36
United States Policy on the Western Sahara Dispute: Overview and Recommendations
LONG-TERM RECOMMENDATION A:
Leverage Opportunities to Facilitate Resolution In the event of Polisario leadership transition, the report recommends the U.S. develop and provide the UN PESG with a proposal for Western Saharan Autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty, and encourage the PESG to mediate a negotiation on this proposal.
• To return to the land they lived on for generations. They want to be able to go home to their territory without fearing for their safety. Sahrawis want to start lives, build homes, and engage in commercial activity to support themselves, their families, and their community.
To succeed, any negotiated resolution to a conflict requires provisions that (1) make the agreement acceptable to the parties and (2) sustainable by providing for the interests of the parties and populations over the next several generations.
• To self-govern upon return to the Western Sahara. Both the Polisario officials operating government ministries in exile and the teachers and health care providers offering services to Sahrawis in the Tindouf camps want to govern and provide services in the Western Sahara after returning.
The assessment of the current Polisario and Government of Morocco positions and interests below seeks to identify the main contours of an acceptable and sustainable negotiated resolution to the Western Sahara conflict. While this should not prescribe the actual details of an eventual resolution, it will help the U.S. Government identify key focus areas for negotiations. In addition, those involved or observing the negotiation can use the baseline assessment of the parties’ interests and positions to identify trends and key shifts by either party that can be exploited to constructively influence the negotiation process toward resolution.
Polisario: position and interests Since the conclusion of the UN Settlement Plan negotiations in 1988, the Polisario’s stated position on the future of the Western Sahara has been the exercise of self-determination through a referendum, with territorial independence as one of the options presented to voters. Polisario officials reiterated this position during field interviews. But Polisario officials and Sahrawis residing in the Tindouf camps also expressed several underlying interests about why they want an independence referendum or about the outcome they hope will come from a referendum with independence as an option. Interests include:
• To utilize the natural resources in the Western Sahara to benefit Sahrawis. They want to extract phosphates and fish the territory’s waters. • To find a solution to the conflict that makes the Sahrawi suffering “worth it.” Polisario officials who have asked that the Sahrawi people remain in the Tindouf camps for 43 years, instead of assimilating into Morocco or migrating to Europe, want to be able to offer their people a better option than the one currently available to them. Without a negotiated agreement with Morocco, the Polisario’s best alternative to a negotiated agreement remains a situation of protracted displacement, reliant on humanitarian aid to meet basic needs and on the efforts of the UN PESG to bring about agreement on a resolution to the conflict. While the Polisario threatens to return to violence, they are too ill-equipped and too far outnumbered by Moroccan forces to render this threat a credible means to change the status quo. The ability to build on any of the Polisario’s underlying interests is premised on policy change by the Polisario, likely due to a generational leadership change. Adherence to the party line that self-determination should be exercised through a referendum on territorial independence remains high, particularly among the older generation who lived through violent conflict with Morocco.
