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Zimbabwe Western Sahara: History
On November 6, 1975, as the Spanish dictator Franco lay on his deathbed, King Hassan II staged what was called the "Green March": hundreds of thousands of Moroccans went into the Western Sahara waving flags to support Morocco's claim to the area on the grounds that sahraouis, the nomads, had paid tribute to the Alawi sultans of the 19th century, and this somehow entitled them to a piece of this pie. When Franco died on November 20, 1975, the Spanish rashly gave their colonies independence. Morocco initially annexed the northern part of the Western Sahara, while Mauretania took over the southern third.
Morocco did not recognize the 1975 verdict of the International Court of Justice in the Hague stating that the Moroccan rulers had no rights to the Western Sahara. When, in the year 1979, the United Nations recognized both the Frente Polisario liberation movement as the only legal representative of the Sahraouic people and the Democratic Arabic Republic of the Sahara (DARS) it had proclaimed, Mauretania soon pulled out of the southern portion, thus leaving a power vacuum, which Morocco quickly moved into as well.
Since then, the uncompromising position of Morocco in the Western Sahara conflict has not only strained the national budget, but also relations with Algeria: The Algerian town of Tindouf has become the headquarters of the Sahraouic government in exile and its freedom fighters, who have involved the Moroccan army in a trying guerilla war. This is why Hassan II had a 1,600-km-long (1,000 mi) wall built along the border with Algeria in 1981. Equipped with infrared and various self-firing devices, it has claimed the last gazelles of the area. | |
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