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Anna Theofilopoulou, a former UN decolonization specialist that worked on Western Sahara’s peace process from 1994-2004, has followed both the Settlement Plan and Baker’s seven-year peace effort from start til finish, she is one of very few to really know the Sahara negotiations game inside out.

She is categoric when she says that with the autonomy initiative, the current impasse will go on for some more years. Given the absence of will by members of the Security Council to take a clear and determined position and the general preference for « make believe » action, this is quite probable. The UN has had a reasonable plan on the table that met all the specifications laid out by the Security Council to Baker when he was asked in July 2002 to pursue his efforts to find a political solution. It has expressed its readiness to consider any approach that would allow for self-determination. After initially supporting the Baker Peace Plan, the Council changed its position once one of the parties raised objections. Instead of taking a firm position, it vacillated.

What she hints at but doesn’t say is: that starting endless, pointless negotiations in order to gain time, is in fact Morocco’s first hand-option, and will remain so for as long as the UN will not surrender self-determination as a principle of decolonization. That is precisely the reason for this.

Morocco’s current autonomy proposal, while not much different in substance to what was given to Baker in December 2003, follows a different strategy. Claiming to be open to negotiations, it does not go into the details of the previous autonomy project. Instead, it defines the outline and principles governing autonomy, allowing for the proposal « to be enriched by the other parties during the negotiations phase. The conflict has been stuck since 1991 precisely because the two parties cannot agree on the definition of anything.

Morocco’s strategy appears to be to normalise its occupation of Western Sahara by appearing to give ground by granting autonomy, while in actual fact consolidating its control and neutralising the efforts of the international community to achieve a just and lasting peace in the region. If the UN adopte his autonomy plan that means a recognition of its souvereignity over a non self autonome territory.

Anyone who thinks that Morocco would ever allow the Sahrawi to control any of the territory’s mineral or fishing wealth is seriously suffering from naivety illness. It just won’t happen. The Moroccan military, elite, and monarchy have been happily stealing Western Sahara’s abundant resources for over thirty years and are not about to relinquish their cash cow.

They are floating it because it is essentially a propaganda exercise designed to give the impression that Morocco is a progressive nation seeking and end to a long-running conflict, up against an intractable foe (i.e. the Polisario Front).

So, the autonomy plan either changes nothing on the ground, or is a prelude to war. It is possible that Morocco is seeking to legitimize its « ownership » of Western Sahara in the eyes of the international community so that it can complete its conquest of Western Sahara and claim it is just dealing with an uprising by « separatists » in territory that everyone recognizes as Moroccan. However, this would risk conflict with Algeria and regional destabilization. But we shouldn’t dismiss the possibility that the autonomy plan is a precursor to further aggressive military activity on the part of Rabat.

The American diplomat Christopher Ross was chosen this past summer to untangle this mess. Ross was originally selected for the job in September, but it took several months to make it official, after Morocco obstructed his appointment because, as the moroccan press say, that, from now on, any talks must focus on how to implement the king’s autonomy plan, not whether to do it the Moroccan autonomy plan must be the « sole platform » for future discussions, leaving aside any proposals from POLISARIO. That is of course unacceptable to the Sahrawis, who respond that in such a case, there would be no point in having negotiations at all.

Ross inherits an unenviable portfolio. Morocco remains as unlikely as ever to agree to a referendum that offers independence for the territory, and the Polisario will settle for nothing less. To date, UN proposals have all been unsatisfactory to, at least, one of the three parties. The proposed UN referendum on independence signed in 1991 died when the Polisario and Morocco disagreed over who in the Western Sahara should have the right to vote. In 2001, Morocco signed on to the first version of the Baker plan, under which the Western Sahara would become an autonomous region of Morocco, but Polisario predictably rejected the plan. In 2003, Baker revised the plan to include autonomy and a referendum of the entire Western Saharan population, including the Polisario refugees in camps in Algeria. Polisario signed on, as did the UN Security Council, but without Morocco’s cooperation the deal fell through.

After visiting, twice, the Maghreb region, Ross said he won’t accept any solution that doesn’t have self-determination. Alternately, this could mean nothing. Moroccan claim that self-determination includes autonomy, and he hasn’t mentioned a referendum. But at least he is seraching for a « solution based on the self-determination principle » and he isn’t endorsing autonomy like Van Walsum. The new UN envoy on Western Sahara isn’t taking up last envoy Peter Van Walsum’s weak stance on self-determination.

Officially, Morocco indicated that it wanted negotiations to be based on the autonomy plan, but that never seemed likely. It could just have been an attempt to play hardball, so Western nations do not get the idea that Morocco is ready for more compromise; also, it’s worth bearing in mind that Morocco is rather comfortable with the status quo, and would rather extend it than enter unknown diplomatic territory.

If international law were followed, this would be an easy enough problem for Ross to sort out. Western Sahara falls under U.N. Charter laws. General Assembly Resolution 1514 outlawed colonialism and imposed an obligation on all colonial powers to let the indigenous population within the colonial territory vote for self-determination.

If Ambassador Ross convinces the parties involved to follow international law, he will have the honor of closing the door on Africa’s colonial past. The new UN envoy Ross seems to have reawakened hopes for sahrawi community. Let us hope that a year from now, Sahrawis are not still claiming for their rights and that refugees in Algeria be in their homeland.

But reality is different. The sad reality is that there is a little chance the talks in Austria would break the deadlock, even with a new format. That means that a fifth round of UN-sponsored negotiations is expected, but promises little immediate progress. All Analysts are unanimous : little prospect of breakthrough.

The informal meetings between Morocco and Front POLISARIO has again made a little noise. The good news: it is still moving. The bad news: it is moving to the statu quo if the international community still watching this conflict with indifference.

Les mères des six jeunes sahraouis déclarent soutenir la lutte de leurs enfants

Les mères des six jeunes Sahraouis qui ont été retenus par les autorités marocaines à l’aéroport d’Agadir mercredi, et empêchés de voyager vers Londres, ont exprimé dans un communiqué de presse leur soutien à leurs enfants.

Ci-après la traduction du texte, l’original est en Arabe.

El Aaiun/ Sahara Occidental : 06 août 2009

Nous sommes les mères des six jeunes Sahraouis qui ont été empêchés par les autorités Marocaines dans l’aéroport d’Agadir, de voyager le mercredi 6 août 2009 vers la capitale Britannique, Londres où ils devaient participer à une rencontre entre étudiants sur la question du Sahara Occidental, du 5 au 18 août. Ils ont débuté aujourd’hui une grève de la faim à l’intérieur de l’aéroport pour protester contre cette décision Marocaine illégale, contraire à tous les traités internationaux des droits de l’Homme, et spécialement à l’article 13 de la déclaration universelle des droits de l’Homme.

Etant donné que les autorités Marocaines ont empêché nos enfants de voyager alors qu’ils possédaient les passeports et visas nécessaires à l’entrée au Royaume Uni, nous :

– soutenons et sommes solidaires de la grève de la faim de nos enfants dans l’aéroport d’Agadir depuis mercredi 5 août 2009

– Condamnons le siège de la police marocaine dont ils sont l’objet et dénonçons la privation de leur droit fondamental à la liberté d’expression, et de leur droit à participer à la rencontre entre étudiants organisée à Londres sur le sujet du Sahara Occidental

Nous tenons l’état Marocain pour comptable et responsable de cette violation flagrante des droits de l’Homme, et de tout effet négatif de la grève de la faim sur leur santé, grève de la faim qu’ils ont été contraints d’entreprendre pour défendre leur dignité et leurs droits.

Signatures:

– Fatma Mohamed Mbarek Amaidane / mère de Amaidane Maimouna

– Aicha Omar Amaisa / mère de El Haouasi Nguia

– Mariem Said Tirsal / mère de Hayat Rguibi

– Cherifa Abdrahman Hammouda / mère de Elassri Mohamed Fadel

– Mahjouba Mohamed Bneita / mère de Mohamed Daanoun

– El Azza Sleiman Andallah / mère de Razouk Choummad

Our parcel has arrived, and our 19-day enforced rest in Laayoune (in Western Sahara) is over. We’ve eaten camel, accidentally gatecrashed a wedding and generally pottered around this strange Saharan city. Now a tailwind is calling and we’re ready to jump back on the bikes for the next 500 kilometre stretch through the Sahara to Dakhla. This update, on our time in Laayoune, should keep you busy until we get there…

Our first sight in Laayoune – late that night when we limped into town exhausted – was of a European-looking woman sitting in the middle of the road at a busy crossroads. A Moroccan policeman directed traffic around her while a crowd of people looked on from the pavement, rapt. Their heads briefly turned to take in the sight of two filthy European cyclists emerging from the desert before they decided the spectacle in front of them was more interesting, and we were left to walk on into the city centre alone – bar a group of children whose shorter attention spans had already been exhausted by the woman.

We never found out who she was, why she was sitting in the road or why the policeman thought it better to direct traffic around her than help her to the pavement. And our time in Laayoune since then have been characterised by the same sense of unreality, or surreality, and the same unnerving feeling that we don’t have a clue what’s really going on around us here, in Africa’s last colony.

This used to be “Spanish Sahara”, and Laayoune was built by the Spanish to administer the phosphate industry. It’s now Western Sahara’s biggest city. For our first couple of days here, we assumed the 200,000-odd population was entirely made up of Moroccan immigrants, encouraged to move here by a Moroccan government wanting to make its illegal occupation of Western Sahara harder to oppose through the de facto colonisation of the territory. As I’ve mentioned, the relocation of Moroccans to Western Sahara began with the Green March when Spain abandoned this territory 34 years ago, and continues today with tax incentives.

There are certainly enough signs of wealth amongst the Moroccan people here – men in suits, women wearing Western-style clothes, bank guards carrying semi-automatics with the safety catches off… – to suggest that Morocco’s professional class is firmly entrenched here. But slowly, starting to recognise the traditional dress of the Sahrawi, we realised that many of the people we were speaking to, buying food from, sitting next to, were Sahrawis – the indigenous “desert people” of the region.

This explained something of the city’s odd atmosphere to us – a statement which itself probably needs a bit of explaining. So here’s a brief background on the situation in Western Sahara – a situation which doesn’t seem to hit the world’s headlines. (I’ll come to the wedding soon, honest.)

When Morocco annexed Western Sahara in 1975, a violent war between Morocco and the Sahrawi independence organisation Polisario followed, ending with a ceasefire in 1991. In the same year, the UN’s MINURSO mission arrived, deployed for one year, to monitor a referendum on the future of the territory.

MINURSO is still here. The referendum still hasn’t happened. While neither side is angelic, Morocco has, over the years, led the Sahrawis – and the international community – on a merry dance of delay tactics, including what some have called the serious undermining/controlling of MINURSO – which Morocco, with the help of its security council friends (especially France and Bush’s US), has helped to ensure remains the only UN peacekeeping force in the world without a mandate to monitor human rights.

According to those who know, human rights monitoring is desperately needed. From Human Rights Watch: “The government bans peaceful demonstrations and refuses legal recognition to human rights organizations; the security forces arbitrarily arrest demonstrators and suspected Sahrawi activists, beat them and subject them to torture, and force them to sign incriminating police statements, all with virtual impunity; and the courts convict and imprison them after unfair trials.”

Sahrawi families and communities have also been physically separated by the conflict. Some live in this Moroccan occupied part of Western Sahara, others live in the Polisario controlled zone east of the 2000-kilometre, land-mined wall Morocco built to partition the country – a Berlin wall in the desert. Others still live in refugee camps in Algeria – and some of those refugees, only a year younger than I am, have known nothing else; this is one of the world’s longer running conflicts.

So Laayoune has baffled us a bit. The most confounding thing, to us, has been the appearance – despite the UN forces, despite the military presence, despite the torture – of total normality. Life carries on. The occupiers and the occupied live side by side, walk the same streets, pass by each other thousands of times a day without anything happening – at least nothing that three weeks here as tourists has revealed. (I’m not old enough to know, but I wonder whether this has always been the way with colonies: whether, in day to day life, the minds of both colonisers and colonised perform all sorts tricks to avoid acknowledging reality. Especially the colonisers, I suspect.)

In some ways, we’ve been playing the same game. Too nervous to mention politics, we’ve carried on as usual and just wonder quietly to ourselves – without daring to ask anyone – whether the man in the shop who told us the “local” word for rice rather than the Moroccan word was making a political point, or whether the stream of cars that drives through the city most days, horns blaring, passengers cheering, Sahrawi women waving their veils out of the window is a protest or a wedding party.

This was the mindset we were in when, walking through Laayoune one night, we heard loud, live music blaring from behind a wall. Seeing an open gateway, we decided to poke our heads in to see if it was a concert. At the gateway, I noticed waiters carrying platters of food to groups of Sahrawi women sitting at tables. They were sitting under an open tent and outside, in the car park, a camel lay alongside the Toyota Landcruisers.

Realising it was a private event, I called out to Huw to stop. It was too late. Huw had reached the outer edge of the vortex of Sahrawi hospitality, been spotted, surrounded and, finally, drawn into the warm whirl of patterned veils and hennaed hands. Instants later, I was also discovered, held by the hand, offered food, given a seat, brought fruit juice, told I was welcome (”all Europeans are always welcome”), invited to dance, welcomed again and engaged in several conversations at once. It turned out to be a wedding. The bride and groom and most of the men were nowhere to be seen and the only people left – women and musicians – were enjoying themselves immensely.

It’s easy, in cities, to forget where you are physically, what landscapes surround the concrete bubble. At the wedding though, suddenly we were back in the desert. The rhythm of the music – drums and strings and singing – reminded me of the pace of a walking camel. The women danced, turning in circles on the same spot, with their arms and henna-painted hands doing most of the moving and their eyes – if they didn’t pull their veil completely over their heads when they started dancing – doing most of the communicating. Sometimes they danced in groups and sometimes alone, but they were always encouraged to keep dancing by rhythmic clapping from other women sitting or standing around them.

Huw and I narrowly escaped the dancing, and the eating (we’d just gorged ourselves in a restaurant). Instead we sat, while a stream of women came to talk to us. We were welcome, we were told (in fluent Spanish). We must stay. And, from one woman raising her hand in a fist and staring emphatically into my eyes: “We are not Moroccans. We are Sahrawis.”

It was the first time we’d heard the word Sahrawi in Western Sahara (we didn’t hear it once in Morocco). And with the look in her eye, Laayoune’s mask slipped a little for me, and I felt my first glimmer of understanding about the passions running under the surface here.

As I say, it was just a glimmer, and this blog is just our attempt – as relatively uninformed tourists – to make some sense of the situation here, which is obfuscated by propaganda on both sides. We don’t have strong preconceptions about the situation here, but we do have some: specifically, a belief in the rights of all people to self determination.

If you want a better understanding of what’s happening in Western Sahara, here are some links to people and organisations far better informed than we are:

Amnesty International
Global Voices
Human Rights Watch
Mahgreb Politics Review
One hump or two
Sand & Dust
The Moor Next Door
Western Sahara Info

Source : Listen to Africa , 03 juillet 2009 (Foto copyright Listen to Africa)

By Nicolaj Nielsen

Ahmedou Ould Soueilem a regagné, dernièrement, l’autre côté: le Royaume du Maroc. Le gouvernement marocain a célebré cette défection en grande pompe jusqu’au point de le montrer assis, sur la même table, à côté du roi du Marocet un groupe d’anciens transfuges.

Le retour à la «mère partie », comme aime l’appeler les marocains, est demeuré un outil de propagande depuis que le Maroc et le Front Polisario ont signé le cessez-le feu en 1991. Le Maroc avait, en effet, ouvert ses frontières devant les sahrouis et, quelques fois, devant les mauritaniens et autres maures afin de mettre l’ensemble de la population sous son contrôle.

L’opinion nationale sahraouie observe, non sans amertume, ces individus qui la trahissent au nom du confort matériel. Si cela relevait d’une dynamique constructive, cela aurait été salué avec unanimité. Mais sachant que c’est juste la soif du gain personnel, cela n’a jamais attiré l’attention de quiconque.

Ceux qui suivent de près les évènements au Sahara Occidental savent que ces transfuges sont toujours poussés par des raisons d’ordre personnel. Pour assurer leur confort matériel et financier mais pas pour un quelconue combat d’idées. Ce triste phénomène peut être décrit comme du pure égoïsme. Ce type de carriéristes font de la politique leur métier et donc, une fois hors de circuit, ils ne savent rien faire.

Ahmedou a expérimenté toutes les fonctions possibles : représentant, ambassadeur, ministre, conseiller présidentiel… Il a brillé par son incompétence, son arrogance et son égoïsme. Depuis longtemps, nous savions qu’il allait trahir. C’est mieux ainsi puisqu’il gênait plus qu’il en apportait à la cause. Ce n’est pas une mauvaise chose pour notre pays. Bien au contraire, nombre de sahraouis, en apprenant la nouvelle, ont poussé, de concert, un ouf de soulagement. Ils ont crié : Bon débarras! Il n’est pas plus gros qu’Omar Hadrami comme poisson. Et il finira comme celui-ci : Enfermé chez lui en train de déprimer comme tous ceux qui ont vendu leur cause en échange d’un villa et un salaire.

Ayant pour première raison d’être leur ventre, ces traîtres sont prêts à accepter n’importe quelle offre pourvu qu’un positionnement personnel soit garanti. C’est leur ventre qui compte, rien d’autre. Ils sont aussi prêts à utiliser tous les artifices pour expliquer leur trahison, quittes même à vendre leurs âmes et leur personnalités, s’ils en avaient une.

Ahmedou Ould Ould Soueilem a trahi ses principes, ses engagements, ses camarades. Il n’y pas lieu d’insister sur ce point pour une raison aussi simple que désagréable à entendre : l’arbre ne doit pas cacher la forêt. Il sera récomppensé non pas pour son mérite, mais pour sa trahison.

Lui et ses semblables ne se sentiront jamais bien dans leurs peaux. Le Makhzen les fait defiler dans des conferences de presse, des colloques au Maroc, en Europe… pour faire valoir la farce qu’on appelle plan d’autonomie. Leurs consciences sont torturees. Ll faut les voir s’exhiber sans conviction aucune, avec une honte qui se lit facilement sur leurs visages surtout en face de la population sahraouie qui les méprisent pour leur geste.

Les traîtres ont existé en tout lieu et en tout temps. Au lieu de s’intéresser sue leur sort d’un guignol, il faut plutôt se pencher sur le sort du peuple sahraoui et défendre ses droits legitimes. L’histoire a montré que les causes justes ont toujours triomphé quelles que soient les embuches qui se posent devant. Le peuple sahraoui, tôt ou tard, vaincra.

Les dépêches folkloriques que ne cesse de distiller cette caisse à raisonance du Makhzen,connu sous le nom de « MAP » n’ont pas rechigné a fabriquer de toute piece des histoires aussi abracadabrantes que ridicules sur la trahison d’un individu. Histoire de cacher les multiples échecs sur le plan diplomatique, le dernier en date, la lettre du Président Obama dans laquelle il déclare ouvertement son soutien à une entité indépendante au Sahara Occidental.

When Kofi Annan in 2005 appointed Peter van Walsum , a very low-profile Dutch diplomat, as his Personal Envoy for Western Sahara to replace the very high-profile James Baker, most Western Sahara watchers were struck by the obvious down-grading of the Envoy position. It was as though Mr. Annan was throwing in the towel. After all, if Mr. Baker, the negotiator extraordinaire with the clout of the lone superpower behind him, couldn’t get the job done, who imagined that a relative unknown from a second tier country could make any headway with the wily, intransigent, and well-connected Moroccans?

What remained therefore was a recourse to direct negotiation, which should be held without preconditions. Their objective should be to accomplish what no “plan” could, namely to work out a compromise between international legality and political reality that would produce a just, lasting, and mutually acceptable political solution, which would provide for the self-determination of the people of the Western Sahara.

Perhaps the most interesting observation to come from Van Walsum’s declarations is his belief that the UN Security Council should have used Chapter VII powers (ie, coercion) to stop Morocco’s 1975 invasion of what was then the Spanish Sahara. Indeed, he notes that the Security Council treats the Chapter VI (ie, non-coercive) nature of its intervention in Western Sahara since 1988 as ‘holy’. In other words, it’s not just Morocco and Polisario who have ‘red lines’ in this conflict, but also Paris and Washington.

In the NRC interview, he further clarified his position, which is clearly empathetic towards Western Sahara’s right to independence: ‘The moral dilemma is that Polisario is more on the right side than Morocco. But because the Security Council will never force Morocco into a referendum on independence, they actually choose for the status quo’. He then criticizes Polisario for choosing exile over autonomy.

So this is the world we live in: In the same interview, a lead UN negotiator simultaneously acknowledges Western Sahara’s right to independence and the illegality of Morocco’s annexationist move. Only to conclude by suggesting that the Security Council — in the name of realism! — should force Western Sahara to accept, for a brief trial period, an illegal occupation.

So where does all this leave the Western Sahara. Mr. Annan is probably correct when he says that doing nothing is a “recipe for violence.” But, as I argue above, the alternative that he offers, direct negotiations without preconditions, is no recipe at all. Unfortunately, this leaves the Polisario with their backs up against the berm. The logic of the Report is that the Polisario will never get their referendum on independence as long as they pursue legal and non-violent means. By throwing the territory to the wolves, the Secretary-General is telling the Polisario that their only recourse is a return to violence.

In these conditions, it is difficult to understand the optimism of the new UN Envoy, Christopher Ross.

By Carne Ross

Il y a peu d’actes de diplomatie plus frappants qu’un ancien président américain atterrissant dans le pays le plus interdit au monde pour sauver deux femmes d’années d’emprisonnement et de travaux forcées . Si Hollywood l’avait produit, cela semblerait presque banal. Même les gens les plus critiques envers Bill Clinton devraient célébrer ce sauvetage comme triomphant et humain. Mais au même temps que les familles des deux femmes font un soupir de soulagement, une question tenace reste à poser : Bill Clinton vient-il de faire du monde un endroit plus dangereux?

Pour les gouvernements, où j’ai exercé en tant que diplomate, aucune crise est plus grande que celle de la prise d’otages. C’est l’appel téléphonique que tous les officiels craignent, d’habitude l’enlèvement est annoncé par l’ambassade locale. Un système bien lubrifié se lance dans l’action : hauts fonctionnaires – et d’habitude le président lui-même – seront informés dans les plus brefs délais. Les réunions de crise sont immédiatement convoquées ; la façon dont un gouvernement répond dans les premiers moments peut être crucial.

Les enlèvements se passent aujourd’hui en Somalie, Irak, Colombie, tout comme en Corée du Nord. Partout où les otages sont pris, les gouvernements doivent afrronter le même dilemme désespéré et intraitable. Au moment où les gouvernements décident frénétiquement comment réagir, les familles des otages seront dans un état de détresse imaginable. Si la Presse se saisit de l’histoire, la pression sur les gouvernements pour répondre – de toutes les façons possibles – devient immense. Devrions-nous répondre publiquement, mais aussi immédiatement en prêtant aux preneurs d’otages l’attention qu’ils cherchent ? Devrions-nous essayer de les libérer par la force ? Mais l’action militaire est d’habitude évitée parce trop risquée : rappelez-vous la tentative américaine désastreuse de libérer les otages de l’ambassade à Téhéran en 1980.

Les rançons posent des dilemmes semblables. Il est facile de déclarer qu’aucune rançon ne devrait être payée quand ce n’est pas votre mari ou votre fille qui est dans la captivité, parfois menacée de mort. J’ai demandé, une fois, un compte rendu sur un otage européen qui avait été séquestré pendant des années par un gang terroriste au Liban. Sa souffrance était immense. Il a pleuré pour exprimer sa gratitude envers le fonctionnaire qui avait organisé le paiement secret pour le libérer. Des meilleures options absentes, les gouvernements chercheront souvent une sortie embrouillée et insatisfaisante. Ils peuvent offrir quelques concessions, et si c’est possible dans le secret, dans l’espoir que cela ne se répand pas et encourage d’autres. Kim Jong Il a été récompensé pour son kidnapping avec la visite d’un notable leader américain. L’Administration peut insister sur le fait qu’aucune concession politique importante n’ait été faite (et il est possible que nous ne le saurons jamais), mais la visite en soi était une sorte de paiement de rançon. Nous pouvons être sûrs que la Corée du Nord continuera à prendre « des prisonniers », de la Corée du Sud ou, encore mieux, de l’Amérique et cherchera des concessions pour leur sortie. Dans le monde entier, les preneurs d’otages, s’il s’agit d’états, des terroristes ou des pirates, sont régulièrement payés, dans le secret total, sans fanfare. Le message est clair : la prise d’otage obtient des résultats. Téhéran, Hizbollah et Pyongyang et d’autres groupes violents à travers le monde, en prendront note.

D’une façon ou d’une autre le monde entier est dans la prise des kidnappeurs : personne n’a de bonne solution. Nous avons cruellement besoin d’un débat sur la façon de changer les termes de la diplomatie des otages, en réduisant la récompense pour ceux qui utilisent de telles techniques coercitives – et en encourageant ceux qui ne le font pas. Le but devrait être de refuser ceux qui utilisent l’enlèvement et la violence pour attirer l’attention qu’ils demandent. L’idéal serait une sorte d’interdiction volontaire – sa légifération produirait l’effet contraire – pour réduire au minimum l’attention aux motifs et buts des kidnappeurs et des terroristes, s’il s’agit des groupes comme Al Qaeda ou des états comme la Corée du Nord.

Une autre mesure pourrait, à temps, commencer à diminuer la force de ceux qui utilisent de telles méthodes viles et repréhensibles pour attirer l’attention sur leurs besoins : commencer à récompenser ceux qui n’utilisent pas la violence, comme le Front Polisario, au Sahara Occidental. Leur pays a été envahi par le Maroc en 1975. Depuis le cessez-le-feu en 1991, ce groupe a refusé de prendre des otages, tuer des civils ou utiliser une quelconue sorte de violence. Au lieu de cela, ils continuent à utiliser les moyens pacifiques et diplomatiques pour arriver à l’autodétermination pour le peuple de cette terre occupée. Mais, en absence d’enlèvements ou de violence dans les titres des journaux, ils continuent à être ignorés dans les cercles politiques, abandonnés dans le désert pour décider si un retour aux armes servirait mieux leurs buts.

Une nouvelle doctrine s’offre, avec laquelle les EU peuvent envoyer un message fort et positif au monde : ceux qui embrassent la violence recevront une récompense politique plus grande que ceux qui ne le font pas.

٭ Carne Ross est un ancien diplomate britannique et directeur de Independent Diplomat, un groupe consultatif diplomatique à but non lucratif, qui conseille aussi le Front Polisario.

Hostage Diplomatie

By Carne Ross٭

There are few acts of diplomacy more striking than a former American president swooping in to the world’s most forbidding nation to rescue two women from years of imprisonment and hard labor. If Hollywood produced it, it would almost seem trite. Even Bill Clinton’s harshest critic should celebrate this rescue as triumphant and humane. But as the women’s families breathe a sigh of relief, a nagging question remains : has Bill Clinton just made the world a more dangerous place? Inside government, where I once worked as a diplomat, no crisis is greater than a hostage crisis. It’s the phone call that every official dreads, usually from the local embassy saying that nationals have been taken. A well-oiled system swings into action : senior officials — and usually the president himself — will be urgently informed. Emergency meetings are immediately convened ; how a government responds in the first moments can be critical.

Kidnappings are going on today in Somalia, Iraq, Colombia, as well as North Korea. Wherever hostages are taken, governments face the same desperate — and intractable — dilemmas. As governments frantically decide how to react, the families of the hostages will be in all-too-imaginable distress. If the press get hold of the story, the pressure for governments to respond — in any way possible — grows immense. Should we respond publicly, but thereby immediately giving the hostage-takers the attention they seek? Should we attempt to free them by force? But military action is usually discarded as too risky : remember the disastrous US attempt to free the Tehran embassy hostages in 1980. Ransoms pose similar dilemmas. It’s easy to declare that no ransoms should be paid when it’s not your husband or daughter who’s in captivity, sometimes under threat of death. I once debriefed a European hostage who had been held for years by a terrorist gang in Lebanon. His suffering was immense. He wept to mention his gratitude to the official who had organized the secret pay-off to get him out.

Absent better options, governments will often seek a messy and unsatisfactory way out. They may offer some concessions, and ideally in secret, in the hope that this doesn’t leak and encourage others. Kim Jong Il was rewarded for his hostage-taking with a visit by a prominent American leader. The Administration may insist that no substantive policy concessions were made (and we may never know), but the visit alone was a kind of ransom payment. We can be sure that North Korea will continue to take « prisoners, » whether from the South or better yet, America, and will seek concessions for their release. All over the world, hostage-takers, whether states, terrorists or pirates, are being regularly paid off, hush-hush, without fanfare. The message is clear : hostage-taking gets results. Tehran, Hizbollah and Pyongyang, and other violent groups across the world, will be taking notes.

Somehow the whole world is in the grip of the hostage-takers : no one has a good solution. We badly need a debate on how to alter the terms of hostage diplomacy, by reducing the rewards for those who use such coercive techniques — and increasing them for those who don’t. The aim should be to deny those who use kidnapping and violence the attention they crave. The ideal would be some kind of voluntary prohibition — to legislate it would produce the opposite effect — to minimize attention to motives and goals of kidnappers and terrorists, whether groups like Al Qaeda or states like North Korea.

Another measure might, in time, start to diminish the force of those who use such vile and objectionable methods to draw attention to their needs : start to reward those who don’t use violence, like the Polisario Front of the Western Sahara. Their country was invaded by Morocco in 1975. Since a ceasefire in 1991, this group has refused to take hostages, kill civilians or use violence of any kind. Instead, they continue to use peaceful and diplomatic means to pursue self-determination for the people of this occupied land. But, in the absence of headline-grabbing kidnapping or violence, they continue to be ignored in policy circles, left in the desert to ponder whether a return to arms would better serve their purposes.

A new doctrine offers itself, with which the US can send a strong and positive message to the world : those who foreswear violence will receive greater political rewards than those who do not.

٭ Carne Ross is a former British diplomat and director of Independent Diplomat, a non-profit diplomatic advisory group, which also advises the Polisario Front.

En hébergeant les prisons secrètes de la CIA, en échange du soutien de l’administration Bush à son plan d’autonomie, le Maroc et ses alliés ont remué ciel et terre, se sont mobilisés partout dans le monde pour expliquer les « vertus » de l’occupation du Sahara Occidental. Ils ont tout fait pour imposer leur solution pour ce territoire que le Maroc a envahi en 1975 et qui est toujours considéré par l’ONU comme un territoire non-autonome dont la décolonisation doit s’achever à travers un référendum d’autodétermination qui inclut l’option de l’indépendance totale dans ses urnes, comme exigé par les résolutions 621 du Conseil de Sécurité (1988) et 690 (1991). Cette réalité a conduit à la formation de la MINURSO et au cessez-le-feu en 1991. Mais l’indulgence des Nations Unies avec le Maroc a encouragé celui-ci à suivre la voie de l’obscurcissement et l’obstruction au point d’enterrer l’idée d’un référendum libre et juste. Le long processus de concessions imposées au Front Polisario a fait que ce dernier n’a plus rien à donner, si ce n’est l’essence même de son existence et de l’idéal de son peuple.

Depuis 1991, le Maroc a fait tout dans ce qui est dans son pouvoir pour prolonger l’impasse indéfiniment, caché derrière le mur de 1500 km de long avec lequel il a divisé le Sahara Occidental pour garder le Front Polisario hors des secteurs qu’il occupe. Au même temps, le Maroc a encouragé une population marocaine misérable à s’installer au Sahara Occidental occupé, leur offrant des primes financières pour rester. Environ 200,000 colons (plus environ 160,000 soldats campés le long de la berme) , un chiffre qui dépasse largement la population sahraouie qui est restée au territoire après l’invasion marocaine.

Depuis des années, les marocains n’ont pas arrêté de crier au loup, que les camps de réfugiés sont devenus des nids pour les terroristes, que la sécurité européenne est en jeu, que le Maroc est un rempart de la lutte contre les extrémismes… Bref, au nom de la sécurité régionale et internationale, la communauté internationale doit approuver l’occupation de ce territoire, tout en ignorant les résolutions de l’ONU et le principe de l’autodétermination. Nous devons accepter un nouveau visage du colonialisme en Afrique pour garantir notre propre sécurité. Pour les lobbies pro-marocains, l’agression marocaine contre les sahraouis devrait être récompensée au nom de la guerre contre le terrorisme, comme on a accepté de pratiquer la torture au nom de cette guerre. Pendant un certain temps, des centres d’études stratégiques de tout genre ont répété et répété que les « espaces vides » du Sahara doivent être sécurisés au point de pousser l’administration américaine à créer la force AFRICOM dont le QG n’a pas été installé au Maroc à cause du refus américain à continuer à soutenir l’autonomie marocaine.

Maintenant que s’est avéré que la menace terroriste n’était qu’un épouvantail brandi par les autorités marocaines, les enlèvements de touristes au Mali semble n’avoir aucun rapport avec Al-Qaida, mais plutôt avec des groupes de contrebande ou des mouvements touaregs qui exigent, en contrepartie, rattraper le retard enregistré dans le développement du Nord du Mali. Derrière ces agissements il y a l’intention d’attirer des soutiens financiers au nom de la lutte contre le terrorisme. Dans ce contexte, il y a la possibilité que le Maroc soit derrière l’attaque contre les troupes mauritaniennes dans la région de Zouérate dans le but de convaincre les gouvernements occidentaux à adopter ses arguments alarmistes. Tout comme le meurtre du citoyen américain à Nouakchott était dans le but d’assouplir la position américaine par rapport à la nouvelle situation en Mauritanie.

« Le Maroc est un pays démocratique et l’autonomie est la seule solution, à l’instar des Basques, des Catalons, des Ecossais… », disent-ils. Il serait intéressant de jeter un coup d’œil sur les impressions de ces communautés sur leurs versions d’autonomie au sein d’un grand Etat, si elle a résolu tous leurs problèmes. Et pour faire avaler leur recette, les propagandistes marocains cherchent à faire la communauté internationale moins disposée envers le Polisario en le qualifiant de tous les mots : anti-démocratique, esclavagiste, contrebandiste… Le terme séparatiste est utilisé pour prétendre que le mouvement de libération sahraoui représente une minorité problématique qui veut en finir avec un état souverain existant, alors que la réalité est que c’est une organisation qui s’est battu contre le colonialisme espagnol et qui se bat, actuellement, contre un voisin agressif et expansionniste caractérisé par des ambitions sans limites. Le Front Polisario est reconnu, depuis, 1975, comme étant le seul et unique représentant légitime du peuple sahraoui.

Les lobbies pro-marocains ont longtemps chanté que le Polisario est communiste, en soulignant ses relations avec Cuba. En face, ils décrivent le royaume chérifien comme un pays qui a entrepris des réformes démocratiques. Mais, dix ans après, le Maroc continue à être la monarchie héréditaire dont le roi accumule tous les pouvoirs et où la répression, la violation des droits de l’homme, la censure de la presse nationale et étrangère, la censure d’Internet… est le pain quotidien des marocains.

La domination du Sahara occidental par le Maroc ne fera pas de l’Europe un continent plus sûr, mais renforcera simplement un régime anti-démocratique et répressif qui dirige un pays où l’extrémisme religieux augmente, alimenté par l’oppression, la pauvreté et la marginalisation. Le soutien de l’occupation du Sahara Occidental ne contribuera pas à élargir la zone de contrôle du Maroc jusqu’au désert algéro-malien où des prétendus terroristes « cherchent à détruire la civilisation occidentale ». Soutenir le Maroc à étendre son contrôle jusqu’au Sahara Occidental implique, forcément, une montée de tension et, dans le pire des cas, l’endossement du génocide du peuple sahraoui, augmentera le sentiment de désespoir des sahraouis et les poussera à reprendre les armes de nouveau. Les nouvelles générations sahraouies ne laisseront pas la realpolitik substituer leur espoir, ce qui rendra cette région moins stable et rendra la menace de sécurité internationale réelle.

By Nick Brooks

The following is extracted and edited from a letter to Charles Clarke, my Member of Parliament. Morocco is being extremely active in promoting its new plan for the the disputed territory of Western Sahara, which it partially occupies, and has had a number of “constructive” talks with European politicians in recent weeks. Morocco has been praised for its efforts by a number of individuals and bodies, including political representatives of the EU. It appears that the way is being smoothed for Morocco to implement its own, unilateral “solution” to the problem of Western Sahara.The Moroccan plan involves what Morocco calls “regional autonomy” for the territory of Western Sahara within a greater Morocco. This plan rejects any future negotiations with the Polisario Independence government regarding the region’s status, and excludes a referendum on independence, counter to the rulings of the International Court of Justice and the United Nations, and the public position of the government of the United Kingdom, all of which claim to support the right of self-determination of the indigenous Sahrawi people. Morocco’s strategy appears to be to normalise its occupation of Western Sahara by appearing to give ground by granting autonomy, while in actual fact consolidating its control and neutralising the efforts of the international community to achieve a just and lasting peace in the region.

Western Sahara is in reality partitioned between a Moroccan-occupied zone (the majority of the territory) and what the Sahrawi refer to as the “Free Zone”. The latter consists of most of the regions bordering Algeria and Mauritania in the east, and is of significant size. It is in the Free Zone that I and my colleagues conduct our field research, so I can speak on this matter on the basis of first hand experience.

If the international community supports Morocco’s plan to incorporate Western Sahara into a greater Morocco, the status of the Free Zone will be a key issue. Most commentators and politicians seem to be under the impression that Morocco occupies the entire territory of Western Sahara, and that support for its position would simply involve accepting the existing annexation, meaning nothing much would change. I suspect that if the reality of the situation (and the geography of the region) was understood better, there would be more concern about the security implications of the Moroccan approach.

Accepting the Moroccan position that Western Sahara is a part of Morocco is likely to lead to one of the following outcomes, all of which have severe security implications:

1. Morocco consolidates its occupation of existing territory but does not attempt to occupy the Free Zone, which remains under Polisario control, essentially becoming a de facto Sahrawi state. An uneasy peace continues as Algeria exerts pressure on the Polisario to avoid conflict with Morocco, but continues to support them as part of its ongoing political conflict with Morocco.

2. Morocco consolidates its occupation but does not enter the Free Zone. However, under pressure from the exiled Sahrawi population the Polisario declares war against Morocco, once it is apparent that they have nothing to lose, the international community having washed its hands of the issue. The scale and consequences of the ensuing conflict depend largely on the position of Algeria.

3. Morocco immediately attempts to occupy the Free Zone to extend its control over the entire territory of Western Sahara and in order to remove a potential future threat from a Polisario-controlled Free Zone. The Polisario resist, and the conflict drags in Algeria, and possibly Mauritania. (The Moroccan wall which separates the occupied territories from the Free Zone has already annexed a small area of Mauritanian territory. This is not shown on any maps – perhaps to avoid embarrassment to Mauritania – but is apparent on the ground and visible on satellite imagery.)

4. With the help of the West, Morocco makes a deal with Algeria in which Algeria agrees to restrain the Polisario from restarting the conflict as Morocco completes its occupation. A best case outcome under this scenario would be the dispersal of the exiled Sahrawi population in Algeria, Mauritania and other countries (including the EU and countries such as the UK). A worst case outcome would be that the Sahrawi in the camps resist and are expelled or exterminated by the Algerian security forces. With nothing to lose, the Sahrawi, who have to date been vehemently against terrorism in support of their cause, might change this position. Eschewing terrorism has certainly not helped them regain their homeland.

None of these scenarios is particularly optimistic, ranging from a festering of the conflict for decades to come to the possibility of actual genocide, with the emergence of new recruits to terrorism a possibility.

We can be certain that in its desire for the Sahrawi to disappear and in its repeated denial of the existence of the Sahrawi people, the Moroccan state is on the road to genocide, at least of the cultural variety. Whether this translates into actual extermination remains to be seen and will depend on whether the physical conflict resumes.

While this is on the one hand a question of justice and human rights, it is also an issue of international security. No-one will benefit from renewed war in the Maghreb. The only options for ending this conflict are to allow Morocco effectively to exterminate the Sahrawi people and their culture (the likely consequence of “political realism” on the part of the West), or to exert pressure on Morocco to enter into real and meaningful negotiations on self determination aimed at restoring Western Sahara to the Sahrawi people. The latter has been the preferred approach (at least in principle) of the United Nations and the international community, but efforts to this end have failed because of the lack of pressure on Morocco from UN member states. Indeed, Morocco has used its considerable diplomatic weight to sabotage the peace process since it began in 1991. There is little to be gained by telling the Sahrawi and their political leaders in the Polisario that they should accept an illegal occupation of their land and return to live under the control of an oppressive occupying power which would not welcome them, and which routinely tortures and sometimes murders their kin who live in the occupied territories.

Political pressure from Western governments can make a real difference here, helping to deliver security to a region beset by conflict for decades, and justice to a people who have lived in exile for over thirty years, perhaps even saving them from a possible genocide.