ABSTRACT
Western Sahara, Africa’s Last Colony
The Never-ending Conflict: Sovereignty
Claims and Self-Determination Rights
Conflict
is at the bedrock of human interactions, it is the foundation of a true
democracy as disagreements and disputes often lead to a change beneficial to
all parties and provide for accountability and better governance. A serious
discrepancy in power distribution leading to exploitation and dominance by the
high power group will lead to an increase feeling of depravation among the low
power group members and they subsequently chose to confront the other group.
The conflict becomes destructive when competition trumps cooperation as the one
or both belligerents view the dispute through the zero-sum lens. When the
conflict lingers for an extended period and additional components such as
identity, ideology, and emotions add to the mix, it becomes intractable. No
matter the conditions that feed the fight, intractable conflicts share a common
characteristic: they defy settlement because leaders believe their objectives
are fundamentally irreconcilable and they have more interest in the ongoing war
than in any known alternative state of being. During the first half of the
twentieth century, aside from the two devastating world wars, many intractable
conflicts were in progress across the globe centered on the independence from
colonial powers. Some of these conflicts were violent and extremely deadly such
as Algeria and some were characterized by their nonviolence such as India,
eventually the United Nations General Assembly resolution 1514 (XV) of 14 Dec.
1960 settled these conflicts as it preserved the rule of self-determination and
the right of colonized peoples to independence.
The post-colonialism era is an
example of a complete change in the interactions between former bitter foes as
they became cooperative in many aspects such as economy, defense, education,
and allies in the international arena. One country however is still a colony
and despite twenty years of UN led mediation effort following a long war,
Morocco is still inflexible in its position disallowing the Sahrawi people to
opt for independence. I suggest the causes of this entrenchment are the
negative political impact of a withdrawal, the cohesiveness of the Moroccan
society around the issue, the vested economical interest in continued
occupation, and the passivity of the United States and France to enforce the UN
resolution through the Security Council. This conflict can regenerate into
violence again as the ranks of the Sahrawi are splitting as some no longer
believe in a peaceful resolution. In keeping with the duty to protect doctrine
and the realistic paradigm, there is a need to enforce the international rule
of law in order to avoid a re-escalation of this conflict that could destabilize
a region where extremist terrorist groups are active and seek a chaotic
environment where they can thrive and prosper.
The
Western Sahara is a vast, sparsely populated territory bordered by Morocco,
Mauritania and Algeria. A former Spanish colony, the right of the people of
Western Sahara to self-determination was affirmed through a series of
resolutions by the UN Security Council and the UN General Assembly (UNGA, 1966),
as well as a milestone 1975 decision by the International Court of Justice
(ICJ, 1975). Unhappy with these resolutions King Hassan II instigated the
“Green March” of over 350,000 unarmed Moroccans into Western Sahara to claim
the kingdom’s sovereignty over Western Sahara; subsequently both Mauritania and
Morocco invaded the disputed land which led to an exodus of Sahrawi refugees to
Algeria (USIP, 2006). The “Frente Popular para la Liberación de Saguia el-Hamra
y Río de Oro” (Polisario) proclaimed the independent Sahrawi Arab Democratic
Republic (SADR) as a government-in-exile, and waged a ferocious war on the
invaders. The Polisario defeated
Mauritania in the south; however, Moroccan forces moved into the former
Mauritanian occupied territory and established control over the totality of the
disputed land (ICG, 2007). From 1975 to 1991, Morocco and the Algerian backed
Polisario fought a ferocious guerilla war characterized by violations of Human
rights and the Geneva Convention as prisoners of war were held for over 20
years subjected to torture and forced into hard labor. Morocco’s complete
control over the coast and central areas of the territory allowed it in later
years to build a defensive sand wall that physically partitioned Western Sahara
along a 2,000 km line (Appendix: Map of western Sahara). This changed the
dynamics of the war as the Polisario became confined to the eastern side of the
wall along Western Sahara’s frontiers with Algeria and Mauritania (Zunes and
Mundy, 2010). This wall also caused the Sahrawi in the Moroccan controlled
territory, who did not swear allegiance to the crown, to be permanently
separated from their families (Lippert, 1997).
By the mid-1980s, a military stalemate became a reality, and
both sides became increasingly cooperating with the UN secretary-general attempt
in conflict resolution (UNS, 2006). In 1991, following negotiations between
the parties, the UN brokered a ceasefire agreement after the Security Council
approved a proposal to organize a referendum on self-determination for the
people of Western Sahara to allow them to decide between independence and
integration with Morocco (USIP, 2006). The plan established a permanent US
mission to enforce the cease-fire, facilitate the exchange of prisoners of war,
and monitor the decrease of Moroccan forces in the area, and confinement of the
belligerents to particular positions (Daadaoui, 2008). From 1991 to 1998 Morocco
tried but was not able to register tens of thousands of its green marchers as
native Sahrawi eligible to vote (USIP, 2006). Convinced a referendum will not
serve its interest, Morocco refused to live up to the terms of the 1991
ceasefire agreement by refusing any referendum that includes independence as an
option for the Sahrawi (Shelly, 2004).
From that point on several UN envoys and
regional mediators failed to bring the belligerents to a mutually acceptable
solution, meanwhile tension is rising among the disfranchised Sahrawi trapped
in the occupied territories as well as the refugee camps where a new generation
calls to resume the armed conflict (ICG, 2007). A linear approach to the
conflict reveals that Morocco and the Polisario have diametrically opposed
positions on two fundamental issues in the referendum process. The first
dispute is related to the identification of Sahrawi entitled to vote. The
second and most important issue is whether the Sahrawi would have an option of
independence among choices for self-determination. Both parties have not budged
from their position with Morocco rejecting every plan by mediators and
resorting to hardball tactics. However, the dispute cannot be oversimplified to
just an issue of claim of sovereignty versus the right for self-determination.
The
intergroup conflict theory is crucial to understand the cause of the parties’
intransigence, in this process we must identify how the group formed and the
driving forces of their motivations to fight one another. A group is formed
when several individual who are interacting share mutual traits making them
sense they form a distinct unit, as such they collectively seek to realize
interdependent objectives which they are conscious about (Deutsch, 1973). The
groups in this conflict are divided among the issues; the exiled Sahrawi and
those trapped in the occupied territory and didn’t pledge allegiances to the
Moroccans are the group challenging the current situation. The members of this
group were originally several nomadic tribes roaming the desert, however,
Spanish colonialists built cities and as more and more nomads moved to the
cities the Sahrawi nationalism grew like nationalism did in most of the
colonies. Sahrawi nationalist movement started with pacifist demonstrations on
1970 in Al-‘Ayun, subsequently a group of Sahrawi students formed the Polisario
on 1973 and started a war of independence against Spain (Zunes and Mundy,
2010). By the time Spain withdrew from the territory, the Sahrawi national
identity was forged and the Polisario had combatants from all the tribes; this
group consciousness was reinforced after the invasions of the Moroccan marchers
and Armies (Hodges, 1983).
The level of cooperation and trust among the Sahrawi
is significantly high; despite four decades of depravation they have
established statehood in exile recognized by 80 nations, they elect an assembly
every three years, and their nonviolent activism within the occupied territory
is coordinated (Stephan and Mundy, 2006). Group awareness among Sahrawi is
further strengthened by the recognition of the UN, the cultural dissimilarities
with the Moroccan settlers, their unique language, and for those confined in
the territory, their shared depravation with the refugees as 86% of positions are filled by Moroccans settlers to promote
exodus into Western Sahara (Bahaijoub, 2010). All struggles for
self-determination have strong local causes: these generally combine cultural
differences with economic and political inequalities and deprivations. The Sahrawi
have strong restraining bonds, their ascribed social identity amplifies the
drive towards positive self-esteem and thus leads to prejudiced opinions,
reliance on stereotypes, and aggressive behavior towards the settlers and the “traitors”
(Tajfel and Turner, 1979). They are also
attached and committed to their cause because of the investment they made
throughout four decades in defying the Moroccans and living deprived in refugee
camps or slums with a firm belief they will be vindicated in the future
(Jensen, 2005). The time perspective and the overwhelming feeling of injustice
prevented the dilemma with the instrumental disadvantageous bond from breaking
their group solidarity (Deutsch, 1973).
In
the other hand, the Sahrawi allied to the monarchy and the Moroccan settlers,
Army, and security apparatus in Western Sahara with the whole Moroccan nation’s
support forms the group guarding the status quo. After
two attempts to overthrow the Monarch and widespread social restlessness have
shaken the throne and stability of the regime, King Hassan II rallied the
nation around the Western Sahara conflict (Hodges, 1983). Morocco’s move into
Western Sahara was driven by internal politics as King Hassan II increased
Moroccan nationalism in order to increase group cohesiveness within the society
and keep the Army busy in the south (Fisher, 1990). Eventually the political opposition in Morocco adopted the
"Moroccanness" of the Western Sahara, as the conflict became part of
a wider struggle for dominance in the region with Algeria; Algeria was essential to Polisario’s survival and successful
military stalemate against Morocco (Zoubir and Volman, 1993). The stability
and viability of the Moroccan regime became interlinked with the future of
Western Sahara, as the issue of Western Sahara became a national question (Mundy,
2009). The Moroccan regime created a conformity pressure within its society as
politicians declared those who question the status of Western Sahara are not
Moroccan, therefore they created a rule that nobody can depart from without
facing harsh consequences (Fisher, 2006). Additionally, the military, the
settlers, and the Sahrawi allied to Morocco have an economical vested
interested in the conflict as they were benefiting from the subsidies they get
from the government and the licensing fees they charge for activities in the
territories, a withdrawal from Western Sahara will negatively impact their
social status (Kreisberg, 2005).
Clearly,
the intergroup conflict theory shed light on the intractability of this
conflict, but the identity, group cohesiveness, and vested interested of some
groups alone does not explain why the conflict has resisted twenty years of
intervention. Intergroup hostilities are also generated from incompatible needs
and objectives between groups, with the incompatibility increased by scarcity
of resources (Fisher, 1990). Other factors such as the negative emotions,
impact of external support for the parties, unaddressed new grievances produced
along the conflict contribute to the intractability of the conflict (Kreisberg,
2005). Looking at these factors individually will lead to a distorted analysis
of the conflict because all of them strengthen each other and worsen one other;
the collapse of multidimensionality creates an infernal machine with its
elements working in unison towards destructiveness (Coleman, 2011). The
dynamical system theory is essential to analyze the intractability of this
conflict and identify those areas that can be targeted in order to modify the
broad pattern of relations between the parties towards a more productive and
fruitful outcome (Coleman et all, 2006). The
seemingly intractable nature of the Western Sahara conflict is driven by
several attractors. The attractor illustrates the long term dynamics of the
system; it is a state or a regular order of change toward which the dynamical
system progresses over time, and to which the system goes back after it has undergone
a perturbation (Vallacher and Nowak, 2007). Conflict attractors come from prior
life events, personality dissimilarities, and interaction to particular events
or from a personal history of conflict, positive feedback mechanisms stimulate
emotions or actions along their current path or trajectory often increasing
their strength thus keeping the system in the negative basin of attraction (Coleman,
2006).
The
attractors for Morocco, aside from the ones identified above such as identity
and political survival (Roccas and Brewer, 2002) are economical; Western Sahara
contains rich deposits of phosphates, iron ore and
significant marine fishing reserves, it is also believed to contain oil
deposits (Haugen, 2007). There are also geopolitical attractors as
Morocco worries about a dominance of Algeria in an independent Western Sahara due
to its continuous support to the Sahrawi cause; Algeria has a vested interest
in an access to the Atlantic ocean to export its iron (Mundy, 2004). Morocco
invested heavily in the infrastructure of Western Sahara at the expense of many
Moroccan provinces; a withdrawal will yield a heavy loss in investment (Omar, 2008). The attractors for
the Sahrawi are the final hope for victory following
years of war and harsh conditions in desert refugee camps and the slums, safeguarding
of national honor and a determination to be in control of what they consider to
be their ancestral land (Haugen, 2007). Conflicts are inherently dynamic; they
escalate and deescalate, change form, expand into new groups, and can be passed
from generation to generation. Therefore, when the UN and AU mediators got
involved in the conflict, they did stimulate change, but were rather disturbing
a system that has its own strong dynamics. Other than the ceasefire, the
external pressures had no visible effects on the parties as they completely withstood
the external involvement and preserved the status quo. The perseverance of
sufficient positive feedback coupled with the relative absence of negative
feedback provides a mechanism for the stabilization of the status quo of the
conflict; in this case the Moroccan side is overwhelmed by positive feedback
loops.
In
conclusion, Morocco’s rational behind accepting the cease fire and prolonging the
negotiation is to frustrate and abolish any tendencies towards independence and
dissipate the idea of Sahrawi cultural distinction (Kreisberg, 2005). Morocco’s hope to change the
reality by spending millions of dollars annually in lobbying efforts and
propaganda in the United States and Europe to legitimize their occupation and
portray the Polisario as an ally to Al Qaeda is fruitless because reality is
across the wall in the camps of Tindouf, and the Slums of Western Sahara. It is
time for third party mediator to think seriously about pressuring the United
States and France to adopt the only measure available to force Morocco to obey
international law; break the cohesiveness of the Moroccan side through economic
sanctions. Endorsing the expansion of a country’s territory by military force
establishes a very dangerous and destabilizing precedent and will provide for
more anarchy in the international relation systems and thus more intractable
conflicts in the future.
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