{"id":8546,"date":"2010-11-29T00:00:14","date_gmt":"2010-11-28T23:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=8546"},"modified":"2010-11-20T22:20:06","modified_gmt":"2010-11-20T21:20:06","slug":"upsurge-in-repression-challenges-nonviolent-resistance-in-western-sahara","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2010\/11\/upsurge-in-repression-challenges-nonviolent-resistance-in-western-sahara\/","title":{"rendered":"Upsurge in Repression Challenges Nonviolent Resistance in Western Sahara"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sahrawis have engaged in protests, strikes, cultural celebrations, and other forms of civil resistance focused on such issues as educational policy, human rights, the release of political prisoners, and the right to self-determination. They have also raised the cost of occupation for the Moroccan government and increased the visibility of the Sahrawi cause.<\/em><\/p>\n

On November 8, Moroccan occupation forces attacked<\/a> a tent city of as many as 12,000 Western Saharans just outside of Al Aioun, in the culminating act of a months-long protest of discrimination against the indigenous Sahrawi population and\u00a0worsening economic conditions.\u00a0\u00a0 Not only was the scale of the crackdown unprecedented, so was the popular reaction:\u00a0 In a dramatic departure from the almost exclusively nonviolent protests of recent years, the local population turned on their occupiers, engaging in widespread rioting and arson.\u00a0 As of this writing, the details of these events are unclear, but they underscore the urgent need for global civil society to support those who have been struggling nonviolently for their right of self-determination and to challenge western governments which back the regime responsible for the repression.<\/p>\n

Western Sahara<\/a> is a sparsely-populated nation located on the Atlantic coast of northwestern Africa.\u00a0 Traditionally inhabited by nomadic Arab tribes, collectively known as Sahrawis<\/a> and famous for their long history of resistance to outside domination, the land was occupied by Spain from the late 1800s through the mid-1970s. The nationalist Polisario Front<\/a> launched an armed independence struggle against Spain in 1973, and Madrid eventually promised the people of what was then still known as the Spanish Sahara<\/a> a referendum on the fate of the territory by the end of 1975. Irredentist claims by Morocco and Mauritania were brought before the International Court of Justice, which ruled in favour<\/a> of the Sahrawis\u2019 right to self-determination. A special Visiting Mission<\/a> from the United Nations engaged in an investigation that same year and reported that the vast majority of Sahrawis supported independence under the leadership of the Polisario, not integration with Morocco or Mauritania. \u00a0Under pressure from the United States, which did not want to see the leftist Polisario come to power, Spain reneged<\/a> on its promise for a referendum and instead agreed to partition the territory between the pro-Western countries of Morocco and Mauritania.<\/p>\n

As Moroccan forces moved into Western Sahara, most of the population fled to refugee camps<\/a> in neighboring Algeria.\u00a0 Morocco and Mauritania rejected a series of unanimous UN Security Council resolutions calling for the withdrawal of foreign forces and recognition of the Sahrawis\u2019 right of self-determination.\u00a0 The United States and France, meanwhile, despite voting in favor of these resolutions, blocked the UN from enforcing them.\u00a0 Meanwhile, the Polisario \u2013 which had been driven from the more heavily populated northern and western parts of the country \u2013 declared independence as the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic<\/a>. \u00a0Thanks in part to the Algerians providing significant amounts of military equipment and economic support, Polisario guerrillas fought well against both occupying armies. Mauritania was defeated by 1979, agreeing to turn their third of Western Sahara over to the Polisario<\/a>.\u00a0 However, the Moroccans then annexed that remaining southern part of the country as well.<\/p>\n

The Polisario<\/a> then focused their armed struggle against Morocco and, by 1982, had liberated nearly 85% of their country.\u00a0 Over the next four years, however, the tide of the war was reversed in Morocco\u2019s favor thanks to dramatic increases in American and French support for the Moroccan war effort, with U.S. forces providing important training<\/a> for the Moroccan army in counter-insurgency tactics and helping with the construction of a wall which kept the Polisario out of most of their country.\u00a0 Meanwhile, the Moroccan government, through generous housing subsidies and other benefits, successfully encouraged thousands of Moroccan settlers<\/a> to immigrate to Western Sahara.\u00a0 By the early 1990s, these Moroccan settlers outnumbered the remaining Sahrawis indigenous to the territory by a ratio of more than 2:1.<\/p>\n

A cease fire\u00a0in 1991 was part of an agreement\u00a0that would have allowed for the return of Sahrawi refugees to Western Sahara followed by a UN-supervised referendum on the fate of the territory.\u00a0 Neither the repatriation nor the referendum took place, however, due to\u00a0Moroccan insistence on stacking the voter rolls with Moroccan settlers and other Moroccan citizens that it claimed had tribal links to\u00a0Western Sahara.\u00a0 To break the stalemate, the UN Security Council passed a resolution<\/a> in 2004 which would allow Moroccan settlers to also vote in the referendum following five years of autonomy.\u00a0 Morocco, however, rejected this proposal too, with the apparent reassurance that the French and Americans would yet again threaten to veto any resolution imposing sanctions or other pressures on them to compromise.<\/p>\n

Unarmed popular resistance<\/h3>\n

As happened during the 1980s in both South Africa and the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, the locus of the Western Sahara freedom struggle shifted from the military and diplomatic initiatives of an exiled armed movement to a largely unarmed popular resistance from within, as young activists in the occupied territory and even in Sahrawi-populated parts of southern Morocco confronted Moroccan troops in street demonstrations and other forms of nonviolent action, despite the risk of shootings, mass arrests, and torture.\u00a0 Sahrawis from different sectors of society have engaged in protests, strikes, cultural celebrations, and other forms of\u00a0civil resistance focused on such issues as educational policy, human rights, the release of political prisoners, and the right to self-determination. They also raised the cost of occupation for the Moroccan government and increased the visibility of the Sahrawi cause. \u00a0Indeed, perhaps most significantly, civil resistance helped to build support for the Sahrawi movement among international NGO\u2019s, solidarity groups and even sympathetic Moroccans.<\/p>\n

Internet communication became a key element in the Saharawi movement, with public chat rooms evolving as vital centres for sending messages, as breaking news regarding the burgeoning\u00a0resistance campaign reached those in the Saharawi diaspora and among international \u00a0activists. Despite attempts by the Moroccans to disrupt these contacts, the diaspora has continued to provide financial and other\u00a0support to the resistance. \u00a0Though there have been complaints from\u00a0inside the territory that support for their movement by the older generation of Polisario leaders was inadequate, the Polisario appears to have recognized that by having signed a cease-fire and then having had Morocco reject the diplomatic solution expected in return, it has essentially played all its cards. So there was\u00a0a growing recognition that the only real hope for independence has to come from within the occupied territory in combination with solidarity efforts from global civil society.\u00a0 There have been some small victories<\/a>, such as the successful campaign which led to Sahrawi nonviolent resistance leader Aminatou Haidar securing<\/a> the 2008 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award, as well as forcing Moroccan authorities to reverse their expulsion order in December 2009, which resulted in her near-fatal 30-day hunger strike<\/a>.<\/p>\n

After Moroccan authorities\u2019 use of force to break up the large and prolonged demonstrations<\/a> in 2005 -2006, the resistance subsequently opted\u00a0mainly for smaller protests, some of which were planned and some of which were spontaneous.\u00a0 A typical protest would begin on a street corner or a plaza where a Sahrawi flag would be unfurled, women would start ululating, and people would begin chanting pro-independence slogans. Within a few minutes, soldiers and police would arrive, and the crowd would quickly scatter. Other tactics have included leafleting, graffiti (including tagging the homes of collaborators), and cultural celebrations with political overtones.\u00a0 Such nonviolent actions, while broadly supported by the people, appear to have been less a part of coordinated resistance than a result of action by individuals. Still, the Moroccan government\u2019s regular use of violent repression<\/a> to subdue the Sahrawi-led nonviolent protests<\/a> suggests that civil\u00a0resistance is seen as a threat to Moroccan control.<\/p>\n

One of the obstacles to the internal resistance is that Moroccan settlers outnumber the indigenous population <\/strong>by a ratio of more than 2:1 and by more in the major cities, making certain tactics used effectively in similar struggles more problematic. For example, although a general strike could be effective, the large number of Moroccan settlers, combined with the minority of indigenous Sahrawis who oppose independence, could likely fill the void resulting from the absence of much of the Sahrawi workforce. Although that might be alleviated by growing pro-independence sentiments among ethnic Sahrawi settlers from the southern part of Morocco, it still presents\u00a0challenges that have not been faced by largely nonviolent struggles in other occupied lands – among them\u00a0East Timor, Kosovo, and the Palestinian territories.<\/p>\n

A shift in Morocco\u2019s strategy<\/h3>\n

Despite this,\u00a0civil resistance\u00a0also appears to have forced a shift in Morocco\u2019s strategy to maintain control\u00a0of the mineral-rich territory. Although the Moroccan autonomy plan<\/a> for the territory put forward in 2006 does not meaningfully address Morocco\u2019s legal responsibility to recognize the Sahrawi\u2019s right of self-determination (see my Open Democracy article More Harm Than Good<\/a>), it nevertheless constitutes a reversal of Morocco\u2019s historical insistence that Western Sahara is as much a part of Morocco as other provinces by acknowledging that it is indeed a distinct entity. Protests in Western Sahara in recent years have begun to raise some awareness within Morocco, especially among intellectuals, human rights activists, pro-democracy groups, and some moderate Islamists – long suspicious of the government line in a number of areas – that not all Sahrawis see themselves as Moroccans and that there exists a genuine indigenous opposition to Moroccan rule.<\/p>\n

In the occupied territory, Moroccan colonists and collaborators are given preference for housing and employment and the indigenous people receive virtually no benefits from their country\u2019s rich fisheries and phosphate deposits.\u00a0 In response, a new tactic emerged late this summer, as Sahrawi activists erected the tent city about 15 kilometers outside of El Aioun, the former colonial capital and largest city in the occupied territory.\u00a0 Since any protests calling for self-determination, independence, or enforcement of UN Security Council resolutions are brutally suppressed, the demonstrators pointedly avoided such provocative calls, instead simply demanding economic justice<\/a>. \u00a0Even this was too much for the Moroccan monarchy, however, which was determined to crush this nonviolent act of mass defiance.\u00a0 The Moroccans tightened the siege in early October, attacking<\/a> vehicles bringing food, water and medical supplies to the camp, resulting in scores of injuries and the death of a 14-year old boy<\/a>.\u00a0 Finally, on November 8, the Moroccans attacked the camp, driving protesters out with tear gas and hoses, beating those who did not flee fast enough, setting off rioting and triggering the burning and pillaging of Sahrawis homes and shops, with occupation forces shooting or\u00a0arresting suspected activists, hundreds of whom disappeared\u00a0after the outbreak of violence.<\/p>\n

Morocco has been able to persist in flouting its international legal obligations toward Western Sahara largely because France and the United States have continued to arm Moroccan occupation forces and blocked the enforcement of resolutions in the UN Security Council demanding that Morocco allow for self-determination or even simply the stationing of unarmed human rights monitors in the occupied country. So now, at least as important as nonviolent resistance by\u00a0Sahrawis\u00a0is the potential of nonviolent action by the citizens of France, the United States, and other countries that enable Morocco to maintain its occupation. Such campaigns played a major role in forcing Australia, Great Britain, and the United States to end their support for Indonesia\u2019s occupation of East Timor.<\/p>\n

Despite 35 years of exile, war, repression and international neglect, Sahrawi nationalism is at least as strong within the younger generation as their elders, as is their will to resist.\u00a0 How soon they will succeed in their struggle for self-determination, however, may well rest on such acts of international solidarity<\/a> by global civil society.<\/p>\n

_________________<\/p>\n

Stephen Zunes is a professor of Politics and chair of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of San Francisco and serves as advisory committee chair of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict.\u00a0 His most recent book (co-authored with Jacob Mundy) is Western Sahara: War, Nationalism, and Conflict Irresolution<\/em><\/a> (Syracuse University Press, 2010)<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 opendemocracy.net<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sahrawis have engaged in protests, strikes, cultural celebrations, and other forms of civil resistance focused on such issues as educational policy, human rights, the release of political prisoners, and the right to self-determination. They have also raised the cost of occupation for the Moroccan government and increased the visibility of the Sahrawi cause.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nonviolence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8546\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}