Should western sahara be independant?

Great Debates
1

Western sahara (WS) is a smallish region situated northwest of Africa. 700 miles of atlantic coast. Lots of sand.

Morocco took back control of the region from the Spanish in 1956. Ever since, its status has been of great interest to 3 countries:

1- Morocco who claims the WS is part of the country. Period.

2- Algeria who, through open support of the armed Polisario movement, supports a saharawi secession.

3- Spain, since leaving the territory, has also always been applying political pression in favor of an independant WS.

Why do they want a piece of desert?

Eastern neighbour Algeria possesses significant reserves of Oil and natural gas (especially natural gas). It is thought probably that the WS has some oil / natural gas in it. Everybody would like some of that.

700 miles of Atlantic ocean coast means a lot of nice, warm beaches. Who says beaches says beachfront property, tourists and ultimately money. There are many prized surfing spots in WS.

700 miles of Atlantic Ocean coast also mean a bunch of territorial waters full of fish. Fish and fishing licenses are worth money. Spain had such a license with Morocco until 3 years ago or so.

There are few “real” western saharawis. Being a mostly nomad people, their population never grew all that much. Less than 100,000. If they give fishing licenses to countries like Spain, Norway or Japan, they can bring in a lot of money. More money would come from the Algerians who would get a better access to the atlantic. And of course, Oil and natural gas, if/when found, are a nice bonus.

I believe that’s the situation in a nutshell (please do your own research as I am clearly biased, being moroccan). Heck, I remember drawing cartoons with cop cars chasing polisario cars . In retrospect, I believe I had figured the polisario were some kind of common criminals from what I saw and heard on tv).

Indeed, if there is any issue moroccans will agree on, it’s that the sahara is and ought to remain moroccan. I guess mostly because if it seceded, Morocco would suddenly be half the size it is now. Quite a blow to the pride of any man, that. The older ones may have participated in the green march (google it) and feel that their own personnal historical accomplishment has just been nullified. Other reasons may apply as well but those are, by far, the most important.
So, I know most of you don’t give a crap about WS but hopefully, this hasn’t been debated before so you get to sink your teeth in something fresh. What do you think?

2

Oops. Morocco took back control in 1975. My mistake, 1956 was the year it obtained it’s independance from french rule.

3

Guess again.

4

Indeed. Well, it was four years ago at least.

5

I think the Spanish should go back and recolonise Western Sahara, but I’m old fashioned like that. :wink:

The problem is, as you say, the Western Sahara is just that: Sand. There’s nothing there, and letting it be independent is just going to end up in a very large, very empty nation with no effective central government, no natural resources, and a largely nomadic populace. This is a bad idea on many, many levels… the term “Failed State” springs readily to mind, along with other places that decided they’d be alright on their own, like the Solomon Islands and East Timor…

6

Which sort of begs the question why Morocco felt it worthwhile to invade and then invest massive amounts of money and effort in occupying and colonising the place for the last third of a century. I think Gozu is probably correct that a smallish population could generate enough revenue to support themselves.

The BBC have a useful backgrounder which goes into a little more detail than the OP.

Personally, I think any concept of a ‘Greater’ anything is almost invariably a crock of poop fabricated as an excuse to invade somewhere else, and ‘Greater Morocco’ is no different. Trying to revert to the status quo ante bellum after a period of time measured is generations has passed is a bit of an episode in futuility, whether its WS, Israel, Gibraltar or anywhere else - displacing hundreds of thousands of people to make way for other people who were displaced decades ago is not a recipe for success.

However I think there is a strong case for at least making an attempt at sorting the situation out - leaving hundreds of thousands of people to fester in refugee camps in the middle of the desert for decades is just nuts. Since this whole situation came about through other countries playing silly buggers and requires their assistance for resolution, that’s not likely to happen any time soon.

7

Aren’t you in a bit of a hurry to describe East Timor as a failed state? They’ve only been independent for like five years, man. And they’ve had a crisis in that time - hardly out of the ordinary for a country emerging from occupation. I think it may be rather early to move in with the “failed state” moniker.