THE CONFLICT IN WESTERN SAHARA 299

‘NOT ONE GRAIN OF SAND’:

INTERNATIONAL LAW AND THE CONFLICT
IN THE WESTERN SAHARA
Stefan Simanowitz

‘E
MPTY time is a dangerous thing’, Jadiya Hamdi tells me over a
glass of sweet tea. ‘It can kill a human soul’. As an exile herself,
she understands how the physical hardships faced by the 165,000
Saharawi people living in refugee camps in the Algerian desert are in some
ways easier to bear than the psychological ones. Temperatures of 120 degrees,
sandstorms, and dependence on external supplies of food and water are things
that the refugees have resigned themselves to enduring. But the despondency
that comes of waiting in exile whilst promises are broken and hopes repeat-
edly dashed is something to which they can never adjust.
The dispute in Western Sahara is one of the longest running and most
disregarded conflicts in the world. Known as ‘Africa’s last colony’ Western
Sahara is a sparsely populated, arid place with a beautiful seven-hundred-mile
coastline. A former Spanish colony – Spanish Sahara – it has been subject to
an occupation by neighbouring Morocco for the past thirty-four years. The
resultant humanitarian rights crisis is scandalous in itself, but perhaps a
greater outrage is the abject failure of the international community to ade-
quately address the ongoing situation. For over three decades international
law has been flouted whilst governments around the world are complacent
or complicit in permitting the occupation and even profiting from it.

About the size of Britain, Western Sahara lies along Africa’s Atlantic
coast. Descended from Bedouin Arabs who arrived in the thirteenth century
and integrated with the Sanhaja population, the Saharawi have wandered
the territory’s deserts rearing sheep, goats and camels for centuries. They have
their own rich nomadic culture and traditions as well as their own distinct
Arabic language, Hassaniya. In 1884 at the height of the ‘scramble for
Africa’, the Spanish colonised the territory but did not settle much of the
country, staying largely in port towns along the coast. However, the discovery
in the 1960s of large phosphate deposits beneath the desert sands led to the
setting up of a large Spanish mining infrastructure.
As decolonisation movements gained momentum across the continent,
it became increasingly clear that the Spanish would have to cede control
of Western Sahara. In 1973 a Saharawi independence movement, the
Polisario Front, began an insurgency against the Spanish colonial rule. As
preparations were being made for transition to independence the Moroccans
and Mauritanians both asserted territorial claims over the area. These claims
were dismissed by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 1975. In their
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ruling the ICJ declared that whilst there had been ‘legal ties of allegiance
between the Sultan of Morocco and some of the tribes living in the territory
of Western Sahara’ the facts did ‘not establish any tie of territorial sover-
eignty between the territory of Western Sahara and the Kingdom of
Morocco’. The ICJ also upheld United Nations (UN) resolution 1541 (XV)
of 1960 on the decolonisation of Western Sahara and the right of its people
to self-determination.
In response to the ICJ ruling the Moroccans organised a mass mobiliza-
tion known as the Green March where hundreds of thousands of Moroccan
civilians crossed the boarder into Western Sahara. With Franco on his
deathbed, the Spanish hurriedly signed the Madrid Accords in which they
agreed to divide Western Sahara between Morocco and Mauritania in
exchange for continued fishing rights and partial ownership of mining inter-
ests. In February 1976 the Spanish withdrew from Western Sahara, the
Moroccans and Mauritanians occupied much of the territory and the Polisario
Front declared the creation of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic
(SADR). A fifteen-year war ensued, the Mauritanians withdrawing in 1979.
The fighting was brutal, with the Moroccans using their well equipped army
and air-force to full effect but the Saharawis conducting an effective counter
insurgency. In 1991 a ceasefire was declared and under the terms of a UN
agreement a referendum for self-determination was promised. Seventeen
years later the Saharawis are still awaiting that referendum.
Despite efforts by the international community the referendum has been
continually obstructed by the Moroccans who have remained in occupation of
roughly three quarters of Western Sahara. Over half the Saharawi population
still live in exile, living in four large camps in the inhospitable Algerian
desert separated from their homeland by a more than 1500 mile (2500 km)
fortified barrier known as ‘the wall’.

Western Sahara and International Law

Western Sahara is classified by the UN as a non-self-governing territory,
a term used to describe a nation whose people are yet to attain a full level of
self-government. Whilst over eighty countries have recognised the Saharawi
Arab Democratic Republic no country recognises either the Moroccan
annexation or its claim to sovereignty over Western Sahara. The UN has
passed over a hundred resolutions on Western Sahara, the first, Resolution
3458 (XXX) in 1975, declared unequivocally that the General Assembly
reaffirmed ‘the inalienable right of the people of Spanish Sahara to self-deter-
mination, in accordance with General Assembly resolution 1541 (XV)’.
Enforcement of this resolution was blocked by the US establishing a pattern
that has continued ever since whereby UN Resolutions on Western Sahara are
passed but not enforced.
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Under international law, the situation of Western Sahara is unambiguous.

The division of Western Sahara by Spain in 1976 breached Chapter XI of
the UN Charter, the Declaration Regarding Non-Self-Governing Territories
which requires an administering power to ‘develop self-government to take
due account of the political aspirations of the peoples’. Morocco’s invasion
was a serious breach of the UN Charter and should have invoked Chapter
VII (‘Threats to the Peace, Breaches of the Peace and Acts of Aggression’)
rather than merely being dealt with as a dispute under Chapter VI.
The ongoing settlement of tens of thousands of Moroccans into the
territory is a breach of Article 49 of the Geneva Convention. As a result of
the resettlement programme it is estimated that the Moroccan settler popula-
tion now outnumbers the indigenous Saharawi population by as much as
three-to-one. The resettlement has given the Moroccans a pretext to block
the referendum by insisting on the eligibility of the Moroccan settler commu-
nity to vote and challenging the numerous voter registration lists presented by
the UN Mission for a Referendum in the Western Sahara (MINURSO).
Another ongoing breach of international law is the exploitation of
Western Sahara’s natural resources and it is not just the Moroccans who
are breaching these laws. Indeed many foreign governments and companies
are involved in deals with Morocco in order to gain access to Western Saharan
resources. This lucrative trade has helped to ensure that action to end the
political and humanitarian crisis in Western Sahara has not been high on
the international political agenda.
Ironically, the earth beneath the arid and infertile deserts of Western
Sahara contains a large proportion of the world’s known phosphate reserves.
Phosphate is needed for the production of fertilizers and is an essential part of
modern agriculture. Phosphate reserves however are finite and extraction is
predicted to peak in the coming decades. Between 2007 and 2008 the price
of phosphate rose by a staggering 800 per cent and its soaring price has meant
that Morocco gains over $1 billion a year from its exploitation of Western
Saharan phosphates.
As well as phosphates, Western Sahara also has other valuable minerals
including iron ore, titanium oxide, vanadium, uranium and zirconium. Recent
explorations indicate potential onshore and offshore reserves of oil and gas
and the waters along Western Sahara’s coastline are among the richest fishing
waters in the world. In 2005 the EU and Morocco signed the EU Fisheries
Agreement under which the EU pays Morocco to permit 119 European boats
to fish Morocco’s Atlantic waters. The agreement fails to distinguish between
the waters of Morocco and those of Western Sahara meaning that EU vessels
are illegally fishing Western Saharan waters.
As well as the fisheries treaty, the European Union last year agreed to
grant Morocco ‘advanced status’ relations reducing trade restrictions and
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increasing political and economic cooperation between Morocco and the EU.
So far, the EU has indicated that the territory of Western Sahara will be
included in the deal. This contrasts not only with the EU’s agreement with
Israel, where occupied Palestine is excluded, but also with the US-Moroccan
free trade agreement, which excludes Western Sahara.
Under General Assembly resolution 1514 (XV), the natural resources of
Western Sahara should belong to the Saharawi people. In 2002 the UN Legal
Counsel Hans Correll declared that exploration and exploitation activities are
being carried out ‘in violation of the principles of international law applicable
to mineral resource activities in Non-Self-Governing-Territories’. General
Assembly Resolution 63/102 of 2008, called on Member States to take
‘legislative, administrative or other measures in respect of their nationals
and the bodies corporate under their jurisdiction that own and operate enter-
prises in the Non-Self-Governing Territories that are detrimental to the inter-
ests of the inhabitants of those Territories, in order to put an end to those
enterprises’. This has not been done.
As well as falling under international laws of decolonisation and armed
conflict the Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara is also subject to inter-
national human rights laws and numerous bodies including the UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights have raised concerns over violations of
human rights in the occupied territory. A 2008 report by Human Rights Watch
found that Morocco has violated the rights to expression, association, and
assembly in Western Sahara. An Amnesty International report of the same
year found that ‘politically motivated administrative impediments have been
used to prevent human rights groups obtaining legal registration and curtail-
ing their scope of activities’. Since May 2005 there have been a series of non-
violent protests by the Saharawi population – the ‘intifada’ – which have
been violently broken up by Moroccan forces and numerous people have been
arrested, tortured or have ‘disappeared’. Indeed, since the Moroccan occupa-
tion over 500 Saharawis have been declared missing.
There have been calls for MINURSO to be given a human rights moni-
toring role in order to prevent abuses in the occupied territory. MINURSO is
currently the only UN Peacekeeping mission without such a role. Earlier this
year the passing of Resolution 1871, went some way to acknowledging the
need for the UN to monitor human rights abuses by stressing the ‘importance
of making progress on the humanitarian dimension of the conflict as a means
to promote transparency and mutual confidence through the constructive
dialogue and humanitarian confidence-building measures’.

Negotiating a Settlement
Despite many attempts to break the long-running diplomatic stalemate,
progress towards a resolution has been tortuously slow. In 1997 the then
 THE CONFLICT IN WESTERN SAHARA 303

UN Special Envoy, James Baker (a former US Secretary of State), managed to

get an agreement between representatives of Morocco and the Polisario Front
on an identification process for voters and a code of conduct for the long-
awaited referendum. MINURSO attempted to verify the legitimacy of over
200,000 prospective voters, but when they presented the completed list in
2000, Morocco blocked the referendum, lodging over 130,000 appeals.
In 2003, in an effort to side-step disagreements over voter registration,
Baker presented a proposal based on the agreement which had settled the East
Timor dispute whereby an autonomous Western Saharan Authority would be
created giving Western Sahara five years of autonomy within the Kingdom
of Morocco. At the end of the five-year period a referendum would be held
to determine whether Western Sahara was to be granted independence, auton-
omy or should be permanently integrated into Morocco. Although it repre-
sented a significant move away from their traditional position, Polisario
accepted this proposal as the ‘basis of negotiations’. The Baker plan quickly
gathered international support culminating in a unanimous endorsement
by the UN Security Council. However, fearing that they might loose such a
referendum, the Moroccans rejected the proposal outright.
The situation has remained stagnant ever since despite further efforts to
break the deadlock. In June 2007, the Security Council requested the two
parties to begin direct negotiations without preconditions. These began in June
of the same year culminating in a fourth round of negotiations in April 2008.
No progress whatsoever was made. Whilst Polisario have made it clear that
they are willing to support a referendum to determine the future of the country,
Morocco continues to oppose any referendum that even raises the question of
the status of her ‘Saharan provinces’. Indeed the intransigence of Morocco’s
position was made clear by King Mohammed VI in 2007. ‘We shall not give
up one inch of our beloved Sahara’, he said. ‘Not a grain of its sand’.
In the refugee camps in Algeria there is a palpable sense of frustration
with the failure of the diplomatic process. For decades they have watched
whilst liberation movements have swept to victory across the continent.
In 1975 and again in 1991 it seemed that Saharawi independence was at
hand, only to have it snatched away. Since the 1970s, many thousands of
refugees have travelled abroad – many to Cuba – for schooling and univer-
sity education in preparation for the process of nation-building. On their
return to the camps they find the situation unchanged with no job prospects
and little to fill the empty days. Mohamed Awah, 32, was one such refugee
who spent thirteen years gaining an education in Cuba. Now he has begun
to question the value of the Master’s degree in economics he gained in
Havana University. ‘Perhaps rather than learning to use a calculator it
would have been better if I had been taught to use a gun’. This sentiment
reflects a rising militancy particularly among some young Saharawis in the
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camps. The Prime Minister of SADR, Abdelkader Taleb Omar recently

admitted that despite Polisario’s commitment to a peaceful path to indepen-
dence they are coming under pressure to return to armed struggle. Although
this would be very unlikely to happen without support from Algeria, there is
a real danger that this conflict could, at any time, flare up into violence.
In a situation where Polisario will not negotiate away their right to self-
determination, Morocco will not countenance any proposal that contains even
the possibility of independence and the Security Council is unwilling to
enforce the resolutions to resolve the dispute, it is difficult to see how this
deadlocked peace process could be revived. Nevertheless, there are some
recent signs that give cause for cautious optimism.

The Way Forward

In his Cairo speech in June, President Obama talked boldly about a ‘new
beginning’ with the Muslim world. Despite the myopic coverage in the
Western media, the focus of Obama’s project is not merely the Middle East
but includes a redefinition of US relationships with Islamic nations in North
Africa and the countries of the Maghreb. It seems likely that President Obama
is cognisant that the failure to bring a just peace in Western Sahara is impact-
ing on both the credibility of the UN and the stability of the wider region and
beyond. Indeed, earlier this year both Iran and Venezuela broke off diplomatic
relations with Morocco over the issue of Western Sahara.
Obama’s speech in Cairo included a recognition of the historic ties
between the US and Morocco and an acknowledgment of the fact that in
1787 Morocco was the first nation to recognise American independence. Mor-
occo has been a key ally in the so-called ‘war on terror’ and in 2004 America
conferred Major non-NATO Ally status on Morocco. Morocco was one of the
destinations for US rendition of suspected terrorists and offers the US navy
and air-force access to her ports, airspace and runways. The US, together with
France and Britain, has been instrumental in helping to ensure that no action
has been taken by the UN Security Council against Morocco over Western
Sahara. Despite ongoing and historic alliances there are nevertheless indica-
tions that the Obama Administration is keen to disassociate itself from a Mor-
occan plan for autonomy in Western Sahara. Attempts by the Moroccans to
depict the Polisario Front as a terrorist group have singularly failed. In July
the Spanish newspaper, El Pais, noted that when discussing Western
Sahara, neither President Obama nor his Ambassador to the UN, Susan
Rice, have made reference to the Moroccan autonomy proposal and suggest
Obama may put pressure on Morocco to accept a solution to the conflict
which conforms with international law.
The recent appointment of Christopher Ross as the new UN Special Envoy
to Western Sahara is also expected to give renewed energy to resolve the
 THE CONFLICT IN WESTERN SAHARA 305

conflict. After touring the region and meeting the key players in June, Mr Ross
concluded that he was ‘optimistic’ about the prospects of a breakthrough. His
visit came just months after the Security Council unanimously adopted resolu-
tion 1871 extending the mandate of MINURSO until 30 April 2010 and calling
for ‘negotiations without preconditions and in good faith, with a view to
achieving a just, lasting and mutually acceptable political solution, which
would provide for the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara’.
On 10th and 11th August informal meetings took place between representa-
tives of Morocco and Polisario in the Austrian town of Drnstein. Although
the detail of what was agreed in these closed_door negotiations was not
made public, Mr Ross’ statement at the end of the talks gives reason for cau-
tious optimism. ‘The discussions took place in an atmosphere of serious
engagement, frankness, and mutual respect’, he said. ‘The parties reiterated
their commitment to continue their negotiations as soon as possible, and [I]
will fix the date and place of the next meeting in consultation with the parties.’

The UN was founded in order to prevent the aggressive expansion of ter-

ritory by force by any nation. Yet in Western Sahara, the Security Council has
failed to take effective action to challenge Morocco’s blatant contravention of
the UN Charter. This is a dispute that falls under its jurisdiction but the UN
has chosen to pass resolutions which it does not enforce. Rather than impos-
ing sanctions on Morocco, governments around the world sign trade deals
which enable them to exploit Western Saharan resources. In the meantime
the Saharawi population are either subject to human rights abuses within
occupied Western Sahara or left to languish in refugee camps in the desert.
During the sixteen-year war that finished in 1991, captured Moroccan
prisoners would not be held behind walls or barbed-wire fences. Instead they
would be corralled into open compounds in the desert. Prisoners were free to
leave at anytime. But in the Sahara there is nowhere to go. Although condi-
tions in the refugee camps are by no means wretched, with all basic needs
taken care of by international aid agencies, life there remains unremittingly
hard. Issa Brahim, a 32-year-old mother of four who was born and raised in
the Dakhla refugee camp, describes the difficulties of living in the camps.
‘We have nothing here’, she says. ‘We are without work, we are without water,
we are without land for our goats to graze. But we are not without hope’.
Greatest among Issa’s hopes is to set foot in her homeland for the first time.

Stefan Simanowitz, a writer, journalist, and human rights campaigner, travelled

to the refugee camps in Algeria and is campaigning to raise awareness of
the situation and increase international political pressure for a resolution to the
conflict. To find out more or join the campaign visit www.freesahara.ning.com