MOHAMED VI IN A POSITION OF STRENGTH?

Once again, the King of Morocco has claimed ownership of Western Sahara; a territory that does not correspond to it neither by law nor by history. In 1975, the Spanish government ceded the administration to Morocco and Mauritania, reporting it to the United Nations. It could not cede sovereignty because it did not have it.

 Since then, the UN has kept the Western Sahara in the fourth commission dealing with Decolonization. The United Nations maintains that the territory must be submitted to a self-determination referendum (for this purpose, the MINURSO was created and a special envoy was appointed) and also advocates a negotiated solution between Rabat and the Polisario Front that can be accepted by both, which which in the current circumstances does not seem to be possible.

The recognition of the Moroccan nature of the territory by the president, Donald Trump, was a singular accolade to Morocco; this is evident and cannot be denied. But Trump did it to get Israel recognized by as many Arab countries as possible. Trump was also unaware that the international court of justice determined at the time that Western Sahara was “different from and not an integral part of Morocco. And if he knew it, he paid no attention to it; such was his style of government.

The unilateral decision of the president, Pedro Sánchez, to opt for the position of Morocco, as the "serious, realistic and credible" solution, was made in the perspective that Rabat would put an end to the illegal assaults on Ceuta and Melilla, and recognize the Spanish nature of the two autonomous cities. Morocco has cut off the irruption of illegals, with the result that we already know, but in no way has it accepted nor will it accept that the two cities are Spanish; there is little doubt about this.

It is true that Pedro Sánchez has implicitly accepted that the territory belongs to Morocco because the Alawi text says that "autonomy will take place under Moroccan sovereignty." The president of the Spanish government thus commits a serious mistake in foreign policy: he breaks Spain's historical position of neutrality; fosters enmity with Algeria; and he ignores the majority feeling of the Spanish people that supports the Saharawis represented by the Polisario.

The “status quo” favors Morocco. The Polisario, on the other hand, lacks the necessary means to destroy the defensive walls installed in Western Sahara, and Algeria does not want an armed conflict with Morocco to break out.

But international law, the African Union and the United Nations, support the self-determination referendum, although they are of little use to the Saharawis subjected to the harshness of Tnduf.

(photo: saharauis in the camps of Tinduf (Algeria)