|
Dispute for control of Western
Sahara
– 1975/1991
(to present day)
During the 15th
century, a series of
Portuguese garrison forts on the Atlantic coast called presidios was
established, while in the Mediterranean, Spanish forces threatened
the Moroccan littoral. In the late 1400's, Spain established a
colony on the Canary Islands and forced the people of the islands to
work on sugar plantations.In the meanwhile the
Saadians, who claimed descent from Muhammad and were called sharifs,
took a strong position in support of jihad against the Portuguese, a
position that put them in immediate opposition to the Wattasid
policy of appeasement and collaboration. By 1530 they held the
southern half of Morocco and in 1541 they captured the Portuguese
fortress of Santa Cruz (Agadir).
THE SAADIANS (1509-1659)
In 1544 the Saadians won their
struggle for supremacy in the region against the Wattasid dinasty, as Muhammad al-Sheik was proclaimed sultan
in Marrakesh. In 1548/49 he occupied Fez, ejected the Wattasids and
became sultan of Morocco. The Saadians defended their territory
from both Christian and Muslim incursions, most notably by the
Portuguese and by the Ottomans based in Algeria. Under them Morocco
remained the only North African state to evade Ottoman occupation.
Saadians ruled the
region until the half of 17th century, when parts of the country and
the Western Sahara came under Portuguese, Spanish and French
influence.
In 1578 the king
of Portugal Sebastian I the Pretender, allied to king Philip II of
Spain,
tried to reverse
the sultan of Morocco Abd El Malik. Ignoring any warnings, king
Sebastian landed Morocco and during the Battle of Three Kings near
Ksar to el-Kébir (Morocco), the 40.000 cavaliers of the Saadian
sultan destroyed the 18.000 troops Portuguese. Both King Sebastian
and the Sultan Abd El Malik died.
After Portugal lost its independence to Spain in 1580,
under Philip II, the Spaniards became the dominant influence along
the coast while Saadians practised a policy of expansion towards the
south which was concretized in 1591 by the conquest of Mali, then
called "Country of the Blacks". The principal sovereign of the
Saadian dynasty, Ahmed El Mansour, called El Dehbi, "gilded", send
an armada of 4000 soldiers equipped with small guns and cannons
assembled on camels and a team of Spanish gunners to fire them.
Most of those chosen by al-Mansur to take part in the invasion were
not of Moroccan origin. The force was so overwhelmingly
extra-national in origin that the official language of the
expedition was Spanish. The benefit was immense: the gold produced
in the gold bearing zones of the rivers Senegal and Niger, but also
the ambergris, the skins of leopard and the slaves, which were
exchanged against products of agriculture and craft industry.
In 1603 sultan Ahmed
El Mansour died and left left three sons, all rivals to the throne.
Morocco felt into civil war, and was divided into smaller
sultanates.
In 1638 the
Spaniards were replaced in the region by the Dutch, who were the
first to begin exploiting the gum Arabic trade, produced by the
acacia trees of Trarza and Brakna and used in textile pattern
printing.
The Dutch seized
from Portugal the Island of Arguin, close to the present-day border
with Mauritania, Then the English temporarily controlled it in 1665,
the French in 1678, the Prussians in 1685; finally the Dutch again
in 1717. In 1727, by the Treaty of Hague, the Dutch ceded Arguin to
France.
Gum and slaves were too good reasons for all the European powers to
take control of western Africa. But so far the occupation was
limited to the coast and it was only at the end of 19th century that
the European presence became effective, in the frame of the
colonization of the continent.
THE ALAOUITES
(1631-today)
In the 17th century a new dynasty, the Alaouites (or Alawites,
ruling Morocco from 1666 to today), gained power in the region and made
Morocco a greater power, taking back the control of most of the
ports and dominating till Senegal.
The Alaouite
Dynasty is the name of the current Moroccan royal family. The name
Alaouite comes from its founder, Al-Raschid (or Ali Cherif), who
became Sultan in 1666. Al-Raschid, unlike preceding dynasties, did
not seize power but was formally invited by the people of Fez to
take over the throne of Morocco.
The Alaouite family claimed descent from Muhammad, through the line
of Ali ibn Abi Talib and Fatima Zahra (Muhammad's daughter).
They entered Morocco from the Hejaz at the end of the 13th Century.
They began to increase their power in southern Morocco during the
anarchy following the death of the Saadi Ahmad I al-Mansur in 1603,
and in 1659 the last ruler of the Saadi was overthrown in the
conquest of Marrakesh, and after the victory over the Dila
brotherhood who controlled northern Morocco Mulai al-Rashid
(1664-1672) was able to unite and pacify the country.
The organisation of the kingdom developed under Moulay Ismail
(1672-1727) who began to create a unified state against the
opposition of local tribes. Because the Alouites, in contrast to
previous dynasties, did not have the support of a single Berber or
Bedouin tribe, Ismail controlled Morrocco through an incredible army
of 150.000 black slaves, mostly from Sudan. With these soldiers he
drove the English from Tangiers (1684) and the Spanish from Larache
(1689), while the Ottoman Turks were sweeping westward. He
exchanged ambassadorts with many leading powers. Meknes was chosen
by Moulay Ismael as the imperial capital city built on the model of
Versailles.
The Alaouites succeeded in stabilizing their position, and while the
kingdom was much smaller than before, it remained quite wealthy.
But at the death of Moulay Ismail, his black army sacked the country
and a long period of anarchy started.
Twelve sons of Moulay Ismail ruled one after another, according to
the whims of an army which made and demolished the sultans. The
cases of the State were emptied and the country even knew beginnings
of famine.
In
1757, another wise and strong Alaouite ruler came to the throne,
Mohamed ben Abdellah, who built the city of Essaouira and invited
the English, the French, and the Jewish to settle and to trade
there. Several trade treaties are signed with the European powers.
Then the wild tribes of the Souss area who had not previously
acknowledged the central authority were pacified and helped the
sultan to keep control of the country.
READ MORE ABOUT THE PRE-COLONIAL
RULE
THE SPANISH COLONISATION
In 1766 a
Spanish mission set out to find an outpost on the Atlantic Coast
between the desert and the south of Atlas Mountains, but the sultans
who at that time governed Morocco could not fulfil the request
because they did not have the necessary authority over this
territory.
In 1767
King Charles III of Spain and Sultan Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdallah of
Morocco signed the Marrakech peace-treaty in which
the Moroccan ruler recognised
the Spanish title to some Presidios, Ceuta and Melilla among them.
In the text the Sultan affirmed
that he did not exercise effective control of the Oued Noun
river region and further.
MARRAKESH TREATY, art. 18 | May 28, 1767
( http://www.wsahara.net/m_treaty.html)
This treaty has two controversial translations. The one in Arabic
reads:
"His Imperial Majesty (of Morocco) warns the inhabitants of the
Canaries against any fishing expedition to the coasts of Oued Noun
and beyond. He disclaims any responsibility for the way they may be
treated by the Arabs of the country, to whom it is difficult to
apply decisions, since they have no fixed residence, travel as they
wish and pitch their tents where they choose. The inhabitants of
the Canaries are certain to be maltreated by those Arabs."
The Spanish text reads:
"His Imperial majesty (of Morocco) refrains from expressing an
opinion with regard to the trading post which His Catholic Majesty
(of Spain) wishes to establish to the south of the River Noun, since
He can not take responsibility for accidents and misfortunes,
because Sus dominios (His domination) does not extend so far. (?)
Northwards from Santa Cruz (Agadir), His Imperial Majesty grants to
the Canary Islanders and the Spaniards the rights of fishing without
authorizing any other nation to do so."
Despite the differences in formulation, both texts make the point
that the sultan did not exercise effective control of the Oued Noun
region, which now is part of Morocco.
The real meaning of Article 18 is clarified by a letter sent by the
sultan to Carlos III on the day the treaty was signed. Referring to
the "Arabs of the coast of Oued Noun," he said that
"they are not subordinate to nor fearful
of anyone, because they are greatly separated from my dominions and
I do not have power over them ... These Arabs have no fixed abode
and move around as it pleases them without submitting to government
or any authority."
This
statement was confirmed in 1799 by the Meknes Treaty signed between
Spain and sultan Sidi Moulay Souleiman.
MEKNES TREATY, art. 22 | May 1, 1799
( http://www.wsahara.net/m_treaty.html)
"If any Spanish ship is shipwrecked in the Oued Noun and its coast,
where His Moroccan Majesty does not exercise dominion, he offers
nonetheless, to prove how much he appreciates the friendship of His
Catholic Majesty, to avail himself of the most opportune and
effective measures to extract and free the seamen and other
individuals who have the misfortune to fall into the hands of the
natives there."
The implication of these articles was that the sultan did not
exercise sovereignty or effective control of the Oued Noun but was
willing to use his influence there to secure the release of
shipwrecked Spaniards. By extension, the article implies that the
sultan can not have exercised sovereignty over Western Sahara, which
is further south of Oued Noun.
In the
Saharawi tribal culture no tribe had any direct or indirect power
over any other (in contrast with its neighbours, for example
Morocco, where there was a hereditary monarch with absolute powers,
or Mauritania, where it was the strongest tribe which imposed
tribute on the weaker tribes and, in general, dominated them) and
each one was represented in an overall governing body called the
Assembly of Forty.
Each
Saharawi tribe was divided into sub-tribes which had so much
autonomy that a colonial historian from Spain described them as
living in "complete anarchy". This was not so, for so organized was
the tribal society as a whole that they actually had "kafirs", that
is official representatives to neighbouring tribes in Algeria,
Morocco and Mauritania.
Disputes were handled either in a friendly way or by compensation
according to Islamic laws. More serious disputes were taken to the
counsel of the chiefs of tribes, called Ait Arbein. Today a similar
organised structure exists in the administration of the refugee
camps.
In the
last quarter of the 18th century Morocco was affected by a terrible
dryness, generator of famine. In the meanwhile the kingdom was
disturbed by an unfortunate war against Spain and by dissidences of
sultan's brothers. The sultan himself died in combat during one of
these revolts. Then a terrible epidemic of plague came. All these
calamities together terribly weakened the country, which perhaps
lost half of its population.
A renewed
attempt at centralisation was abandoned and the tribes were allowed
preserving their autonomy. Saguia el-Hamra, the region between Cape
Bojador and the today Moroccan border, became known as the "Land of
Saints", a centre of Islamic learning and holiness, which attracted
people in search of instruction from far and wide.
Sultan
Mulay Muhammad ibn Abdallah (1757-1790) was not willing to accept
Spanish rule over Melilla. He laid siege to the city in 1771 and
again in from December 9th 1774 to March 19th 1775, with over 10.000
projectiles shot into Melilla. On December 25th 1780, Spain and
Morocco signed the Treaty of Aranjuez, in which Spain ceded some
territory to Morocco, which in turn recognized Spanish rule over the
remainder of Melilla.
At the
end of the 18th century colonialism seemed to have become to an
end. Britain had lost its "Thirteen Colonies" in America, Spain and
Portugal had lost most of South America and Holland was having
difficulties holding onto the East Indies.
But in
the 19th century a second wave of colonisation took place and soon
the strategic importance and economic potential of north-west Africa
excited the interest of the European powers.
Sultan
Abd ar-Rahman's reign on Morocco (1822-1859) was marked by both
peaceful and hostile contacts with European powers. In 1823 a
commercial convention with Portugal was signed, followed by
comparable agreements with England in 1824, Piedmont and France in
1825. By time France became the dominant power in north-west Africa
and sought to extend its possessions.
Abd
ar-Rahman sought, unsuccessfully, to take advantage of the overthrow
of Turkish rule in Algeria in order to extend his territory. After
France occupied Alger, he allied himself against France with the
Algerian emir, Abd al-Kader, but after their defeat at Isly in 1844,
he signed the peace with France. In 1845 the Treaty of Lalla
Maghnia fixed the border between Algeria and Morocco. France was
recognized a right on Morocco.
Mohammed
IV (1859-1873) tried to foster trading links, above all with
European countries and the USA. The army and administration were
also modernised, to improve control over the Berber and Bedouin
tribes. But many local lords where sometimes more powerful that the
sultan himself.
Then the
Sultan tried to occupy Ceuta and Melilla in 1859 and as a reaction
Spain invaded Tetouan. Far from
being a small episode of colonialism, the Spanish-Moroccan
African war of 1859 caused about 10.000 casualties.
Spanish interest in the territory was
principally determined by its desire to protect its nearby Canary
Islands and the fishermen that operated from there. In facts, from
time to time, Spain was forced to negotiate with the chieftains of
the area to obtain the restitution of its sailors captured by the
local tribes.
In 1860,
following its defeat, Morocco gave up Sidi Ifni to Spain and was
constrained to pay significant war indemnities. So, after giving up
a good part of its sovereignty in customs, tax and legal matters, it
entered a period of great political and economical crisis, growing a
heavy debt with foreign banks, mainly English.
Moulay el
Hassan (1873-1894) had the task of pacifying the tribes and was the
first monarch to enter the wild Souss area, around Agadir, where the
tribes never acknowledged the authority of the state. But in the
same time the Saharawis were out of any real control. And although
the independence of Morocco was guaranteed in the Conference of
Madrid (1880), France gained ever greater influence and Tangier
turned into a zone of international administration. Morocco had
protested against this, but it was by now so weak that they had to
give up even more than before.
Within
twenty years, from 1880 to 1900, every corner of the Earth, from the
highest mountains in the Himalayas to the most remote Pacific island
and Antarctica, came to be claimed by one or other European power.
Africa saw the most dramatic colonisation. It was divided up as if
it had been a cake split between greedy European leaders. This was
called the "Scramble for Africa".
THE COLONIAL RULE
In
November 1884, during the
Berlin Conference (1884 - 1885), the Spanish Government announced, by royal decree, its
intention to take possession of Western Sahara. It proclaimed a
protectorate from Cape Bojador to Cape Blanc along the Western
Sahara coast; then the army, led by captain Emilio Bonelli Hernando,
set up a trading post in Dakhla ('Villa Cisneros' in Spanish).
After that some agreements followed with the local tribes. This act
was ratified in the Berlin Conference of 1884/85, where the European
powers shared their influence upon Africa. Western Sahara was
placed under the "protection of Spain" and negotiations were
started, in 1886, to define the frontiers between the French and
Spanish zones.
The
present-day Western Sahara's borders are a result of the three
colonial agreements made between France, Spain and Morocco. The
southern border, with the area which will become French-controlled
Mauritania, was defined in 1900 when the first Franco-Spanish secret
treaty was signed, to be followed by further secret agreements in
1904 (to extend Spanish control into southern Morocco' Tarfaya and
Ifni) and 1912 (to define finally Spanish and French zones in West
Africa). But the sandy Atlantic coast to the west, the Quarkziz and
Oued Draa mountain chain to the north and the barren desert to the
east and south form natural boundaries to the region.
The local
population in the area resisted the changes as much as possible
while new borders affected Western Sahara, Morocco, Algeria and
Mauritania. The Saharawis themselves fiercely opposed the Spanish
forces.
Three wars were fought between Moroccans and Spaniards in
the
Rif
area, with thousands of troops engaged:
In 1894
Sultan Moulay Hassan died, and his son Abdu l-Aziz was only 10 years
at the accession. During his reign, Europeans became the main
advisors at the court, and local rulers became more and more
independent from the sultan's rule. This brought local leaders,
such as Ma Al-Aineen, into the fight. Al-Aineen was a chieftain
from Mauritania and he moved into Western Sahara (Wadi Dahab and
Saguia el Hamra) from where he led a coalition of Mauritanian
tribes.
In
1895, by a bilateral agreement, England sold to Morocco for 50.000
British pounds the city of Tarfaya, on the actual border between
Morocco and Western Sahara, where Donald Mackenzie's North-West
Africa Company had established a trading post in 1879. The post was
handed to Morocco and it was agreed that "no one will have any claim
to the lands that are between Oued Draa and Cape Boujdour, and which
are called Tarfaya, and all the lands behind it, because this
belongs to the territory of Morocco."
Correspondence between British and Moroccan officials prior to the
agreement reveals that the British government, in agreeing to sell
Tarfaya trading post, which Mackenzie no longer saw as a viable
commercial enterprise, wanted to bar rival colonial powers from
staking a claim to the area. In fact, another clause of the
agreement read:
"It is
agreed that this (Moroccan) government shall give its word to the
English government that they will not give any part of the
above-mentioned lands to anyone whatsoever without the concurrence
of the English Government."
In 1900 a
Franco-Spanish Convention defined the southern border of Spain's
Saharawi colony. Between
1900 and 1903 French troops occupied part of Morocco.
In
1904 the Entente Cordiale between the United Kingdom an d Kingdom
gave the British a free hand in Egypt in exchange for a French free
hand in Morocco. The same year, the convention of Paris fixed the
northern border of Western Sahara and Spain was recognized its
influence in the northern Morocco (Rif, Ceuta and Melilla) and on
the small territory of Ifni on the Atlantic coast.
(
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/entecord.html)
DECLARATION BETWEEN THE GOVERNMENTS OF FRANCE AND SPAIN,RESPECTING
THE INTEGRITY OF MOROCCO.
Signed at Paris, October 3, 1904.
The Government of the French Republic and the
Government of His Majesty, the King of Spain,
having agreed to define the extent of the rights and the guarantee
of the interests resulting, for
France, from her Algerian possessions, and, for Spain, from her
possessions along the coast of
Morocco, and the Government of His Majesty. The King of Spain,
having in consequence given
its approval to the Anglo-French declaration of April 8, 1904,
relating to Morocco and to Egypt,
and communicated to it by the Government of the French Republic,
Declare that they remain firmly committed to the integrity of the
Moroccan Empire under
the sovereignty of the Sultan.
TEXT FROM : Supplement to American Journal of
International Law vol 6, 1912, 30.
After recognition by the United Kingdom of French
sphere of influence in
North Africa, France tried to
achieve a protectorate over Morocco, but
was
opposed by Germany. In 1905 the German Emperor William II
proclaimed in Tanger his
hostility to the French wishes.
The
"first Moroccan crisis" of 1905-06 was resolved in Spain at the
Algeciras Conference in 1906,
which formalized France's "special position" and entrusted policing
of Morocco to France and Spain jointly..
The purpose of the conference was to
mediate the dispute between France and Germany, and to assure the
repayment of a large loan made to the Moroccan sultan two years
before. Thirteen countries met, the full diplomatic corps of the
European powers was involved. The mediator, representing the USA
president Theodore Roosevelt, solved the dispute largely in France's
favour, though he assured the protection of German investments.
The
conference reaffirmed the integrity and independence of Morocco and
formalized France's "special position", being France able to control
Moroccan finances. The Conference entrusted policing of Morocco
jointly to France and Spain and put the African country under the
political and economical control of the European powers. The new
state bank was to act as Morocco's Treasury Department, but with a
strict cap on the spending of the Sherifian Empire, with
administrators appointed by the national banks that guaranteed the
loans: the German Empire, the U.K., France and Spain. Spanish
coinage continued to circulate. Rights of Europeans to own land
were established. Taxes were to be levied towards public works.
Opium and hashish continued to be a government monopoly of the
Sultan's.
Increasingly
disturbed by Western penetration of the area,
Sahrawi tribes performed
ghazi raids against the foreign forces, but
French troops drew ever closer, conquering one local
ruler after another.
In 1904,
Ma al-Aineen
proclaimed a holy war, or
jihad, against the colonizers. He proclaimed
that the trab al-beidan (a desert area that includes
today's Mauritania, Western Sahara and large swaths
of Mali and Algeria) was under the Sultan's rule.
While the Sultan was never given control over Ma
al-'Aynayn's forces, this display of effective
cooperation helped assemble a large coalition of
tribes to fight the colonizers. Ma al-'Aynayn set
about acquiring firearms and other materials both
through channels in Morocco and through direct
negotiations with rival European powers such as
Germany and Spain, and quickly built up an
impressive fighting force. A member of his Gudfiyya
brotherhood in 1905 assassinated Xavier Coppolani,
who was leading the French conquest of Mauritania,
thereby delaying the conquest of the emirate of
Adrar for a few years.
In 1905
Ma al-Aineen asked the Sultan of Morocco to support his tribe in the
jihad (holy war) against the invaders. Apart from fine words, the
help was limited to the delivery of a few arms, as the monarch was
already coming to terms with French imperialism. Faced with
Morocco's weak opposition to the invaders, Saharawis began to fight
back in 1906 and turned against the Moroccan king.
In the same
period, a
second and a third "Moroccan crisis" provoked by Berlin increased
tensions among European great powers.
In
1908 friction arose at Casablanca, under French occupation, when the
German consul gave refuge to deserters from the French Foreign
Legion. This dispute was settled by the Hague Tribunal.
The
French Resident-General decided to install the capital in Rabat and
obtained the abdication of Moulay Hafid replaced by his brother
Moulay Youssef. French also built the ports of Casablanca and
Kenitra, the new towns of Rabat, Fez, Meknes and Marrakec h, while
the old medina of theses cities remained untouched. A modern
educational system was introduced, the administration was modernised
and the legal system reformed.
Shortly afterward in a coup the weak Sultan Abd al-Aziz IV was
unseated and his brother, Abd al-Hafid, installed on the throne. He
had difficulty maintaining order and asked France to intervain in
the revolt of the local Berber tribes.
The rebel warriors were stopped on their march to Fez in 1910 by the
French army which had already occupied some cities like
Casablanca.
The French troops
entered in Fez on March 21st, 1911. A new revolt was crushed in
April. Meknes and Rabat were
taken in June, Marrakesh in September. On the other hand, Spain had
occupied Larache and Ksar-el-Kébir and Germany had reacted by
sending the gunship Panther in Agadir "to protect its economic
interests".
After Ma
al-Aineen's death, his son went on struggling and entered Marrakesh
in 1912. France reacted by great violence, razing to the ground the
city of Smara and destroying its library, that contained more than
5000 manuscripts.
Ma al-Aineen enjoyed
tremendous prestige and his name is invoked by both the Polisario
Front and by Moroccans for whom he embodied the unity of Morocco and
the Sahara. Today family members of
Ma al-Aineen
hold high offices in the Polisario Front, in Morocco and in
Mauritania.
In 1912, the
Treaty of Fez made finally Morocco a
protectorate of France, leaving to the sultan Moulay Hafid an only
apparent power covered by a Resident-General. By the same treaty,
Germany fastened part of French Equatorial Africa to German Cameroun
and Spain assumed the role of protecting power over the whole Rif in
the north and the Saharan zones in the south. A Spanish-French
Convention demarcated the borders o f Western Sahara and Ifni.
Tanger was declared an international zone.
Still
the tribes in the south of Morocco were very rebellious. France,
now in control of Morocco, intensified its military offensive in
Mauritania. Numerous incursions were also made into Saguia el Hamra
but a sporadic fighting continued.
During
the First World War five regiments of Moroccan riflemen fought in
France, counting 34 000 deaths.
In
1921 a rebellion against Spain was started in the Rif Mountains by
the Berber chief Abdu l-Karim. He led his tribesmen against the
Spanish and in the battke of Anoual 15.000 Spanish soldiers were
killed. Then, Abdu l-Karim proclamed the Confederated Republic of
Rif Tribes. Three years later the Spanish were pushed out to their
territory along the coast and Abdu l-Karim attacked the French
menacing Fez and Tanger. This war was the origin of a military coup
d'etat in Madrid by General Miguel Primo de Rivera.
Abdu
l-Karim remained a threat until he was defeated in 1926 by joint
Spanish and French forces of 360.000 troops under the leadership of
Marshal Petain. On the Spanish side Captain Francisco Franco became
General during this war.
For many
years, 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 guerrilla attacks against
French targets in Mauritania and Morocco. Bloody clashes
intensified between the years 1923 and 1934, until France threatened
to occupy Spain’s territories if it did not crush Saharawi
resistance activities, to stop raids against the French occupied
areas of the Maghreb. This diplomatic menace led to several joint
Franco-Spanish military operations to destroy the resistance
movement the whole of the "Spanish Sahara". Finally
in 1934 a joint
operation of French forces from French Morocco, Algeria and French
West Africa and Spanish forces finally put down the resistance, and
Spain finally take full possession of its colony. The Saharawi
Resistance was stamped out and the region was "pacificated".
In
1936 the Spanish administration attributed to the population a civil
status and an identity document and then introduced an obligatory
VISA to enter the French territories. This consolidated in the time
the self-identification of the native population in front of the
Spanish power. At the same time the blooming of national liberation
movements in Africa, helped the formation of a self-conscience of
the Saharawi population against the colonial administration, even if
the tribal divisions remained.
Many
Saharawi began to live stably close to the enterprises, the
garrisons and the Spanish ports, even if the nomads continued to
represent the majority of the population. The feeling of
territorial tie to the Western Sahara did not take root
immediately. The concept of national border, stable in the space
and the time, did not belong to the Saharawis.
Still,
the Spanish Sahara remained an almost forgotten colony with little
economic value, even if there were large French and Spanish
strategical interests in the area. The main reason for Spain for
maintaining a presence there was to counter-balance the French
domination of the region and as a protection for the Canary Islands
and the rich fishing waters between these and the Saharan coast.
Still in 1952 there were only 216 civilian employees, 24 telephone
subscribers and 366 children attending school in the whole of
Spanish Sahara. The ahel es-sahel continued their nomadic
life. The Spanish colonisers ruled them using their own traditional
qabila structures of sheiks. As in many other places
the Spanish imperialists used the largely democratic tribal
structures to implement their domination.
In the
1930s almost 100.000 Europeans were living everywhere in Morocco.
In a few years they became half a million!
 In
September 1939, the Sultan Mohammed Ben Youssef gave a call in the
mosques and asked the Moroccans to support France, committed in the
Second World War. So Moroccans fought side by side with French
troops suffering 90.000 deaths.
Spain being not in war, Saharawis were not officially involved in
it.
In the
same time nationalist movements in Morocco became stronger and stronger.
They
based their arguments for independence on such World War II
declarations as the
Atlantic Charter.
" The
President of the United States of America and the Prime Minister,
Mr. Churchill, representing His Majesty's Government in the
United Kingdom, (...) respect the right of all peoples to choose the
form of government under which they will live; and they wish to see
sovereign rights and self government restored to those who have been
forcibly deprived of them".
(http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/wwii/atlantic.htm)
On 10
décembre 1943 the nationalist
Istiqlal Party
(Independence party in English)
was formed,
representing the nascent Moroccan bourgeoisie. At the beginning of
1944, 58 Moroccan well-known personalities, led by the sultan
Mohammed Ben Youssef, signed the Independence Manifesto,
one of the
earliest demands for idipendence,
and
forwarded it to French, American, Russian and British authorities,
demanding recognition of the independence of Morocco, its national
sovereignty and its territorial integrity, comprehensive of the
Western Sahara. Two years after a decree separates Spanish Sahara
from the Spanish protectorate in Morocco.
On
April 1947, the sultan Mohammed delivered in Tangier a historical
speech claiming for Moroccan independence, territorial integrity and
entering the Arab Ligue. The speech marked the revival of the
resistance to foreign occupation. France, supported by some local
collaborating chiefs, tried to propose an interdependence agreement
based on a common administration, but the sultan rejected the
proposal.
In
1953, after some bloody confrontations between French troops and
colons and Moroccan nationalists, in answer to his claims for
independence, the sultan was deported to Madagascar and his uncle
Mohammed Ibn-Arafa was put in his place.
But
Moroccans opposed this new rule and the Arabic States asked
officially to UN the right to self-determination for Morocco.
The
period leading up to Morocco’s independence in 1956 was again a
joint struggle in the region against both French and Spanish
colonialism. The Jaich at-Tahir (Liberation Army), mainly
composed by
Saharawis tribes, was fighting in what today is Morocco, parts of
Algeria, Western Sahara and Mauritania. In 1957/1958 the
Liberation Army was engaged in the so-called Ifni War (the
"forgotten war" in Spanish) for the liberation of
Ifni,
Tarfaya and the Western Sahara.
MOROCCO'S CLAIMS AND SAHARAWI RESISTANCE
In the
1940s, while most of Europe was in prey with the Second World War,
Manuel Went Medina, young professor of geology in Madrid, started to
map the geological structure of the Western Sahara. In the 1950s,
the discovery in Bou-craa of one of the biggest high grade phosphate
deposits in the world led the country to be reproduced on the world
chart of the mining resources. The reserves of this zone were
estimated to be more than 10 million tons and 70 to 80% pure. Later
in the 1950s, huge layers of iron ore were discovered in Agracha, on
the north-western edge of the plate of Tiris, with a few kilometres
of the large iron Mauritanians layers of Zouérate. The layer of
Agracha would contain on the whole 72 million tons of iron ore of a
content of 57.3 % of iron and 13.6 % of titanium oxide used in the
manufacture of painting. It contains also 0.6 to 0.8 % of vanadium,
making Western Sahara one of the areas of the world having the
greatest quantities of this metal, used in aerospace industry to
manufacture light and resistant to heat metal alloys.
For the first time, the Western Sahara appeared valuable to the
indigenous population as well as to the governments of Morocco,
Algeria, and Mauritania. The discovery of the deposits also renewed
the historic rivalry between Algeria and Morocco, both of which
encouraged Saharawi aggression against the Spanish occupiers.
At the
end of 1955 Mohammed Ben Youssef (Sultan
Mohammed V) was triumphally welcomed back in
Rabat from his exile, to announce the independence of Morocco four months
afterwards. In the same year a joint hispano-Moroccan declaration
was published in which Spain recognized the independence of Morocco
and underlined the respect of the territorial integrity of the new
Kingdom and its sovereignty. Moroccan control over northern
Spanish-ruled areas was restored. The internationalized city of
Tangier was reintegrated with the signing of the Tangier Protocol on
October 29, 1956.
Morocco's
claim on Spanish Sahara began at the time of the country's
independence, in 1956. King Hassan of Morocco wanted to re-establish
the "Greater Morocco" or "Moroccan Sultanate", pretending that the
Moroccan sultans have always been spiritual leaders and rulers of
the Saharawi tribes.
In the
meanwhile Spain administrated Sahara like an inner province,
represented by three deputies in the Spanish Parliament and governed
by a delegate of General Franco.
King
Mohammed V, still in the process of consolidating his power, could
take advantage of the nationalist fervour and therefore also adopted
the cause of Greater Morocco. Another powerful reason to maintain
the claims over Greater Morocco was the fear that the spirit of the
liberation movement in Algeria, which had a more left wing and even
“socialist” language, would spread to Morocco and lead to the
overthrow of the monarchy. Thus Morocco refused to recognise
Mauritania when this country won independence in 1960. At that
time, the idea of territorial integrity was not accepted by all the
wings of the nationalist movement. The more radical and
left-leaning wing represented by Ben Barka, which in 1959 split from
the Istiqlal to found the National Union of Popular Forces (UNFP),
explicitly rejected the idea of a Greater Morocco, defended the
independence of Mauritania and opposed the 1963 short Sands War
against Algeria, barely a year after it had finally won
independence. The same position was adopted by the main workers
organisation at that time, the Union of Moroccan Workers (UMT). The
Communist Party, following the criminal two-stage policies of
Stalinism had exactly the same policy as the Istiqlal and even
criticised the King for recognising Mauritania in 1970. At that
time the question of the Western Sahara was simply posed as one of
the struggles against Spanish colonialism. Despite the Moroccan
claims over the former Spanish colony, the Alaouite monarchy did not
make any serious moves for more than a decade and used the conflict
mainly as a bargaining chip. A clear example of this was the
disbanding of the Morocco-sponsored Sahara Liberation Front (FLS) in
1969, after Morocco had won the small enclave of Ifni back from
Spain. As a matter of fact the then King Hassan II enjoyed
excellent relations with the Franco dictatorship in Spain.
On the
other hand, Mauritania wanted to prevent Western Sahara from falling
into Moroccan hands, since that would have given the belligerent
Moroccan regime 980 miles of a very difficult to protect common
border in the desert. Furthermore most of the border between
Mauritania and the Spanish Sahara runs along a strategic iron-ore
railway upon which Mauritania was dependent for about 85% of its
exports.
In 1956
riots and bloody battles between the Spanish troops and the Saharawi
resistance began. The strength of these guerrilla forces was such
that during 1957 the Spanish had to retreat to a few strongholds on
the coast and even Smara had to be abandoned. The Saharawis
combatants, who had supported the Morrocans (then also Mauritanians
and Algerians) in their fight of liberation against France, asked in
return for assistance in their fight of liberation against the
Spanish domination. Morocco initially supported them before giving
them up, stopping provisioning them assistances and ammunition.
To
maintain control over the country’s natural resources Mohammed V had
first to suppress revolts in the Northern Rif region in 1957 and
also to smash the rests of the Liberation Army, which were based
mainly in the Spanish territories in the South of Morocco and the
Sahara, and refused to join in the newly formed Royal Armed Forces
(FAR).
This
movement really threatened the process of “controlled”
decolonisation that the French imperialists had envisaged for
Morocco, and further added to their troubles in Algeria, which they
wanted to keep at all costs.
The Ifni War,
sometimes called the Forgotten War in Spain (la
Guerra Olvidada), was an important episode of
the history of this region. A series of armed
incursions led by Moroccan insurgents and indigenous
Sahrawi rebels began in October 1957 and culminated
with the abortive siege of
Sidi Ifni.
In January 12, 1958, a division of the
Liberation Army attacked the Spanish garrison at Laâyoune
. Beaten back and forced into retreat by the Spaniards, the Army
turned its efforts to the southeast.
The next day the Moroccan/Saharawis fighters
(500 troops, 241 died) ambushed a Spanish battalion at Edchera
(350 troops, 37 died).
After this battle,
to safeguard their interests in the area, Spain and France signed a
military treaty, with the approval of the Moroccan regime. It led
to a common military operation, known under the name of operation Ecouvillon/Ouragan, involving 14.000 troops
(9.000 Spanish and 5.000 French) and 130 aircraft
(60 Spanish and 70 French), which
crushed the insurrection and disbanded the rest of the Liberation
Army (about 20.000 fighters). A hundred death are reported among the
Franco-Spanish troops and about 1.000 among the Liberation Army's
troops, which lost much material, too.
For the first time, massively superior European air power were used
in this area.
First to fall were the Moroccan mountain strongholds at
Tan-Tan and Saguia el Hamra. Bombed from above and rocketed
from below, the Liberation Army suffered 150 dead and abandoned its
war caches.
On
February 10, the 4th, 9th, and 13th Legion battalions, organized
into a motorized group, drove the Moroccans from Edchera and swept
through to
Tafurdat and
Smara.
The Spanish army at fron Laâyoune and
Villa Cisneros, in conjunction with French forces from
Fort Gouraud, struck the Moroccans on February 21,
destroying Saharan Liberation Army concentrations between
Bir Nazaran and
Ausert.
On April 2, 1958, the governments of Spain and Morocco
signed the
Treaty of Angra de Cintra. Morocco obtained the
region of Tarfaya (colony of Cabo Juby), between the
river Draa and the parallel 27ş 40', excluding Sidi
Ifni and the Spanish Sahara.
Afterwards,
Spain retained
possession of Ifni until 1969, when, while under
some international pressure (UN resolution 2072/1965), it returned the
territory to Morocco.
After the Ifni war,
part of the Liberation Army was
absorbed into the Moroccan armed
forces. Because of this,
Morocco claims the Army of
Liberation battles in Western
Sahara, and the fighting under
Moroccan flag of Saharawis as a proof
of Western Sahara's loyalty to the
Moroccan crown, whereas sympathizers
to the Polisario Front
view it only as
an anti-colonial war directed
against the Spanish colonial
presence, an authentic manifestation of Saharawi
nationalism which reinforced a national and
political conscience among the Saharawis.
As a matter of facts,
Sahrawi veterans of the
LIberation Army today exist on
both sides of the Western Sahara
conflict, and both the
Kingdom of Morocco and the
Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic
celebrate it as part of their
political history.
In
consequence of this collaboration, through the Cintra agreements on
April 1, 1958, the Spanish colony of Western Saraha was reorganized
in the provinces of Saguia el Hamra in the north, and Rio de Oro, in
the south; Spain yielded to Morocco the current province of Tarfaya,
south to Draa River, inhabited by Saharawis.
In the
early 1960s, a profound socio-economic transformation started in the
Spanish Sahara, which was to change the nature of the liberation
movement. Before it, the Saharawi people were essentially nomadic, pasturing
cattle in the sandy low lying plains. They moved in accordance with
the seasons, their routes dictated by wells and watering holes.
The
Cabila or
Djema'a
was the main socio-political unit of Saharan society, an assembly of
notables of a tribe which acted as a legislative, executive and
judicial body, making that society relatively democratic, by the
practice of collective decision-making.
It organized war efforts, raiding parties,
lawmaking and diplomacy, among other things, and also settled
disputes between members of the tribe. Sometimes, a larger assembly
known as the Ait Arbein (Council of Forty) would be gathered,
composed of elders from several tribes, to organize the community
against foreign invasion or other such supratribal concerns.
The exact organization of the Djema'a varied from tribe to tribe,
but it generally incorporated both old Berber customs, Arab
traditions and based its practices on Islamic law. Women served on
the Djema'a in at least some of the Saharawi tribes.
The asabyia or tribal loyalty system organised social relations and
helped the most vulnerable within the group.
Saharan traditional
society was highly stratified and hierarchical. In each Djema'a some elders, the sheiks or tribal chiefs, were the main
source of power/knowledge. Their role was to transmit Saharawi
traditions, their ancestral laws and the history of their families
to the younger members of their community.
After Spain and France invaded the territory in 1884, the Djema'as
remained very active, but as the Spanish Army gradually extended its
control and subdued the tribes, resistant Djema'a leaderships were
killed or jailed, while others were coerced or bribed into
cooperation with the colonizers. The
Ma al-Aineen
uprising in the early 1900s, and the rebellions which followed,
represented something of a last stand of the traditional tribal
society against colonization. In the 1950s, tribal authority was
slowly eroding due to urbanization and new ways of life.
The
economic situation was difficult. The school was a rare privilege
at that time and few Saharawis were allowed to study abroad, mostly in Spain.
Then
serious surveys and the exploitation of the phosphate deposits
began, opening a phase of more intense colonization and
transformation of the traditional Saharawi society. The territory’s
total deposits of phosphates were estimated at that time at 10
billion tonnes, with particularly rich deposits at Bou-Craa. The
economic exploitation of the new resources demanded many workers and
transformed the population from nomadic into sedentary.
The
exploitation of the natural resources by Morocco and Spain and the
Ifni war marked
the birth of the first Saharawi political movement claiming
independence from Spain.
From
the beginning of the 1960s, Spain had pursued two different
strategies over Western Sahara. On the one hand a section of
Franco’s government represented by Carrero Blanco wanted to maintain
an indefinite colonial presence and was convinced of the loyalty
towards Spain of the local population as a result of the
modernisation it had introduced. Thus,
the Spanish government attempted to
form loyal Sahrawi political institutions to support its rule, and
draw activists away from the radical nationalists (such as a
colonial body called
Djema'a like the old Saharawi council and, some years later,
the
moderate Saharawi National Unity Party or
PUNS party, composed
mainly of members of the
Djema'a).
Another section of the regime, stronger amongst the military, wanted
a controlled decolonisation process which would hand over control to
some pro-Spanish force through which they could still control the
region’s natural resources, mainly the phosphate mines and the rich
fishing grounds. Both strategies coincided in the need to create a
separate Saharawi identity in order to pre-empt Morocco’s claims or
the emergence of a nationalist pro-Morocco movement.
The proclamation of independence of the Mauritania 28 November 1960
added a new subject in the issue of the territory of the Sahara.
After independence,
President
Moktar Ould Daddah, originally installed by the
French, formalized Mauritania into a
one-party state in 1964 with a new
constitution, which set up an
authoritarian presidential regime. Daddah's own
Parti du Peuple Mauritanien (PPM) became the
ruling organization in a
single-party system. The President justified
this decision on the grounds that he considered Mauritania unready
for western-style
multi-party democracy. Under this one-party
constitution, Daddah wanted to create a "Greater
Mauritania" in opposition to the idea of a "Greater
Morocco", claiming all the Moorish or Saharawi-populated areas
of the north-western Africa. The basis for his claim was the
close ethnic and cultural ties between the Mauritanian Moors and the
Saharawis of Spanish Sahara, in effect forming two subsets of the
same tri bal Arabo-Berber
population inhabiting the actual
Islamic Republic of Mauritania, the
Western Sahara
and parts of
Morocco,
Algeria,
Niger
and Mali.
In 1957, Ould Daddah had stated:
"I therefore call on our brothers in the Spanish
Sahara to dream of this economic and spiritual Greater Mauritania of
which we cannot speak at present. I address to them and I ask you to
repeat to them a message of friendship, a call for concord between
all the Moors of the Atlantic, in Azaouad and from the Draa to the
borders of Senegal." (Ould Ahmed Salem, p. 506, n. 17)
On
December 14, 1960, as the aspirations of the colonised peoples to achieve self-determination, and the international
community's perception that United Nations Charter principles were
being too slowly applied, led to the United Nations General
Assembly's proclamation on 14 December 1960 of the
Declaration of the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries
and Peoples.
By the Declaration, the UN General Assembly "Solemnly proclaims the
necessity of bringing to a speedy and unconditional end colonialism
in all its forms and manifestations. And to this end declares that:
1. The subjection of peoples to alien subjugation, domination and
exploitation constitutes a denial of fundamental human rights, is
contrary to the United Nations Charter, and is an impediment to the
promotion of world peace and cooperation
2. All peoples have the right to self-determination; by virtue of
that right they freely determine their political status and freely
pursue their political, cultural and economic development.
5. Immediate steps should be taken, in
Trust and Non-Self-Governing Territories to transfer all powers
to the people of these territories.
Also in 1960, the Assembly approved
resolution 1541 (XV), defining free association with an
independent State, integration into an independent State, or
independence as the three legitimate options of full
self-government.
Later, in 1962, the Assembly established a special committee, now
known as the
Special Committee of 24 on Decolonization, to examine the
application of the Declaration and to make recommendations on its
implementation
In March
1961, King Mohammed V of Morocco was succeeded by Crown Prince Hassan
II who presented a new constitution.
In April
1961, Western Sahara was declared a "Spanish province". Spain
equipped the territory with the provincial Council and with
municipalities, the provincial council being chaired by one
Saharawi. Three elected deputies represented the new province in
the Spanish parliament, las Cortes. In 1967 Sahara's number of
seats in the Cortes increased from three to six.
In the meanwhile in 1962 Algeria achieved its independence from
France. As France didn't establish precise borders between the
two colonies, Morocco attempted to occupy disputed border areas by
force, and by force Moroccan troops were driven out. It was the
so-called Sand War,
with intense fighting around the oasis towns of
Tindouf and
Figuig.
The
Algerian army, just formed from the
guerrilla ranks of the FLN's
Armée de Libération Nationale (ALN) was still geared towards
asymmetric warfare, and had little heavy equipment. On the
other hand, while the modern, western-equipped Moroccan army
consistently outperformed Algerian regulars and local guerrillas on
the battlefield, it did not manage to penetrate into Algeria. The
war stalemated with the intervention of the
Organization of African Unity (OAU) and the
Arab League and it was broken off after approximately three
weeks. The OAU eventually managed to arrange a formal cease-fire on
February 20, 1964. A
peace agreement was then made after
Arab League mediation, and a
demilitarized zone instituted but hostilities simmered.
In 1963,
the UN included Western Sahara in the list of countries to which the
principle of self-determination has to be applied. Then, in October
1964, the Committee for the Decolonization of the UN adopted a
resolution asking to Spain the application, for Ifni and the Western
Sahara, of the General Assembly Resolution 1514 (XV) of 14 December
1960, on the right to independence of the Countries under colonial
domination.
The
question of the liberation of Spanish Sahara was first on the agenda
of the United Nations General Assembly when two analogous
resolutions were adopted, in December 1965 and December 1966, with
the common objective to speed up Spain to organize a referendum,
under the UN control, allowing the native population to express
their wishes and foreseing the return of the refugees.
The UN resolution
2072 (XX) of December 1965 called on Spain
to take all measures necessary to ensure the decolonisation of the
territory and enter into negotiations relating to its future. It
set the tone of the many resolutions subsequently passed on the
Sahara question, both by the UN General Assembly and by other
international organisations, especially the Non-Aligned Conference
and the Organization of African Unity.
The UN resolution 2229
(XXI) of 20 December 1966 ratified the
inalienable right of the Saharawi people to self-determination, in
pursuance of the Declaration of the Granting of Independence to
Colonial Countries and Peoples, and expressely urged Spain to hold a
referendum to know the wishes of the indigenous Saharawis, including
refugees.
Morocco
and Mauritania had supported the right of the people of Western
Sahara to self-determination and independence at the meeting of the
UN Special Committee on Decolonization in June; no year passed
thereafter without a resolution being passed to the same or similar
effect.
Spain
always voted against any resolution, being at that time the only
remaining colonial power together with Portugal.
Even the
OAU Council of Ministers had adopted its first resolution on Western
Sahara, at its 1st summit in Cairo, July 1966.
The
OAU asked the Member States "to respect the existing borders at the
time when they reached independence" according to the wishes of
Algeria. But in its final declaration which took again the formula
on "the respect of the borders", a paragraph is added treating need
for respecting "the territorial integrity of the States" according
to the wishes of Maroc. Since then and until its resolution of 1983
the Organization of African Unity will try to sail laboriously
between opposite desires: Morocco and Mauritania initially, Morocco
and Mauritania on the one hand and Algeria of the other; between
Morocco and the Frente Polisario finally.
In the
meanwhile a re-organization of the Saharawi indipendentist forces
began in the cities, in the towns and among the refugees in the near
countries, starting with sporadic demonstrations against the Spanish
domination. Such process brought Mohamed Sidi Brahim Bassiri to
found, in 1967, an indipendentist and clandestine political
organization, known as "Harakat Tahrir Saguia El Hamra wa Uad
Ed-Dahab" or simply "Movement for the Liberation of the Sahara"
(MLS),
whose objective was to re-unite and canalize the popular forces and
aspirations.
The first
actions of the Movement did not have military character and took the
shape of civil resistance: strikes, demonstrations, teaching of the
Arabic language and the Saharawi history.
A curfew
was decreed in 1969, followed by a series of arrestations and
expulsions, which moved the UN to recall Spain to the application of
resolution 1514 (XV) on the decolonization.
In the
same year the Spanish enclave of Ifni in the south became part of
the new Morocco, which
even claimed the Spanish-controlled enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla,
as well as Perejil Island (Layla Island).
In June
17, 1970, the colonial government called for a Saharawi
manifestation in Laâyoune in order to express the adhesion to the Mother Native
land (Spain).
Bassiri's
Movement took advantage of the occasion to organize an intensive
campaign to mobilize the Saharawi people on behalf of their
independence. This led to a large, peaceful manifestation openly
against the colonialism and to forward to Spain a document of demand
for independence of the territory.
As few
hundreds of people gathered in the Plaza of Africa in support of the
Spanish organized rally, a larger crowd was also gathering in Zemla,
a neighborhood on the east side of Laâyoune, and asked the
governor-general of Spanish Sahara, General Jose Maria Perez de Lema
y Tejero, to come to Zemla in order to receive the movement's
petition. The General came and the petition was read out.
Afterwards, he ordered the demonstrators to disperse. A couple hours
later, a strong squad of police came to the gathering and began
arresting some of the movement leaders. The crowd reacted by
throwing stones at the police force which requested the help of the
Spanish Foreign Legion (El Tercio).
The
intervention of the Spanish Foreign Legion made things worse, their
presence infuriated more the demonstrators. The Legion opened fire
and by some accounts eleven people were killed, though there has
never been a general consensus on the number of casualties.
After the so-called
Zemla intifada, manifestations took place in Smara and
Dakhla (the greater centers of the Western Sahara). Severe
repressive measures on MSL followed these demonstrations.
Hundreds were arrested, some deported and others fled the country.
Bassiri (the movement's leader) would be arrested soon after this
massacre. This incident marked the death of MLS and laid
the grounds for the birth, three years later, of the most successful
and better known Saharawi movement: Frente Polisario.
Until
this moment, except the "heroic" period of resistance to European
colonialisms, the Saharawis were instruments in the hands of the
colonial powers or of brother countries. Morocco, Mauritania and
Algeria demanded loudly the departure of the Spaniards from the area
and called for self-determination to be exercised in Western Sahara
in line with UN resolutions, being their demand about their own
claims more than about the freedom of the natives, and mostly they
prevented any attempt to hold a self-determination referendum.
But after
Zemla's incidents Saharawis will be more and more on the scene.
The news
of the slaughter also created a lot more awareness in the
international community concerning the fight of the Saharawi for
freedom.
THE PRE-COLONIAL
RULE
THE DECOLONISATION
THE WAR
THE DISPUTE FROM 1991 TO PRESENT DAY
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