The EU, Civil Society and Conflict Transformation in Western Sahara: The Failure of Disengagement

The EU, Civil Society and Conflict Transformation in Western Sahara: The Failure of Disengagement

Hakim Darbouche and Silvia Colombo start from the observation that state-led efforts to resolve the Western Sahara conflict have failed and that the European Union has largely kept out of it. They examine the work of eight Moroccan and eight Sahrawi civil society organisations, based on interviews carried out in 2009, to see what they do, what difference they make and whether the EU could work with them.

The authors find that most of the organisations on both sides reinforce the entrenched positions of the conflict. The Sahrawi groups are mostly grassroots and confrontational, though they also provide a counter-narrative to official Moroccan messaging, and a few, such as an engineers’ association, are less adversarial. Most Moroccan groups depend on the state and repeat its position. Autonomous Moroccan groups such as the Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AMDH) show more potential for peace-building. The EU, divided between its member states and concerned with Moroccan stability, has had little contact with Sahrawi civil society and has mainly provided humanitarian aid to the camps through ECHO.

Testing three theories about civil society and peace, the authors conclude that the EU’s disengagement means it avoids challenging Morocco and risks backing only the most visible, state-aligned groups. They suggest that working more deliberately with grassroots partners on both sides could strengthen peace-building.

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