WESTERN SAHARA-MOROCCO: Polisario Prepares for Peace Talks in Lisbon

By Moyiga Nduru Reprint | | Print |

Moyiga Nduru

LONDON, Jun 16 1997 (IPS) - The Polisario Front is preparing for U.N.- brokered talks with Morocco in the Portuguese capital of Lisbon, to try to end the conflict in Western Sahara.

Ibrahim Moukhtar, a top official at the Polisario office here, told IPS on Monday that they had already sent an acknowledgement letter to the U.N. Secretary General, Kofi Annan, on June 15 informing him that they would participate in the parley.

The talks, which will be chaired by U.N. envoy James Baker, will begin on June 23. Neighbours Algeria and Mauritania would participate as observers.

Baker, a former US secretary of state, is the first U.N. envoy ever to bring together belligerents Morocco and the Polisario Front to a negotiation table here last week.

Moukhtar said he considers the London conference as a major breakthrough in the conflict in the Western Sahara. Until last week, Morocco had refused to enter into direct talks with Polisario in the past 20 years.

“It was a major achievement. But we still have a lot to do to bring peace to the Western Sahara,” he said.

Conflict erupted in Western Sahara, or former Spanish Sahara, when the territory was invaded by Morocco in 1975. The move to invade Western Sahara forced tens of thousands of Saharawi people to flee the territory.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) say there are 160,000 refugees from the disputed territory surviving in harsh desert camps in Algeria.

In 1991, the U.N. brokered a peace plan between Morocco and the Polisario. A referendum for self-determination was planned for 1992. The Plan was devised to allow the 74,000 Saharawi people, counted in the 1974 Spanish census, to exercise their right to self- determination through a free and fair referendum.

However, Morocco presented the United Nations with a list of 180,000 of additional voters it wished to include in the referendum. The Polisario Front rejected it. Six years later, after the U.N. has spent over four billion dollars, the referendum still has not taken place.

To break the impasse, the new U.N. Secretary General, following his election in New York, appointed Baker as his envoy and charged him with the task to finding a peaceful solution to the conflict in Western Sahara.

Following his appointment, Baker made a trip to Morocco, Algeria and Mauritania to acquaint himself with the problems in the territory, an expanse of desert measuring over 260,000 square kilometres bordered by the three countries.

That trip resulted in last week’s meeting in London, attended by the prime minister of Morocco Abdelatif Filali and the Polisario’s senior foreign affairs official Bachir Mustafa Sayed. Top officials from Algeria and Mauritania also attended.

“We see direct talks as the only way to resolve the conflict in the Western Sahara,” said Moukhtar. “Until recently, Morocco continually refused Polisario calls for direct negotiations over the implementation of the U.N. Plan.”

Political analysts here attribute Morocco’s holding direct talks with the Polisario Front to the changing international political situation.

“King Hassan of Morocco is no longer important in that volatile region…his role has diminished since the end of the Cold War,” said Moussa Abdelatif, a researcher at the London School of Economics.

Abdelatif told IPS on Monday that King Hassan’s plan to resolve the conflict in Western Sahara by military means has been rendered unrealistic by the peace settlement between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). “If Israel and the PLO can settle their differences through negotiations… why not Morocco and the Polisario,” he argued.

Both Morocco and Polisario are attending the parley without any preconditions. “We are going to Lisbon with open mind…but we are aware that the issue of referendum will be on the agenda,” said Moukhtar.

He, however, refused to contemplate what would happen if the talks collapse. “We hope not. A return to conflict should be the last resort,” said Moukhtar.