WESTERN SAHARA: Polisario Renews Calls For Talks With Morocco

By Moyiga Nduru Reprint | | Print |

Moyiga Nduru

LONDON, Apr 15 1997 (IPS) - A top Polisario official has urged the new U.N. envoy to Western Sahara to put pressure on Morocco to accept a peaceful settlement of the conflict in the region.

“We hope Mr. James Baker will use his good offices to bring Polisario and Morocco to a negotiation table for talks,” said Kamal Fadel, deputy representative of the Saharawi Liberation Movement, the Polisario, in the United Kingdom.

Fadel said he hopes that Baker, a former U.S. Secretary of State, will be able to break the 21-year deadlock in the conflict in Western Sahara, claimed by Morocco.

The fighting in Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony in North Africa bordered by Morocco, Mauritania, Algeria and the Atlantic Ocean, erupted in 1975. After two years of fighting, the Spanish withdrew, abandoning two thirds of the colony to Morocco and the rest to Mauritania.

Mauritania withdrew from the area in 1979, leaving Morocco to battle it out with the Polisario. “In order to maintain its rule in Western Sahara, Morocco constructed a wall longer than the Great Wall of China, manned by 200,000 troops,” said Fadel.

Morocco’s move to crack down on the Polisario only intensified the fighting, causing the flight of some 165,000 refugees into neighbouring Algeria.

In an attempt to find a peaceful solution to the dispute, the U.N. sponsored a referendum on the future of Western Sahara, originally scheduled for 1992 and which has been postponed several times since then.

“Observers from the U.N. Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) remained in place, but freedom of expression, association and movement in Western Sahara continued to be restricted,” said a recent report by London-based human rights organisation Amnesty International.

The report said that “hundreds of Saharawis… who ‘disappeared’ in previous years remained unaccounted for. And former Saharawi ‘disappeared’ prisoners who were released in 1991 continued to be subject to restrictions and some were rearrested.”

Amnesty International called upon the authorities in Rabat to extend the “positive steps” in Morocco, such as release of prisoners of conscience and decrease in the use of torture, to Western Sahara.

Polisario officials claim that King Hassan of Morocco has made it clear that he would not give up Western Sahara.

Fadel said the people of Western Sahara were disturbed by the United Nations’ failure to organise the proposed referendum in which Saharawis would be able to choose between independence and integration with Morocco. “The people feel that they have been let down,” he said.

“However, the appointment of Mr. Baker in March has calmed down those fears… because Mr. Baker is regarded as a high profile politician… who hails from the most powerful nation on earth,” said Fadel.

Baker was assigned to the job by the new U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, who is expected to travel to Morocco, Algeria and, most likely, to Mauritania next week to hold talks with officials there.

Addressing reporters in Washington earlier this month Baker said Annan had asked him to make a specific assessment of whether the UN’s current peace efforts should continue, and if not, then to suggest other avenues.

“It seems to me the constellations are such that there should be the potential for some possibilities here,” Baker said after meeting Annan and other U.N. officials. “All I can tell you is I will give it my very best effort.”

So far Western Sahara has been recognised, as an independent country, by 75 countries. But the pace of international recognition started picking up in the mid-1970’s after it was admitted by the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) as a member.

Unhappy with the OAU’s decision to recognise the territory, Morocco suspended its membership from the pan-African body, creating a stalemate in the conflict. “We hope that Mr. Baker will revive the issue of the referendum to enable Polisario and Morocco to resolve the dispute once and for all,” said Fadel.

Fadel, who returned from a visit to the refugee camps in Algeria on Apr. 10, said he found the refugees desperate for a peace settlement. “The Saharawi people have suffered a great deal. We belong to a generation that has known only refugee life for 21 years of Morocco occupation. Only with concrete and positive action can the next generation be saved from the same fate,” he said.

The refugees, who make up the majority of the Saharawi people, depend on international aid.