Alle's comments on 'Resolution 1813: Casus Belli? Apparently Not'

[Alle] ... the meaning of the year-long extension is also that this was the last push within the UN for autonomy before the Bush admin moves out of office and that the US & France combined couldn't (or wouldn't) get any further than an oblique reference to realism and some non-binding praise for Morocco's plan, while self-determination is kept with zero change of wording. In that sense, it's a pretty comfortable place in which to dig in for Polisario and Algeria, compared to the alternatives. (Although of course much worse than c. 2004.)

The point is that the US cannot now push the process further under this presidency, on the UN/intl law track. This forces Morocco to take the initiative itself, before the elections, if they don't want to gamble on the next president being prepared to go further than Bush did.

The PJD recently called for the government to start implementing the autonomy initiative unilaterally; that is an interesting proposition, and perhaps the gov is also prepared to do something along those lines. Not sure it's a smart thing to do overall, though, since autonomy would then appear in all its messy reality, rather than remaining a 'daring' future prospect -- presumably it would also somewhat empower Sahrawis in the territories to organize/protest (= a free concession), or, if not, come off as a sham. So my bet is Morocco holds its ground and does nothing -- total stalemate until the end of the year.

After that: P[olisario] & A[lgeria] have taken a bad beating, but Morocco's strategy has now -- absent some dramatic development -- run its course. And despite extremely favorable circumstances, and all this pushing, the gov won nothing except an escape route from the Baker plan. Autonomy was the major card up its sleeve, to be used just once for public effect. Now it is spent, and still, international legitimacy is not even on the horizon. So what now?

Thanks for the feedback. I think I was arguing the same claim (year long extension partially relates to US politics) though you've done a better job of clarifying and adding context (e.g., PJD).

The problem with any Moroccan unilateralism is that there's no incentive for Rabat to implement autonomy unless France and the US are willing to make the dramatic move of recognizing Moroccan sovereignty. That is, from the Moroccan point of view, autonomy is a compromise, a step backwards, and not an inevitability. Indeed, the Moroccan regime sees autonomy as a liability given the growth of Berberism in the Rif and Draa regions. And it is no secret that some parties support autonomy in Western Sahara because they hope it will become a crack in the Makhzen system through which real political reform can be driven.

So for Morocco to 'magnanimously' implement autonomy, there has to be some major reward for such 'compromise'. Would the Bush administration make such a move and recognize Moroccan sovereignty vis-à-vis an autonomous Western Sahara (I'm sure Sarko would)? Would anyone in the US care if the White House did?

The major argument against supporting Moroccan unilateralism, for the White House, is that the UN establishment would not be too happy and Polisario would be left with no choice but to go back to war.

Unilateral autonomy: that there is the real Casus Belli.

There's obviously precedent for this, what with the Bush administration’s endorsement of Israeli unilateralism in Gaza and the West Bank wall, which is not a compromise but a solution pre-determined by realpolitik in the 1970s. The same could be said of Western Sahara.

Cheers,
SW

...Stop the Press! Polisario will not work with Van Walsum

I spoke too soon! In my last post I heavily criticised Polisario for not taking a tougher stance against Van Walsum's US-backed attack on self-determination ("And while the ship of self-determination is sinking, Algeria and Polisario re-arrange the deck chairs.)

Today Polisario announced that it will no longer work with Van Walsum, the UN envoy to Western Sahara. Following an emergency jama'a, the front had this to say:

The bureau of the National Secretariat deemed the personal approach preached by Mr. Peter van Walsum, illegal, unjust and completely aligned to the thesis of the Moroccan colonial occupation whose objective is to confiscate the Saharawi people's inalienable rights to self-determination and independence. The bureau vigorously condemns, on behalf of POLISARIO Front, this approach and considers that Mr. Walsum has lost the confidence of the Saharawi people and thus can no more play a role in the ongoing process to decolonise Western Sahara. [... T]he Bureau solemnly reaffirms that POLISARIO Front will not accept today nor tomorrow to enter in a process that aims at negating the Saharawi people's inalienable and imprescriptible rights to self-determination and independence.

Are dems fightin' words?

In light of this development, we might have to rethink why the Security Council gave MINURSO a 12-month extension rather than the normal six. Perhaps not only because of the change in the US administration come November, but also because there will be a job ad on the NY Craigslist tomorrow for a new Personal Envoy.

And now we're all waiting for the other shoe to drop -- ie, what will Rabat do?

Kurt Waldheim, Secretary-General who allowed Moroccan invasion of Western Sahara, dead

The late, former UN Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim, best known for his participation in the Holocaust, was also heavily involved in the 1975 Moroccan seizure of then Spanish -- now Western -- Sahara. Though the UN was created, in part, to prevent the aquistion of territory by foce, Waldheim's 'diplomatic' passivisity during the 1975 crisis allowed Morocco to grab Spanish Sahara before the native people could vote on independence. Just one of many crimes, like East Timor, that should have landed him in the Hague years ago. I suspect that few tears will be shed in the Sahrawi refugee camps for the late Mr Waldheim.

Spain to open genocide prosecution against Moroccan actions in Western Sahara

Just as Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero is making an official visit to Morocco, Spain’s Office of the Public Prosecutor accused Morocco of genocide in Western Sahara.

El Mundo has reported that the famous prosecutor Balthasar Garzón has been instructed to start legal process ‘against the Moroccan officials and military officers for genocide, torture, kidnapping and disappearances practiced by the Kingdom of Morocco against the Sahrawi people’. Thirty-two high Moroccan officials have been named.

Several Sahrawi human rights organizations and solidarity groups in Spain apparently called for the proceedings under international law. Most of cases involved occurred between 1975 and 1980.

El Mundo wrote, ‘Between the 32 defendants are several generals and leading figures in Moroccan politics in last the three decades’. Included is Driss Basri, former Interior Minister outseted by King Mohammed VI in 1999 shortly after the latter ascended to the throne. Sahrawis call the exiled Basri ‘Butcher Basri’. He now lives in Paris.

The case also names several former and serving officials in the numerous security bodies. The accused include some of the most powerful figures in Morocco’s makhzan (the royal-state apparatus of control):
• Hamidou Lanigi, ousted head of National Security, leading member of the Old Guard
• Yasine Mansouri, a royal advisor and intelligence czar
• Abdellaj Kadiri, former DST director
• Abdelaziz Benani, Chief of Staff for Morocco’s armed forces
• Housni Bensliman, head of the Royal Gendarmerie
• Ali Benhima, National Security Chief in the Moroccan occupied Western Sahara
• Abdelhafid Benhachem, Basri’s former aid

The indictment claims that ‘from the 31 of October of 1975 to the present, the Moroccan Army has exerted a permanent violence against the Sahrawi people, first in a predatory war that forced a large part of the Sahrawi population, more than 40,000 people, to flee to the desert, being persecuted and being bombed by the aggressor’s forces with napalm, white phosphorus and cluster bombs, being thrown to the void from helicopters, creating a state of terror and persecution … that last to the present time’.

The dossier apparently contains a list of 206 Sahrawis who ‘disappeared’ at the hands of Moroccan security agents. It adds ‘the disappearance of thousands of people, of who at least 526 Sahrawi, still today, remain in that situation, without their relatives having some knowledge of their whereabouts, and the Moroccan state’s denial of further information to them’.

Sources:
El Mundo (March 6, 2007), ‘La Fiscalía pide a Garzón que investigue a altos cargos marroquíes por genocidio; Informa a favor de la admisión de una querella por los delitos cometidos contra cientos de saharauis desaparecidos, la mayoría de ellos de nacionalidad española / Entre los acusados está el ex director general de la Seguridad Nacional de Rabat’ by Manuel Marraco, p16.

AFP-Spanish, ‘Sahara: fiscal español pide instruir demanda por genocidio contra marroquíes’
(March 6, 2007)

Interesting Comment on 'Autonomy? How about a confederation?'

Here is an interesting comment on my last post, Autonomy? How about a confederation? from an anonymous source:

From 'arre':

Any solution is illegal, thus probably unrealizable, unless confirmed through a vote with independence as the other major option on the ballot, i.e. an exercise of effective self-determination. I just cannot see a credible way around that within the UN framework. But if that can be arranged, autonomy is clearly an interesting option. Both full independence and full annexation to Morocco holds a potential for disruptive crisis and violence:

* INDEPENDENCE could in a worst-case scenario bring about a failed state if it lacks foreign material/security support and/or as a result of Moroccan subversion (like in East Timor). That W. Sahara would end up as an Algerian satellite is of course also possible, but (a) I can’t see why that is any worse for the West than a Moroccan annexed territory, if Algeria stays reasonably stable and (b) a Sahrawi state would find Morocco both willing and capable to help break any over-reliance on Algeria, for nationalist and strategic reasons.

* ANNEXATION, if forced through w/o Sahrawi grievances seriously addressed, and with hopes for independence not totally extinguished, could lead to future flare-ups when Morocco is weak, and/or a resurgent post-Polisario Sahrawi nationalism turning Islamist. (There's serious potential for that in the Mauritania/W. Sahara Moorish areas.) Also, flooding the desert with ~15,000 armed and experienced Polisario fighters who suddenly lost their raison d'être, source of income and status, while also being more or less cut off from the traditional tribal networks that could contain their activities, doesn't bode well for stability in the area. It is utterly naïve to expect they will all meekly accept to go live on the dole in "Moroccan Sahara" after the humiliation of defeat. Consider the insecurity projected by the GSPC with only a few hundred men in the Algerian Sahara, and how smugglers have chipped away at stability and sovereignty in these areas, and expect tenfold desert unrest if Polisario is broken up forcibly. With this in mind, if autonomy can be accepted in a non-flawed self determination referendum, where it visibly beats independence as an option, then it is clearly an intriguing possibility.

The main problems I think are what Driss Basri (for his own self-interested reasons) pointed out: that Sahrawi autonomy risks feeding into Moroccan separatisms (mainly Rif), and Morocco really cannot afford to emasculate the central state if it wants to continue reforming/developing. Autonomies in these kinds of underdeveloped areas invariably turn into inefficient, money-gobbling and reform-resistant local fiefdoms for tribal, central gov-blessed apparatchiks. (That will happen in W. Sahara too, and the Khelli Henna crowd is a good example of the kind of self-serving elite which will run it, if indeed anything is left for them to run after the Moroccan state’s lawyers have had their say post-independence.) The other problem, which Basri underlined, is that permanent autonomy could very well in the long run serve to strengthen Sahrawi particularity and feed into resurgent nationalism in times of crisis, even if support for independence will dip immediately after autonomy is granted. This is particularly so if the way it is brought about is not 100% acceptable, i.e. with a proper UN-sponsored vote, so as to kill off the Polisario discourse once and for all. Then the whole conflict would bubble up again, only more intractable, with the clear-cut colonial border and popular sovereignty principles long gone, leaving only historical distrust, ethnic suspicion and dolchstoss myths in their place.

That would really be the worst of two worlds, and if autonomy is to be attempted, to avoid this it needs: (a) Foreign backing to resist creeping Moroccan subversion. Achievable, Spain is perfect for the part. (b) Foreign money to sweeten transition. Achieveable, and necessary also in the case of independence or integration etc. (c) Large enough initial powers to be able to present it as a no-losers compromise. Not sure Morocco is ready to do this, we’ll know in April inshallah. (Thought it won’t be anything near your “confederation” suggestion.) (d) To be coupled with a discourse or principles that explicitly sets W. Sahara out as a special case, so that the Rif (or the Kabylie in Algeria for that matter) will not follow by demanding same, starting a vicious spiral. Achievable, just package it right. (e) Self-determination, some form of free and fair referendum on independence or autonomy, to demonstrate that the conflict is over and that there are no issues of principle to invoke against Moroccan sovereignty – come what may, the conflict is over. Some CORCAS shenanigan simply will not do, but here I fear Morocco simply cannot deliver. The MAP recently sent out something about how the support of CORCAS was tantamount to self-determination … it read very much like a trial balloon. If that is the way they’re going to go about the self-determination issue, someone needs to kill the autonomy plan quickly, because that will undermine not only Western Sahara but Morocco too.