Regards, Ivan
Posted on 03/15/2003 6:48:37 PM PST by MadIvan
ONE of Africa’s longest-running conflicts is set to explode into renewed warfare with a United Nations’ brokered ceasefire on the brink of collapse.
Fighting between Morocco and independence fighters in Western Sahara ended in 1991 after 16 years of a bitter war, but both sides have retained a massive military presence dug into the desert.
The rebels, known as the Polisario Front, still have some of the world’s longest-held prisoners of war, some of whom have been incarcerated for nearly a quarter of a century.
The UN had hoped to hold a referendum on independence for Western Sahara, but Morocco, which controls most of its territory, has ruled that out. The Polisario also rejected a compromise plan and is now threatening to revert to war.
The UN Security Council is due to hear a report from the UN mission to Western Sahara tomorrow and its mandate is set to run out at the end of the month.
Experts said the Polisario appeared to have been "sold out" by the US and Britain, who in the diplomatic drive for action against Iraq have told Rabat that they are prepared to circumvent a referendum and back Moroccan sovereignty over the whole area.
There are fears there could be no agreement on renewing the UN mandate, and the war in Western Sahara, which has never officially ended, will break out again.
The UN monitors the ceasefire between the Polisario and Morocco, but despite its presence, armed skirmishes have never stopped completely.
Jon Marks, a fellow of Whitehall-based military think-tank, the Royal United Services Institute, who has visited the Polisario several times in 20 years of following the conflict, said matters appeared to be coming to a head.
" You have a situation where the two sides are literally very deeply dug in and cannot find a consensus.
"There may be either a happy or a nasty surprise quite soon, a nasty surprise being the most likely option."
Marks said the Polisario were a highly effective guerrilla force armed with Soviet-era tanks supplied by Algeria. They were only kept at bay when the Moroccan military built a massive series of fortified walls in the desert.
"Many of the Moroccan soldiers will tell you that the Polisario were good. They drove around in the desert in Land Rovers and were able to mount penetrative guerrilla raids," Marks said.
Another factor that has brought matters to a head is the cost of supporting the UN mission in Western Sahara. "There are pressures to get the Saharan issue out of the way. Kofi Annan had his own personal interest in wanting to get a peace-keeping success story in Africa, but that hasn’t happened."
Morocco’s King Mohammad VI has become the Arab world’s staunchest supporter of the US and British stance on Iraq. At the same time he has become more hard-line on Western Sahara.
When he publicly rejected the UN referendum plan, he also categorically rejected any "partitionist option of the Moroccan Sahara".
A referendum is one of the principal demands of the Polisario as a route to self-determination for the less than half a million inhabitants of the territory. But UN efforts to stage the poll to give the Western Saharans a choice between independence or integration with Morocco have become bogged down in a conflict over who is eligible to vote.
The Polisario says the referendum should exclude Moroccan settlers, who currently make up about 65% of the population.
Any return to open hostilities would bring Morocco into conflict with Algeria, where the Polisario leadership and their desert camps housing more than 200,000 people are based.
The future of the region is largely dependent on the negotiating skills of James Baker, former US Secretary of State under President George Bush Snr, who as UN Special Envoy has been trying to find a peace formula for six years.
Baker, in a report to the UN at the beginning of the year, proposed that the desert territory should be a semi-autonomous part of Morocco for four years until a referendum over independence. This compromise approach was supported by Morocco, the US, Britain and France, but rejected by the Polisario and Algeria.
The Western Sahara conflict broke out in 1975 when Morocco annexed the territory after Spain withdrew from what was then a Spanish colony. This led to the formation of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia-el-Hamra and Rio de Oro (Polisario Front).
Since the fighting died down, the Polisario have been confined to an area around Tindouf, an oasis town in southern Algeria, where they fled after Morocco occupied Western Sahara, and which is now the seat of government for the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), which they declared in 1976.
The Polisario still refuse to release more than 1,000 Moroccan prisoners, some of them considered by the International Red Cross as the world’s oldest prisoners of war.
Many of the Sahrawis live in four refugee camps near Tindouf. According to Refugees International, the tens of thousands of people who have been refugees there for 28 years face serious food and water shortages in one of the harshest desert environments on earth.
Yet Western Sahara could be wealthy. It has large phosphate deposits and a long Atlantic coastline with rich fish stocks. Oil companies are also developing an interest in the territory. The stakes rose last year when Morocco signed agreements with two international oil companies covering the territory’s coast.
Critics of the US stance claim that oil is also a reason the US has come out strongly in favour of Morocco’s claim.
Regards, Ivan
After we mop up in Iraq, maybe we should go help out the King of Morocco solve the problem the United Nations has created! I think any peace they brokered is probably bad news! I have absolutely zero confidence in the United Nations and have for a long time!
Anything with Annan and peace makes me shudder!
(Back to the 'Med' ops?)
IT'S A UN TREATY!! EVERYONE knows that UN treaties are inviolable! They're set in STONE for crying out loud. President Bush and Prime Minister Blair are bigger threats to peace than Saddam...the UN says so!!
I mean...look at the UN/Karter/Klinton Nuclear Agreed Framework with North Korea! THAT'S working out GREAT!! Blixie did SUCH a good job there...shame he didn't get to share the piece prize with Karter!
Regards, Ivan
This can't be correct. Everyone knows "the whole world" is against us.
Or even 17 or 18 of them.
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