Western Sahara has been in a political imbroglio since 1975, the year Spain left this 266,000 square kilometres african piece of land. Located between Morocco, Algeria and Mauritania, and facing the Altantic Ocean, Western Sahara has never had the chance to organize itself as an independent country: The spaniards had not yet left the land that Moroccans were already sending its forces to conquer the north of the land, while Mauritania started invading the south, and Algeria deployed aggressive armed forces (the Polisario) to repress its neighbors ambitions in Western Sahara.
Fast-forward 37 years, the situation has not really evolved: Morocco has settled in the North and censors the idea that this part of Western Sahara doesn’t belong to them. Mauritania has had a good run, but despite the support from the French armed forces in the eighties, their troops were pushed back by the Polisario. Thus, for almost 30 years, Algeria and Morocco have been fighting in Western Sahara to get the phosphate and the fisheries the region has to offer, and never reached a settlement.
In 1991, the UN stepped in and offered to send troops in Western Sahara to appease the conflicts. Twenty years later, the UN is still in the region, since no resolution for the conflict has been found.
A few weeks ago, the news dropped: Christopher W.S. Ross, former US ambassador to Algeria and Syria, who was the UN Envoy in Western Sahara since 2009, has lost the support of the Moroccan government. The Moroccan government ruled that the UN Secretary-General was lacking neutrality regarding the political turmoil in Western Sahara. Moroccan officials refer to a report made by the UN Secretary-General on Sahara that supposedly contains fallacies and unacceptable slips, “not aligned with reality”.
Morocco was soon followed by Spain, who publicly criticized the work of Christopher Ross, asking that he remains focused on important matters, instead of dealing with “accessories”. Spain, the former owner of Western Sahara, a country that never assumed its responsibilities in the conflict, still has major assets running in Western Sahara’s lands (Spain did not leave the land empty-handed), and knows that their interests are safe with Morocco.
Morocco is playing big with Western Sahara, thus it won’t take the risk of letting an offending report be issued within the UN without a fight. Retrieving Morocco’s support to Christopher Ross is a way to express its disagreement with the report, and remind the UN that they too have to bend to Morocco’s expectations if they want to find a solution for Western Sahara. It also is an obvious way to discredit Christopher Ross’ report.
Leave Your Comments