Overview

Historical background

Early period

Sanhaja Berber nomads are believed to have started migrating into the area of modern-day Western Sahara around 1,000 BC. After the arrival of the camel from the east in AD 50, the Sanhaja periodically controlled the lucrative trans-Saharan trade routes. But from the seventh century they began to experience fierce competition from Zenata Berbers to the north, who eventually took over the trade routes. In the eleventh century, the Sanhaja rose to dominance again with the emergence of the Almoravids, followers of a fervent Islamic movement who conquered vast swathes of west and north Africa and ruled for a century in southern Spain.

The direct descendents of present-day Saharawis represent a fusion between the Sanhaja Berbers and Arab tribes originating from Yemen. Invasions by the Beni Hassan in the fifteenth century led to the gradual domination and Arabization of the Sanhaja. This gave rise to a new ethnic group called the Beidan or Moors, whose language evolved into Hassaniya. The area they occupied was known as Trab Ab-beidan (the land of the whites), its limits defined mainly by natural barriers such as the Atlantic coast to the west; Ouad or Wad Noun in the north; the Senegal River to the south; and the hostile, barren desert to the east.

Those nomadic pastoral tribes roamed mainly along Western Sahara’s coastal area and developed different political structures from those that largely occupied modern-day Mauritania. They did not form emirates as in Mauritania and, when not fighting amongst themselves, regulated their affairs and relations by inter-tribal assemblies like the djemaa or ait arbain (the council of forty). These would meet to organize collective defense and raids, resolve civil disputes, and punish crimes. Primary loyalties were to family, faction, and tribe. The Saharawis never constituted a nation as such in pre-colonial times ( Hodges 1983 ).

By the eighteenth century, a certain degree of stability was introduced into the region of Saguiat el Hamra, today’s northern part of Western Sahara, when it became known as the ‘Land of the Saints’. Smara, the first pre-colonial town, was founded as a sacred centre of learning, attracting people from far and wide in search of religious instruction.

Spanish colonialism and resistance

Spain’s initial interest in Western Sahara was driven by the desire to protect its nearby Canary Islands and the fishermen that operated from there. In 1884, it proclaimed a protectorate from Cape Bojador to Cape Blanc along the Western Sahara coast and set up a trading post in Dakhla (‘Villa Cisneros’ in Spanish). This act was then ratified during the carving up of Africa by the European powers in the Berlin Conference of 1885. France, meanwhile, had become the dominant power in north-west Africa and sought to extend its possessions. It took three Franco-Spanish treaties in 1900, 1904, and 1912 to define the borders of Western Sahara.

Until the late 1930s, Spain’s rule in Western Sahara was confined to a limited presence along the coast. It did not venture much into the interior nor meddle with the affairs of the Saharawi tribes. Relations with the new rulers were fairly reasonable. In fact it was against France’s aggressive colonial agenda that the Saharawi tribes directed their fiercest resistance. Western Sahara’s interior became an ideal springboard for launching attacks against French targets in Mauritania and Morocco. These intensified between the years 1923 and 1934, until France threatened to occupy Spain’s territories if it did not crush Saharawi resistance activities. This led to the ‘pacification’ of the Saharawi tribes through joint Franco-Spanish military co-operation. Only in 1934 did Spain finally take full possession of its colony.

In the late 1940s, the discovery of the biggest high-grade phosphate deposits in the world ushered in a new era of deepened colonial interest in Western Sahara. But in 1956, as Morocco gained its independence from France, the spectre of renewed resistance looked to threaten Spain’s plans. Members of Saharawi tribes had enthusiastically signed up to join the Army of Liberation, a broad anti-colonial struggle against the French and Spanish. The Saharawis formed their own wing. At this stage, however, it was hardly a nationalist movement, as the primary concern was to drive out foreign rule in the region rather than to build a nation.

Spain’s colonial hold was under attack, and France’s surrounding colonies in Algeria and Mauritania were also threatened, so the two countries once again co-operated to stamp out the destabilizing uprisings. This became possible with the complicity of the newly independent Moroccan government. In February 1958, in a military action known as the Ecouvillion Operation, the Saharawi wing of the Liberation Army was brutally put down. In return for helping to cut off their source of supplies and munitions from southern Morocco, Spain awarded Tarfaya to Morocco a couple of months later, in the Cintra Agreements ( Diego Aguirre 1988 ). This strip, historically inhabited by Saharawis, lay directly north of today’s Western Saharan border and had a distinct administrative status from the rest of Spain’s colony. Saguiat el Hamra and Rio de Oro, the remaining regions, were then jointly declared a Spanish province and the colony was renamed Spanish Sahara.

Many of those who had fought in the Liberation Army fled to the Tarfaya region and for nearly a decade, Saharawi resistance was laid to rest.

The rise of Saharawi nationalism and the Polisario Front

Spain’s mission to exploit the mineral wealth of Western Sahara in the 1950s and 1960s led to crucial changes in the Saharawi socio-economic reality ( Seddon 1989 ). Most importantly, large numbers of Saharawis forcibly settled and urbanized; and coinciding with a gradual decline in their pastoral economy, they became cheap labour to work in the phosphate mines and expand the colonial infrastructure. Saharawis of different tribes and castes alike were living and working together in the growing towns of the territory and were being subjected to the same conditions of oppression and exploitation. These various processes, by the late 1960s, had sparked renewed anti-colonial sentiments and had created the conditions for the emergence of a Saharawi identity that went beyond traditional kinship ties.

Towards the end of 1967, Harakat Tahrir (the movement for the liberation of Saguia el Hamra wa Oued ed-Dahab) was formed. Unlike previous forms of resistance, it was the territory’s first urban-based political movement. Headed by Bassiri, a Koranic teacher in Smara, Harakat Tahrir called for the de-colonization of the territory and demanded wide-ranging social and economic reforms. It also sought radical changes to the Saharawi institution of sheikhs and the ineffective, undemocratic political mechanisms set up by the colonialists to ‘represent’ Saharawi interests. The movement attracted a broad base of support, particularly from the Saharawi youth, the unskilled and semi-skilled labour force, and, more alarming yet for the Spanish, a significant number of soldiers from the Nomadic Troops.

Under Franco’s dictatorship this phenomenon was intolerable. When the movement decided to present its list of demands and grievances in 1970 through a peacefully organized demonstration, it was dealt with in a decisively harsh manner. Saharawis were killed, the leader was never seen again, and many members were arrested and imprisoned for months. Harakat Tahrir collapsed. Nonetheless, these events were to prove key for spurring on developments that were taking place elsewhere.

By 1970, an academic elite of some forty Saharawi students from the Tarfaya region were enrolled at the Mohammed V University in Rabat. They were influenced by radical student politics in Morocco, the rise of Third-World liberation movements, and the events in Spanish Sahara. Seeing themselves as the nucleus for a new liberation movement, they began recruiting Saharawis within Morocco and beyond, in Spanish Sahara, and from the Diaspora in Mauritania and Algeria. Initially, they also sought the support of the Moroccan government in their quest to end Spanish rule, but this changed after anti-Spanish demonstrations, staged in southern Morocco in 1972, led to widespread arrests. This incident, along with contact with former members of the Harakat Tahrir who sought independence rather than integration with Morocco, took the Rabat group in a more strongly nationalistic direction. The new centre of activity shifted to Zouerate in Mauritania, and on 10 May 1973, the Polisario Front declared its birth. It also aimed to build a nation that eradicated all forms of inequality and would use armed struggle to achieve total freedom from colonial rule.

Ten days after its inception, the Polisario Front launched the first of its hit-and-run attacks on Spanish targets. Despite being a small, poorly armed group, the effectiveness of the guerrilla fighters grew over the next two years. The level of support gained from the Saharawi population also grew dramatically.

The UN, the International Court of Justice and the question of Saharawi self-determination

In 1963, Western Sahara was included in the UN list of Non-Self-Governing Territories, which effectively identified those countries to be de-colonized. By 1966, the UN General Assembly had adopted its first resolution, requesting Spain, as administering power, to organize a referendum on self-determination for the people of Western Sahara. At the time, the OAU Council of Ministers also adopted the first of many resolutions on Western Sahara, calling for its ‘freedom and independence’.

Spain did not indicate its readiness to implement the UN resolutions until eight years later, in 1974. Pressured by the increasingly emboldened Polisario operations, the Spanish announced plans to hold a referendum within the first six months of 1975. But at the very first signs of Spanish intentions to promote self-rule for Western Sahara, Morocco began to vigorously lobby support for its sovereignty claims over the territory. It even threatened military action if Spain included an independence option in the referendum. Mauritania, for reasons of self-preservation, also made a bid for part of Western Sahara. Tensions rose and the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution at the end of the year requesting Spain to postpone its planned referendum, in order to obtain an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague.

A UN visiting mission to the region in May 1975 witnessed unprecedented support for the Polisario Front, and confirmed in its report that a huge majority of Saharawis wanted independence and rejected the territorial claims of both Morocco and Mauritania. The ICJ’s advisory opinion of 16 October 1975 vindicated these sentiments, declaring unequivocally that it had found no historical or legal ties whose nature either established Moroccan or Mauritanian territorial sovereignty over Western Sahara or impeded the application of the principle of self-determination.

Three historical events played an important role in influencing the view of the ICJ. These concerned treaties between the Moroccan sultans and European countries signed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Two of them with Spain, in 1767 and 1799 respectively, clearly indicated that beyond the Wad Noun region (now in southern Morocco) the sultans could not be held responsible for anything that befell Spaniards operating there, as their dominion did not extend that far. And in the nineteenth century, the sale to Morocco of an English trading post in the Tarfaya region was carried out with the understanding that, as it was not under the sultan’s domain, it had no right to give any part away without first obtaining explicit consent from Britain.

The Greater Morocco Thesis: Moroccan and Mauritanian claims over Western Sahara

Morocco’s sovereignty claims over Western Sahara originate in the Greater Morocco Thesis. First promulgated in 1956 by the leader of the Istiqlal party, it asserted that Western Sahara, Mauritania, part of Mali, a big chunk of the western Algerian desert, and even part of Senegal all belonged to a distant, mythic Morocco. This view, endorsed by the monarchy, referred to a period in the sixteenth century when the Moroccan empire held sway over vast stretches of land up to Timbuktu.

In practice, Morocco’s numerous claims proved to be full of contradictions and inconsistencies. As early as 1957, a Moroccan delegate to the UN claimed Mauritania and Western Sahara. Yet in 1966, Morocco mysteriously ignored its expansionist dreams and expressed support for the rights of the Saharawi people to exercise self-determination, at a meeting of the UN Special Committee on Decolonization. This position was reiterated quite consistently until 1974. In fact, as late as 1973, in two separate tripartite summits, Morocco joined Algeria and Mauritania in the same pledge of support.

Meanwhile, by the early 1960s, Morocco had quietly dropped its claims to parts of Mali and Senegal in exchange for desirable economic and diplomatic outcomes. The claim to Mauritania was upheld throughout the 1960s; but then in 1970, the Moroccan king Hassan II signed a treaty of friendship and co-operation with Ould Daddah, the Mauritanian president, and granted the country full diplomatic recognition. Once again territorial claims were dropped. As for Algeria, Morocco’s failed 1963 military campaign to forcefully take part of its neighbour’s western desert eventually led to the signing of a convention, in 1972, recognizing the existing borders between the two countries.

When claims to Mauritania and parts of Algeria were dropped, only Western Sahara remained. Although this was strongly resented by the Istiqlal party, Hassan II believed that in the case of Western Sahara, self-determination would lead to eventual integration with Morocco. In 1974, however, when this appeared unlikely, the Moroccan government abandoned its commitment to self-determination and once again asserted its right to direct annexation.

The political survival of the monarchy had, by this time, become inextricably tied to its determination to claim Western Sahara. This was starkly evident when Hassan II defied the landmark ICJ opinion of 16 October and announced on the same day that he would launch the Green March. Some 350,000 Moroccan unarmed citizens would be mobilized to enter into Western Sahara and reclaim the ‘ancestral lands’. Although roundly condemned by the UN, Spain, and Algeria, this act decisively set the stage for the ultimate endgame.

Spanish abandonment and the double invasion of Western Sahara

Towards the end of its colonial era, Spain had begun to reap substantial economic benefits from the rich phosphate deposits in Western Sahara; and by 1975, it had become the sixth major exporter in the world. Hassan II’s astuteness in pushing his claim to Western Sahara lay in pandering to Madrid’s economic interests in the territory while also exploiting the fragile internal political situation that prevailed due to Franco’s failing health. Hassan II gambled that with the right kind and amount of threat to the Spanish colony, events would turn his way. It paid off.

Indeed, Spain was very keen to avoid any kind of military confrontation with Morocco. A military incursion into Western Sahara on 31 October followed by the highly publicized Green March of Moroccans crossing into Spain’s colony on 6 November broke Iberian resolve. Key Spanish historians believe that had Franco been alive, the Saharawis would have obtained their independence ( Diego Aguirre 1988 ). But from the moment he became incapacitated to make decisions—ironically, the day after the ICJ opinion—different factions in his government took over. The ones willing to negotiate with Morocco ultimately prevailed. For as long as possible, however, Spain kept up the appearance of negotiating the gradual transfer of power to the Polisario. Back in Madrid, a deal was secretly hatching to hand administrative control over to Morocco and Mauritania, and by 14 November, the Tripartite Madrid Accord was signed. Spain was assured a 35 per cent share of the phosphate wealth.

The Polisario, who had come to represent Saharawi aspirations, vigorously opposed the deal, but it was already too late. Spain’s rapid evacuation from the colony before the end of the year was coupled with the build-up of Moroccan and Mauritanian forces along the northern and southern borders. The double invasion that followed was resisted by the Polisario forces, sparking armed hostilities that would endure for sixteen years.

By early 1976, Western Sahara was divided and occupied by the two neighbours. Morocco had secured about two-thirds of the northern part of the territory and Mauritania the remaining third in the south. When a defeated Mauritania renounced its claims over Western Sahara in 1979, Morocco annexed the rest of the territory.

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Politics

The political status of Western Sahara has been complicated and unresolved since the Spanish withdrew in 1975. On 27 February 1976, on the eve of Spain’s official transfer of administrative control of Western Sahara to Morocco and Mauritania, the Polisario Front self-proclaimed the creation of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR). Acting as a government-in-exile ever since, this symbolic move was taken to fill the political vacuum created by Spain’s departure. Nevertheless, it did not stop the two new occupying powers from dividing up Western Sahara. Consistent with its integrationist policy, Morocco renamed Saguiet el-Hamra the Saharan provinces of Laayoune, Smara, and Boujdour and ensured the region would participate in local elections controlled by the Alawite Kingdom by 1977. When Morocco subsequently annexed the remaining section of Western Sahara in 1979 after Mauritania withdrew from the conflict and recognized the SADR, it was renamed the Southern Province of Oued ed-Dahab and integrated into the Moroccan polity in 1983.

The civilian population living in occupied Western Sahara is subject to Moroccan law, and only Saharawis whose political views are aligned with the government fill the seats allotted to the Western Sahara in the Moroccan Parliament. Despite pretentions to being a democracy within a constitutional monarchy, the reality in Morocco and the occupied zones reveals absolute intolerance towards views or political parties that promote independence for Western Sahara.

To date, no country in the world has recognized Morocco’s de facto annexation of Western Sahara. It has failed in its long-desired quest to legitimize its occupation. If anything, the SADR has achieved a considerable degree of legitimacy. It was accepted as a full member state of the OAU in 1984 and enjoys full diplomatic ties with over sixty-five countries. Nevertheless, the SADR has not yet been recognized by a Western country and the Polisario Front only holds an observer status in the UN.

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Culture and society

Prior to the Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara, various Saharawi tribes made up the primary ethnic group inhabiting the territory. A Spanish census conducted in 1974 put the size of the overall Saharawi population at just under 75,000. There is no indication of Moroccan settlers in the census.

Although Spanish Sahara was a province of Spain, it did not become a settler colony like French Algeria. Saharawi culture and society remained largely intact and nomadic throughout most of the colonial period. But in the late 1960s and early 1970s, consecutive droughts forced substantial numbers of Saharawis to abandon animal husbandry and settle in the Spanish-built cities to subsist on colonial handouts. This trend of urbanization had an impact on the culture, especially on young people, who began to adopt Spanish dress and cultural tastes.

Saharawi culture and identity represents a distinctive combination of Berber, Arab, and African traits and shares many similarities with Mauritanian society. The form of dress, music, and dance point to strong African roots, while the spoken language (Hassaniya), the poetic tradition, and the religion have been shaped by the successive Arab Muslim invasions in the region over the centuries. Nevertheless, the Islam practiced by the Saharawis betrays Berber nomadic influences, especially with regard to women, as they enjoy a prominent social status and are able to re-marry freely without social prejudice.

Since the Moroccan annexation, the Saharawis have become a minority within their own land. This is due to a deliberate policy to Moroccanize Western Sahara and make the occupation irreversible. Between 1975 and 1991, large numbers of settlers came from northern Morocco, drawn by strong economic incentives. Following the period of the OAU–UN Settlement Plan from 1991, the Moroccan government brought in more Moroccans as well as tens of thousands of ‘pro-Moroccan’ ethnic Saharawis from the Tarfaya region. Living like virtual refugees, they have been set up in large wahda (unity) camps on the outskirts of Laayoune and Smara and were supposed to participate in the referendum, which has yet to take place.

For some parts of the territory, disparities in the population growth evidence a continuing and rapid influx of Moroccan settlers. In smaller towns like Boujdour and Dakhla, the rate is 4.8 per cent, whereas the national average is just over 2 per cent. According to the US State Department, estimated figures for the overall population size in the occupied territory range from 260,000 to 400,000. The latter figure was quoted by Le Monde in 2002, while statistics offered by local Moroccan authorities suggest something in between. These approximate figures do not take into account the large presence of the Moroccan army in Western Sahara nor the extensive web of security forces.

Exact demographic breakdowns are difficult to obtain. Moroccan authorities have little interest in distinguishing between the native Saharawis and the Moroccan settlers. For the most part the population lives in towns: the range varies from 95 per cent for the Laayoune region to 60 per cent for the Smara part of the Goulimine-Smara region. Based on anecdotal evidence and the initial UN figure of 46,255 eligible Saharawi voters on the occupied side, it is reasonable to extrapolate that there are at least 90,000 indigenous Saharawis in the territory. Various observers and informal sources estimate that the Saharawis are outnumbered by Moroccans by three to one.

There is virtually no integration between the Moroccan settler population and the indigenous Saharawis. Marriages between the two communities have not been known to occur. Any interaction that does take place is almost solely out of necessity. Education, of course, is an inevitable realm of interface and is a site of cultural contest ( Shelley 2004 ). All the schools are Moroccan-run and are overwhelmingly staffed by Moroccan teachers. From early on, Saharawi students experience a divergence between the taught curricula history and the oral history related at home, and become aware of differences in customs and culture. Officially, the school attendance rate is high. But many Saharawi families maintain that the drop-out rate for their children is steep because of all the corollary costs involved in sending them to school.

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Geography

Western Sahara is located in north-west Africa and covers an area of 266,000 km2. It is roughly the size of Britain. It shares a 443 km-long border with Morocco in the north, a 42 km-long border with Algeria to the east, a 1,561 km-long border with Mauritania to the south-east, and has a 1,100 km-long Atlantic Ocean coastline.

The topography is mostly made up of low, flat desert with large areas of rocky or sandy surfaces rising to small mountains in the south and the north-east. The lowest point is the salt flat of Sebhet Tah at 55 m below sea level, and the highest (unnamed) point is 463 m. The climate is continental in the interior, with cold, dry winters and extremely hot summers with temperatures reaching 60 ºC (in the shade). Along the coastal area, cold offshore air currents produce fog and heavy dew. Rain is rare, and there are no permanent bodies of surface water.

Western Sahara is divided into two regions, Saguiet el-Hamra in the north and Wadi ed-Dahab (Rio de Oro) in the south. The northern zone is characterized by dry riverbeds. Saguiet El-Hamra (the ‘Red Canal’—the most important one) lends its name to the region and gathers rain during the brief rainy seasons, generally in the autumn. But because of the high temperatures, the water evaporates before it reaches the sea. Sufficient vegetation for grazing grows along its banks, and at Smara, barley and corn are cultivated. In Wadi ed-Dahab, the ground is too permeable to retain the autumn waters and too flat to allow it to flow; hence water accumulates in the subsoil, forming numerous wells.

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Economy

Western Sahara is considered rich in mineral resources. In addition to its extensive phosphate deposits, it is believed to harbour substantial iron ore. Numerous oil-exploration studies also point to the potential of large offshore oil reserves. The territory is renowned for its rich fishing waters off the long coastline.

Pastoral nomadism, once the mainstay of the Saharawi livelihood, has dwindled greatly. No more than 10 per cent of the population practice it today. Trade, historically an important economic activity, has also been largely undermined by the conflict. Movement across the border with Mauritania from the Moroccan occupied zone has been virtually impossible. Saharawis living in the Polisario-controlled areas of Western Sahara, however, are able to move in and out of Mauritania. According to the governor of Smara, Morocco has also begun looking for ways to increase the volume of trade with Mauritania via Western Sahara. In 2002, a border-crossing south of Smara was opened, and another had been opened earlier south of Dakhla at the point where the coastal Route 41 runs into Mauritania.

For the most part, Western Sahara’s economic potential has yet to be unlocked. The disputed status of the territory presents an obstacle for the Moroccan government. International law dictates that only a legitimate sovereign state can use and dispose of natural resources. Morocco enjoys neither sovereign legitimacy in Western Sahara nor recognition in the UN list as the administrating power for a Non-Self-Governing Territory. The latter status was not conferred upon Morocco during the Tripartite Madrid Agreement because Spain did not have the unilateral right to authorize such transfer of power. With this status Morocco could exploit resources only if it did not go against the desires and interests of the indigenous Saharawi population.

Regardless, Morocco has persisted with its economic plans for Western Sahara. According to official figures, it has invested at least US$1 billion in the infrastructure since 1976. Over 90 per cent of households have electricity and 80 per cent have drinking water. Both these rates are much higher than the figures given for the Moroccan national average ( Shelley 2004 ).

In recent years, the Moroccan government has been pursuing ambitious plans to develop the fishing industry as part of its overall scheme to boost fish exports. It has invested roughly US$90 million in upgrading existing ports, modernizing the fishing fleets, and building new fishing communities. Seasonally, the fishing industry employs up to 12,000 people, although hardly any of them are Saharawi. The reasons are partly cultural. Saharawis have no experience of fishing as a way of life. Also, most cannot afford the initial capital investments required. In terms of the phosphate industry, a third of Morocco’s exports originate from Western Sahara, and the mines at Bu Craa employ the largest permanent workforce, of some 2,000. Again, of these, the Saharawis represent a minority and increasingly have been restricted to low-paid manual jobs.

In the past ten years, Morocco’s state oil industry, ONAREP, has entered into contract with various foreign companies for oil reconnaissance and evaluation, but Polisario protests and international campaigning have so far discouraged further steps towards actual exploitation. In 2002, the highest-level UN legal counsel deemed such activities would be illegal. The Polisario is seeking a similar opinion in regard to Morocco’s fishing and phosphate-exporting activities. Most recently, in 2004, Morocco signed up with Wessex Oil, a company with offices in both London and Houston, to undertake new oil explorations.

On the whole, the territory is desperately underdeveloped. Its economic activity rate is the lowest for any region under Moroccan control. Due to an almost complete lack of private investment, employment is primarily provided for by the public sector. In 2002, the number employed in the public domain was around 20,000, versus a paltry 2,620 in the private sector. This is very costly, as the salaries paid out are at least 85 per cent higher than in Morocco proper: part of the economic incentive package to lure settlers. Other ‘benefits’ include widespread subsidies for a range of basic goods, and most importantly, large-scale building has been undertaken to provide free new housing for newcomers and to generate new jobs ( Shelley 2004 ).

Job opportunities are very limited. Official unemployment rates are dismal. Hovering at 25 per cent and above, it is well over the national average, which in recent years has stood at around 13 per cent. The figure is even higher for the indigenous Saharawis, according to the Association of the Saharawi Unemployed. It claims that 86–8 per cent of available jobs are occupied by Moroccans, and that employment generation is targeted at the settlers, to keep them in Western Sahara. It appears that Saharawis are all but excluded from state jobs with responsibilities or higher salaries. Such a situation has been the basis for widespread grievances among the Saharawis, and has led to sporadic manifestations and clashes with the Moroccan authorities.

As long as Morocco is unable to reap any significant economic profits from the territory, the costs to maintain its occupation in Western Sahara will remain considerable. The military costs alone amount to US$3–4 million per day. The price for not addressing rampant unemployment among the Saharawis is also likely to generate further social and political costs.

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The ‘liberated zone’

A brief mention needs to be made of the area of Western Sahara under Polisario control.

Since the Moroccans built the berm, the region beyond it in Western Sahara has effectively been under the domain of the Polisario forces. The area, corresponding to about one-fifth of the entire territory, is a narrow strip running along the entire eastern and south-eastern border. It is divided into numerous military regions where the Polisario have carried out their training exercises during the cease-fire period.

All the main towns in Western Sahara are within the Moroccan-controlled part. There is virtually no infrastructure within the ‘liberated zone’. In the past few years, a number of Spanish organizations have provided financial and material support to build two hospitals in preparation for an eventual referendum, but apart from that, there is very little else. The area is known to be of great archeological interest, with many cave paintings and Neolithic sites. Between 10,000 and 30,000 Saharawis continue practising a nomadic pastoral life in the area despite the constant danger presented by landmines.

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