Vol. 72/No. 5      February 4, 2008

Mhamed Khadad, spokesperson for the Polisario Front, said the talks have registered the “slow death of the autonomy project proposed by Morocco.”

The Western Sahara, previously a colony of imperialist Spain, was occupied by Moroccan troops after Spanish forces withdrew in the 1970s in face of a growing independence struggle by the Saharawi people. The Polisario Front led a war for independence until 1991, when it signed a cease-fire with the Moroccan government.

The Polisario Front organizes a government in exile in southwest Algeria, where some 170,000 Saharawis live in camps, preparing for the return to their land.

The Moroccan monarchy has refused to acknowledge the Saharawis’ right to national self-determination. After little progress toward a UN-sponsored referendum on the status of Western Sahara, two rounds of direct UN-sponsored negotiations were held in 2007.

The Polisario Front calls for a “democratic vote by the people of Western Sahara,” Khadad said. “If the Saharawis vote tomorrow for integration or autonomy, we will respect the free will expressed by them. Nevertheless, we are convinced that they will vote for independence.”

This was the first round of talks since the Polisario Front held its 12th congress on December 14-20. The congress was extended by two days as delegates debated the future course of the national liberation struggle and elected their leadership. Central to the debate was the progress towards a political solution and the place of the armed struggle.

Mohamed Abdelaziz, secretary general of the Polisario Front and president of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic, told the Algerian Press Service December 23, “The priority is the peaceful solution and the negotiations, but these talks must be limited in time.”

He added, “We will resume the armed struggle once we are convinced that there is no progress, that Morocco doesn’t want a peaceful solution and that the UN failed to carry out the decolonization process in Western Sahara.”

Speaking at the opening of the Polisario congress, Abdelaziz emphasized that the struggle being waged in the Moroccan-occupied territories “gave an impetus to the national struggle, galvanized national and international opinion, and changed realities on the ground. It has foiled the opponent’s plans to subsume the Saharawis, and demonstrated to the world that the conflict is between the entire Saharawi people on the one hand and the Moroccan regime, on the other.”  
 
 
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