December 06, 2001
A bad time, it seems, for the cause of self-determination. For tens of thousands of refugees who have been waiting a decade for the United Nations to hold a referendum on the independence of Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara, the right to choose their fate is disappearing.
On a North African tour this week, France's president, Jacques Chirac, delighted Morocco by naming Western Sahara "the southern provinces of Morocco". Most Saharawis expect nothing better of the French, Morocco's protector. It is more worrying for them that the United States, which used to act as a counterbalance, now appears to be jumping on board. Last month two oil companies, one French, one American, signed deals to prospect for oil in Western Saharan waters.
TotalFinaElf, based in Paris, gained a 115,000 square-kilometre (44,000 square-mile) area off the coast of Dakhla, the former colonial capital. Houston's Kerr McGee took a 110,000 square-kilometre area of water farther north. Both signed their deals with Morocco, ignoring the other official claimant, the Saharawi independence movement, the Polisario Front. Polisario vainly waved a 1991 UN resolution against "the exploitation and plundering of colonial and non-self-governing territories by foreign economic interests".
TotalFinaElf insists that it has no political position on Western Sahara: as yet, it is contracted to search, not drill, for oil. But as at sea, so on land. This month the company is again financing the Paris-to-Dakar car rally, whose course through Western Sahara under the supervision of the Moroccan army so angered the Polisario Front last time that it called it a declaration of war. But few took the threats seriously. Polisario could once muster 15,000 guerrillas, but the rally, in January, went ahead without a shot being fired.
Negotiations have fared no better. Polisario's president, Mohammed Abdelaziz, whose rule extends to four wretched camps in the Algerian desert, invited Morocco's King Mohammed for face-to-face talks. The monarch did not deign to reply. Mr Abdelaziz was welcome as a subject, mocked Morocco, to pay homage.
But the biggest nail in Polisario's coffin has been the UN, which promised so much and delivered so little. After ten years and half a billion dollars failing to organise a referendum, the UN's Security Council has now approved a plan that will convert Morocco's de facto rule to de jure.
Drawn up by the UN's envoy for Western Sahara, James Baker, a former American secretary of state and himself an oilman, the plan postpones the referendum for a further five years. During this time, the Saharawis would be allowed to elect an autonomous body, but with limited authority only. Even more depressing for the Saharawis, the referendum's voter list would be expanded from indigenous people to all residents, including the settlers and soldiers Morocco has poured into Western Sahara since taking the territory in 1975. These newcomers now almost certainly form the majority.
Polisario rejected the plan, but attended talks at Mr Baker's ranch in Wyoming. In the past, the independence movement could have counted on support from American oilmen and their hefty investments in Polisario's backer, Algeria. TotalFinaElf, too, has substantial operations in Algeria, and wants to develop them further. But after 25 years of stalemate, Algeria too seems to be wavering.
The Algerian press reported that on his visit to Washington, Algeria's president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, met Mr Baker and agreed to the autonomy plan. Mr Bouteflika denies this. But this week Mr Chirac, making the first trip by a French president to Algeria for over a decade, promised Europe's backing for Algeria's conflict with its Islamist rebels—price enough perhaps to cede Western Sahara to its rival, Morocco.
King's move With such international approval, King Mohammed can do things that his father never did. The late King Hassan refrained from drilling for oil and only rarely set foot in the territory, for fear of rocking the status quo. Mohammed has few such qualms. To assert his authority, and accompanied by an entourage filling four Hercules transport aircraft, he has toured the territory twice in the past month. As an act of "affection for the sons of the Sahara", he pardoned 56 prisoners, including Morocco's longest-serving political prisoner, Mohammed Daddach, jailed since 1978. Others have since been imprisoned.
But the king should beware of counting his chickens before they are hatched. Spain, Western Sahara's former ruler, is not backing France's stand, and has increased its support for Polisario. And King Mohammed might also remember the fate of the huge discovery of oil in eastern Morocco that he declared to be God's gift. The oil turned out to be mud.
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