Showdown in the Western Sahara
by Khaled Abu Toameh • November 15, 2020 at 7:00 am
Presently, the Polisario Front appears to be trying to create "facts on the ground" outside of any legal framework, presumably in the hope that the international community will view them as irreversible.
International help would be greatly appreciated to prevent this showdown in the Sahara from escalating further.
While much of the world was looking the other way, distracted by China's coronavirus and its economic aftermath, a separatist militia group backed by Algeria, the Polisario Front, have been militarily exploiting the crisis.
For weeks, the Polisario Front have blocked the only road leading southward from Morocco to Mauritania in the buffer zone of Guerguerat. Currently, around 200 trucks find themselves stranded there, while UN peacekeepers (MINURSO), on whom Morocco relies to enforce the tense 30-year ceasefire, apparently feel overwhelmed.
Ever since Spain withdrew from its former colony in the Western Sahara in 1975, the Polisario Front have been trying the claim the territory, rich with phosphates and fishing rights, as an independent state for themselves. Since that time, however, Morocco has served as the sole sovereign, offering the Western Sahara autonomy but not independence.
