Will Obama’s Hope Lead to a breakthrough in Western Sahara Deadlock?

“And so to all the other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more.” Barack Obama ------------------------ After the longest and the most expensive presidential campaign in the American history, Barack Hussein Obama won the race to the White House by defeating the Republican nominee Senator John McCain. I was very fortunate to witness America make history once again. When I first listened to Obama speaking, I realized that this man is a man of hope, dreams and inspiration. Reading his book The Audacity of Hope made me admire him even more. I believe that what he achieved in his life should be a perfect model for everyone willing to make a difference in their life and in the world. Nevertheless, while I was watching his Inauguration Speech three questions came to my mind: Will Obama continue to inspire me after he has been the 44th president of the United States for a while? Are we going to see a change in American foreign policy? And most importantly will he bring a just solution to the Western Sahara stalemate? Millions of oppressed people around the globe are expecting a better American leadership under the new administration led by Barack Hussein Obama. And among those people are the people of Western Sahara, Africa’s last colony. Western Sahara and Obama’s Hope: There is no doubt in my mind that the image of American leadership under Barack Obama will improve overseas. Many people around the world were inspired by his victory to the White House. He has already pointed out that he is willing to renew American diplomacy by solving international disputes through negotiations and diplomacy, an approach which is certainly welcomed abroad. Historically, The United States has been involved in the conflict of Western Sahara. Unfortunately, this involvement has always been in favor of Morocco due to strategic and geopolitical reasons: Morocco is a major ally in the Maghreb region. According to experts on this matter, the U.S’s role in this conflict started when it broke out in 1975. The Ford, Carter, and Reagan administrations had provided financial and military support for Morocco’s invasion and occupation of Western Sahara from 1975 to 1991. The first Bush and Clinton administrations maintained a silent position on UN referendum process from 1992 to 1996. However, the highest level of U.S. connection was presented in the former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker as the United Nations personal envoy to Western Sahara from 1997 to 2003. Even so, James Baker resigned after seven years without any major progress. Since 2003, the U.S government’s view towards the conflict has been to leave it to the parties to reach a mutual solution while maintaining undeclared support for the Moroccan Autonomy Plan: local self-rule for the Sahrawi people under the Moroccan sovereignty. Nonetheless, will this role change under the current administration of Barack Obama? A quick look at the happenings around the world and the American domestic politics gives the hint that the Western Sahara is not going to be the priority of Barack Obama’s foreign agenda any time soon. I do not want to sound pessimistic but history teaches us that American foreign policy regarding the North African region has always been based on geo-strategic interests and that the Western Sahara has been the victim of this approach. Western Sahara is not going to be one of Obama’s foreign policy concerns due to domestic and international reasons. I will briefly highlight those reasons. First, the Western Sahara conflict is barely known among the American public. There is no international media coverage of the conflict. Most of the key political players in the U.S have either not heard of it or deliberately ignored it for political reasons. Perhaps this situation of neither war nor peace does not pose a direct threat to the American interests in the region. Sadly though, the first people who are paying the price are the hundred of thousands of refugees living in the desert of Algeria for over three decades now. Secondly, Obama is faced with an internal economical crisis which means that his main concern will be to get America’s economy back on track. Internationally, Obama’s main concerns are the wars in Iraq and in Afghanistan, the Iranian Nuclear Weapons program, Israeli –Palestinian conflict, tensions between India and Pakistan and restoring America’s credibility and reputation in the world. All these indicators demonstrate that the question of Western Sahara is hardly going to be the priority of Obama’s administration foreign schema at least in the first two years of his presidency. In conclusion, I strongly believe that President Obama is an inspiration for me and for many Sahrawis on a personal level but I do not think that he will be a political hope for the Western Sahara due to the facts that I mentioned. Despite my firm conviction that the U.S can easily bring a just and peaceful solution to the table, I do not see that under the current circumstances, Obama’s leadership will lead to a breakthrough in this forgotten conflict. This means that the Western Saharan people are left alone again and this might lead to the breakout of war again in the region, a war which the majority of the Saharawi people have already started to consider seriously. However, the Western Saharan people may not find their hope for gaining their independence and freedom in Obama’s leadership, but they will never despair. They will continue to fight for their right of self-determination despite all the odds. And as the saying goes, “When the world says, "Give up," hope whispers, "Try it one more time” A Brief Background of the Western Sahara Conflict: Historically, Western Sahara was a Spanish colony until 1975, when the Spanish government divided the territories between the newly independent countries at that time, Mauritania and Morocco, under the provisions of a secret agreement known as Madrid Accord. The agreement was signed and ratified without the consent of the indigenous people of the concerned territories known as the Saharawi People. Consequently, a bloody war broke out in the region between the Polisario Front, a nationalist liberation movement that had begun fighting Spain in 1973, against Morocco North and Mauritania South. In 1978, Mauritania renounced its territorial claims but Morocco then took control over the entire territory. Polisario continued to fight against the Moroccan army until 1991, when the United Nations supervised a ceasefire and charted a settlement plan, calling for the right of the Western Saharan people to self-determination through a free, democratic and fair referendum. The UN also established MINURSO, the United Nations Mission for a Referendum in Western Sahara, to monitor and implement the proposed plan. Even though both Morocco and the Polisario Front accepted the plan, the referendum never took place due to the disagreement between the two conflicting parties as well as due to the lack of seriousness of the UN, particularly the Security Council to enforce a just solution. Western Sahara and The international Law: The United Nations’ involvement in the Western Sahara issue began on December 16, 1965, when the General Assembly adopted its first resolution on what then was called Spanish Sahara. The resolution requested Spain to take all necessary measures to decolonize the territory by organizing a referendum that would allow the right to self determination for the Sahrawi people where they could choose between integration with Spain or independence. The Spanish government promised to organize a referendum, but she never kept her promise. In the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United Nations states that everyone has the right to a national identity and that no one should be arbitrarily deprived of that right or denied the right to change nationality. Self-determination is viewed as right of people who have a territory to decide their own political status. For this reason, on December 13, 1974, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution (No. 3292) requesting the International Court of Justice to give an advisory opinion at an early date on the following questions: Was the Western Sahara (Saguia El-Hamra y Rio de Oro) at the time of colonization by Spain a territory belonging to no one (terra nullius)? If the answer to the first question is negative, What were the legal ties between this territory and the Kingdom of Morocco and the Mauritanian entity?" However, the court found no evidence of any legal ties of territorial sovereignty between Western Sahara and Morocco. From 1975 until the present the UN has passed more than a hundred resolutions to solve this conflict. Yet the UN and the international law failed to achieve an accepted and just political solution. The question that should be asked is why the international legality has failed to solve this issue. In my view, the international legality has failed in the Western Sahara because of two main reasons. First, the weakness of the international law itself: There is no mechanism to enforce its resolutions and even if there were it cannot be applied in the case of the Western Sahara because this conflict is included under the act of the Security Council’s Chapter VI (pacific settlement of disputes) which implies that the Security Council cannot use force to advance a solution on the conflicting parties. Second, because France and the United States’ continuously political support for Morocco in the Security Council and their threatening veto powers. Morocco remains occupying the disputed territories illegally. Despite the 16 years of neither war nor peace the two conflicting parties still insist on resolving the problem within the framework of international law and international legality.