It’s regarded as the “last colony on the African continent”. 

The territory of Western Sahara has, for decades, been locked in a conflict to free itself from the imposition of Moroccan control, especially over its prized phosphate reserves and fisheries.

Now an emissary of the North African territory has visited Jamaica as part of a wider Caribbean swing to include Trinidad, Barbados, Guyana and others. Mohamed Zrug is trying to increase, at the non-governmental level, awareness of and support for a UN Resolution recognising the right to self-determination of the Sahrawi People.

The Resolution, and the surrounding contention, actually date back to the waning days of European empire in the 1950s. Spain withdrew from the Spanish Sahara in accordance with the Madrid Accords, having merged the previously separate districts of Saguia el-Hamra (in the north) and Río de Oro (in the south) to form the province of Spanish Sahara. Morocco, supported by France, moved in to seize control, and over the ensuing decades, faced armed resistance, mainly from the Polisario Front, backed and supported by Algeria. Beginning in 1975, a 16-year war for independence was waged against Mauritania and Morocco. 

In February 1976, the Polisario Front declared the establishment of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, which was not admitted into the United Nations, but won limited yet growing recognition by a number of other states. Following the annexation of Western Sahara by Morocco and Mauritania in 1976, and the Polisario Front’s declaration of independence, the UN addressed the conflict via a resolution reaffirming the right to self-determination of the Sahrawi people. In 1977, France intervened as the conflict reached its peak intensity. In 1979, Mauritania withdrew from the conflict and territories, leading to a stalemate through most of the 1980s. The Polisario Front and the Moroccan government reached a cease-fire agreement after several more engagements between 1989 and 1991. At the time, most of  Western Sahara remained under Moroccan control, while the Polisario controlled some 30 per cent of the territory in its capacity as the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic.

At present, these borders are largely unchanged. The 1975 UN Mission found unassailable consensus for Sahrawi self-rule and independence, but Morocco had steadfastly tightened its grip. Even after multiple peace initiatives through the 1990s and early 2000s, the conflict reemerged as the “Independence Intifada” in 2005; a series of disturbances, demonstrations and riots, which broke out in May 2005 in the Moroccan-held portions of Western Sahara, and lasted until November of that same year.

To date, large parts of Western Sahara are controlled by the Moroccan government and known as the Southern Provinces, whereas some 30 per cent of the Western Sahara territory remains controlled by the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), the Polisario state with limited international recognition. The questions of mutual recognition, establishment of a possible Sahrawi state and the large numbers of Sahrawi refugees displaced by the conflict are among the key issues driving Zrug’s current travels

“We seek always a negotiated solution,” Zrug maintains. “A solution guided by the precept of International Law which afford to Sahwari people the dignity and respect we deserve.” 

That respect, now though, remains distant, given Morocco’s clear intransigence: five decades of conflict, 7 million land mines laid in the disputed area, and literal walls blockading the Sahwari from both the sea, with its fisheries, and the massive phosphates reserves in the southern sections.

But he is not without allies, chief of whom is Algeria, which endured its own bloody anti-colonial struggles against the French [who, not coincidentally, support Morocco].

“Algeria is an ‘important actor and partner for us” Zrug confirms, adding that the African giant has made tangible efforts in seeking a resolution to the conflict. Morocco, for its part, views the Algerians as meddlers, using the conflict to further its own geopolitical ends. 

The conflict drags on, but Zrug remains unflappably committed to a peaceful resolution.

“In spite of all that has happened, all of the atrocities and the continuing injustice, we are determined to secure full independence for Sahwari people via political, peaceful and democratic means” he says. 

“We owe it to both the former and the future generations to persist in this.”