Western Sahara has been embroiled in a sovereignty conflict for 49 years, in which Morocco does not seem to want to yield
A Berber in the dunes of the Sahara Desert, in Merzouga
The sovereignty of Western Sahara is a conflict that has been going on since 1975, when Morocco promoted the Green March and occupied what was then a Spanish colony. This situation has endangered diplomatic relations between Spain and Morocco on several occasions.
THE GREEN MARCH
The countries located on the African continent began their process of transition from colonies to independent states between the mid-1950s and 1975, when Spain was ready to abandon its territories located in Africa, including the Sahara. It was at that time that Morocco took advantage of this Spanish withdrawal to annex the territory, which is known as the Green March.
The Green March was an operation led and promoted by King Hasan II –father and predecessor of the current King of Morocco– on November 6, 1975, in which he positioned around 350,000 Moroccan civilians in front of the Spanish border of the Saharawi territory to advance to the defensive walls of the Spanish Army. This was the Moroccan king's response to the process of decolonization of this semi-desert territory of 266,000 square kilometers, and to the initiative of Spain and the UN to draw up a census as a preliminary step to the holding of a referendum on self-determination.
Moroccans advance towards Spanish troops in the Sahara during the Green March in 1975
Six days before the death of Francisco Franco –dictator of Spain– on November 14, 1975, the Spanish-Mauritanian-Moroccan Tripartite Agreements were signed in Madrid, by which Spain ceded the northern and central part of the Sahara to Morocco and the southern part to Mauritania. Although the judgment of the International Court of The Hague of October 16, 1975 –contrary to the annexationist pretensions of Morocco and Mauritania– recommended that the right to self-determination be exercised, this ambiguous text was interpreted by Morocco in its favor.
THE POLISARIO FRONT
Thus, on February 27, 1976, Spain withdrew definitively from the Sahara and the Polisario Front
–a Saharawi national liberation movement fighting to end Morocco's illegal occupation of Western Sahara and to achieve self-determination and independence for the Saharawi people– unilaterally proclaimed the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) in Tindouf (Algeria) and declared war on Morocco and Mauritania. The latter renounced in 1979 to exercise its sovereignty over that part of the territory and signed a peace agreement with the Polisario Front, a circumstance Morocco took advantage of to annex it. Since then, most of the territory is controlled by Morocco while the Polisario Front, supported by Algeria and Libya, has a small part and has its headquarters in Tindouf.
In 1988, Morocco and the Polisario Front accepted a UN plan providing for a cease-fire and the control of the United Nations Mission for the referendum (MINURSO). Three years later, on September 6, 1991, the cease-fire came into force but the referendum was never held because of differences over the composition of the census.
The Polisario Front defends that the 74,000 Saharawis registered by the Spanish in 1974, before leaving the territory, are the only ones authorized to participate in the consultation, while Morocco demands to include the nomads who took refuge in its territory during the Spanish colonization (120,000), which the Polisario rejects as an attempt to alter the result.
In 1997 the dialogue was resumed with the new mediator, the former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker, who managed to fix for July 2000 the consultation, which was never held. The Polisario Front rejected it because it did not envisage independence and Rabat later, also because it did. Three other mediators who arrived later also failed to reach an agreement.
Between 2007 and 2012, several meetings were held in Manhasset, on the outskirts of New York, with no results. In that year, negotiations were stranded and the parties entrenched in their positions: a referendum on self-determination with an option for independence demanded by the Polisario versus a maximum offer of autonomy, without referendum, proposed by Morocco. It was in December 2018 that, after six years of silence, direct talks resumed in Geneva.
TENSION BETWEEN RABAT AND THE POLISARIO FRONT
Tension between Rabat and the Polisario Front worsened since October 21, 2020, when a group of Saharawi activists blocked the border crossing of Guerguerat, an area considered a buffer zone that Morocco had helped turn into an active trade channel with Mauritania in recent years. On November 13, the Moroccan army penetrated this demilitarized strip and the Polisario Front declared war.
The situation worsened again in December 2020 following the recognition of the Sahara as part of Morocco by outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump in exchange for Rabat establishing relations with Israel, as it happened.
In March 2021, Morocco suspended relations with Germany after summoning its ambassador to Berlin in response to "hostile acts" it attributed to German authorities calling into question Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara. However, in December 2021, Berlin supported the UN Secretary-General's newly appointed special envoy for the Sahara, Steffan de Mistura, in his quest for a just, lasting and mutually acceptable political outcome on the basis of Security Council resolution 2602.
THE "GALI CASE", CEUTA AND THE DIPLOMATIC CRISIS
COVID-19 did not stop spreading all over the world, reaching the Saharawi leaders. In particular, to Brahim Gali, leader of the Polisario Front. Through a leak in the media outlets, it became known that in April 2021, the leader of the Polisario Front and president of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), traveled to Spain under a false name –Mohamed Benbatouche– and was admitted to a hospital in Logroño (La Rioja) to be treated for the virus.
After learning of this, Morocco asked for explanations and warned that the reception would have consequences, even withdrawing its embassy in Spain. The diplomatic crisis continued to grow, until a particularly striking event occurred in May 2021. Morocco allowed and encouraged the entry into Ceuta (Spain) of at least 5,000 people, many of them minors. The migrants arrived in the city by swimming or using rudimentary means from Fnideq.
Illegal entry of immigrants into Ceuta through the Tarajal beach in May 2021
On March 18, 2022, the Sahara conflict took a turn, when the Moroccan royal house assured that the Spanish government of Pedro Sánchez had sent a letter to King Mohamed VI stating: "Spain considers the Moroccan autonomy initiative, presented in 2007, as the most serious, credible and realistic basis for the resolution of this dispute". The plan, which would be submitted to a referendum, provides for certain powers in the economy, infrastructure, social development and culture, among other areas, for the former Spanish colony, while reserving key areas such as defense, foreign relations and religion, which fall specifically under the control of King Mohammed VI.
Sánchez's change of position was criticized by the Polisario Front, whose delegate in Spain, Abdulah Arabi, complained that they had not been warned beforehand of this change of position. In his opinion, Sánchez "succumbs to the pressure and blackmail" of Morocco by endorsing this plan as a "toll" to resume the damaged political and diplomatic relations between both countries.
This change of position of the President of the Spanish Government was a radical change in the position that Spain had maintained until now with respect to the conflict, neutral and aligned with the United Nations.
It was becoming clear, from different statements of Moroccan political officials, that the massive migration of 2021 in Ceuta was related to Gali. In fact, not only with the reception of the Polisario leader in the hospital of Logroño, but with the historical position of the Spanish government regarding Western Sahara. The so-called "active neutrality" in which there was no clear support for any of the actors in conflict and good relations were maintained with both.
The focus on Western Sahara gradually faded after months in the limelight. The war, by its very nature, is not in close-up and is deliberately ignored in Morocco. The issue is back on the table, but this time over the management of the Sahara's airspace, currently controlled by Spain. Spain and Morocco agreed to start talks on cooperation in airspace management, on issues such as air traffic safety or communications, and these are still ongoing. The transfer of the airspace of the former Spanish colony is a new step in the improvement of Spanish-Moroccan relations, although the end of the Western Sahara conflict does not seem to be near after more than 49 years.
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