The Western Sahara Conflict: Regional and International Dimensions

The Western Sahara Conflict: Regional and International Dimensions

Yahia H. Zoubir looks at King Hassan II’s meetings with the Polisario Front in Marrakesh in January 1989 and argues that they changed Morocco’s tone but not its position. Morocco still treated Western Sahara as its own territory, Algeria still backed the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic and the fighting continued on and off. He traces the conflict to Spain’s failure to hold a self-determination referendum and to the 1975 Madrid Accords, which led Algeria to recognise the SADR and Morocco to break off relations.

Zoubir shows that the restoration of Moroccan-Algerian relations in 1988 was tied to a commitment to seek a political settlement, but that Rabat seemed to want a referendum that would simply confirm its control. He identifies the pressures behind the King’s shift: Algerian diplomacy, Morocco’s isolation over the UN and OAU resolutions it had ignored, French encouragement, a more even-handed US approach and the easing of superpower rivalry.

He concludes that the talks produced no agreement on either autonomy or independence, that renewed fighting in late 1989 undermined progress, and that lasting stability depends on Maghreb integration and on carrying out the UN peace plan.

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