Behind
the Baker Plan for Western Sahara
Toby
Shelley
(Toby Shelley
is writing a book on the Western Sahara for Zed Books in London. He
works for the Financial Times.)
August 1,
2003
Further Info
For
background on the Western Sahara dispute, see Yahia Zoubir and
Karima Benabdallah-Gambier, "Western
Sahara Deadlock," in Middle East Report 227 (Summer 2003).
The article is accessible online.
|
On July 31,
2003, the UN Security Council voted to "support strongly" former
Secretary of State James Baker's proposals for resolving the Western
Sahara dispute, the last Africa file remaining open at the UN
Decolonization Committee. Baker has been the personal envoy of UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan since 1997, charged with making
progress in the 1991 Settlement Plan for the Western Sahara even
after Annan had damned it as a "zero-sum game," while also pursuing
alternatives.
Argument over
the proposals, described in the resolution as "an optimum political
solution on the basis of agreement between the two parties," went
right down to the wire. The mandate for MINURSO, the UN monitoring
body in the Western Sahara, would have expired at midnight on July
31. In the event, the US watered down the resolution's initial
draft, which said that the Council "endorses" the plan. This phrase
was interpreted to mean that the UN would push forward with Baker's
plan despite the reservations of the Sahrawis and, more to the
point, Morocco, which has occupied Western Sahara since the
territory was vacated by Spain in 1975. The compromise wording
"calls upon the parties to work with the United Nations and with
each other towards acceptance and implementation of the Peace Plan."
For good or ill, this wording may prove to be a crucial dilution, as
one of the key messages in Annan's recommendation of the proposals
was that negotiations between Morocco and the POLISARIO Front, the
Sahrawis' recognized representative, were all too often
counterproductive.
DEVIL IN THE
DETAILS
In essence,
Baker has reheated 2001 proposals for a period of several years of
autonomy for the Western Sahara under provisional Moroccan
sovereignty, followed by a referendum in which the bulk of the
Moroccan settlers introduced since 1975 would vote alongside
UN-authenticated Sahrawis. The choice would be between integration
with Morocco or independence, with the possibility of a third
option, mostly likely continued autonomy, being added. The
arithmetic would be weighted in Morocco's favor.
Baker's
proposals contrast with the UN Settlement Plan, drawn up in 1988 and
approved in 1991. That document foresaw a referendum offering a
straight choice between independence and integration. The electorate
would have been based on the Sahrawi population as identified in a
Spanish census of 1974.
The official
responses of POLISARIO and Morocco were published in May 2003, and
it looked as if Baker's plan would be declared dead. Both parties
spoke against it. For Morocco, the added detail in the five-page
plan made it a different proposition from the exploitable
ambiguities of the initial one-page document. Talk of
decentralization in the kingdom remains just that; Morocco fears any
solution that would grant real economic, political and judicial
powers to the Sahrawis. Local powers that Sahrawi nationalists saw
as insufficient to meet their aspirations at the same time were too
much for Rabat. Furthermore, Morocco's long-term strategy has been
to allow progress along the UN track only when it is more beneficial
than simply sitting tight and deepening the occupation. Accepting
the vague 2001 proposals had helped to sideline the more explicit
1991 Settlement Plan, while the addition of Moroccan settlers to the
proposed voter rolls was construed as a major shift toward
legitimizing Moroccan rule. The Settlement Plan has been sidelined.
But Baker's current proposals define the contours of Sahrawi
autonomy more clearly, as well as suggesting that the two parties
would not be intimately involved in every aspect of developing the
eventual referendum. Sensing a possible loss of control over the
territory's fate, Rabat decided to obstruct Baker.
POLISARIO'S
ABOUT-FACE
The
resurrection of Baker's second iteration of his plan followed a
surprise shift in the position of the POLISARIO Front, the top
leadership of which reiterated rejection of the plan only a month
beforehand. At that time, Mohamed Abdelaziz, secretary general of
POLISARIO, told Middle East Report: "The only solution that has the
acceptance of the parties and international community is the
Settlement Plan.... We accept only that plan. We can make
adjustments but it is the only basis."
Ahead of the
Security Council discussions, POLISARIO diplomats argued that their
change of stance was qualified and did not constitute a breach of
long-standing principle. The movement accepted the positive elements
of the plan -- that it retained the notion of self-determination and
withdrawal of Moroccan administration -- but everything else, it
maintained, would have to be negotiated with the UN. The proposed
voter rolls for the eventual referendum remained entirely
unacceptable, and so did the length of the transition period. What
lies behind the change in the Sahrawis' official position, and has
it moved the dispute into a new phase?
At the tactical
level, POLISARIO has achieved a diplomatic victory by discomfiting
Morocco. While both the kingdom and its adversary opposed the
proposals, rejection was relatively risk-free for each. For Morocco,
a country that trades on its role as a US ally and, talking of
trade, is in the midst of free trade agreement negotiations with
Washington, opposing a US- (and British-) supported plan drawn up by
a former US secretary of state is distinctly less comfortable. After
the standoff over the Iraq war at the Security Council, having
France as a principal supporter probably does not help matters
either. The outcome is the second blow in little more than a year to
the Moroccan diplomatic corps. It had welcomed the first iteration
of Baker's proposals and was convinced the Security Council would
push it through in the spring of 2002. In fact, the plan was thrown
out, raising rumors that Baker would resign from his job as special
envoy out of pique.
As POLISARIO
officials publicly acknowledged, their about-face came only after
pressure had been exerted. UN representative Ahmed Boukhari spoke of
"the insistent wishes expressed by several countries inside and
outside the Security Council, including Algeria and Spain [the
former colonial power and outgoing holder of the Security Council
presidency]." In private, other Sahrawi diplomats said the pressure
had been intense. According to an Algerian press report, Abdelaziz
was summoned by three leading Algerian officials at the end of June
in an attempt to press him to change the independence movement's
stance.
POLISARIO is
not an arm of the Algerian security forces, as Morocco claims, but
Algeria has been the movement's key sponsor and supporter since
Spain handed the Western Sahara to Morocco and Mauritania in 1975.
(Mauritania subsequently renounced any claim to the territory.)
POLISARIO's refugee camps, housing at least half the Sahrawi people,
lie inside Algerian territory and are supplied from Algeria. Many
Sahrawi students train there and Sahrawi diplomats are supported by
the Algerian foreign ministry. POLISARIO is not in a position to
refuse firm demands from its principal sponsor. The movement may
have been persuaded to change its tune through rational argument or
realpolitik but, certainly, many of its leaders had little appetite
for the shift.
REGIONAL
OPTIC
In 2002,
Algeria's critique of Baker's proposals was excoriating. Yet a year
later, Algeria was referring to the reworked version as "a historic
compromise in favor of peace." A first reading of the new Algerian
position paper was sobering for POLISARIO, and clearly came as a
surprise to at least some senior officials. Within days the movement
issued its official interpretation. "The packaging is soft but the
core is hard," said Mohamed Khaddad, a senior Sahrawi negotiator.
After the show of US dominance in the Iraq war, the Algerians could
not simply reject Baker's plans. But their caveats were so
fundamental that if inserted they would return the process to the
essence of the 1991 Settlement Plan, the Sahrawis' argument went.
Algeria's insistence on proper UN monitoring and guarantees alone
would push the Moroccans toward rejection, even if the Security
Council could or would find the resources to do the job. Raising the
issue of identifying the electorate awakened the specter of the
wasted years when Morocco and POLISARIO fought over who would vote
in the referendum that was to be part of the 1991 Settlement
Plan.
Perhaps Algeria
has simply carried off another of its diplomatic tours de force;
Moroccan officials ruefully admit to the skillfulness of Algerian
diplomacy. But Algeria's support for POLISARIO has to be seen
through the optic of regional and international politics. That
support is an expression, not a cause, of Algerian-Moroccan rivalry
for preeminence in the Maghrib. Other expressions have been border
closures, the pitiful levels of economic cooperation and the still
unresolved issue of common borders, particularly around the Tindouf
area where -- not coincidentally -- the Sahrawi refugee camps are
located. The pace of Algerian-Moroccan competition has quickened in
recent years. Post-revolutionary Algeria -- once avowedly
"socialist," a price hawk within OPEC and a champion of Third World
liberation -- has moved toward becoming a liberalized economy with
falling dependence on oil prices and greater dependence on natural
gas export volumes. The country has also been at war for a decade
with the Islamist bogeyman. Through the Eizenstat initiative, the US
is pushing for a unified North African market. As the economy of
Algeria liberalizes and becomes more globally integrated, so the
power elite must realign its interests economically and politically.
The cause of Sahrawi independence will be affected.
Earlier in
2003, former Algerian military strongman Khalid Nezzar expressed the
view that the Western Sahara should no longer separate the "the two
brother countries." In an age of great regional blocs, it was
necessary to create "our own Maghribian space." Resorting to the
language that had signaled the demise of the UN Settlement Plan and
its replacement by Baker's plan, Nezzar said that a solution "would
be to go towards the thesis of no winner, no loser." While Nezzar's
comments brought criticism, the critics' main complaint was that he
seemed ready to sell the Western Sahara without extracting a
reasonable price, not that he was willing to sell it. Can this
incident be isolated from the language of Algeria's response to
Baker's revised plan? Can it be isolated from increasing US-Algerian
and (sometimes competing) French-Algerian cooperation? Is it
significant that Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika is the same
man who in 1975, when foreign minister, urged his government to
concede the Western Sahara to Morocco and Mauritania in exchange for
a firm border agreement? Whether or not Bouteflika gets a second
term of office could be important to determining Algeria's eventual
attitude.
FRUSTRATION IN
THE CAMPS
POLISARIO has
also been feeling internal pressure. Since the 1991 ceasefire ended
the movement's war with Morocco, the 160,000 residents of the
refugee camps have been marginalized. Their guns have been silenced.
Their only other weapon, the vote in the referendum that was quickly
to follow the ceasefire, has been withheld from them by Moroccan
intransigence and UN irresolution. In the spring of 2003, and not
for the first time, POLISARIO officials began to let slip to
journalists that the leadership was under pressure from its
constituency to return to the armed struggle. There is a willingness
in the camps to fight -- perhaps widespread, perhaps not -- but, in
any case, the practicality of the proposal is questionable. After
three decades of isolation in a harsh environment, POLISARIO's
constituency wants to see progress. Youngsters who have never seen
their homeland and senior officials alike rail in frustration at the
years of neither war nor peace.
A return to
armed struggle would likely have been symbolic. While Morocco's
standing army has developed over the years of ceasefire, POLISARIO's
guerrilla fighters have mostly been stood down. Veterans are now too
old to fight, and the weapons stock is likely to have deteriorated.
Nor is it certain that Algeria would ever permit a resumption of
hostilities from its soil. A meeting of the POLISARIO National
Secretariat in June agreed that the leadership would advise the
October congress against military action. That path of action ruled
out, the leadership still faced pressure to come up with something.
Baker's plan looked like the only game in town. Ironically, far from
militant rejectionism, POLISARIO has opted for what many have
described as the Western Sahara's Oslo accord.
Of course, the
frustration felt in the camps (and in the occupied territory too)
has two faces. One is the demand for movement. The other is
withdrawal from the struggle. The camps have become less
collectivized over the last decade. There is an embryonic economy
centered around petty commerce, animal husbandry, vehicle repairs
and the like. Several thousand young men have gone to Spain to work
as migrant laborers. Their remittances have improved living
conditions but also have changed the nature of camp society. There
is talk of the "normalization of exile," of pilfering of aid
material, petty theft, resumption of dowries. Some professionals
trained at overseas universities complain about not being able to
exercise their skills. Some with necessary skills are tempted to go
into commerce where they can earn money rather than devote
themselves to unpaid work for the community.
Nearly thirty
years into exile, the surprise is perhaps that such social changes
have taken so long to come about and that they may strengthen the
independence movement rather than weaken it. But they do constitute
another pressure on the leadership.
DIGGING
IN
Morocco has
suffered a diplomatic defeat. POLISARIO has been pressured into some
form of acceptance of Baker's plan. For its part, the US got its
resolution through the Security Council but in a diluted form.
Morocco has already stated that the resolution imposes upon it no
new obligations. King Mohammed VI recently declared that the Western
Sahara issue has been closed, supporting the analysis of the
POLISARIO leadership that Rabat is digging in. There will be
pressure on the kingdom from the US, perhaps manifesting itself at
the ongoing trade negotiations. If the pressure becomes too intense,
Rabat will begin some form of discussions around the Baker plan but,
as the precedent of the 1991 Settlement Plan shows, it will only
allow progress in those talks as long the gains outweigh those of
illegitimate occupation.
POLISARIO
greeted the passing of the resolution by saying it was proof the
Council would not allow the status quo to continue. It has achieved
movement. But since key elements of the plan are poison pills to
Sahrawis' aspiration to independence, the new resolution may offer
only dangerous, short-term comfort. If indeed the tectonic plates of
globalization and geopolitics are slowly reshaping the Maghrib
through the media of Baker, Annan and US Ambassador to the UN John
Negroponte, a small nation divided between refugee camps and an
occupied homeland is not well-placed to resist. That said, the US,
like France, has been trying to maintain a balance between Algeria
and Morocco in its North Africa policy. If Morocco's obstructionism
toward Baker has lessened Washington's good will toward the kingdom,
the Sahrawis may reap some benefits as the details of the plan are
further clarified.