Western Sahara: The Refugee Nation
The narrator’s first impression of Western Sahara comes from early-1980s TV news watched as a child. A report on war in a former Spanish territory—starkly unlike the green, rain-soaked valleys of northern Iberia—left a strong visual mark: guerrilla fighters in yellowish turbans, raising Kalashnikovs and riding defiantly to the front in old open Land Rovers, some improvised into assault vehicles with machine guns mounted on top. In the narrator’s memory the scenes are pale and blurred, as if washed out by desert sirocco and the grain of a black-and-white television.
The largest prison in the world: landmines, walls, UXOs and the UN’s role in the Western Sahara
According to Saharawi Comandante Habuha Braica, landmine coordinator of the POLISARIO, “there are approximately 7 million landmines, although some studies raise the figure up to 10 million”. Taking into account that the Saharawi population does not surpass 300,000, “there are 20 landmines for each Saharawi”.
Western Sahara: Road to Perdition?
At the time of writing, hopes for a peacful solution to the enduring conflict of the Western Sahara are evaporating.
Western Sahara – The Refugee Nation
My first image of the Western Sahara dates back to the early 1980s, when I was only a child. I was watching TV, the news, and I remember the presenter saying something about a war in a former Spanish territory, which looked very different from the exuberantly green and perpetually wet northern Iberian valleys of my childhood.
Nationalism, Identity and Citizenship in The Western Sahara
This article explores the processes of development and naturalisation of the Saharawi national identity that emerged during the 1970s under the leadership of the Frente Polisario and argues that in order to understand the Western Sahara conflict it is necessary to analyse the hegemonic policies implemented by both the Polisario and Morocco.