An interesting Op-ed of New York Times about the autonomy proposal of Morocco in Western Sahara: ________________
Will Freedom Bloom in the Desert?
By FREDERICK VREELAND
A YEAR ago, unusually heavy rain storms destroyed half of the camps in Algeria where some 90,000 refugees from the disputed territory of the Western Sahara have been eking out a miserable existence for more than 30 years.
I have been involved in North African affairs for 40 years, and for most of that time the problem of the Western Sahara has envenomed relations among its neighbors and immiserated the Saharan population.
Thankfully, Morocco’s young king, Mohammed VI, has devised a proposal for granting autonomous status to this region, and it behooves all members of the United Nations Security Council to support it. Here is a rare instance, in the post-9/11 world, in which a little encouragement from the United States and other nations could pay large dividends, fostering not only a final resolution for the region’s refugees but also creating a stable North African peace for the first time in decades — a peace that would serve as a bulwark against Islamic extremism.
The Western Sahara, a Colorado-sized desert land on the Atlantic bordered by Algeria, Mauritania and Morocco, has deep roots in Moroccan history. It is here that the 11th-century Moroccans who founded the Andalusian empire, which stretched from Mauritania deep into Spain, originated.
Spain colonized the territory in 1884, then abandoned it in 1976. Around that time, thousands of unarmed Moroccans streamed into the Western Sahara and effectively reclaimed it for their homeland.
But neighboring Algeria helped create and then lent armed support to the Polisario Front, a guerrilla group that resisted Moroccan rule. The group’s putative aim is independence for the Western Sahara, but it is worth noting that Algeria would gain a great deal by dominating an area with phosphate reserves and an Atlantic coastline.
For many years there was fierce fighting, from which tens of thousands of families fled, and eventually came under the care of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Though the violence concluded with a United Nations-brokered cease-fire in 1991, the Western Sahara’s inhabitants remain caught in the unresolved conflict. Almost a quarter of the 400,000 Saharans, or Sahrawis, are living under deplorable conditions in Algeria, generally unable to leave the refugee camps, communicate with the outside world or maintain their traditional nomadic way of life.
While Morocco exercises control over the greater part of the Western Sahara and has an “open door” policy toward the refugees, the Polisario has made it virtually impossible for those Sahrawis living in the camps in southern Algeria to return. Holding on to the refugees is their strategy for “governing” these people, who exist solely on international assistance. Particularly troubling is the fact that the younger ones have never known life outside these bleak camps.
Enter Mohammed VI. Since assuming the throne seven years ago, the Moroccan king has brought about vital domestic reforms, including elevating and protecting the status of women, as well as establishing an independent commission to face up to Morocco’s human rights record. In an effort to advance the Western Sahara issue, the king studied contemporary models of territorial conflict resolution to see which solutions proved viable and durable in similar situations around the world. He created an advisory council to gather the views of both Moroccans and the Sahrawi.
The result? After a year-long national discussion, Morocco is to propose, at the United Nations in April, a plan to establish the Western Sahara as an autonomous region under Moroccan sovereignty. Autonomy would provide effective self-determination for the Sahrawis, allowing for local decision-making and control over economic, social, linguistic and cultural issues. Successful autonomy regions like this exist elsewhere. The Trentino-Alto Adige region in Italy and the autonomous region of Madeira in Portugal are examples, as are Catalonia and the Basque Provinces in Spain. The creation of these quasi-states has unlocked longstanding disputes once thought resolvable only by force.
Mohammed VI is seeking a solution to the Western Sahara dispute based on common ground rather than conflict. His act of leadership is in everyone’s interest. It is no secret that the young people in these horrible camps are prey for recruitment by Al Qaeda and local terrorist groups. Indeed, Algeria’s most murderous terrorist group recently renamed itself Al Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb, signaling its wider designs on the region.
This is why it is vital that the Security Council accept Morocco’s proposal for an autonomous region and not be pushed into a debate for full Western Saharan independence. A weak independent state would likely morph into a terrorist-controlled one.
This is also why the United States must be forthright in its support for the Moroccan proposal. We would be aiding a modernizing, moderate Islamic country, and a strategic ally. More urgently and no less important, we would be helping the Western Sahara’s people to regain their lost liberties and their right to peaceful existence.
Frederick Vreeland, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for Near East and South Asia affairs, was the United States ambassador to Morocco from 1992 to 1993.
chargement...
