Western Sahara: UN funding concerns - full text
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The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) issued a statement on Sept. 4 claiming that a lack of funding could bring a halt to confidence-building measures connecting Sahrawi refugees in Algeria and their relatives in Western Sahara. Since the initiative began in March 2004, a total of 154 visits had taken place involving 4,255 people. An additional 14,726 people had registered and were waiting to take part in the programme.
Immediate Context
Since 2004 the UNHCR had run regular flights between refugee camps in Algeria and Western Sahara in order to reunite families temporarily. Over 90,000 Sahrawi refugees lived in camps around Tindouf in western Algeria, having fled the violence between the Moroccan government, which had occupied Western Sahara since 1975,and the Polisario Front (Popular Front for the Liberation of the Saguia el Hamra and Rio de Oro),the Western Saharan independence movement.
Since the failure of the UN's "Baker plan" in June 2004,attempts to resolve the situation in Western Sahara remained deadlocked despite some indicators of improved relations between the Moroccan authorities and the Polisario Front. In October 2005Polisario released the final 404 Moroccan prisoners of war (POWs), many of whom had been imprisoned for more than 25 years. In April 2007the Moroccan authorities proposed that a self-governing entity be formed, the Royal Advisory Council for Saharan Affairs (CORCAS),which would result in Western Sahara possessing a degree of autonomy whilst remaining part of Morocco. The Polisario Front rejected the Moroccan proposal.
In June 2007an initial round of talks were held in New York in an attempt to break the stalemate, with officials from Morocco, Polisario, Algeria, and Mauritania present. The second round of negotiations continued on Aug. 12, resulting in both the Moroccan and Polisario parties agreeing that the process of negotiation must continue.
The process was given fresh impetus on Aug. 28 when the UN announced that Maj.-Gen. Zhao Jingmin had been appointed as the new force commander for the UN peacekeeping mission in Western Sahara (MINURSO). The appointment was the first time that a Chinese national had commanded a UN peacekeeping mission.
Reaction and Outlook
In January 2007, the UNHCR appealed for nearly US$3.5 million to continue the family visits and telephone services that it has operated since 2004 between Western Sahara and Algeria. On Sept. 4, Ron Redmond, the UNHCR's chief spokesman, expressed concern that "with only a little over half of the appeal funded so far, the whole operation risks being stopped next month [October]," he added that the agency was "very concerned". The initiative was not only designed to reunite families, but also to help restore links between the long-divided Saharan community.
The UN identified some areas of improved relations between the Polisario Front and the Moroccan authorities: a UN Security Council meeting on April. 30, 2007,welcomed the co-operation both parties had shown in clearing the territory of mines and unexploded ordnance. The council also praised co-operation with MINURSO which could provide an opportunity for increased confidence-building between the two parties. However, the meeting also confirmed that the peacekeeping resolution must be extended until October 2007 as "the Mission’s presence remains indispensable for the maintenance of the ceasefire in Western Sahara".
Historical Context
Western Sahara was a sparsely populated territory mostly consisting of desert flatland inhabited by the Sahrawi people. Before the arrival of Islam in the 8th century, a nomadic Berber population lived in the region. The present Sahrawi people's ancestors have been traced back to the 16th century when tribes from the Yemen crossed North Africa to establish themselves in the area.
For about 200 years Western Sahara was governed by the "Assembly of Forty" in which each of the region's tribes was represented. A stronger sense of a Sahrawi identity emerged with the Sahrawi people becoming increasingly sedentary and the European powers beginning to colonise North-West Africa in the 19th century. At the Berlin conference of 1884, Morocco was divided between the Spanish and French governments. Spain immediately seized control of Saguia el Hamra and Rio de Oro, regions which had previously belonged to Morocco, and renamed the territory the Spanish Sahara.
In 1957, Si Allal El Fassi, leader of the Moroccan Istiqlal Party, began to demand that Algeria, the Mauritanian area of French West Africa, and the Spanish Sahara be incorporated into Morocco, asserting Morocco's historical claim to the territory, based on the tradition that Saharan tribal leaders had expressed loyalty to the Moroccan monarchy. In 1965 the UN responded to these demands with the General Assembly adopting a resolution calling on the Spanish government to take steps towards the decolonisation of Ifni and Spanish Sahara.
In October 1975,the International Court of Justice (ICJ) rejected King Hassan II of Morocco's claim of sovereignty over the region. The UN began referring to the region as "Western Sahara" and the ICJ concluded that the Sahrawi people possessed the right to self determination. The Moroccan government's response was to co-ordinate the "Green March", a series of mass demonstrations, with approximately 350,000 Moroccans crossing into Western Sahara in November 1975.This demonstration resulted in the November 1975 "Madrid Accords" in which the Spanish government agreed to cease its presence in Western Sahara, with the territory being divided between the Moroccan and Mauritanian authorities.
On Feb. 27-28, 1976, Polisario responded to the Spanish withdrawal by proclaiming that the region was now the Saharan Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) and shortly afterwards Polisario formed a government. In 1979,the new Mauritanian government withdrew claims to the territory, resulting in the Moroccan authorities extending their control of the region.
Hostilities continued between the Moroccan forces and Polisario until 1991when a ceasefire brokered by the UN was implemented. In September 1991, the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) was deployed to monitor the ceasefire and to organise and conduct a referendum which would allow the people of Western Sahara to decide the territory's future status. However, by the end of 1991 it was apparent that the referendum would have to be postponed for at least nine months.
Progress was delayed by the issue of who was entitled to vote in the referendum. In July 1991, the Moroccan authorities retracted their previous acceptance of the 1974 census as a basis for the list of voters. In November there had already been press reports that UN Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar had yielded to Moroccan arguments for a broadening of the criteria for inclusion on the voting list. Over 37,000 Moroccans were reported to have entered the territory from Morocco between September and November 1991.
In July 2003,the UN Security Council officially gave its support to a peace plan for the Western Sahara drawn up by the UN Secretary-General's personal envoy James Baker. The "Baker plan" proposed that Western Sahara be granted a degree of autonomy under Moroccan rule for several years before a referendum on whether the territory should become independent, semi-autonomous, or fully integrated with Morocco. The pro-independence Polisario Front initially opposed the plan. However, in late June the movement came under intense pressure from its main supporter, Algeria, to adopt a more conciliatory position. Accordingly, in July Polisario announced that it would accept the Baker plan as a basis for negotiations. However, the Moroccan authorities decisively rejected the plan. Mohamed Bennouna, Morocco's permanent representative to the UN, confirmed that Morocco's sovereignty over the region was not negotiable. The ensuing stalemate resulted in the resignation of James Baker in June 2004.
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