Saharan stasis: Status and future prospects of the Western Sahara conflict
The nine-year United Nations effort to hold a "winner-take-all" referendum in Western Sahara is stalemated by fundamental difference as to who should be allowed to vote. The United Nations is pessimistic that such a vote can ever be taken.
Western Sahara
Having been largely forgotten, the Western Sahara conflict appeared to be heating up again in early 2012 when the German multinational, Siemens, landed an order for the construction and maintenance of 22 windmills to be built on a wind farm in Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara.
Cold War Technologies, Global Fertilizers, and the Fate of Western Sahara
When, after years of geological and geophysical exploration, a phosphate mine was discovered at Bu-Craa in 1964, Western Sahara received renewed geopolitical attention. Several countries competing for the control of the world fertilizer market, including Morocco, Spain, France, and the United States, developed diverging strategies to gain control of the mineral.
The Western Sahara Conflict: Regional and International Dimensions
King Hassan II of Morocco informed the French press in December 1988 that he was willing to talk to the Frente Popular para la Liberacidn de Saguia el-Hamra y Rio de Oro, known as the Polisario Front, which had been waging a war of national independence during the previous 15 years.
“Seized of the Matter”: The UN and the Western Sahara Dispute
Since 1988, the United Nations has been actively involved in the Western Sahara dispute between the Kingdom of Morocco and the Western Saharan liberation movement known as the Frente POLISARIO.