Washington puts Polisario on the terrorism list

[The SC]

Washington has announced its support for allies targeted by plans to expand Hezbollah's influence, putting the Polisario in the circle of terrorism, in response to Morocco's severing diplomatic ties with Iran.

According to a well-informed source, the US State Department expressed its rejection of the nature of the stability caused by activities suspicious of the Islamic Republic, especially with regard to support for Hezbollah and other terrorist groups.

The same source added that the US State Department had commented on Hezbollah's penetration into the Sahara, saying that Iran remained a state sponsor of terrorism and Hezbollah remained an international terrorist organization in response to the Moroccan decision to sever ties with the Islamic Republic due to clear collusion and support. Military "of the Polisario", as reported by the daily Al-Sabah.


http://www.elwehda.com/Al-Wtn-Al-Rb...-واشنطن-تضع-البوليساريو-في-دائرة-الإرهاب.html


*This is a huge victory for Morocco..

 

[The SC]

Time For A Solution In The Western Sahara Conflict


The Western Saharan conflict, one of the modern world's oldest, seems to be coming to a head. If so, it will be because the leading states of the United Nations have finally taken an interest in the conflict and decided that it is against their interest to let it fester, to burst forth again at some future time when it can do great damage to their relations. It is now time to tell the concerned parties that the train to a solution is about to leave the station and they had better get on board.

The move that has made this strategy possible is the first proposal by one of the two contestants to reach middle a full autonomy offer by Morocco, the second key to a solution. Morocco's previous position called for
undifferentiated integration — or retrocession — of the former Spanish colony into the Kingdom of Morocco. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Saqiet al-Hamra and Rio de Oro(Polisario), backed and hosted by Algeria, maintains its position: full independence for the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), to be established through a referendum.

Tempest in a Sandbox

The dispute, in remission since a UN-sponsored cease-fire in 1991, concerns the disposition of the former Spanish colonies, optimistically named Rio de Oro (Golden River) and Saqiet al-Hamra (Red Creek) along the Atlantic coast, combined under the name of the Western Sahara. The territories are bereft of natural resources, except for phosphates, which have dropped in value on the world market, and offshore fishing. But they are of historic and political value both to Morocco, a moderate, reforming Arab monarchy with longstanding good relations with the United States, and to the Polisario.

The Polisario launched its war against Morocco in 1974, as Spain's dictator, Franco, on his deathbed decided to leave the territories. While initial fortunes were on the Polisario side, the situation was stabilized by 1981, when Morocco completed its control of 85 percent of the territory and built a defensive sand and stone berm around the territory while the Polisario retreated to its camps around Tindouf in western Algeria.

The issue surfaced in the mid-1970s, when the late King Hassan II was attempting to stabilize the Moroccan polity and so was exploited by the regime as the coin of allegiance to the system. As such it gained great popularity and engaged both the regime and the army behind it, so that it has become an existential issue for the state, to be abandoned only at great danger to its stability.

Initially the Organization for African Unity, sought to resolve the conflict, but when the OAU admitted the SADR as a member in 1981, Morocco left the organization, and African efforts were stymied. In 1988, the OAU handed the issue to the UN, which agreed to handle it in conformity with its General Assembly Resolution 1514 (XV) on self-determination under Chapter VI of the Charter, requiring consent of the parties. Its settlement plan, accepted by the parties in 1988, focused on a cease-fire and a final-status referendum. The Security Council set up a UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO), and appointed a succession of special representatives of the secretary-general (SRSGs) and special envoys to oversee the process. The current one is Peter van Walvaren of the Netherlands.

The parties have changed positions consistently throughout the diplomatic process, according to their interpretation of their interests, although both long held to the idea of a referendum on integration or independence as the way to a solution.When former Secretary of State James Baker III was appointed as personal envoy of the secretary-general in March 1997 with an idea of conciliating the two parties, they both reaffirmed their adherence to the path of the referendum. However, they had different ideas — both in conformity with principles agreed to at Houston in September under Baker — about who should vote, and so the process got stuck on the voter identification issue.

Baker continued to look for a negotiated political solution that would win the support of both parties. When Morocco indicated a willingness to discuss devolution of authority as a road to a solution (which the Polisario rejected), in September 2000, Baker proposed a Framework Agreement for a five-year autonomy period followed by a referendum, which Algeria and the Polisario rejected. Baker then prepared a Peace Plan in January 2003, elaborating on the five-year autonomy proposal, which was discussed with the parties in the following months – Morocco somewhat favorable, Algeria critical and the Polisario negative in favor of the original settlement referendum. Then in July 2003, the Polisario and Algeria accepted the Baker Plan, to Morocco's surprise. Following Morocco's rejection, Baker presented another version of interim autonomy and then, having lost the U.S. administration's support, resigned. In fact, all the interim autonomy proposals added to the original settlement plan was to postpone the zero-sum solution by referendum, despite a new definition of voter eligibility.

Although the notion of autonomy has long been in the air, it had not yet been on in the books until the Moroccan proposal. The proposal given in April 2007 is rather far-reaching, including education and justice as well local administration. Financial resources would come from Rabat as well as from local taxation and revenues. Defense and foreign affairs and postal service would remain in Rabat; Hassan II once said that all Morocco needed to retain was a flag and postage stamps.

The Moroccan proposal has been long in coming because of the need to walk the idea through the complex corridors of the Moroccan political system. It still awaits much precision and detail, and is not ready to be adopted without further discussion and development. But it can be taken as the Single Negotiating Text (SNT), a device long practiced by diplomats to focus negotiations in an organizing direction. The alternative method sometimes used, of working with two opposing texts to see where common points can be found, can only work when the two texts are close.
This is not the case here, as the history of the negotiations has shown.


Cutting the Sand Cake

Critics question whether the Moroccan proposal is sincere, since it resembles in some ways an earlier proposal seen at the time as merely a fig leaf for integration. Of course, the way to verify its sincerity is to test it, again by using the proposal as the SNT in negotiations. Even were it not to be sincere, it can still be used as the basis for sincere negotiations, since it is the only viable idea between the two parties' extreme positions.

There are only four ways in which the Saharan cake can be cut. Two of them involve compromise — either territorial or functional. Territorial splits have been tried once and proposed at another time. In 1974, the colonial power transferred administration of the territory to Morocco and Mauritania, divided along a northwest-southeast diagonal that corresponded to no human or physical geographic divisions and had no place for the Polisario. By 1979, the Polisario had defeated Mauritania, causing it to withdraw from the treaty and its government to collapse. In 2001, Algeria proposed a division of the area closer to its colonial divisions into Saqiet al-Hamra and Rio de Oro, with the southern part going to the Polisario and the northern part to Morocco, but both parties turned it down.

Functional splits are embodied in the autonomy proposal, giving the region its own government (self-determination) but within overall Moroccan sovereignty. No matter how great its self-government (the deadlock-breaking term used, for example, in Aceh, in Indonesia) would be, the final arrangement would have to be on one side or the other of "the crest of sovereignty," either on the Moroccan side or the Polisario side. The functional split of autonomy would give Morocco the "outside of the box" by allowing it to keep Moroccan sovereignty while giving the Polisario "the inside of the box" by allowing it to win local elections and enact its programs. The result would avoid the zero-sum, winner-takes-all characteristic found in an independence-or-integration referendum, with each side getting the essence of what it wants.

The third type of solution would attempt to leap over the crest of sovereignty and devise a new status for the region, for example within the regional grouping, the Maghreb Arab Union (UMA). Unfortunately for creativity, the UMA is moribund, precisely because of the Saharan dispute; even if it were not, the proposal, which has been mooted, would still not be able to fudge the sovereignty issue. The Polisario proposal issued in April 2007 to counter the Moroccan autonomy proposal could be interpreted as allowing "independence” in association with Morocco, but various attempts at like-named relations such as Russia's Confederation of Independent States have not effectively constrained the sovereignty of the independent unit. Other attempts to reframe the conflict have not surfaced.

The fourth type of solution would be compensation, in which some external value would "buy" the support of one of the two interested parties Morocco or Algeria into an agreement into the other's position. The issue is of such importance to Morocco as an existential matter for the state and the monarchy that no compensatory item of equal value is conceivable. On the other side, diplomats have long asked what Algeria really wants, since the issue is not an existential matter for the government or the state and is at best (or worst) a matter of pride for the Algerian army, which has no raison d'être outside its rivalry with Morocco. Others have suggested that Moroccan ratification of the 1972 border treaty with Algeria, confirmed by the king in 1981 but not yet by parliament, might lessen tensions, although Algeria, which ratified it in 1973, publicly counts the treaty as a given and discounts any Moroccan moves. Others have suggested that what Algeria really wants is an outlet to the Atlantic, and so Moroccan assurance of a railway to the coast for Algerian iron ore from Gara Djibelet would help. But in the end, it is not clear whether any item would catch the interest of the Algerian regime, or whether the issue is not of greater interest unresolved, to tweak Morocco when useful.

But the autonomy proposal and the subsequent calls for more precision and more negotiating may also contain a trap. If autonomy is halfway between integration and independence, the Polisario can reckon, why not use autonomy as the new Moroccan starting point and look for a solution halfway between autonomy and independence, i.e., on the Sahrawi side of the crest of sovereignty? The new outcome would then be not a midpoint solution, but a version of independence. So when the international community demands further specifics, details and negotiations of Morocco, it has to be careful not to be pushed into proposing a Polisario outcome.

Even as it is, autonomy has risks for Morocco. Autonomy can itself be a step to secession and independence, as the Eritrean experience shows. Yet in fact, it is not the status of autonomy but the revocation of that status that brings restiveness and rebellion, as the Eritrean, Kosovar and Camerounian experiences show. Autonomy can also be a model for aspirations of other Moroccan regions, notably regions beyond the mountains that encircle the historic heart of the country that the French colonizers termed "useful Morocco," such as the Rif in the north, the Oriental region around Oujda, and the Souss to the south. Indeed, the move may bring a federal system into Morocco under the monarchy, recalling a pre-protectorate tradition that divided the country into government (makhzen) and dissident (siba) regions. Morocco, however, says that its proposed Saharan autonomy is to be a unique status, not to be replicated elsewhere in the country. Actually, Saharan autonomy may be more of a dangerous precedent for other countries with ethnically different populations in their own Saharan regions, such as Mali, Niger, and Algeria, (another reason Algeria opposing it).


What is it like and not like?

Critics question the standing of the proposal in international law, in contrast to the position of the Polisario, although both proposals – and the other types of solutions mentioned – conform to the diverse criteria that international law proposes. Soon after the passage of UNGA 1514, the General Assembly enlarged it by Resolution 1541 to enumerate other ways of achieving self-determination besides independence. A decade later, Resolution 2625 enlarged it further to include "any other political status freely determined by a people." Attempts by the United Nations since 1991 to find conditions, notably voters lists, agreeable to both parties under which a referendum could be held produced only impasses. In realistic desperation, the UN Security Council in 2005 dropped the idea of a referendum and called on the parties to negotiate a solution, an invitation that produced the autonomy proposal. In any case, when finally elaborated, the autonomy plan would be submitted to a referendum for acceptance.

One of the more salient aspects of international law – or at least policy norms– that relates to a solution is the doctrine of uti possedetis, whereby colonial territories achieve self-determination within their inherited boundaries. The doctrine interprets national self-determination as state or territorial self-determination. An autonomous Saharan region would maintain its colonial boundaries, although a number of countries have altered their inherited boundaries, including Eritrea, Somaliland, Malaysia, Aden, Zanzibar, Bangladesh, Hong Kong, Macao, and even Morocco, by joining or leaving another territory and without any referendum. Indeed, the Spanish territories of Ifni in 1969 and Tarfaya in 1958, governed as part of Spanish Sahara, as well as the Northern Spanish Protectorate in 1956, joined the French Protectorate to form modern-day Morocco without any referendum.

Autonomy, of course, is not an unusual status for territories with a distinct tradition of their own, as a means of providing self-determination within the larger states, not as a step to independence. Italy has five autonomous regions, occasionally updating their status; all Spain is divided into 17 autonomous regions; and a number of islands, including Puerto Rico, Greenland, the Ålands, and Zanzibar among others, also enjoy autonomous status.

If these are examples of autonomy that are relevant to the Saharan situation, there are others that are not. Autonomy was proposed in the Camp David agreements in 1978 and applied in East Timor in 2003 as a way station to independence. In both cases, the population of the evolving territory was ethno-religiously different from the occupying state and had a long history under a separate regime. Although Saqiet al-Hamra and Rio de Oro were under Spanish colonial rule for four decades, so were other parts of Morocco, including the adjacent province of Tarfaya. That rule made little impact on society and none on its religion to separate it from the core area of the monarchy. Although the way of life of desert nomadism is quite different from that of the cities, there is great mobility and interpenetration between the populations of Morocco (and Algeria, Mauritania, Mali and Niger) and the entire Sahara.

There are sharp tribal differences within the Western Saharan population, however. For the very fact of their mobility, nomadic populations depend on a high degree of social and political cohesion, including defensiveness against other groups of the population depending on their own cohesion. Thus, the Polisario depends to a large (but not exclusive) extent on the Reguibat of the East, while the Tekna of Tarfaya and the Reguibat of the Sahel (western fringe) look to Morocco. These social relations translate into modern politics, whether under autonomy or under independence.

The Third Key

The Western Saharan issue is on the agenda of the UN Security Council in April when the current six-months extension of the UN Observer Mission on the Western Sahara (MINURSO) comes up again for renewal. The last renewal urged the parties to meet to negotiate, and endorsed the autonomy proposal. The parties have met twice, in June and August, in polite discussion but without any forward progress. UN Secretary-General Ki-Moon Ban endorsed autonomy (and then retracted his endorsement), and the United States and France have seen it as a forward step that needs further development.

Like so many conflicts in the world, the issue per se is of no intrinsic interest to the United States, but it has enormous importance because of the relationships involved. The southwestern shore of the Mediterranean is a strategically important gate to a crucial waterway, and the Maghreb provides an important bridge to a volatile area further east. In that region of the Maghreb, Morocco and Algeria have competing relations of importance to the United States Both cooperate significantly with United States efforts to control terrorism. Morocco, the modernizing monarchy, is an important ally with historic ties with the United States and is making noteworthy reformist strides in democratization, economic liberalization and human rights under the young king, Mohammed VI. It joined the United States in a free trade agreement in 2005 that is to serve as a template for U.S.-Arab economic relations. Algeria is a post-revolutionary state ruled by a military junta and an elected president; has made it little progress on its reformist agenda but is rich in oil and gas and a leader in Arab rejectionist politics.

The two are enemy brothers, rivals in Arab politics, whose bad blood has stymied any progress in economic cooperation and integration. Both states, for opposite reasons, are important for U.S. relations in the region. Thus, it is important to the Washington to get the Western Saharan imbroglio off its plate. Continuing conflict makes good relations with the important states of the region difficult. Should it heat up to the point where the United States would have to take clear sides, the United States position would suffer. But beyond that, an independent mini-state of perhaps 150,000 people and few resources — a micro — Mauritania-would be a source of instability for its people and, more broadly, for the region, as other, mainly Arab states and forces — from Morocco and Algeria to Saudi Arabia and al-Qaeda — vie to buy its allegiance.


http://www.mepc.org/journal/time-solution-western-sahara-conflicthttp://www.mepc.org/journal/time-solution-western-sahara-conflict

 

[Ceylal]

Washington has announced its support for allies targeted by plans to expand Hezbollah's influence, putting the Polisario in the circle of terrorism, in response to Morocco's severing diplomatic ties with Iran.

According to a well-informed source, the US State Department expressed its rejection of the nature of the stability caused by activities suspicious of the Islamic Republic, especially with regard to support for Hezbollah and other terrorist groups.

The same source added that the US State Department had commented on Hezbollah's penetration into the Sahara, saying that Iran remained a state sponsor of terrorism and Hezbollah remained an international terrorist organization in response to the Moroccan decision to sever ties with the Islamic Republic due to clear collusion and support. Military "of the Polisario", as reported by the daily Al-Sabah.


http://www.elwehda.com/Al-Wtn-Al-Rby/3271495/الوحدة-الاخباري--واشنطن-تضع-البوليساريو-في-دائرة-الإرهاب.html


*This is a huge victory for Morocco..

Source El Wahda....... Western Sahara is a recognized occupied territory by the UN.., recognized by the International court of La Hague which debunked the Morrocain claim to it..Further more,The US government recognized it as such and is pushing for an end of the conflict and elections to be held to offer the Sahraouis to decide for themselves a complete indépendance or an autonomy within Morocco . Morocco, knows the results of a such a vote..and is doing everything they could to defer the attention he’s getting from obstructing the UN resolutions, to Iran, to Algeria and to Hizbollah..
US Républicains were, are and will always regard Algiers as the country to count on when the chips fail elseware..Algeria was their for them when the Iran crises of the Late 70’s erupted and US diplomates were held prisoners, Algeria was there when the 17 Saudis, an Egyptien, a Jordanian and a Yemeni blowed up the two towers, Algeria was their to help creating and sitting an Afghan Gouvernmrnt after the fall of the Taliban...
Trump is not going to destroy what Reagan, and the two Bush administrations built for the sorry a....SPs Morocco who gave Hillary $ 12 million to defeat him...For the world, this is Morocco scared shitless ..Polisario is the RASD army with is known actually as the ALS since Morocco inked the ceasefire..And SC you know what those two letter stand for...you are just another overused slap jar..