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

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INTRODUCTION • lxi of Conduct during the run-up to the planned referendum. Some degree of optimism was generated by this agreement, and indeed, MINURSO’s Identification Commission was able to resume its activity during late 1997 and 1998, qualifying over 86,000 voters before the process broke down again, this time over the UN mission’s disqualification of another 130,000 or so Saharawis and Morocco’s threat that it would lodge appeals with the UN against this negative action. This implied many more months of work by the UN, with no assurance either that Rabat would not repeat its prior conduct with regard to appeals or that the Polisario Front would not behave in much the same manner, by way of response. Meanwhile, charges made by international human rights organizations, as well as such former UN employees as Charles Dunbar and Frank Ruddy, that MINURSO had been largely supine in the face of persistent Moroccan intimidation of the Saharawi population (and even of UN peacekeepers themselves) during the 1990s could only lead to more questioning of the world body’s sincerity and determination to bring the Western Sahara dispute to a fair conclusion. In October 2000, with the Identification Commission in full shutdown and with less than 200 MINURSO troops policing the cease-fire in the territory, Kofi Annan proposed that James Baker once again attempt to reconcile the parties, this time by going outside the original 1990–91 referendum plan entirely, instead formulating a proposal that would offer “some devolution of governmental authority” on the part of Morocco that would be “genuine, substantial, and in keeping with international norms.” In other words, this represented the first time that the United Nations had explicitly embraced the concept of possibly granting internal autonomy to Western Sahara under overall Moroccan rule, either permanently or (as turned out to be the case) for an interim period preparatory to a decision on the desert territory’s final status. After an extensive series of consultations, Baker presented a so-called Framework Agreement Proposal to the UN Security Council in June 2001, which would set up a transitional Western Sahara Authority to handle purely local administrative affairs, while leaving foreign relations, defense, and other key attributes of territorial sovereignty to Rabat’s government. The proposal, which covered less than two pages, was vague on whether the UN would have any role in this process, provided for significantly different (and more lenient) voter-eligibility criteria than Javier Pérez de Cuéllar’s 1990–91 referendum plan, and also
lxii • INTRODUCTION made no mention of the Polisario Front, which the Security Council had recognized time and again as one of the primary parties to the Western Sahara conflict. As might be expected, Polisario’s response to Baker’s plan was blisteringly critical, and, bolstered by an equally negative response by Algeria, it was able to induce the members of the Security Council to withold their endorsement. James Baker also had his own impartiality come into question, given that Morocco was in 2001–2002 entering into petroleum exploration contracts with international oil firms, including a Texas-based company, Kerr-McGee, with whom Baker had apparent business connections. A 1997 letter from Kofi Annan to Baker, which was unearthed in 2002 and mentioned the idea of granting internal autonomy to Western Sahara under Moroccan sovereignty several years before the 2001 Framework Agreement Proposal was submitted, only added to a climate of suspicion in some quarters. Baker, though, refused to concede defeat on the question of an alternative settlement, and after yet another round of meetings with the various actors, produced a second blueprint, this time called the Peace Plan for Self-Determination of the People of Western Sahara, which had many of the same elements of the earlier autonomy plan except that it imposed upon Morocco some additional responsibilities with respect to its overall conduct, sought to establish an independent judiciary and legislature in Morocco’s “Saharan provinces,” and provided in so many words for at least some role for the UN and for Polisario, although again, the exact roles of both were not entirely clear and the voter registration criteria were about the same as with the Framework Agreement Proposal. Put forward in May 2003, it was Morocco’s turn to be strongly critical of the plan, as it clearly did not relish the prospect of having essentially non-Moroccan political and legal institutions implanted onto what it considered its own territory, under international supervision no less. In a related way, it rejected the increased responsibilities it would have to shoulder if and when the peace plan was implemented. As an intriguing aside, it was this imposition of at least the rudiments of parliamentary norms on Morocco’s administration of Western Sahara that made it attractive to some Moroccan dissidents who largely backed Rabat’s sovereignty over the ex-colony, including the well-known (and oftimprisoned) Moroccan Jewish activist, Abraham Serfaty. Morocco may have disparaged the second Baker plan, but the Polisario Front criticized it even more, scoring the proposal for conceding
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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