Perspectives On Western Sahara

The ongoing conflict in Western Sahara is one of the more intractable legacies of European colonization in North Africa. Following the withdrawal of Spain, this territorial dispute escalated in 1975 into a war of independence between the Sahrawi people of the Polisario Front, who were backed by Algeria, and the states of Mauritania and Morocco. In 1976, the Polisario Front established the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, which was not admitted in the UN but won recognition by a few states. After multiple peace efforts, the conflict reemerged in 2005 as the “independence Intifada.” Today, the Polisario Front controls about 20% of Western Sahara. At the heart of the conflict lie geopolitical interests and incompatible claims aggravated by the use of military force and decades of mostly unproductive diplomatic maneuvers by international bodies and regional or foreign powers. This thorough, impartial survey brings together some of the best experts on the Sahara question to provide a broad-based analysis of the problem, from a range of perspectives. Featuring new research, the chapters examine the roots of the conflict, its dynamics, and potential solutions. This groundbreaking text also addresses questions of law, human rights, natural resources from an analytical point of view. Contributed by scholars from North Africa, Europe, and the U.S., it is an essential contribution to the literature of Middle East and African studies.

Fabled for more than three thousand years as fierce warrior-nomads and cameleers dominating the western Trans-Saharan caravan trade, today the Sahrawi are admired as soldier-statesmen and refugee-diplomats. This is a proud nomadic people uniquely championing human rights and international law for self-determination of their ancient heartlands: the western Sahara Desert in North Africa. Konstantina Isidoros provides a rich ethnographic portrait of this unique desert society's life in one of Earth's most extreme ecosystems. Her extensive anthropological research, conducted over nine years, illuminates an Arab-Berber Muslim society in which men wear full face veils and are matrifocused toward women, who are the property-holders of tent households forming powerful matrilocal coalitions. Isidoros offers new analytical insights on gender relations, strategic tribe-to-state symbiosis and the tactical formation of 'tent-cities'. The book sheds light on the indigenous principles of social organisation - the centrality of women, male veiling and milk-kinship - bringing positive feminist perspectives on how the Sahrawi have innovatively reconfigured their tribal nomadic pastoral society into globalising citizen-nomads constructing their nascent nation-state. This is essential reading for those interested in anthropology, politics, war and nationalism, gender relations, postcolonialism, international development, humanitarian regimes, refugee studies and the experience of nomadic communities.

This book explores the traces of the passage of time on the protracted and intractable conflict of Western Sahara. The authors offer a multilevel analysis of recent developments from the global to the local scenes, including the collapse of the architecture of the UN-led conflict resolution process, the advent of the War on Terror to the the Sahara-Sahel area and the impact of the ‘Arab Spring’ and growing regional security instability. Special attention is devoted to changes in the Western Sahara territory annexed by Morocco and the Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria. Morocco has adapted its governance and public policies to profound socio-demographic transformations in the territory under its control and has attempted to obtain international recognition for this annexation by proposing an Autonomy Plan. The Polisario Front and Sahrawi nationalists have shifted their strategy and pushed the centre of gravity of the conflict back inwards by focusing on pro-independence activism inside the disputed territory.

This book gives a comprehensive background to the long running conflict on the status of Western Sahara and particularly highlights the question of the territory’s natural resources, such as fish, oil and phosphates. The book analyzes why this territory, (mainly covered by desert and only sparsely populated), has since 1976 when the former colonial power Spain left the territory, engaged governments and people, both regionally and internationally, and the implications of its natural resources. The book includes: - a summary of the Western Saharan conflict, by Pedro Pinte Leite, specialist in international law in the Netherlands; - an up-to-date picture of the situation in Western Sahara with regard to natural resources, and the way in which exploitation is taking place, by Toby Shelley, a British journalist; - the UN’s legal opinion from 2002 on exploitation of the natural resources of a Non-Self-Governing Territory written by Hans Corell, former UN Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs, the Legal Counsel. Two political views of the conflict are also included. Magnus Schöldtz and Pål Wrange from the Swedish Foreign Ministry elucidate the Swedish Foreign Policy on the Western Sahara Conflict. A statement by Karin Scheele, MEP and President of the Intergroup on Western Sahara in the European Parliament focuses on the economic interests of the parties involved in the conflict. These contributions together with an extended chronology, by Claes Olsson, over the different phases of the conflict form a useful information source for policy-makers, researchers, students and activists interested in or dealing with issues related to the Maghreb framework and in particular the Western Saharan conflict. Contributors include: Hans Corell, is Ambassador and a Former UN Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs, the Legal Counsel Pedro Pinto Leite is a Portuguese international jurist based in Holland, secretary of the International Platform of Jurists for East Timor and coordinator of the Dutch section of the International Association of Jurists for Western Sahara. Claes Olsson has done further research after his degree in social sciences and is the author of several books and articles on the Western Saharan issue. Magnus Schöldtz, Deputy Director, Head of North Africa Section, Middle East and North Africa Department, Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Stockholm. Pål Wrange is a principal legal advisor on public international law at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Stockholm. Toby Shelley is a journalist and writer. He is author of 'Endgame in the Western Sahara', published by Zed Books. He has visited the Western Sahara and the Sahrawi refugee camps on a number of occasions. Karin Scheele, Member of the European Parliament (MEP), is President of the Intergroup on Western Sahara in the European Parliament

This open access book provides a multi-perspective approach to the caravan trade in the Sahara during the 19th century. Based on travelogues from European travelers, recently found Arab sources, historical maps and results from several expeditions, the book gives an overview of the historical periods of the caravan trade as well as detailed information about the infrastructure which was necessary to establish those trade networks. Included are a variety of unique historical and recent maps as well as remote sensing images of the important trade routes and the corresponding historic oases. To give a deeper understanding of how those trading networks work, aspects such as culturally influenced concepts of spatial orientation are discussed. The book aims to be a useful reference for the caravan trade in the Sahara, that can be recommended both to students and to specialists and researchers in the field of Geography, History and African Studies.

This open access book takes a deeper and broader perspective of the Hassaniya-speaking groups of the western region of the Sahara. There has been a surge of interest in this region, often centred around sensationalist news reports and policy briefs. But in-depth understanding and analysis remains neglected and little work has been undertaken on the diverse experiences of these groups and the contrasting political regimes under which they live. The contributors here focus on the complex and ambiguous relations between statehood, Islam, nation building and identity formation in hassanophone northwest Africa, ranging from southern Morocco, the Western Sahara and Mauritania to Algeria. The book uses up-to-date fieldwork to provide fresh analysis of and an insiders' perspective on these populations and their regional interactions, with contributions from the fields of law, Islamic studies, history, anthropology, politics, gender and media studies and the research of scholars from both the global North and global South. This interdisciplinary collection shows how urban ways of life are being adopted, with Hassaniya-speaking actors adjusting to state-administered social policies and new modes of settling disputes and legal claims. In doing so, the book sheds new light on the region's shifting social hierarchies, the new gendered power dynamics, and generational changes in the re-interpretation of 'tradition'. As well as displaying that the Hassaniya-speaking groups are pivotal to the development of the region's political culture, the book also reveals their close association with Islam, both as a religious expression as well as a cultural marker. A much-needed contribution on the intersections of politics, Islam and identity in northwest Africa.

Spain joined the UN in 1955, and the UN's main bodies pressured Spain to proceed with the decolonization of "Spanish Sahara," which shortly after, and under the name of Western Sahara, was included in the list of non-self-governing territories. When Spain was preparing the referendum of self-determination in 1975, the UN General Assembly asked for it to be suspended until the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion. This opinion established that, in 1884, there were no ties of sovereignty between Morocco and Mauritania and the people of the territory, and that the conflict should be resolved through the exercise of the right of self-determination. Nevertheless, following the signing of the Madrid Agreements and the withdrawal of Spain from the territory, Morocco and Mauritania occupied it, forcing the Saharawi people to start a war of national liberation that would last until 1991. That year launched a peace plan negotiated by Morocco and the POLISARIO Front, which provided for the holding of the referendum on self-determination. When the UN's Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara issued the composition of the census in 2000, Morocco decided to abandon the peace plan, accusing the UN of bias, thus leaving the conflict in an apparent impasse. Since 1975, the result of this conflict has seen the Saharawi people split between those who survive through international humanitarian aid in refugee camps in Tinduf, Algeria, and those who live in their own country under Moroccan occupation. This book explains the key issues of the conflict, from the perspective of international law, with particular emphasis on the development of the peace plan, as well as the causes and consequences of its paralysis.