mortar fired by a disgruntled Polisario fighter – could spark all out war.
It is no surprise that France, on Morocco's behalf, now supports renewing MINURSO's mandate for the sake of peacekeeping, sans peacemaking. Though the UN mission in Western Sahara exists to hold a referendum Morocco now rejects, Paris thinks that MINURSO's presence helps keep the situation from erupting into violence. Opposing this view is the new US representative at the United Nations, John Bolton. He has placed MINURSO on a ‘hit list’ of UN missions he wants evaluated. Though Bolton claims that his is a principled stance against ineffective UN missions, he is also a close associate of Baker. Bolton has told every mission at the United Nations that Western Sahara is a priority for him. If the Security Council wants to move the parties, the only means of pressure left is the mission itself, which seems to mean more to Morocco than Polisario. However, it is not clear if Bolton wants to press Morocco to accept the Baker Plan or just to get the parties talking on a set timetable. Though the latter would be a breakthrough in itself.
As a deputy of the State Department, Bolton will face the same problem that Baker faced namely Morocco's strategic value to the United States. The US government would like to resolve the Western Sahara dispute, but not if it means jeopardising its relations with Morocco. Rabat has been emboldened by reinvigorated relations with the United States in the past two years. Following the tense Security Council deliberations on the Baker Plan in 2003, President Bush personally told King Mohammed that a Western Sahara solution would not be imposed on Morocco. To show solidarity with Rabat in its ‘war on terror’, Washington declared Morocco a ‘major non-NATO ally’, a symbolic, non-obligatory defence promise also given to states like Israel. In late 2005, then Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage told Al-Jazeera that the United States ‘supports the territorial integrity of Morocco’ when it comes to Western Sahara.3 Morocco also won a bilateral Free Trade Agreement with the United States, though Polisario's supporters in Congress made sure that Western Sahara was excluded. Yet the US government has not commented on offshore petroleum exploration contracts between Morocco and the Oklahoma based Kerr-McGee Corporation for waters off Western Sahara. Should Kerr-McGee's geological survey's reveal significant quantities of oil or gas, Rabat will have another reason not to budge on the status of Western Sahara. Across the board, US aid to Morocco is increasing, both military and economic (US Dept., of State, 2006:456).
Reinforcing Morocco's intransigence is King Mohammed's personal support from the French President, Jacques Chirac, as well as the Spanish government's unwillingness to press Rabat. Under the previous conservative government of the Popular Party, Hispano-Moroccan relations were tense, the result of diplomatic clashes over Spanish fishing rights, illegal migration across the Gibraltar straight, the Spanish enclaves in Morocco and the ubiquitous pro-Western Saharan independence sympathies in Spain. The new Socialist government of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, ushered in following the Madrid bombings in March 2004, made relations with Morocco a priority. Fighting terrorism and controlling illegal African migration meant readjusting Madrid's slightly pro-Polisario position on Western Sahara. It took a year for Spain to find a happy medium, as Polisario's grassroots support and Algerian influence forced the Socialist government to correct its aim on several occasions. Pro-Moroccan rhetoric also elicited attacks from the opposition, which claimed that Zapatero had two positions on Western Sahara, one for Rabat and one for Algiers.
Spain even attempted to play a role in mediating the conflict in the summer of 2005, following De Soto's happy reassignment to Jerusalem and amidst the growing anti-Moroccan demonstrations inside the Territory. This effort floundered when Madrid offered to arrange bilateral Moroccan-Algerian talks on the issue. Though Rabat has long favoured direct negotiations with Algeria, bypassing Polisario, Algiers has consistently rejected any attempt to ‘bilateralise’ the conflict. The United States also failed to make any headway using a bilateral approach in the summer of 2005. Under the auspices of the White House, the US government arranged for the release of the last four hundred prisoners of war held by Polisario. Out of sensitivity to Rabat, US intermediaries were careful never to mention the word Polisario in any of their statements, which carefully framed the conflict in Moroccan-Algerian terms.
While the Moroccan press saw it as a coup for their position, Rabat failed to reciprocate in any way. This led US policy makers to the conclusion that even when they play by Morocco's rules, it is not really worth the effort.
Baker's replacement, Peter Van Walsum, a former Dutch diplomat, was finally named in July 2005, followed by the naming of a new mission head, UN officer Francesco Bastagli from Italy. From 1998 to 2004, Americans backed by the State Department held these positions. Now Washington refuses to put forward US soldiers as MINURSO peacekeepers. Washington has clearly put Western Sahara on a back burner. Van Walsum's first assessment of the situation in October 2005 was that the positions of the parties were ‘quasi-irreconcilable’. When he briefed the Security Council in January 2006, he warned that a solution is a year away at least.4
Recent evolution of the conflict
Autonomy
As noted, the question of autonomy for Western Sahara is an old idea, though it has been the favoured compromise solution of the key Western powers and the UN elite since at least the late 1980s. After supporting an independence/integration referendum from 1981 to 2000, it now seems that Morocco favours autonomy as well. As a tool for peacemaking, autonomy or shared-sovereignty has become more prevalent in recent years.5 Steven Krasner, has argued that semi-sovereignty, not absolute sovereignty, is the dominant arrangement in world affairs (Krasner, 1997). There is perhaps some irony in the fact that East Timor – Asia's Western Sahara – won its independence by rejecting a negotiated autonomy proposal, the same kind of proposal Morocco supports and Polisario vehemently rejects. Driving discussions of autonomy for Western Sahara are not abstract discussions, however, about the nature of the Westphalian state, but discrete Western pressure on Morocco to offer a rejoinder to the peace process.
From 2000 to 2003, Morocco was in a fairly comfortable position. The Security Council had taken the 1991 Settlement Plan off the table, and Baker's 2001 Framework Agreement was equivocal about the ‘final status’ of Western Sahara after four years of autonomy. Rabat was unhappy with the enhanced level of autonomy the Framework Agreement offered the Territory, but Polisario's extreme frustration with the abandonment of the Settlement Plan helped reassure the Moroccan government that things were going its way.
Polisario's surprise acceptance of the 2003 Peace Plan, after months of studying Morocco's cold reaction to it, and with some nudging from Algiers, was a diplomatic coup for the liberation front. For three years Polisario had been on the defensive, but former guerrillas turned the tables on Morocco to stunning effect. This meant that they now had much more sympathy from the US government vis-à-vis Baker. Morocco's stern refusal to even consider the 2003 Baker Plan, which allowed all Moroccan settlers in Western Sahara to vote in the final status referendum, caused great confusion. The only logical conclusion was that Rabat did not trust its own citizens, they might actually vote for independence with Polisario.
With French support, Morocco successfully weathered the diplomatic storm in the summer of 2003, and then used every card it had to undermine the US government's support for Baker. As mentioned above, Morocco worked with Baker during his final year as Personal Envoy, but Rabat's counter-proposals indicated to Baker that Morocco was not serious about autonomy, self-determination or even working with him in good faith. Though Baker has yet to specifically point his finger at Rabat for sabotaging his efforts, his relative silence on the issue since resigning in 2004 could be read as one final ‘diplomatic’ move not to jinx future resolution efforts. The fact that the US government never criticised Morocco's Foreign Ministry for celebrating Baker's departure is just another sign of how important the small Kingdom is to Washington.
Rabat's backing of autonomy, much more in principle than in practice, stemmed from an awareness that it is the one party holding up the peace process. Though the Baker Plan will never be imposed on Morocco, it is tepidly supported by the Security Council, and is now the position of Polisario and Algeria. Thus the onus is on Morocco to come up with a counter-offer, which Rabat claims it will do it April 2006.
It is difficult to gauge the level of autonomy that Morocco is willing to accept at this point, and how the question of self-determination will be tackled. After rejecting the 2003 Peace Plan, Morocco claimed that it favoured the 2001 Framework Agreement as a basis for negotiations. Moroccan officials claim that everything is up for grabs so long as Polisario takes independence off the table. Morocco has long claimed that it is undergoing a process of decentralisation or regionalisation, to devolve the central authority of the Monarchy and his apparatus of clients (Makhzan) to the local level. Late in his rule, King Hassan even considered transforming Morocco into a federal state, so as to solve the Western Sahara issue and pre-empt any Berberist claims for autonomy. The problem with both these approaches, regionalisation and federalisation, is that they are internal to Morocco, and ignore the fact that Western Sahara is an external, internationalised problem.
The principle of autonomy is that the central government cannot abolish or alter the locally elected autonomous government. This principle alone is enough to give the Moroccan government pause as it would pose a significant challenge to the absolute rule the Alawi monarchs have enjoyed since independence in 1956. If the Polisario accepted autonomy, and proved that it could rule justly, transparently and democratically, it might fuel claims for autonomy in other regions where fifty years of unjust, opaque monarchical rule has cultivated layer upon layer of discontent. Indeed, Rabat's 2003 rejection of the Baker Plan is undoubtedly rooted in the ‘fear of a good example’; so much so that the Moroccan government is worried that its own citizens would rather join Polisario in independence than spend one more day under the Makhzan.
The other major problems that substantial autonomy poses for Rabat are the issue of Moroccan settlers, the Moroccan military and self-determination. Since 1976, Morocco has transplanted large numbers of its own citizens, ethnic Berbers, Arabs and Sahrawis6 into the Territory. Their existence has been heavily subsidised by the state, with government salaries double in Western Sahara. Estimates of the total population in the Moroccan controlled Western Sahara range from 300,000 to 400,000. Given the results of the UN voter-identification effort, the number of ethnic Sahrawis native to Western Sahara is roughly 160,000. Thus Moroccans could easily dominate an autonomous Western Saharan government if it were democratically elected. Without a reduction of its settlers by as much as fifty to sixty per cent, it is unlikely that Western Saharan nationalists would consider autonomy. Such a reduction is not only necessary for Sahrawi self-rule, but it would be necessary to create economic space for the refugees. Morocco, however, has never signalled a willingness to consider a reduction in settlers, nor is it likely that this state-supported population would want to return to Morocco without some conflict.
The Moroccan military is also heavily entrenched in Western Sahara, not just physically but economically as well. At the level of the foot soldier, there is money to be made in petty smuggling operations between Mauritania and even Sahrawis on Polisario's side of the defensive wall. At the level of Morocco's commanding officers, who have controlling stakes in several legal enterprises, there are millions of dollars to be made in the rich fishing offshore. For autonomy to work, not only would Morocco have to reduce the number of its soldiers in the Territory, estimated between 100,000 to 150,000, but it would have to hand over control of all economic sectors to the autonomous government. No one has yet answered the question: would Morocco's generals willingly quit Western Sahara to make peace?
The question of self-determination is the most vexing. The Moroccan position seems to shift depending on whom one is talking to. Some Moroccan officials claim that elections for the local autonomous government will satisfy self-determination. Others welcome a yes/no referendum on a specific autonomy proposal. Unlike East Timor, a ‘no’ vote would not mean independence (or integration); but what would happen after such a vote?
The problem with this latter approach is that it might reopen the question of who has a right to vote. Again, Moroccan opinions vary, as some seem willing to accept a vote from only Sahrawis. Others think that Moroccan settlers should be involved. The genius of the Baker's 2003 Peace Plan was that it overcame the issue of ‘who votes?’ by simply including Moroccan settlers with the UN list of native Western Saharans. For Polisario, it was hard enough to accept the idea, and then to convince the refugees, that Moroccans could vote in their referendum. If such a yes/no vote was limited to native Western Saharans, Polisario might be coaxed to the table, but that ignores the fact that it would imply that the Front had given up independence. While this concession could lead to peace, it would first lead to Polisario's overthrow by the refugees.
Intifadah
For all intents and purposes, yet unknown to most of the world, the war for Western Sahara resumed in May 2005. This time, however, Western Saharan nationalists began using non-violent strategies to drive Morocco out of the Territory. This movement is now called the Intifadah al-Istiqlal, struggle of independence. This development signals a shift in the locus of Western Saharan nationalism. As observed in journalist Toby Shelley's prescient and timely book, nationalist Sahrawis living in ‘occupied’ Western Sahara, rather than the camps, are now leading the cause for independence (Shelley, 2004:204-205).
Not only is this a geographical shift, but it is also a generational one. The leaders of the Intifadah are both first generation nationalists and Sahrawis who have grown up under Moroccan rule. Most surprisingly of all, some of the movement's leaders are ethnic Sahrawis indigenous to southern Morocco.
The ongoing Intifadah erupted during the current nadir of the peace process in May 2005, and just after the thirty-second anniversary of Polisario's first military conflict. Morocco unwittingly triggered the events when it dispersed a small demonstration against the transfer of a Sahrawi prisoner from Al-‘Ayun, Western Sahara, to just outside of Agadir in southern Morocco. Sahrawi activists returned in larger numbers and again met with a heavy-handed response from the Moroccan police. The situation then erupted into the largest displays of pro-independence sentiment ever seen in the Moroccan controlled Western Sahara. Moroccan authorities arrested over a hundred demonstrators, reportedly tortured several activists and later tried the Intifadah's leadership for inciting violence. Smaller demonstrations and nightly confrontations continued throughout the summer and into the holy month of Ramadan. The situation reached a low point when Moroccan police beat a Sahrawi youth to death in the streets of Al-‘Ayun at the end of October. His funeral, held in January 2006, featured the flags of Polisario, including one draped over the coffin. Several days later, Aminatou Haidar, a female nationalist activist, was released from jail, gaunt after fifty days of hunger strike. She was also received with Polisario flags and slogans celebrating the life of ‘shahid (martyr) Lembarki’, the youth buried days before.
This is not the first time Sahrawi nationalists have called their struggle an Intifadah or directly confronted Moroccan administration with civil disobedience. In fact, some Sahrawis refer to pro-independence demonstration against Spanish rule in 1970 as their first Intifadah. Since the beginning of the Moroccan conquest, there have been three notable periods of disturbance. Twice, in 1987 and 1995, the Moroccan police quickly suppressed attempts to demonstrate in front of visiting UN missions in the Territory. Then, in 1999, Sahrawi students in Al-‘Ayun engaged in a multi-day sit-in calling for more rights, though without using pro-independence slogans. This was a test of the new regime of King Mohammed. When the protest grew in scope, it was dispersed roughly. Larger protests ensued that became overtly nationalist, and later earned the name Intifadah.
Political, social and economic discontent is driving the demonstrations and protests. Opposition is wrapped in the language of nationalism. Rather than engage native Sahrawis as a whole, the Moroccan administration rules Western Sahara using the same methods it uses elsewhere; a system of handpicked clients that are handsomely rewarded for their obedience to the crown. These are typically tribal elders (Shaykhs), Sahrawi notables and high profile Polisario defectors. As in the rest of Morocco, the Makhzan system keeps the locally elected officials in check.
The Moroccan government claims that it has invested millions of dollars into Western Sahara to win the hearts and minds of the native Sahrawis, yet most of those funds go to support the large population of settlers. And even with this massive development scheme, the economy in Western Sahara is the worst in Morocco according to its own figures, especially unemployment (Shelley, 2005). Nationalists complain bitterly of economic marginalisation and of being treated as second-class citizens. They also feel that their traditional culture is being eroded by the ‘Moroccanisation’ of Western Sahara.
The Intifadah is motivated by the very real concerns of the general Sahrawi population, yet nationalist activists are also motivated by the fact that Polisario has become ineffective. This is not to say that there are visible divisions among the Polisario leadership in exile and the nationalists inside the Territory. Both share a common goal and a common enemy, and because of advances in technology (e.g., cell phones and email) there is constant communication between the two. Polisario's leader, Mohammed Abdelaziz, sees the Intifadah as the second prong in their ‘national strategy’, international political pressure being the other.
Activists working inside Western Sahara believe that Polisario has been unable to achieve independence because of international politics. The war effort failed because of Morocco's aid from Western powers like France and the United States, as well as Saudi Arabia. The referendum effort failed, they argue, for the same reason, because of the international community's unwillingness to press Morocco. Even when Polisario agreed to allow Moroccan settlers to vote, the United Nations would not force Morocco to hold a referendum. Under these conditions, nationalist activists felt that the only means left to them, short of terrorism, was a non-violent ‘people power’ strategy, like movements in the Philippines and South Africa, and more recently in Serbia, Ukraine and Lebanon. The advantages of this strategy are obvious. Not only does it have the potential to draw more international criticism to Morocco, but that shame then rubs off on Morocco's main supporters, France and the United States. The more embarrassing the Moroccan ‘occupation’ becomes, and the more embarrassing supporting it becomes, the more likely the West might force Morocco to quit Western Sahara.
Nationalist activists realise that the danger of this strategy is that, despite their efforts, the international community will continue to treat Western Sahara as a marginal issue in global affairs. Unless these Sahrawis are able to draw more attention, and successfully frame their struggle in such a way as to elicit sympathetic international support and active solidarity, Western Saharan nationalism could continue to be brutally repressed without so much as the bat of an eye from the international community.
Conclusion
For the time being, autonomy and Intifadah seem irreconcilable. This does not have to be the case, but the very fact that the Moroccan regime blesses autonomy makes it a non-starter for many nationalists. And the overt displays of pro-Polisario sentiment in the Intifadah make it ideologically impossible for the Moroccan government to consider any rational or constructive engagement. While this shift in the discourse of the Western Sahara conflict is a new and interesting development, it also stems from the lack of imagination with which the international community has treated the conflict for so long. International complaints of a ‘winner-take-all mentality’ should be tempered by the fact that the United Nations has so far only presented winner-take-all solutions.
Autonomy and Intifadah could meet in that middle space that has eluded all previous efforts to resolve the conflict. A genuine self-rule that allows for the flourishing of Western Saharan nationalism within the Kingdom of Morocco would allow North Africa to finally settle its post-colonial differences and become the regional power it could be. On the face of it, Morocco's willingness to discuss autonomy seems like an opening for peace. Yet Rabat's behaviour indicates that its attitude is far from reconciliatory. The Intifadah draws its strength from history as much as from a hard earned knowledge that the highly centralised and clientelist authoritarian Moroccan regime is not yet willing to accommodate a democratically run, Catalonia-like region for the Sahrawis.
The main reason for the Saharan deadlock cited by officials of the UN and the governments of France, Spain and the US, is the ‘unwillingness’ of Morocco, Polisario and Algeria to make the compromises necessary for peace. Yet nowhere does it register that the Security Council is just as unwilling to twist anyone's arm, especially Morocco. The international community agrees that the Western Sahara conflict is deteriorating and that it might slip back into armed conflict without resolution. The Security Council and the UN secretariat, however, are now totally reliant upon the goodwill of the parties to achieve a resolution, having abandoned any pretence of having either sticks or carrots to motivate them. With the parties’ goodwill visibly deteriorating day-by-day, the need for the UN to evaluate this attitude becomes more and more warranted.