Historical Dictionary of Western Sahara Third ... - Scarecrow Press

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INTRODUCTION • lv ble inflicting severe losses upon the less-trained FAR. On several occasions, Polisario was able to fight its way into the center of such towns as Smara inside Western Sahara as well as Tan-Tan and Lebouirate in undisputed Moroccan territory to the north of Western Sahara, and took many prisoners of war and captured large amounts of Moroccan matériel. Morocco, cowed by this display of military might—and seeing their American- and French-supplied air force temporarily neutralized by Polisario’s surface-to-air missiles at Guelta Zemmour in October 1981—withdrew its forces to a few easily defended enclaves, mostly on the Atlantic coast of its “Saharan provinces,” leaving the rest to the Saharawi guerrillas, who numbered between 10,000 and 15,000 during this period. But after about 1982, this situation began to change to Polisario’s detriment, as Morocco began the construction of an immense series of “defensive walls” or earthen berms in certain parts of Western Sahara in order to restrict the Saharawis’ freedom of movement. The plan, as even Polisario was compelled to admit, was impressive in its simplicity. Equipped with traps, land mines, and remote sensing devices (the latter, however, not being as effective as Rabat alleged), and accomodating garrisons of hundreds of FAR soldiers at many locations with reserve units deployed behind the lines, the walls made it extremely difficult over time for the Polisario Front to penetrate very far into areas of the former colony where it had previously roamed at will. And although the SPLA did turn the presence of Moroccan troop garrisons along the walls to its advantage—they made tempting targets for armed assaults and in any event were more thinly spread as the berms expanded in size—they fundamentally altered the character of the war into one of attrition; in other words, a conflict in which Morocco held more than a few advantages. This development, though, did not herald the collapse of Polisario, nor did it make the diplomatic road any smoother for King Hassan. The Organization of African Unity was the first international organization to attempt seriously to resolve the Western Sahara conflict after the failure of UN Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim’s efforts in late 1975 and early 1976. Although the OAU was more or less deadlocked on the issue during the late 1970s, the coup in Mauritania, and the Algiers Agreement which followed it, opened up new opportunities, particularly after King Hassan, at a June 1981 OAU summit in Nairobi, accepted (verbally, at any rate), the idea of a referendum in the territory to
lvi • INTRODUCTION decide its future status. Despite the fact that the Moroccan monarch qualified his offer significantly by stating that he saw the plebiscite as one that would be a “confirmation” of Moroccan sovereignty, the OAU set up an Implementation Committee to prepare for a referendum under the auspices of the African body. But an increasing number of OAU member states, disappointed with what they saw as King Hassan’s intransigence, gave their full recognition to the SADR between 1981 and 1984, impelling an emboldened Polisario Front to petition for the SADR’s admission to the OAU as a member state. The stage was thus set for a debilitating and bitter political impasse. In February 1982, Edem Kodjo, the OAU’s secretary-general, formally admitted the Saharawi Republic to membership status, given that a simple majority of the other OAU member states had given their assent to it. Morocco, refusing as always to recognize Polisario as a legitimate actor in the Western Sahara conflict, immediately boycotted the OAU in protest, and was joined by a substantial number of fellow African countries. For the rest of 1982, no further OAU business could be transacted, for although the Saharan question was not the only contentious issue faced by the OAU in that year (Libya and Chad were the others), the split between the boycotters and the supporters of the SADR persisted. The Polisario Front, for its part, agreed to “voluntarily and temporarily” absent itself from the OAU until the matter was resolved. The OAU made another try at holding a summit meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in June 1983, but again, a Moroccan boycott threatened the entire organization with collapse. Again, Polisario rescued the situation by agreeing to stay away from the OAU temporarily. The summit, after some intense behind-the-scenes maneuvering, did go forward, and it went on to administer a telling blow to Morocco in the form of Resolution 104, which called for direct Morocco-Polisario negotiations and a free and fair referendum. It also—critically—named both Morocco and Polisario as the only two parties to the conflict, contrary to King Hassan’s expressed view that the Saharawi nationalist group was made up only of Algerian-supported “mercenaries.” During 1984, the political balance gradually shifted further and further away from Rabat as more African countries (including Nigeria) recognized the SADR. On November 12–14, 1984, the regularly scheduled OAU summit conference (again in Addis Ababa) was held without incident. The SADR
Page 1 and 2: Historical Dictionary of Western Sa
Page 3 and 4: Editor’s Foreword While nearly al
Page 5 and 6: Preface As was the case in the seco
Page 7 and 8: Reader’s Notes The Western Sahara
Page 9 and 10: Acronyms and Abbreviations AMD Alli
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Page 13 and 14: Chronology c. 5000 BC Beginning of
Page 15 and 16: 1578-1603 Moroccan Sultan Ahmed el-
Page 17 and 18: continues his resistance until 1919
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Page 21 and 22: CHRONOLOGY • xxxi Morocco, Maurit
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