Western Sahara: Lines in the Sand

The concept of national self-determination is a legal phenomenon that postulates the right of every nationality group, large or small, to form and govern its own nation-state, or to form a nation-state with another nationality group and decide its form of government. Historically, the concept is closely linked with that of liberal nationalism and is implicit in both the American Declaration of Independence and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man. Reaffirmed by Woodrow Wilson and later by the Atlantic Charter and the United Nations, the principle of self-determination has been seized upon by the people of Western Sahara to assert their own claims to independence. Commendably, these two books, which complement and reinforce each other, seek to answer the question of why these claims have gone unrealized. In doing so, they illustrate the tragic consequences of the inability of African states to solve the problems of the continent. But first and foremost, they offer an insightful case study of the tortuous operations of the United Nations and of how geopolitics and the interests of the great powers impinge on those operations.

The U.N. quest for national self-determination in Western Sahara began formally in the 1960s after the adoption of Resolution 1514 (XV), when the organization pressured Spain to decolonize Western Sahara by means of a referendum enabling the inhabitants to exercise freely their right to national self-determination. In 1967 Spanish authorities in the territory set up a Yemaa, a colonial legislative assembly, which they hoped to control indefinitely. In 1973 a group of Western Sahara nationalists organized Polisario, a national liberation movement, which initiated guerrilla activities against the Spanish administration. In 1974 Spain agreed in principle to a 1973 request by the Yemaa to allow the expression of self-determination, and the Spanish authorities proceeded to conduct a census of the territory in anticipation of a 1975 referendum. The census counted only Sahrawis within the territory. Those who had fled after a 1957 armed uprising to Tarfaya strip (which Spain had turned over to Morocco in 1958) and to other areas were excluded. This flaw became crucial in later arguments about voter eligibility in the self-determination referendum.

In the meantime, two African neighbors, Morocco and Mauritania, rejected the idea of self-determination in the Spanish colony, asserting instead "historical" claims to sovereignty over the territory. Note that Morocco had made similar claims on Mauritania. In response, the U.N. sent a fact-finding mission to Western Sahara in May 1975 that found an overwhelming consensus in favor of independence and against integration with any neighboring country. Also, at the instance of the two African claimants of sovereignty over the territory, the U.N., by Resolution 3292 (XXIX), December 13, 1974, sought and obtained an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice at the Hague. In October 1975 the Court rendered the opinion that while there had been certain legal ties between some groups in the disputed territory and Morocco and between others and Mauritania, those ties did not constitute legal sovereignty and that there had been no international recognition of such ties.

The verdict proved moot. Morocco ignored it. On November 6, 1975, when the leader of Spain, Francisco Franco, lay seriously ill, King Hassan II organized the so-called Green March and invaded Western Sahara with three hundred and fifty thousand unarmed Moroccan volunteers waving copies of the Koran. As the Green March was carried out, the Ford administration persuaded Spain, which was wrestling with an impending succession crisis, not to risk any conflict with Morocco over Western Sahara. As a consequence, Spain, in defiance of the will of the inhabitants of the territory, concluded with Morocco and Mauritania a tripartite agreement whereby administrative responsibility over Western Sahara...