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

INTRODUCTION • lxiii
any legitimate authority to Rabat since, in the front’s view, it had illegally
invaded Western Sahara in 1975–76 and had maintained its position
there since that time purely by force of arms. Otherwise the Saharawi
nationalists’ objections largely duplicated those which they had
enunciated to James Baker’s first plan of June 2001, but Algeria, interestingly,
did not reject the plan outright as it had done with the Framework
Agreement Proposal, but instead put forth criticisms, made suggestions
for improvement, and warned in the conclusion to its remarks
that the plan represented “a gamble for peace in the Maghreb.” Polisario,
illustrating once again that it had sufficient diplomatic support in
the Security Council to at least block the implementation of proposals
it found completely unacceptable, induced the Council to give only
qualified acceptance to the plan, preserving the stalemate but also making
clear that additional diplomacy—at the very least—would be necessary.
In the diplomatic arena in 2003, the Polisario Front also showed that
it was capable of some surprises of its own. A short time after the presentation
of James Baker’s Peace Plan for Self-Determination of the
People of Western Sahara, the Saharawi organization announced that it
was formally (and conditionally) accepting the plan despite its earlier
and vehemently expressed objections to many of its provisions. No
doubt urged on by its Algerian backers, Polisario thus deftly isolated
Morocco, whose rejection of the Baker blueprint became all the more
strident as the months passed. The Saharawis also gained substantial political
leverage by two other developments. The first was an opinion by
the United Nations that Morocco lacked the legal authority to extract
any oil reserves that might be found in Western Sahara, dealing a blow
to Rabat’s aspirations and forcing some multinational corporations to
rethink their participation in the venture. Secondly, Polisario was able
to capitalize on King Mohamed VI’s statement in November 2001 that
his country was no longer open to the idea of a referendum of any kind
in Western Sahara, a significant rhetorical retreat from even the policies
of his father and predecessor, Hassan II (who had died in 1999). In sum,
Polisario was able to appear as the more accommodating and pragmatic
party, as diplomatic efforts continued into early 2005 to extract some
sort of favorable sign from Morocco that it would entertain the implementation
of perhaps a modified version of James Baker’s second autonomy
proposal.