The situation is tense again in Western Sahara.
The Polisario Front, a Saharawi independence movement, announced on Friday November 13 the end of a ceasefire concluded almost 30 years ago under the aegis of the United Nations.
"The war has started", declared Mohamed Salem Ould Salek, head of diplomacy of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), proclaimed by the independence movement in 1976. "Morocco has liquidated the ceasefire", a- he added in reaction to the military operation launched by Morocco in the buffer zone of Guerguerat, in the extreme southwest of the former Spanish colony with still undefined status.
This cease-fire, concluded in 1991 after 16 years of war, has led to multiple attempts at negotiations, overseen by the international community, but none of which has so far been successful.
Post-colonial conflict
Former Spanish colony, Western Sahara, which covers 266,000 km2 and is populated by more than half a million inhabitants, is mainly controlled by Morocco, which holds 80% of this quasi-desert territory, in a basement rich in phosphates and a very fishy coastline.
A situation that has continued since 1975.
At the end of the "Green March" organized that year, at the call of the Moroccan king Hassan II, to take possession of Western Sahara, Spain ceded the north and the center of its colony to Morocco, and the south to Mauritania.
An annexation that the Polisario Front, supported by Algeria, refuses from the outset.
The partisans of the Polisario Front then attacked the Moroccan and Mauritanian forces, which they considered as occupying forces.
In 1980, four years after the proclamation of the SADR by the Sahrawi independence movement, Morocco built a "defense wall".
2700 kilometers long, this sandy rampart still splits the desert today to better cover the Western Sahara, which the kingdom considers to belong to its national territory.
An exodus of populations follows.
In 1976 alone, some 10,000 Saharawi refugees left the country for the Tindouf camps in Algeria, fleeing the war.
According to various sources, 100,000 to 200,000 Sahrawi refugees are now settled in these camps located 1,800 km south-west of Algiers, near the border with Morocco.
For nearly thirty years, the latter have been calling for a self-determination referendum, where Morocco says it is only ready to make this territory an autonomous region, but placed under its sovereignty.
Western Sahara infographic, November 13, 2020 © France 24 infographic
Stalled negotiations and bellicose upheavals
Faced with this impossible dialogue, a UN mission, the United Nations Mission for the Organization of a Referendum in Western Sahara (Minurso) was created in 1991 when the cease-fire was declared.
On the spot, in Laâyoune, these local peacekeeping forces are part of the extension of the request made to Morocco by the UN: to organize a referendum on the self-determination of the Saharawi people, to which the Moroccan kingdom continues to refuse. .
Years of status quo followed, punctuated by belligerent upheavals.
Where were we in the negotiations so far?
"At a standstill," says Francesco Correale, research engineer in analysis of historical and cultural sources at the CNRS.
"The Kingdom of Morocco has refused, since 2004, the application of the right of self-determination by the organization of a referendum, as it has been ruled by the UN since 1963 and confirmed in the cease-fire agreements 1991 ”, explains the historian, contacted by France 24. However, for its part, the Polisario Front does not accept that this principle can be called into question by the regional autonomy project proposed by the Moroccan authorities.
In recent years, "the United Nations has even asked itself the question of the usefulness of the Minurso", adds the researcher.
"Because, in fact, it is limited to monitoring the respect of the truce but, despite attempts made in 1991, 1997 and 2004, it has failed to fulfill its main mission, namely: carrying out the referendum of self-determination ".
For their part, several NGOs accused Morocco of a "crime of colonization", Western Sahara being still today the only African territory with unregulated post-colonial status.
In legal terms, this area has been included since 1963 in the list of non-self-governing territories established by the Fourth General Commission of the United Nations.
And although Morocco does not consider itself a colonizer of the territory, its presence is nonetheless rejected by the majority of the Sahrawi population, specifies the researcher, who has been following the question for thirty years from the angle of history. colonial history of the region and the history of the conflict in Western Sahara.
Witness, according to him, "the many intifadas which followed one another in the various cities of the Sahara (in 1999, 2005 and 2010)".
Moreover, he adds, "since 1991, the authorities have facilitated - not to say invited - the populations of the regions of Morocco to settle in the Sahara, thus reversing the demographic balance, to the point that today , the Saharawis are a minority within their own territory ".
Thus, there is no doubt that "for the Sahrawis and the Polisario Front, the territory is occupied by a colonizing state".
An element to which is added the exploitation of the territory's resources (in particular its phosphate deposits and its fishing zones) for the exclusive benefit of Morocco.
A situation denounced by NGOs, in particular Western Resource Watch, and on which "the kingdom of Morocco has systematically refused to let the Sahrawi populations express themselves", points out Francesco Correale.
"We must hope that the UN takes the issue in hand"
Despite its fundamental role in this issue which it took up three decades ago, "the UN seems to almost relinquish the issue, while maintaining formal monitoring of the situation", analyzes the historian.
For the latter, in fact, "the fact that the Secretary General of the United Nations has still not appointed a new personal envoy (the former envoy, Horst Köhler, left his post" for health reasons "in May 2019, Editor's note), is an important mark of this 'withdrawal' ".
On the side of the African Union (AU), the momentum does not seem to be there either, given "internal blockages between supporters of Morocco and supporters of the SADR", adds Francesco Correale.
Moreover, Morocco has always rejected any AU mediation on the Sahrawi question, believing that this issue belongs only to the UN.
But even within the UN, the position of the various states is far from homogeneous.
Spain, "which has a serious historical responsibility vis-à-vis this conflict" could weigh more on compliance with UN resolutions, believes the researcher at CNRS.
The United States, for their part, supported the proposal made by Morocco in 2007 to grant the Saharawis a status of "autonomy" within the Shereefian kingdom.
As for France, which is one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, its role has been more active.
It has repeatedly reiterated its support for Morocco, its best ally in the Maghreb, and also militarily supported Mauritania through Operation Manatee, between December 1977 and July 1978, in order to help the Mauritanian government to push back the Front. Polisario.
"It is moreover the French government which, in recent years, has opposed with the greatest force to the Security Council of the United Nations concerning the extension of the mandate of MINURSO", explains Francesco Correale.
Extension requested, among others, by the NGO Amnesty International, and which was finally decided on last October 30, for a period of one year.
In Algeria, unconditional aid to the Polisario Front has been granted since the Houri Boumédiène era.
The former Algerian president (from 1965 to 1978) did not appreciate that the future of the Saharawi territories was decided without consulting him.
In addition, "the 'Green March' had worried the Algerians, who considered the Moroccan expansionism as a threat to their own borders", according to Lucile Martin, collaborator with the Cahiers de l'Orient.
But then what consequences can this new break in the ceasefire have on the ground?
"It is extremely difficult to answer this question," warns Francesco Correale.
"It is to be hoped that the UN takes over the issue, obtaining an immediate ceasefire and arguing, in new negotiations, the application of the principle of self-determination, so that the Sahrawis can finally decide. of their future, ”he continues, adding that the opposite scenario is unpredictable for the moment.
"No one is in a position to understand either the extension of the conflict, or what a conflict of this type could generate at the regional level."
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