Independent Diplomat

WESTERN SAHARA

Government of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR)

ID assists the SADR Government in pursuing its goal of self-determination for the people of Western Sahara, consistent with past agreements and international law. ID has worked with the SADR Government since 2006, advising the leadership on its diplomatic strategy, preparations for the UN-led negotiation process and legal aspects relating to Western Sahara's natural resources. ID has also helped the SADR to enhance its public profile and political advocacy.

Saharawi children in the Smara refugee camp, near Tindouf.

Background

Western Sahara is the last colony in Africa, located on the continent's Atlantic coast to the south of Morocco and to the north of Mauritania. In the late 19th century, this vast territory - about the size of the United Kingdom - was inhabited mainly by nomadic tribes, known as the ‘Saharawi people', and subject to Spanish colonial rule. Following its designation as a ‘Non-Self-Governing Territory' under the Charter of the United Nations and increasing international pressure to decolonise the territory, Spain unilaterally withdrew from its role as administering power in 1975, and signed a secret deal to hand the territory over to a joint Morocco-Mauritania administration.

A 1975 advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice found no ties of territorial sovereignty between Western Sahara and either Morocco or Mauritania, and confirmed the legal right of the Saharawi people to a process of self-determination. This prompted invasions by Morocco and Mauritania, and a 15-year war ensued against the Saharawi liberation movement, or Frente POLISARIO, which had declared an independent Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) in February 1976. Mauritania eventually withdrew in 1979 (and officially recognised the SADR), but Morocco continued to take Western Saharan territory, eventually building a sand wall littered with landmines running the length of the country (the so-called "Berm") to secure its occupation of over two-thirds of Western Sahara.

In 1991, the UN brokered a ceasefire. The UN Security Council established a UN Mission (MINURSO) to monitor the ceasefire and to organise a referendum of the Western Saharan people in order to allow them to determine their own future. Despite publication of UN-approved voter lists in 1999, the intended referendum has never materialised. In his role as the UN Secretary-General's Personal Envoy on Western Sahara, former US Secretary of State James Baker III proposed two versions of a compromise solution in 2000 and 2003, both involving a referendum after a period of autonomy. Baker Plan II was endorsed by the Security Council in July 2003, but was never implemented due to Morocco's refusal to countenance a vote that includes an independent Western Sahara as one of its possible outcomes.

As the stalemate persists, Morocco continues its occupation of Western Sahara, and the status of the territory remains unresolved, posing a major obstacle to the emergence of regional political and economic integration as part of a greater Maghreb Union. Meanwhile, the large Saharawi population that fled Western Sahara during the war continues to live in tented refugee camps in the harsh conditions of the Sahara desert near Tindouf in south-western Algeria. A generation of more than 100,000 Saharawi refugees has grown up in the camps, a situation widely recognised as a humanitarian tragedy.

Saharawis inside the occupied territory remain subject to various and often serious human rights abuses, as documented by, among others, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. As noted by the OHCHR in its September 2006 report, almost all human rights violations stem from the non-implementation of the Saharawi peoples' fundamental right to self-determination.

The democratically elected government of the SADR is led by the Frente POLISARIO's Secretary-General, His Excellency President Mohamed Abdelaziz. The SADR is a full founding member of the African Union, and has been recognised by more than eighty countries.