Polisario: an artificial entity created by Morocco’s rivals
The arguments put forth by people who support the Polisario and express their
leaning towards allowing people under occupation to exercise the right of self
determination, suffer from several shortcomings.
First of all, they overlook the fact that the Polisario is a pure creation of Algeria that
without Algeria’s generous financial, political and diplomatic support, it wouldn’t
have come into being in the first place. The creation of Polisario came also in the
context of the Cold War, at a time when Morocco and Algeria were pitted against
each other not only for territorial reasons, but also for ideological reasons.
It is the ideological opposition between Morocco and Algeria that prompted other
“democratic” and “progressive” countries to provide their support to the Polisario.
An example, in this regard, is that of the late Muammar Gaddafi. In fact, the reason
behind the latter’s support to this movement wasn’t because he believed in the
righteousness of its “cause”. The rationale behind it was merely the hatred he held
against monarchies, especially Morocco’s late King Hassan II.
Secondly, to say that a country is under occupation implies the existence of that
country before it was occupied by any foreign country. Yet the Polisario had never
existed before its creation by Algeria and Gaddafi’s Libya in 1973. Before that
period, and since 1957, the only country that laid claim to this territory was
Morocco.
Thirdly, the political fuss that has surrounded the question since the beginning of
the 1960’s and the vested interests of many players in the Sahara would not have
happened if those players did not know about the potential richness of the territory.
Yet, during the heyday of the colonial era and when no one had ever learned of a
liberation movement in the Sahara called the Polisario, Moroccans were engaged in
an unrelenting war of liberation against Spain. Since 1884, up until the beginning of
1960’s, Moroccans were not fighting against Spain because they were aware of the
potential richness of the territory; they were determined to dislodge Spain from the
Sahara, because they were convinced that this territory was part of Morocco. It is
only because of the potential of the territory that Spain, in a preemptive attempt to
thwart Morocco’s efforts to recover the Sahara, decided by the decree of 21 April
1961 and of 29 November 1962 to separate the Sahara from Sidi Ifni and make the
former a Spanish province, equal in status to other metropolitan provinces.
In addition, in no history books has there been a country called the Sahara or such
thing as Saharawi people. What existed was a nomadic population that was living in
the Sahara, which had allegiance to Morocco. This fact was confirmed by the
advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice, according to which the Sahara
was not a no man’s land but there existed links of allegiance between the Saharawi
populations and Morocco’s Sultans (Kings). Even the term Saharawi did not exist
until the 1960s.
If there has been a distinct Saharawi people and a country in the Sahara, one
wonders where they were when Morocco was putting pressure on Spain in to order
to push it to decolonize this territory. One wonders also, where were the “leaders”
of the Polisario when Morocco was negotiating with Spain the terms of its
withdrawal from the Sahara. Were the leaders of the Polisario fighting against the
Spanish presence in the Sahara since 1884? Was the population of the Sahara
fighting against Spain under the banner of the Polisario?
Those who nowadays support the Polisario also overlook the fact that it was
Morocco’s unfortunate decision to dissociate the Sahara with Sidi Ifni and accept
the principle of holding a referendum of self-determination that pushed the United
Nations General Assembly to envisage a separate settlement for both territories.
As shown in Part II of this series, until 1966, all relevant United Nations resolutions
regarding the territorial dispute between Morocco and Spain included the Sahara
and Sid Ifni in one package.
Furthermore, during the same period, there were no other interested parties in the
territorial dispute over the Sahara besides Morocco and Spain. It is only after
Morocco was lured by Spain into accepting the dissociation of both territories that
the United Nations doctrine regarding the settlement of the Sahara changed and a
solution based on the principle of self-determination was chosen. The phrase
“interested parties” appeared for the first time in the United Nations Special
Decolonization Committee’s resolution A/6300 of 16 November 1966.
By the same token, it was the initial diplomatic blunder made by Morocco’s
diplomacy to dissociate Sidi Ifni from the Sahara and accept the principle of selfdetermination that provided for the inclusion of other interested parties in the
settlement of the conflict. It enabled Spain to have more room for maneuver, buy
time, play on the differences between the three Maghrebin States and thwart
Morocco’s attempts to recover its sovereignty over the territory. This inclusion was
all the more profitable to Spain, especially since Morocco had strained relations with
both Algeria and Mauritania. Spain knew how to use this situation to its advantage
and put Morocco in an uncomfortable situation of isolation.
On the other hand, the recognition that Polisario obtained since the termination of
Spain’s presence in the Sahara has more to do with the lack of vision, clearsightedness and communication strategy of Moroccan diplomacy for the most part
of the past three decades, than with the legitimacy of the claims of the Polisario.
It has also more to do with the unlimited financial and political support that Algeria
and Gaddafi provided to the Polisario since its inception, in addition to the
sympathy that this separatist movement enjoys in Spain.
In addition, Morocco’s unfortunate decision in 1984 to withdraw from the
Organization of the African Unity (present day African Union) after the Polisario was
accepted as a full-fledged member of the pan-African body has weakened the
Kingdom’s ability to gain support for its case. This decision allowed Algeria to have
free rein to lobby for the positions of the Polisario, which resulted in many African
countries sympathizing with this movement.
Besides the historical aversion of a large part of Spanish society to Morocco, the
support lent by Spanish public opinion is motivated by resentment held by the
latter against the former. Part of this hostility comes from Moroccan leaders who
took advantage of the uncertainty hovering over the future of Spain at a time when
Franco was dying and who proceeded to reinstate Morocco’s sovereignty over the
Sahara. In fact, most Spaniards regard the Green March as an act of treason
perpetrated by Moroccan against Spain.
In his landmark book entitled Moroccan Saharan Frontiers, published in 1967, Frank
E. Trout showed clearly that both in the 1902 Accord between France and Spain and
the 1904 Accord between France and the UK over the sharing of zones of influence
in Morocco and North Africa, the three colonial powers recognized that the Sahara
(the territory located between Oued Daraa and Cape Bojador) was Moroccan and
could become a zone of influence of Spain.
These historical facts stand in stark contrast with the allegations of all those who
state that Morocco has “annexed” the Sahara and that the Saharawis are living
under “occupation”. If there was an annexation of the Sahara, this took place in
1884 when Spain moved to occupy this territory. What Morocco did in 1975 was
recover a part of its territory that was snatched away from it by Spanish
colonialism. To be continued…