Polisario With Tied Hands for Negotiation
Pedro Canales
The official doctrine that Algeria claims to defend in the Sahara issue is that it is a decolonization problem concerning the Moroccan government and the Polisario Front; that Algeria is not involved; and that the matter is in the hands of the United Nations, which must bring the two concerned parties together for them to directly negotiate a political solution to the conflict, one they decide as long as it conforms to the right of peoples to self-determination. This is Algeria’s official position; however, the reality is different.
The Polisario Front has sat at the negotiation table multiple times with Rabat authorities. In 1989, Hassan II received Bachir Mustafa Sayed, Mahfud Ali Beiba, and Brahim Ghali in Marrakech and offered the Polisario, as a solution to the conflict, autonomy for the Sahara under the flag and borders of Morocco. Later, in the mid-1990s, then Crown Prince Sidi Mohamed met with Bachir Mustafa Sayed and other leaders of the independence movement in Tangier, Geneva, and other capitals in Europe and the United States. The United States, Spain, and France supported these meetings. However, all negotiations failed. The meetings seemed to end on a somewhat optimistic note, but soon after, the Polisario would harden its position again.
Many Sahrawi citizens, whether in the territories of the former Spanish colony, in Tindouf, or in the diaspora, some of them sympathizers or militants of the independence movement based in Algeria, still wonder today why the negotiations failed and how much self-sufficiency the Front has to decide what can be negotiated and how far it can go. Almost all members of the Polisario, regardless of their personal, family, or tribal motivations, know that the last word in negotiations belongs to Algeria, and that if there were no agreements, it is because Algeria did not want them.
The Algerian regime has invested tens of billions of dollars in the “Sahrawi cause”; it has created and manages its political-diplomatic structure; it has ceded part of its territory for the headquarters and camps of Sahrawi refugees who came from the territory half a century ago; and it has formed a “liberation army,” with several thousand soldiers and officers, whom it has equipped with all kinds of weapons. Algiers is not willing to waste these investments and will not accept any solution that does not guarantee its interests and benefits.
Some historical leaders of the Polisario Front, such as Bachir Mustafa Sayed, Omar Mansur, Ahmed Bujari, and Mahayub Salek, have faced censorship and harassment from Algiers for attempting to defend positions strictly linked to Sahrawi interests. Algiers firmly opposed Bachir Mustafa Sayed assuming the leadership of the Polisario Front after the death of its number one, Mohamed Abdelaziz, in 2016; he had the support of a sector of the Polisario Congress, but he was not even allowed to run for the position. The Algerian regime placed Brahim Ghali, who had been the “Sahrawi ambassador” in Algiers, as the sole candidate. Other veteran independence members, such as Omar Hadrami, Bachir Dkhill, Brahim Hakim, Ahmed Baba Miské, Ayub Lahbib, and many others, were condemned to ostracism and returned to Morocco, Mauritania, or settled in Europe.
Algeria still does not accept that the Polisario Front makes decisions concerning its future on its own, thinking first of the interests of the “Sahrawi people” and then in accordance with a framework of regional peace and stability. The future of the refugee camps is not decided in Tifariti or New York, but in Algiers. Morocco seems to have reached this conclusion and insists on four-party negotiations (Polisario Front, Mauritania, Algeria, and Morocco), and ultimately between two, Algiers and Rabat. Twice, King Mohammed VI has called on President Abdelmayid Tebbun to meet face-to-face and get the region out of stagnation. But the Algerian head of state, influenced by the military establishment, remains silent.
