By the time they get a referendum organised, all the Morrocans who moved in will claim a vote and they won't win independence. Similar to all the Han Chinese moving into Mongolia.
posted by arcticseal at 5:26 AM on June 19, 2013

I wish that graphic was interactive!
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 5:39 AM on June 19, 2013

I didn't really know anything about Western Sahara until I went to Documenta in Kassel last year, where there was a great installation about the region. I don't think it's mentioned in the article, but I was astounded that there is a huge wall separating the Morocco-controlled portions of Western Sahara from the Polisario section. 2700km. Full of mines, and regular patrols. Absolutley insane.
posted by molecicco at 5:53 AM on June 19, 2013 [3 favorites]

Yeah exploring the region in Google Earth is interesting - desert broken up by a series of fortifications and walls, half-sunken beneath the dunes.
posted by Jimbob at 6:08 AM on June 19, 2013

The massive international failure in Western Sahara is heart-breaking, especially when the Sahrawi are a largely peaceful, progressive, simple, and well-educated people. All they're asking is that their homeland not be militarily occupied. Viva Sahara.
posted by koavf at 6:33 AM on June 19, 2013 [2 favorites]

Jimbob: exploring the region in Google Earth is interesting - desert broken up by a series of fortifications and walls, half-sunken beneath the dunes.

Absolutely, but Morocco is like this even within its current borders. Travelling in certain parts of the country, you can't help but see the old abandoned watchtowers, encampments, and fortifications dating from the suppression of the various Berber insurgencies in the '20s and beyond. And this has continued into the present: the prominence of military installations, particularly in towns in the south, is something you really notice. There's something tense and unfinished-feeling about Rabat's relationship with its various hinterlands ...
posted by Sonny Jim at 6:40 AM on June 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

The deafening silence about this issue during and after the Arab Spring has been shameful. And the Arab League, which has been so active against Israel has taken the opposite position on Western Sahara and supports "Moroccan territorial integrity." An odd position considering that Morocco has no real historical, cultural, or other claims to the territory and occupies it in the same manner as Indonesia occupied East Timor: by force, because it can and because no one cares enough to stop it. The UN resolution on Western Sahara was far more rigorous and more legally binding than just about anything the UN has said about Israel, and yet in Morocco nothing is done.

That said, Morocco has a population something like 300 times larger than Western Sahara. It has a hugely larger economy and the ability to arm itself heavily. The Sahwari Arabs gave up armed struggle because it was completely hopeless I think. The Moroccans allow the Free Zone to exist because it is mostly wasteland, uninhabited and uninhabitable trackless desert able only to support a couple of small towns.

That mine field is a nightmare. Does anyone believe that maps of the field exist which are accurate enough to allow eventual removal, when mountain-sized dunes can inundate the entire wall?
posted by 1adam12 at 6:45 AM on June 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

A few years back, I traveled through Western Sahara, over to Smara, inland, and not far from the berm and down through the big cities. It was a surreal place. On one hand, you can drive right through the desert swath and not know anything about the politics. You probably wont notice it. The Polisario hasn't attacked for decades and the area West of the berm moves ahead with little out word appearance of occupation.

But it is still very much occupied. For a conflict that had not been 'hot' for years, it was strange how many gun toting checkpoints still dotted the roads. All posing the question if I was a 'journalist'. And the towns themselves were full of Moroccan military/settlers. I befriended some youth, musicians in Laayoune, who were very much anti-occupation. We spoke a mixture of English and Spanish. They played Polisario songs on their guitar grinning like rebellious teens when police would overhear, but later, when talking politics in cafes, there was a lot of cloak and dagger. One young man told me that 'spies' were everywhere and that we should always be careful what we say.

If you want to really understand the Polisario and the movement for liberation, you have to jump across the berm to Tindouf, in the south of Algeria. That's really where the movement is based today - East of the berm, in refugee camps, far in the Southern desert. For the Polisario, this is the "unoccupied" territory - the half of Western Sahara that is in their control. Inaccessible, with no ports, no phosphorus mines.
posted by iamck at 7:47 AM on June 19, 2013 [3 favorites]

I don't have any expertise when it comes to Western Sahara but I've known about for quite a while, mainly because of the comparison to a place I do have expertise, East Timor. Unfortunately the article doesn't help things out by the way it invokes the experience of East Timor, particularly with regards to how it became independent. The article suggests that it was primarily a question of the West giving support for its struggle for self-determination. While the US switching its position was certainly crucial (particularly since the invasion and genocide never would have happened if the US had simply said "no" and not given the military, political and economic aid necessary to maintain the occupation for 25 years) but it was hardly the causal factor. Putting aside the large-scale objective factors like the Asian financial crisis and the end of the Cold War, there were three main movements which drove the change in institutional policies that brought about East Timor's independence. First of course, the people of East Timor never gave up, even in the face of incredible violence and oppression. Second, protests in Indonesia against the Suharto dictatorship forced him out of power and opened a space for a change in Indonesian policy. Third, a globally connected network of solidarity activists worked to publicize and support East Timor, along with embarrassing Indonesia and its Western backers. These three movements combined to transform the behaviors of the dominant institutions which supported or acquiesced in the occupation. Without all three of them, it's doubtful anything would have happened.

I don't know what relevance this may or may not have for Western Sahara. While there are similarities, it's a different situation in a different time in a different part of the world.

Additionally, East Timor is less corrupt and impoverished than the article suggests, and it would be significantly less so if Australia would stop stealing its oil and the West would make a genuine effort to compensate for the destruction it bankrolled for 25 years. The claim that an independent East Timor would be an "economic basket-case" was constantly made by apologists for the Indonesian occupation. It's inaccurate and immoral to make the same kind of argument for Western Sahara. Even if true, it basically boils down to saying that because a nation is poor it shouldn't be free. And that is a serious dick move.
posted by williampratt at 8:14 AM on June 19, 2013 [4 favorites]

More info on Western Sahara on Mefi in 2009.
posted by aught at 8:21 AM on June 19, 2013

A small quibble: that graphic is wrong about pre-1920 Togo.

Really interesting article, though. Western Sahara has always been something of an enigma to me. Thanks for posting this!
posted by solotoro at 8:23 AM on June 19, 2013

Considering it shows South AFrica free from colonia power quite some time ago - I have to wonder what the definition of "free" is here. The government is now local, but all the faces remain the same. Now get back to work. ?
posted by fluffycreature at 9:37 AM on June 19, 2013

In global politics, playing by the rules doesn¡¯t always help.

There are no rules in global politics. It is a free market of national power.
posted by snottydick at 9:57 AM on June 19, 2013

There are no rules in global politics. It is a free market of national power.

I don't understand what this means. I suspect that makes at least two of us.
posted by atrazine at 10:37 AM on June 19, 2013

I don't understand what this means.

I can't imagine what you might find difficult to understand about it.
posted by snottydick at 12:18 PM on June 19, 2013

It is a free market of national power.

In what way do contests of military, diplomatic, and economic power resemble markets?
posted by atrazine at 1:11 PM on June 19, 2013

The one with the most resources gets to dictate the terms?

It's a metaphor, not a doctoral thesis.
posted by darkstar at 1:34 PM on June 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

Unless you're an economic hitman, bent on confessin'
posted by infini at 1:37 PM on June 19, 2013

I don't understand what this means. I suspect that makes at least two of us.

It's a crude description of realpolitik aka Realism. It is not, however, true that there are no rules -- there are oodles of treaties which provide them. Non-signatories, however, are not bound by them. It can make compliance ... difficult.

Considering it shows South AFrica free from colonia power quite some time ago - I have to wonder what the definition of "free" is here.

The apartheid government was in no way a pseudo-colonial government operating on behalf of London. If anything, it broke away from London. You may recall that the country was largely settled by colonial Dutch who were then conquered by the British, but that did not mean this victory was ever accepted. When the apartheid constitution was promulgated in 1960, not only did it declare the state a republic, it was expelled from the Commonwealth for its racist policies.

More broadly, you should understand that remaining in the Commonwealth or retaining the British monarchy are local choices made by what in the British system was called "responsible government" (i.e. democratic institutions responsible to the people, although the definition of democratic would undergo no small evolution).

Anyway, Western Sahara. I was surprised there was no mention of the African Union or its more federative predecessor, the Union of African States, which has never accepted Morocco as a member due to this issue. It is the only African state not welcome in the organization, which says quite a lot. The AU has been making significant, though modest, strides toward becoming a self-reliant power broker and influence for good including a surprising amount of respect for democratic -- or at least constituional -- governance. Morocco, for its part, is content to remain a certain Washington-friendly power broken on behalf of the Arab League, and to nurture its own probably futile hopes for EU membership. They're not relaxing their grip.
posted by dhartung at 4:29 AM on June 20, 2013

In what way do contests of military, diplomatic, and economic power resemble markets?
posted by atrazine at 1:11 PM on June 19 [+] [!]

The one with the most resources gets to dictate the terms?
posted by darkstar at 1:34 PM on June 19 [1 favorite ?] Favorite added! [!]

Bingo.
posted by snottydick at 1:23 PM on June 21, 2013