*This article appeared in Muftah on September 10, 2012.
In a
recent interview
for Al Jazeera English with Mark LeVine, Professor Stephen Zunes
provides a scathing critique of Morocco as an occupying force in the Western
Sahara. Zunes, a well-respected scholar of international relations, goes so far
as to compare Morocco’s 1975 annexation of the Western Sahara to Israel’s
occupation of Palestine. Zunes declares:
"Morocco, like Israel, is in violation of a series of United Nations Security Council resolutions and a landmark decision of the International Court of Justice regarding their occupation. Morocco, like Israel, has illegally moved tens of thousands of settlers into the occupied territory. Morocco, like Israel, engages in gross and systematic human rights abuses in the occupied territories. Morocco, like Israel, has illegally built a separation wall through the occupied territories. Morocco, like Israel, relies on the United States and other Western support to maintain the occupation by rendering the UN powerless to enforce international law. Morocco, like Israel, is able to maintain the occupation in part through the support of multinational corporations."
While a number of those claims are
factual, Zunes’ statement is also deceptively one-sided, simplistic, and fails
to account for the political and historical dimensions of the conflict.
The Western Sahara has been the
subject of controversy, international litigation, and bellicose conflict since
1975 when Spanish colonial forces left the territory. The territory was
thereafter divided into two, with one part controlled by Morocco and the other
by Mauritania.
Immediately after Spanish
decolonization, a rebel Sahrawi group in the camps of Tindouf in Algeria led by
the POLISARIO (Spanish acronym for the Popular Front for the Liberation of
Saguia al-Hamra and Rio de Oro) and supported by the Algerian government,
declared the territory's independence and unilaterally proclaimed the
establishment of the Sahraoui Arab Democratic Republic.
After Mauritania's withdrawal from
the territory, Morocco quickly assumed control over the southern part of the
Western Sahara. A decade of violence ensued, lasting most of the 1980s, between
the POLISARIO and Moroccan forces. The conflict ended in 1991 with an
UN-brokered cease-fire and a planned UN-sponsored referendum for
self-determination, which has yet to take place.
As Zunes states, it is true that the UN has labeled Morocco an occupying force in the Western Sahara. It is also true that, during the long years of military conflict with the POLISARIO, Morocco built a fortified defensive wall called “berm” in the region.
However, in his interview, Zunes
never mentions Algeria's influence over the conflict or its consistent
rejectionist stance toward any solution to the stand off. Algeria has been the
POLISARIO's principal benefactor since the beginning of the conflict in 1975,
and has maintained a closed grip on the POLISARIO camps in Tindouf.
While talk of the referendum has
diminished because of Morocco's plans to grant autonomy (though not
independence) to the Sahrawi region, Zunes squarely blames Morocco for the referendum's failure. This
allegation is misleading, and, again, fails to provide an accurate picture of
the process.
Moroccan opposition to the
referendum centers on two issues: the difficulty in determining voter
eligibility, and Morocco's historical ties to the region.
The concept of self-determination has long dominated
discourses on the Western Sahara conflict. As such, the conflict's resolution has
depended on identifying who qualifies as Sahrawi, and is, thereby, eligible to
vote in the referendum.
Modern theories on self-determination lack
the basic parameters for defining a "people" entitled to
self-determination or autonomy. As with most conflicts, the dizzying number of
UN resolutions on the Western Sahara conflict fail to demarcate the contours of
identity, while clearly positing self-determination as a sine qua non to
self-governance.
This approach to the Western Sahara also
reflects the UN's lack of historical knowledge about the territory. Such
knowledge could have enriched its understanding of the complex identity issues
at stake for all parties to the conflict.
Historically, the Western Sahara was not
demarcated and may local tribes paid allegiance to different powers. Sahrawi
tribes, which had their own internal governance structure, led an autonomous
life and paid allegiance to the central authority of the Makhzen, or monarchy,
in Morocco.
This power-sharing structure is similar to
what Morocco is offering the Western Sahara today - under the autonomy plan,
the region's residents would pay allegiance to the Moroccan king while leading
an autonomous life within their tribes.
In his interview, Zunes refers to the
International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) advisory opinion, which sought to determine
whether the Western Sahara was “terra nullius” (no man’s land) during Spanish
colonization. On October 16, 1975, the Court rendered its opinion, finding no evidence “of any ties of
territorial sovereignty” between the Western Sahara and either Morocco or
Mauritania. It found, however, that there were “indications of a legal tie of
allegiance between the Moroccan
Sultan (King) and some of the
tribes in the territory.” It is on this basis that Morocco annexed the
territory, albeit unlawfully according to the UN.
Zunes
provides scant detail on the ICJ's decision and its historical context. Indeed,
the interplay of power within the Makhzen between bled al-makhzen (territories
firmly under state control in terms of rule and taxation) and bled es-Siba
(territories paying allegiance to the Moroccan Sultan, but not necessarily paying
taxes) is often de-emphasized both by analysts of the conflict and referendum
advocates in the international community.
In North Africa, territorial boundaries
are colonial creations, which were drawn with no respect for the nomadic tribes
that roamed sub-Saharan region. The UN referendum seeks to define the Western
Sahara based on colonially imposed demarcations of the region. What Zunes and
other analysts fails to understand is that Moroccan opposition to this approach
lies in its complete disregard for the Makhzen's historical ties to the Western
Sahara.
The Western Sahara conflict will remain a
contentious issue in the Maghreb region, especially in the absence of strong
international pressure, Morocco's intransigence regarding its historical ties
to the region, and Algeria's realpolitik, rejectionist posture. Arguments about
Moroccan occupation of the territory, while valid from the point of view of
international law, do not do justice to the intricate issues of identity,
sovereignty, and history that define the conflict. In order to resolve the
Western Sahara standoff, negotiators must reconcile these issues with the
geopolitical aspirations of the involved parties.
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