What’s the deal with the Western Sahara? It was one of Spain’s possessions in northern Africa, and, following the peculiar Green March of November 1975 (Wiki) as Franco agonised on his death bed – when 350,000 Moroccans advanced several kilometres into the territory – the region was finally ceded, not to its inhabitants, but to two of the neighbouring countries: Morocco and Mauretania (which dropped its claims in 1989 - Wiki).
Morocco occupied most of the territory, claiming it as a Moroccan province, but was faced with both the indigenous Sahrawi population, who wanted independence; neighbouring Algeria, who supported the armed Sahrawi Polisario movement; and certain international agencies that supported the indigenous peoples, culminating in the proposal of an UN-backed referendum (rumours had the Moroccans filling up the region with somewhat unwilling settlers to help along the eventual vote), which so far, has never been held.
While Morocco claims various bits of its territory held by the Spanish and known in Spain as ‘plazas de soberanía’ (Wiki) – off-lying islets like Perejil, the Chafarinas islands and the isthmus of La Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera (1.9 hectares in size, with a small military presence), and more importantly, Melilla and Ceuta and even the Canary Islands for future discord, the larger and easier prize of the rich-in-resources Western Sahara (it’s about half the size of Morocco) has kept that country distracted.
The Spanish have quietly ignored the plight of the Sahrawi people, beyond inviting many of their children to stay in private homes in Spain during the summer, as the Americans were in support of the status quo. There are sound business reasons for doing so.
Suddenly, last week, the outgoing president Donald Trump gave his nation’s official recognition of Morocco’s claim to the region (in exchange for Rabat recognizing Israel as a nation). Minutes later, the proposed meeting for Thursday December 17th between President Sánchez and King Mohammed VI to discuss illegal immigration was dropped.
The Americans had been involved with the Western Sahara issue from the beginning, and it’s known that Henry Kissinger influenced Juan Carlos I to drop Spain’s claim on the region as ‘the Green March began and Franco slipped into a coma’ (Atalayar here).
With Trump’s ‘surprise’ recognition of the Moroccan claim, the Spanish media went into a frenzy (here). elDiario.es says that the USA has favoured Morocco for the past 45 years, while Ejercito warns of the ‘imminent regional military supremacy’ of the Moroccans as ‘a grave problem for Spain’. The Moroccan air force, for example, is equipped with ‘better fighters’.
The British quickly backed the American view (‘to isolate Spain on the Sahara question’ says El Español), while Russia (and Sweden) just as quickly rejected the policy.
De Verdad Digital explains here that the American master-plan is to ease tension between Israel and the Arab nations while trampling on the rights of the powerless (‘…the Sahrawis and the Palestinians are twinned in ignominy…’).
The American ambassador to Rabat gave a framed map of the expanded Morocco to the Moroccan king last Saturday (here) and we end with an article from the Spanish-language Sahrawi newspaper EcSaharaui titled ‘Noam Chomsky: Trump makes the criminal occupation of Western Sahara by Morocco, official’.
Later: The Americans announced over Christmas that they will shortly be opening a consulate in the Western Sahara (here). Meanwhile, the Moroccan President Saadeddine Othmani is now openly claiming Melilla and Ceuta as theirs, to the firm indignation of the Spanish Government.
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