Abstract
As one of the last unresolved self-determination cases originating during decolonization, Western Sahara has been on the international agenda for decades. Yet, despite over forty years of international pressure, mediation, peacekeeping, and attempts to conduct a referendum, the issue remains unresolved. Does the approach detailed in chapter 2 apply to the international community’s engagement in Western Sahara? This chapter explains the international response to the Western Sahara case in the post—Cold War period in part as a function of the democratic capacity of the Sahrawis, or native Western Saharans. Despite obvious great power material interests in supporting Morocco, the international community has responded to the Sahrawis’ efforts at democratic rule with varying levels of empowerment, applying international pressure on Morocco for better treatment of the Sahrawi people while encouraging the Sahrawis’ functioning democratic processes.
“What other solution could be more just, more legitimate, more democratic and more acceptable than the one that respects the will of the population…?”1
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Notes
An invitation from Henry Kissinger to Prince Juan Carlos. Leo Kamil, Fueling the Fire: U.S. Policy and the Western Sahara Conflict (Trenton, NJ: Red Sea Press, 1987), p. 11.
See Stephen Zunes, “The United States in the Saharan War: A Case of Low-Intensity Intervention,” in Zoubir and Volman (1993), p. 54.
John Damis, Conflict in Northwest Africa: The Western Sahara Dispute (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1983), pp. 72–73. The author asserts that the “heavy-handed nature of the Moroccan takeover” led to the refugee exodus.
Anthony G. Pazzanita, “Morocco versus Polisario: a Political Interpretation,” The Journal of Modern Africa Studies 32:2 (1994), p.270.
Algeria provided the Polisario Front with rear bases, arms, training, and supplies. See Anthony G. Pazzanita, “Mauritania’s Foreign Policy: The Search for Protection,” The Journal of Modern Africa Studies 30:2 (1992), p. 285. The Moroccan response was to build a system of earthen berms that limited the Polisario Front’s ability control territory and slowly pushed the military advantage in Morocco’s favor.
In January 1997, the advent of Kofi Annan as UN Secretary-General ushered in a new international emphasis on the legal issues in the case and a revitalized effort to resolve the conflict through a free and fair referendum. Annan released his first report on Western Sahara two months after assuming the helm at the United Nations, and less than one month later he had selected James Baker III to serve as his special envoy to the region. According to Annan, Baker was chosen because the United Nations needed a “most distinguished statesman” of “high international reputation” to attempt to surmount the impasse and to underscore the importance Annan attaches to the issue. Both parties to the conflict viewed the choice favorably and as a potential watershed in resolving the stalemate; a Polisario representative called the appointment “a great step on the way to resolve the conflict.” After several visits to the region, Baker succeeded in bringing the parties into direct negotiations three times in 1997, culminating in the signing the Houston Accords in September. See Robert H. Reid, “Former U.S. Secretary of State Named Special Envoy on Western Sahara,” (Associated Press, March 17, 1994); John M. Goshko, “James Baker May be Named U.N. Envoy to Western Sahara,” Washington Post (March 4, 1997), p. A11; and Western Sahara Referendum Association, “Sahara Weekly News Update,” (Africa News Service, March 17, 1997).
Virginia Thompson and Richard Adloff, The Western Sahara: Background to Conflict. (London: Croom Helm, 1980), p. 299. Morocco feared a shift in the regional balance of power should the Polisario Front win control of Western Sahara. Stephen J. Solarz, “Arms for Morocco?” Foreign Affairs 58:2 (1979/80), p. 285.
Phillip C. Naylor, “Spain, France, and the Western Sahara: A Historical Narrative and Study of National Transformation,” pp. 17–52 in Zoubir and Volman (1993), p.35
Thompson and Adloff (1980), pp. 263–265; and Jarat Chopra, Peace Maintenance: The Evolution of International Political Authority (London and New York: Routledge, 1999), p. 176.
Yahia H. Zoubir and Karima Benabdallah-Gambier, “The United States and the North African Imbroglio: Balancing Interests in Algeria, Morocco, and the Western Sahara,” Mediterranean Politics 10:2 (July 2005), p. 188.
Yahia H. Zoubir, “The Western Sahara Conflict: Regional and International Dimensions,” The Journal of Modern Africa Studies 28:2 (1990), p. 233.
Jacques Eric Rousellier, “Quicksand in the Western Sahara? From Referendum Stalemate to Negotiated Solution,” International Negotiation 10:2 (2005), p. 322.
See Abdeslam Maghraoui, “Ambiguities of Sovereignty: Morocco, The Hague and the Western Sahara Dispute,” Mediterranean Politics 8:1 (Spring 2003), pp. 119–20.
Thomas M. Franck, “The Stealing of the Sahara,” American Journal of International Law 70:4 (October 1976), p. 717.
Yahia H. Zoubir, “The Western Sahara Conflict: A Case Study in Failure of Prenegotiation and Prolongation of Conflict,” California Western Law Journal 26:2 (Spring 1996), p.205. Manz’s most vehement objection was to Morocco’s policy of moving 170,000 people from Morocco into Western Sahara in order to support expansion of the census list.
Zoubir (1996), p. 205. The author continues, “Indeed, some of the actions of the Secretary-General and his Special Representative may explain why Morocco has not found it in its interest to enter any serious negotiations with Polisario.”
Jarat Chopra, “A Chance for Peace in Western Sahara,” Survival 39:3 (Fall 1997), p. 54. Boutros-Ghali, as a member of the Egyptian delegation to the OAU, had voted against seating the SADR in 1982.
Cara Buckley, “Western Sahara’s Conflict Traps Refugees in Limbo,” New York Times, June 4, 2008: A10. Most estimates range from 150,000 to 175,000 refugees.
For details on the democratic political structure of the Polisario Front and SADR, see Tony Hodges, Western Sahara: Roots of a Desert War (Westport, CT: Lawrence Hill and Company, 1983), pp. 339–341 and Zunes (1988), pp. 142–147.
Jacob A. Mundy, “Performing the Nation, Pre-Figuring the State: The Western Sahara Refugees, Thirty Years Later,” Journal of Modern African Studies 45:2 (2007), p. 282.
Human Rights Watch, Human Rights in Western Sahara and in the Tindouf Refugee Camps (Morocco, Western Sahara, Algeria: Human Rights Watch, December 2008), p. 25.
Manuel Cabrales Rives, “Morocco: Decisive Turn Seen on Horizon in Western Sahara Conflict,” (Inter Press Service: September 18, 1989).
Chris Simpson, “Referendum Regrets,” West Africa No. 3926 (December 14–20, 1992), p. 2147.
Pablo San Martin, “Nationalism, Identity and Citizenship in the Western Sahara,” The Journal of North African Studies 10:3 (September-December 2005), p. 568.
Laurence S. Hanauer, “The Irrelevance of Self-Determination Law to the Ethno-National Conflict: A New Look at the Western Sahara Case,” Emory International Law Review 9 (1995), p. 169.
Panafrican News Agency, “80,000 Sahrawis Identified Since 1994,” Africa News February 8, 1998.
Yves Beigbeder, International Monitoring of Plebiscites, Referenda, and National Elections: Self-Determination and Transition to Democracy (Dordrecht, Boston, London; Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1994), p. 196.
See Yahia H. Zoubir and Daniel Volman, “The Western Sahara Conflict in the Post-Cold War Era,” pp. 227–240 in Zoubir and Volman (1993), pp. 233– 234. When Javier Perez de Cuellar left at the end of 1991, Boutros Boutros-Ghali was left to continue negotiations on this issue. Also, Jensen (2005), p. 47.
Stephen Zunes, “Western Sahara: Peace Derailed?” Current History 95:601 (May 1996), pp. 229–232. Morocco has also restricted MINURSO’s ability to advertise to the population the opportunity to register and vote. Other examples of Moroccan stubbornness include blocking the deployment of peacekeepers, refusing to allow UN supplies to be unloaded at a Moroccan port, and not divulging the location or number of Moroccan troops.
Roula Khalaf, “Baker Brokers Referendum Plan for Western Sahara,” Financial Times (London), September 18, 1997, p. 4.
John F. Burns, “Sahara Impasse: Line in Sand or National Border?” The New York Times, June 16, 1999, p. A10.
Adel Darwish, “Hopes Rise for End to Saharan Dispute,” The Scotsman, July 26, 1999, p. 8.
On Moroccan reforms, see Elaine Sciolino, “At a Transition Moment, Morocco’s King is Mute,” New York Times, May 27, 2003, p. A3.
Giles Tremlett, “Morocco’s ‘King of the Poor’ Reveals Selfish Face,” The Observer November 4, 2001, p. 27.
Adekeye Adebajo, “Sheikhs, Soldiers, and Sand,” The World Today 56:1 (January 2000), pp. 19–21.
Laura E. Smith, “The Struggle for Western Sahara: What Future for Africa’s Last Colony?” The Journal of North African Studies 10:3 (September– December 2005), p. 556.
Giles Tremlett, “UN Admits Defeat on Western Sahara: Security Council Urged to Accept Annexation by Morocco,” The Guardian (London), June 22, 2001, p. 15.
Carola Hoyos and Toby Shelley, “Oil Drilling Strains Peace Settlement in the Western Sahara,” Financial Times (London) November 14, 2001, p. 15.
As of November 2001, down from 76 in 1995. Adekeye Adebajo, Selling Out the Sahara: The Tragic Tale of the UN Referendum (Cornell, NY: Institute for African Development, Cornell University, Occasional Papers Series, Spring 2002), p. 55. Rwanda notes that if a vote on seating the SADR in the OAU were held now, they wouldn’t garner as many votes as in past—but OAU later reiterates support for SADR. “On the Sahrawi Republic” Middle East News (from Info-Prod Research) April 14, 1999.
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© 2011 Anne-Marie Gardner
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Gardner, AM. (2011). Western Sahara: Deserted Standards?. In: Democratic Governance and Non-State Actors. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230117600_5
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