A Battlefield Transformed: From Guerilla Resistance to Mass Nonviolent Struggle in the Western Sahara
In late May 2005 erupted a mass uprising in the Maghreb against foreign domination. Thousands of ethnic Sahrawis in Western Sahara—a former Spanish colony under strict Moroccan military control since Morocco invaded and occupied the territory in 1975—took to the streets, echoing recent largely unarmed protest movements in Georgia, Ukraine, and Lebanon. Demonstrators demanded the withdrawal of Moroccan troops and independence for what they describe as Africa’s last remaining colony.