LONG-TERM RECOMMENDATION A: Leverage Opportunities to Facilitate Resolution

36 United States Policy on the Western Sahara Dispute: Overview and Recommendations • 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 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. • 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. 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 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. 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: LONG-TERM RECOMMENDATION A: Leverage Opportunities to Facilitate Resolution

Recommended Tactics

A deliberate socialization process and imple- mentation of a communications plan explain- ing how outcomes other than an independence referendum satisfy Sahrawi interests could pave the way for another solution. The United States should utilize the relationship-building efforts in the conflict mitigation phase to begin to influence the incoming generation of Polisa- rio leadership early on; in dialogue, the United States should be clear-eyed and direct in com- municating that it will not support the Polisa- rio’s maximalist position of independence. The intent of this messaging would be to discourage the new generation from tying their political fortunes to achieving this end in the way that the current leadership has.

Government of Morocco: position and interests

While the Government of Morocco agreed to a referendum with independence as an option in the UN Settlement Plan, the Moroccans updat- ed their outward position on a solution to the Western Sahara question in their 2007 “auton- omy proposal for the Sahara, within the frame- work of the Kingdom’s sovereignty and national unity” and the opportunity for ratification by “the populations concerned in a free referen- dum.” 58 Moroccan contacts reiterated this posi- tion in field interviews.

Morocco’s offer for Sahrawi autonomy via refer- endum, while maintaining Moroccan sovereign- ty, coupled with interviews with Moroccan offi- cials, contains several underlying interests:

• To maintain stability within Moroccan ter- ritory in order to limit threats to the mon- archy and ensure the continued rule of the royal family. Morocco fears independence for Western Sahara would threaten overall the integrity of the nation-state and trigger fur- ther splintering of the Moroccan territory.

• To earn international recognition for their sovereignty over the Western Sahara, and the ability to exercise the rights that follow from that sovereignty.

• To maintain its status as a reliable security partner by United States and France, particu- larly in the counterterrorism sphere.

• To keep the large investments in infrastruc- ture and development that it has made in Western Sahara—which is disproportion- ately higher than in other parts of the coun- try—within Morocco’s borders. The Govern- ment of Morocco wants to be seen as a wise steward of state resources, so maintaining at least nominal control of territory which has seen heavy government spending remains a priority.

• To continue taxing corporations and individ- uals that benefit from the natural resources in Western Sahara. Keeping the resource-rich areas Morocco currently controls within Mo- rocco’s borders will ensure tax revenue con- tinues to flow to the Government of Morocco.

Morocco enjoys a better situation without a ne- gotiated agreement than the Polisario. The Gov- ernment of Morocco has de facto control over the resource-rich and most desirable parts of the territory and a strong security apparatus to sup- press dissent from those who might seek to alter the status quo who reside in the Moroccan-con- trolled portion of the territory. While they still lack international recognition to exercise this control, this presents a minor hindrance. As such, the ability of a resolution to build on the interests of the Government of Morocco will likely require international recognition of de facto Moroccan control in exchange for protec- tion of rights and other measures to preserve Sahrawi autonomy.

Expected contours of a resolution agreement should the parties agree to pursue autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty:

Recognition of Moroccan Sovereignty

community (primarily the UN and UNSC permanent five) to recognize the King and Government of Morocco’s sovereignty over the territory. This will likely face resistance from the U.S. Congress, particularly influential members that strongly believe in the legitimacy of an independent Sahrawi state. While a change in Polisario leadership and policy to accept autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty may temper this resistance, the Administration should prepare to explain the necessity of recognizing Moroccan sovereignty, and adjust policy based on Congressional advice. A mural inside a Polisario administration building. Source: Toshiro Baum.

This will also require the international community (particularly Algeria and influential African Union states such as Nigeria and South Africa) to withdraw recognition of the SADR as a state. The agreement must remove independence as an option, either permanently or for a transitional period of several generations.

Articulating Sahrawi Autonomy

In exchange for recognizing Moroccan sovereignty, the Polisario and Sahrawi population will require a defined and detailed governance structure that delineates the powers and authorities reserved to the Government of Morocco and the local government of the Western Sahara province. Clearly laying out the outline of autonomy is of utmost importance to securing Sahrawi support for a proposal that grants the Polisario self-governance over Saharan territory.

• Grant Sahrawis Moroccan citizenship, and special legal status. This will also entail articulating the legal rights pertaining to this special status.

• Articulate the legal powers devolved to the territory under autonomy. To implement and guarantee this, we anticipate that the agreement will also need to do the following:

○ Negotiate a power-sharing agreement. An agreement that reserves a higher than proportionate influence for the Polisario and Sahrawi returnees will reassure the Polisario and Sahrawi population that they will continue to have self-governance over the territory and can assure the rights of those living in the territory. This could include reserving specific authorities to the Polisario or higher than proportional number of positions for the Sahrawi returnees. These could continue indefinitely, or for an agreed upon transitional period, after which it would reallocate to a more equal system proportionate to the population.

○ Integrate the Polisario security services. Allowing the existing Polisario services to provide security for their own community will reinforce returnees’ sense of security and trust in the resolution agreement. However, this will require training and equipping members of the existing Polisario security service to Moroccan standards and providing for resources and authorities for them within the existing Moroccan security service in the region.

○ Create a resource allocation framework. The Polisario and Sahrawi population view the territory’s resources and the revenues that they provide as a benefit that should be reserved for them as a nation. Defining a framework that acknowledges this right, and grants them control over the allocation of benefits such as revenue and lucrative jobs, will help reinforce the resolution’s sustainability.

Ratification through referendum

We anticipate that popular Sahrawi opinion and views about the legal mechanisms for self-determination will require that any resolution agreement be ratified by referendum. Voting in a referendum is key to satisfying Sahrawi demands for self-determination. Absent a referendum, any negotiated settlement will not have popular or international legitimacy.

Resettlement and integration measures

In addition to long-term measures to reinforce the sustainability of the resolution, the resolution will likely require short-term measures intended to support the resettlement and integration of the refugee population. These may take the form of material benefits such as housing, educational scholarships, temporary stipends, or designated employment. Other measures could include legal or political measures such as an additional special status for refugees that grants them expanded political influence. The fact that Sahrawis will finally have the option to safely return to the territory they long inhabited and access available natural resources must be emphasized above all in making the case for resettlement of the Sahrawi community in exile in the Tindouf camps.

Messaging

Because this resolution requires deviation from both sides’ hard stances, it will be necessary to give careful thought to how leaders of each side will present the resolution to their constituents. All parties should take this challenge seriously and the United States and the UN should sup- port Morocco and the Polisario in their messaging efforts, whether by providing funding or access to public relations expertise. A well-executed messaging campaign that is sensitive to the interests of each population could reduce the likelihood of violence and political liabilities for each side.