Conflict Stalemate in Morocco and Western Sahara: Natural Resources, Legitimacy and Political Recognition by Natasha White • Solidarity Rising

March 5, 2024

Conflict Stalemate in Morocco and Western Sahara: Natural Resources, Legitimacy and Political Recognition

Natasha White argues that natural resources are deeply bound up with the Western Sahara conflict and lend legitimacy to each side in different ways. First, the trade in phosphate and other resources, tied to Moroccan elites and foreign partners, has produced de facto recognition of Morocco’s occupation. Even without formal recognition of Moroccan sovereignty, this trade amounts to backdoor acceptance of the status quo, and states’ policies shift as their economic interests change.

Second, resources carry symbolic weight for Sahrawi refugees in Tindouf, standing for the lost territory and for future hopes. White calls this an “environmental imaginary” that helps unite the nation and mobilise international supporters, while the territory’s contested status lets the Sahrawis invoke international law, including permanent sovereignty over natural resources. She draws on the literature, policy reports, industry data and interviews carried out in Morocco in 2013, and traces how phosphate discoveries in the 1950s and the Bou Craa mine shifted colonial attention inland and fed Sahrawi nationalism.

Finally, she asks whether resources could open a route to peace, comparing South Sudan, where oil created incentives for a settlement, with Aceh, where revenue sharing risked enriching elites. She concludes that resources that need foreign investment and cooperation could encourage a settlement, but only with safeguards against elite capture and attention to human rights and democratisation.