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No.After the military escalation in Ethiopia, war threatens to break out in Western Sahara. After 29 years, the Polisario Liberation Front declared the ceasefire with Morocco concluded. “Thousands of volunteers” have been mobilized for the struggle that has already begun. According to Polisario, the attacks on Moroccan posts resulted in several deaths. However, no independent confirmation has yet been obtained for this. The Rabat government spoke only of “provocations” by the Polisario. However, United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres expressed “deeply concerned about the possible consequences” of recent developments.
Western Sahara was a Spanish colony until 1975, when it was largely occupied and annexed by Morocco. More recently, former Federal President Horst Köhler sought to mediate between the warring parties as UN special envoy until 2019. More and more boats with migrants from Morocco and West Africa depart for the Spanish Canary Islands from the coast of Western Sahara.
The new confrontation was triggered by a road block not far from the Mauritanian border. Polisario supporters had cut Morocco’s most important land connection with the neighboring country and the rest of Africa by the end of October not far from the Guerguerat border crossing. They wanted to protest against the inaction of the international community, which decades ago promised a referendum on the political future of the former Spanish colony.
On 30 October, the UN Security Council extended the mandate of the Minurso Mission in Western Sahara. For the first time, the text no longer mentioned the referendum. Even then, the Polisario threatened to “intensify the struggle”. With a military operation in the buffer zone between the two sides to the conflict, Morocco cleared the road on Friday and, according to its own statements, reopened it to traffic. The Polisario then called the ceasefire which had been in effect since 1991.
Originally, the inhabitants of the only African area that the UN believes has not yet been decolonized should vote in 1992. To this end, the United Nations established the Minurso Mission to monitor the ceasefire between Morocco and the Polisario. and organize a referendum on the status of Western Sahara. Since Spain withdrew, Morocco has controlled around 80% of Western Sahara, which is home to around half a million people. From the Moroccan point of view, this area of the Atlantic coast rich in phosphates and fish is the “southern province” that belongs to the kingdom and which is separated from the rest of Western Sahara by a 2700 kilometer long sand wall.
No own national territory
The worsening of the conflict could also weigh on the difficult relations between Morocco and Algeria. Because the government of neighboring Algeria supports the Polisario. In the Algerian Sahara, up to 170,000 refugees from Western Sahara have been living in camps near Tindouf for decades. At the end of 1975 they had fled the fighting in Western Sahara in this inhospitable desert region. The Republic of Western Sahara is also based there, led by the Polisario, although it does not have its own national territory.
After the negotiations failed, Polisario continued to lose international support. This has also increased the political pressure on the leadership within their own ranks to become more active. In October, the UAE opened a consulate in the Moroccan-controlled part of Western Sahara, thereby acknowledging its political claims. More than a dozen African states now have diplomatic missions in Laayoune.
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