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Western Sahara on edge after Israel-Morocco deal
Why is it in news?
- Morocco has agreed to normalised relation with Israel under the deal with USA.
Details:
- Morocco has become the fourth Arab country to normalise ties with Israel in five months.
- In return for Morocco’s decision to establish formal ties with Israel, the U.S. has recognised Rabat’s sovereignty over Western Sahara.
- It is disputed territory in northwestern Africa, which has been under Moroccan control for decades.
- Morocco has long been campaigning internationally, using economic pressure and diplomacy, for recognition of its claims to Western Sahara.
- Background:
(1) This large, arid and sparsely populated region that shares borders with Morocco, Algeria and Mauritania and has a long Atlantic coast was a Spanish colony.
(2) The region is home to the Sahrawi tribe.
(3) In the 1970s, when international and local pressure mounted on Spain to vacate its colonies in Africa, Libya and Algeria helped found a Sahrawi insurgency group against the Spanish rule in Western Sahara.
(4) The Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el Hamra and Rio de Oro, known as the Polisario Front, started guerilla warfare against Spanish colonialists.
(5) In 1975, as part of the Madrid Accords with Morocco and Mauritania, Spain decided to leave the territory, which was then called Spanish Sahara.
(6) According to the accords, Spain would leave before February 28, 1976 and until then, the Spanish Governor General would administer the territory, with help from two Moroccan and Mauritanian Deputy Governors.
Current status
- The three-way conflict lasted for almost four years.
- In August 1979, Mauritania signed a peace treaty with Polisario, bringing the country’s military involvement in Western Sahara to an end.
- When Mauritanian forces withdrew from the southern part of the desert that they had occupied, Morocco swiftly advanced troops.
- The war continued between Moroccan troops and the Polisario Front.
- In 1991, when a ceasefire was finally achieved, upon the promise of holding an independence referendum in Western Sahara, Morocco had taken control of about 80% of the territory.
- The war had forced almost 200,000 Sahrawis to flee the territory to neighbouring Algeria, where Polisario is running squalid refugee camps.
- The SADR is operating largely from the eastern flank of Western Sahara.
- Moroccan troops have built a huge sand wall called Berm, from the Atlantic coast to the mountains of Morocco, dividing the territories they control from that of Polisario.
- Impact of the deal
(1) The concession the U.S. has given to Morocco — Washington’s recognition of Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara — could flare up the conflict.
(2) The independence referendum, promised in the 1991 ceasefire, is yet to take place.
(3) After the Trump administration’s recognition of Morocco’s claim, Polisario said it would continue fighting until Moroccan troops are forced to withdraw.
(4) The U.S. move would upset Algeria, the biggest backer of Polisario.
(5) Russia condemned the U.S. decision, which said the recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara “is a violation of international law”.