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The recent escalation between the Moroccan army and the Polisario Front (the Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia al-Hamra and Wadi al-Dahab) raised real fears of a new wave in the protracted conflict over Western Sahara, especially after the front confirmed its commitment to the ceasefire agreement signed under the auspices of the United Nations in 1991 and announced it. The war “started with Morocco.”
What do we know about this conflict, which is one of the longest on the African continent?
The Western Desert extends over an area of 252,000 km on the northwest coast of the continent. It is a sparsely populated area, with a population of 567,000, according to statistics from the United Nations and the World Bank.
Morocco, which controls eighty percent of the territory, says that Western Sahara is an integral part of its territory and does not care that the region gains autonomy as long as it remains under Moroccan sovereignty, while the Polisario Front, with the support of the neighboring Algeria, insists on a self-determination referendum, as stipulated in an agreement. The ceasefire signed in 1991.
The longest conflict on the continent
In fact, the conflict began in 1975, when Spain signed, before its eviction from Western Sahara, the Madrid Agreement with Morocco and Mauritania, according to which the two neighboring countries divided the Sahara, but the armed Sahrawis who established the Polisario Front they rejected the agreement and continued to demand its secession. The front stepped up its operations and instigated demonstrations calling for independence, while Morocco and Mauritania went to the International Court of Justice.
On October 16, 1975, Morocco announced that it would organize the “Green March” towards the Sahara region. In January 1976 the “SADR” was declared with the support of Algeria.
Morocco began in the early eighties of the last century to build a sand wall around the cities of Smara, Laayoune and Boujdour to isolate the phosphate-rich desert areas and the main desert cities, and make this wall desert lands. most important protected from attacks by Polisario militants.
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The Moroccan fence in Guerguerat, which sparked a crisis between Morocco and the Polisario Front
Morocco’s position was reinforced by Libya’s abandonment of support for the Polisario since 1984 and Algeria’s concern about its internal crisis.
The crisis in Western Sahara is considered one of the longest political and humanitarian conflicts in the world. During this war, many Sahrawis sought refuge in Algeria, where they have been housed in camps for decades.
Estimates of their number vary, as the website of the High Commissioner for Refugees credits the Algerian government with saying that there are 165,000 Sahrawi refugees in the five camps near Tindouf, while some United Nations agencies indicate that the number ranges between 90 and 125 thousand refugees.
United Nations agencies indicate that these refugees live in difficult conditions.
The United Nations managed to impose a ceasefire between Morocco and the Polisario Front in 1991 without reaching a definitive solution to the conflict so far.
A buffer zone was established along the disputed area, separating the part under Moroccan administration and the part controlled by the front. And the UN peacekeepers are responsible for securing the area.
Western Sahara is blessed with rich fishing grounds and phosphate reserves, and is also believed to host unexploited offshore oil deposits.
The SADR, which the Polisario Front announced in 1976, is recognized by various governments and is a member of the African Union.
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Ibrahim Ghaly, one of the founding leaders of the Polisario Front
The front was established on May 20, 1973 with the aim of establishing an independent state in Western Sahara.
The name Polisario refers to the initials of “The Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el Hamra and the Valley of Gold” in Spanish.
The Polisario’s military activity began during the Spanish colonization of the region and has received help from Libya and Algeria.
Then he fought an armed conflict, both with Morocco and Mauritania, for the independence of the region, but Mauritania, for its part, withdrew from southern Western Sahara.
Between 1975 and 1976, he declared the establishment of “SADR” and formed a government in the Tindouf region, in the extreme south of Algeria.
Mustafa Sayyid al-Wali al-Raqibi assumed the presidency for three years from its founding in 1973 until his death on June 9, 1976 during an attack on the Mauritanian capital Nouakchott. Mohamed Abdel Aziz succeeded him as secretary general of the front and president of the Council of the Revolutionary Command from August 1976 until his death in May. May 2016 to assume leadership of Ibrahim Ghaly.
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File photo of a march organized by the Sahrawi People’s Liberation Army in Algeria to celebrate the 40th anniversary of SADR
A new escalation
Tensions have recently been renewed between the two sides after Moroccan forces launched a military operation in Guerguerat, in southern Western Sahara, with the aim of ending what they described as “provocations” by the Polisario Front militants. who had blocked the road leading to Guerguerat, a gateway to neighboring Mauritania, since last October 21.
Meanwhile, the Front announced the end of its commitment to the ceasefire, pointing out that the Sahrawi forces were in a state of self-defense.
The leader of the front, Ibrahim Ghali, issued a decree ending the commitment to the 1991 ceasefire agreement with Morocco, which could pave the way for a military showdown between the two sides in disputed Western Sahara.
Tension on the borders of Morocco and Mauritania
In a statement released by the Sahara del Polisario news agency, Ghali said this comes in response to “Morocco’s violation of the ceasefire and the attack on civilian protesters in front of the buffer zone.”
Since last month, Sahrawi protesters have stopped the movement in Guerguerat, which links Morocco and Mauritania.
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Sahrawis accuse Morocco of illegally drilling and exporting phosphate
Milestones in the history of the conflict
1884: The beginning of the Spanish colonization of Western Sahara, which was inhabited by Berber tribes.
1934: Western Sahara becomes a Spanish territory that bears the name of Spanish Sahara.
1957: Morocco, recently independent, confirms its right to Western Sahara.
1965: The United Nations calls on Spain to end its occupation of Western Sahara.
1973: The Polisario Front is created.
1975: The Moroccan monarch king Hassan II rejects the decision of the International Court of Justice in The Hague on the right of the Saharawi people to self-determination and organizes what is known as the “Green March” in which he summoned 350,000 Moroccans to leave for control Western Sahara.
1975: Spain withdraws from Western Sahara.
1975: The outbreak of a guerrilla war between the Polisario Front and the Moroccan forces, which lasted 16 years.
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Morocco sent hundreds of thousands of its citizens to Western Sahara, in what became known as the Green March, to confirm their right to the region
1975-1976: Morocco includes two-thirds of Western Sahara after Spain’s withdrawal. The Polisario Front declares the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, and its government is in exile in Algeria. Thousands of Sahrawi refugees are fleeing to western Algeria to establish camps near the city of Tindouf.
1979: Mauritania withdraws from Western Sahara and Morocco annexes its part of the region.
1991: A ceasefire brokered by the United Nations and, since then, several rounds of UN-sponsored talks have failed to reach a permanent solution to the conflict.
2016: The death of Mohamed Abdel Aziz, general secretary of the Polisario Front and president of the SADR, and Ibrahim Ghali assuming the leadership as his successor.
2016: The Guerguerat region is experiencing tensions between the Polisario Front and Morocco, and the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) intervenes to avoid confrontations, and the two parties withdraw their forces at the invitation of the United Nations Secretary General, Antonio Guterres.
October 2020: Saharawi activists close the only border crossing that Morocco opened in 2002 to deliver their products to West Africa through Mauritanian territory.
November 2020: Morocco announces the establishment of a safety belt to guarantee the movement of people and the movement of goods through the Guerguerat border crossing, and the Polisario Front announces the end of the ceasefire reached almost 30 years ago.
