The commemoration of the anniversary of the beginning of the Green March, the mobilization of tens of thousands of Moroccans that in 1975 changed the destiny of Western Sahara, then considered by Spain as one of its provinces, coincided this Wednesday with the re-election of Donald Trump, the president of the United States who four years ago recognized the sovereignty of Rabat over the former Spanish colony. In a speech to the nation broadcast on television, King Mohamed VI called on the United Nations last night to “assume its responsibilities” on the Sahara issue against the parties that “insist on maintaining an artificial conflict.” The monarch highlighted the growing international recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over the Sahara and the broad support for his autonomy proposal, against those who cling, in reference to the Polisario Front and Algeria, to “obsolete theses”, such as the holding of a referendum. of “inapplicable” self-determination, and they take the opportunity to try to achieve an exit to the Atlantic Ocean.
Hours earlier, Mohamed VI had sent a congratulatory message to Trump for his re-election, in which he recalled the “historic position” that the American president adopted on the Sahara in the final weeks of his first term and predicted “broader horizons” in the “strategic relationship” between both countries. The decision of the Republican magnate to assume Rabat’s authority over a disputed territory, considered “non-autonomous” or pending decolonization by the United Nations, opened the way for a diplomatic turn by Spain (in 2022) and France (last July ), in favor of the Moroccan thesis of autonomy of the Sahara under its control.
The balance of the conflict between Morocco and the Polisario Front, an independence movement supported by Algeria that defends the self-determination of the territory, has since been tilted in favor of Rabat. The Polisario militias broke, also at the end of 2020, the ceasefire they had maintained since 1991 with the Moroccan army after 15 years of open war.
Since then, low-intensity armed clashes have been recorded between both parties, except for warlike episodes such as the one recorded on Tuesday. At least two Sahrawi fighters were killed and three others were injured in an attack with a Moroccan drone against four vehicles in the Gleibat el Fula area, southeast of Western Sahara, on the wall or embankment that divides the territory between Morocco (which controls the 80%) and the Polisario (remaining 20%), as reported this Wednesday by the Rabat press.
President Emmanuel Macron’s official visit to Morocco last week reaffirmed that France contemplates “the present and future of the Sahara within the framework of Moroccan sovereignty.” As he had already announced in July in a letter to King Mohamed VI, Macron has also committed to defending the proposed Moroccan autonomy plan in all international bodies – such as the UN Security Council, of which his country is a permanent member. in 2007 as the only solution to the conflict in the former Spanish colony. During Macron’s state visit, the French companies accompanying him closed contracts worth 10 billion euros in the Maghreb country.
Consulates and cultural centers
During that same official trip, the French Foreign Minister, Jean-Noel Barrot, announced that his department had published on its website a map of Morocco in which the territory of the country was shown united with its territory, without a line of separation. Western Sahara, with both names written in the same font size. Barrot also anticipated an imminent visit to El Aaiún, capital of the former Spanish colony, of the French ambassador in Rabat to “consolidate consular presenceand French cultural in the Sahara” with preparations for the opening of an Alliance Française center.
Like Spain, France has a primary education center in Laayoune. In 2013, the Spanish Government proposed the opening of an extension (delegation) of a Cervantes Institute center in the Sahrawi capital, simultaneously along with another extension in Tindouf (Algeria), where the Sahrawi exile camps established by the Polisario Front are located. . Successive Spanish governments, however, failed to finalize this plan.
In the final days of Trump’s first term, a US delegation led by David Schenker, then assistant secretary of state for the Middle East and North Africa, visited the city of Dakhla, the sub-Saharan capital, where it examined a building as a possible headquarters for a US consulate in Western Sahara.
Since January 2021, President Joe Biden’s Administration has not taken any steps in this regard, while continuing to formally recognize Moroccan sovereignty over the territory. Three dozen countries, mostly Arab and African, have opened diplomatic representations in the Sahara. The Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, proclaimed in exile by the Polisario Front and admitted as a member state of the African Union, has been recognized by more than 80 countries.
