Another Year’s Delay: Western Sahara’s Long Road to a Referendum

However slow and painful the Israeli-Palestinian peace process may seem at times, it has advanced at lightning speed compared to the Arab world’s one genuinely glacial peace process: the efforts to bring about a United Nations supervised referendum in the disputed Western Sahara. When, a decade and a half after Morocco’s entry into the former Spanish territory, the UN announced agreement on a referendum in 1991, it was scheduled for January, 1992.

It did not, of course, occur. Rescheduled time after time, the process stalled to a virtual halt until former US Secretary of State James A. Baker III negotiated a new peace plan between the Moroccan government and the POLISARIO Front in 1997. That supposedly restarted the clock on the referendum, which was scheduled for December 7, 1998.

Whether or not the choice of Pearl Harbor Day represented a bad augury, that date has now been officially abandoned, as it had been clear it would have to be for several months now. The Secretary General of the United Nations, in his October 26 report to the Security Council, did however provide the outlines of a new schedule which, if implemented, could lead to a referendum in December 1999. So the referendum once envisioned by early 1992 may now take place, if ever, only days before the year 2000.

The Estimate has from time to time provided updates on this slow referendum process. For an overall view of the issue as of mid-1996, when then-Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali essentially walked away from the issue, See the Dossier, “Remember Western Sahara?: Update on a Stalemate” in The Estimate, June 21, 1996. We also devoted a Dossier to the outlines of the Baker plan just over a year ago: “Jim Baker’s Deal: A New Western Sahara Peace Plan”, the Dossier in The Estimate of October 10, 1997.

At that time we quoted Secretary Baker’s comment after announcing his peace plan, in which he quoted the old proverb that the proof of the pudding would be in the eating. We also said:

If everything goes absolutely according to the book, that could mean a referendum in the third quarter of 1998. [The December 7 date had not been announced when the Dossier appeared.] But if anything goes exactly according to the book, it will be the first time in the long history of the Saharan peace effort . . . Congratulations to Baker are of course in order, but, as he noted, his pudding remains to be tested. The next year may show how it tastes.

The intervening year has seen a resumption of voter registration and a generally improved climate for the UN, but it has also seen, on a somewhat narrower scale, the same sorts of debates about who is eligible to vote in the referendum which stalled the process all through the 1990s. Now the Secretary General has proposed a means of moving the process forward and is about to make a visit to the area. This Dossier, based in part on Kofi Annan’s October report, seeks to bring this continuing story up to the present.

The problem has not changed significantly in years: Morocco controls the ground, and is perhaps understandably reluctant to risk any referendum which it might lose. Persuaded to agree to a referendum after seeing the POLISARIO Front’s “Saharan Arab Democratic Republic” (SADR) recognized by the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in the 1980s, Morocco has been slow to agree to the conditions of that promised referendum. With the end of the cold war, the civil conflict in Algeria, and other changes of the last two decades, POLISARIO lacks the base of international support it once enjoyed. Since the 1980s, Morocco has controlled the “useful Sahara” — the phosphate mines, coastal fisheries, and main towns — behind a network of berms or sand walls; the POLISARIO forces are thus relegated to desert areas of little economic value.

Under such circumstances, Morocco’s eagerness to proceed with the referendum has been at best lukewarm, and the two sides spent most of the 1990s arguing over who would be eligible to vote: those wrangles, and the issues at state, are spelled out in greater detail in the two previous Dossiers cited in the introduction.

In fact, under the agreement worked out in Houston last year by Secretary Baker, the two sides and the United Nations made major headway this year in preparations for a referendum. By September 3 of this year, MINURSO (the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in the Western Sahara) had identified applicants from all tribal groups except three, which are still under dispute. A total of 147,350 applicants had been interviewed by the Identification Commission, of whom 60,112 were identified during the first phase of registration between August 1994 and December 1995, and 87,238 between the resumption of registration on December 3, 1997 and September 3 of this year. This identification and registration is a step in the right direction, for it had never previously been carried so far.

There are still, however, areas of dispute. The most important is that the two sides still cannot agree on how to handle three “sub-tribal” groups living near the Moroccan border which Morocco wants to include. These groups, known as H41, H61 and J51/52, may consist of as many as 65,000 persons, who POLISARIO claims should be considered Moroccans and who are not listed in the 1974 Spanish census which was the basis for most identifications of voters.

In addition to the dispute over the three tribal groups, Morocco has refused to recognize the identification of certain Sahrawis now in Mauritania who originally were registered at the Saharan refugee camps around Tindouf, Algeria.

The dispute over the three groups has proved to be the main obstacle to moving ahead with the referendum.

Under the peace plan, originally adopted in 1991, the parties had agreed to:

• A ceasefire, which went into effect on September 6, 1991, and has remained in effect with only sporadic alleged violations.
• Creation of the Identification Commission and its effort to create a voter list acceptable to both sides. This identification process is now complete except for the three disputed groups, but appeals and challenges remain to be dealt with.
• Creation and subsequent expansion of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in the Western Sahara (MINURSO). MINURSO has been in the territory, regularly renewed, monitoring the 1991 ceasefire, but has never been increased to full strength. It is envisioned as a force of 2,900 military, civil police and civilian observers to provide security and assure fairness in the referendum. In fact it has usually hovered around 400-500 personnel, many in support functions, though it will be enhanced to full strength in preparation for the referendum, when the Moroccan Armed Forces will be “confined” to specific areas to avoid intimidation.  More recently MINURSO has been clearing mines from areas where its military and civilian police forces will deploy for the referendum, and in July it negotiated a new military agreement with the Moroccans. As of October 26, MINURSO strength stood at 442 military personnel (including observers) under the command of Austrian Maj. Gen. Bernd S. Lubenik, and 81 civilian police personnel under the command of Canadian Chief Superintendent Peter Miller.
• Withdrawal of about half of Morocco’s troops from the region and stationing of the remainder, about 65,000 troops, in designated areas where their movement will be restricted. This will be part of the final pre-referendum phases, and will also include stationing of POLISARIO armed troops in designated areas of the territory. As part of the Baker peace plan, the parties agreed that no more than 2,000 POLISARIO fighters will be present on Western Saharan soil east of the Moroccan defense berms and no more than 300 on Mauritanian territory.
• Repatriation of refugees from the camps around Tindouf in Algeria and other refugee camps in Mauritania or in the Sahara east of the berm. The two sides agreed under the Baker Plan to go ahead with previously agreed-to exchanges. The fact that perhaps 60% or more of the Sahrawi refugees at Tindouf are under 18 and were born in exile may make for identification questions in this realm as well. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has done surveys of the repatriation routes, prepared infrastructure and water development projects. Pre-registration was completed in Mauritania in September, with some 23,000 persons pre-registered for possible return; pre-registration at Tindouf had reached 31,000 but has been temporarily stopped. The UNHCR had hoped to resume pre-registration at Tindouf on October 3, but this was delayed because of lack of authorization from POLISARIO, which made the refugees reluctant to register.
• Prisoner exchange and the release of “political” prisoners has also been subject to much dispute, with an “Independent Jurist”, Emmanuel Roucounas, shuttling between the two sides. The issue of political prisoners seems to be a particularly thorny one, with Morocco insisting that it has no information on certain claimed political prisoners, or promising greater cooperation after the settlement plan advances.

The Secretary General’s New Schedule

Secretary General Kofi Annan’s October report to the Security Council, issued on October 26, noted that his Special Representative, Charles F. Dunbar, had continued to seek a means of breaking the deadlock, and that neither side had been forthcoming with proposals for resolving the dispute. As a result, the Secretary General noted, “I accepted my Special Envoy’s recommendation to resume without delay identification of those applicants from tribal groupings H41, H61 and J51/52 who wish to present themselves individually, and at the same time to begin the appeals process, as the best means of moving forward in the implementation of the Settlement Plan.”

Under the new proposals, Annan and his special representatives have submitted to the Moroccans and POLISARIO a number of documents — “Protocols” — dealing with the identification of individual applicants from the three disputed groups, the appeals process for the electoral lists, repatriation of refugees, status of military forces of the two sides during the referendum, the UNHCR’s activities, and the like. The following is the newly-proposed schedule of events:

By mid-November, the two parties should agree to the protocols which have been submitted to them, so that the UNHCR can proceed to receive refugees into the territory, and so that the appeals process in the voter identification process can begin by December 1, as would the application by those in the three disputed groups who choose to come forward individually. Annan said that the appeals process should begin simultaneously with the process involving the disputed groups, in order not to delay the referendum any further than absolutely necessary; he said he had the agreement of both parties to this.

The appeals process would then conclude by March 1999, except for the three disputed groupings. Identification of applicants from the disputed groupings would then be completed by April 1999, and the “transition period” originally envisioned in the peace agreement would begin in June and July 1999. MINURSO would fully deploy its planned military/observer forces by 1 January 1999 , aimed at holding a referendum in December 1999.

This already envisions a fully year’s delay from the December 7, 1998 date originally set after the Houston talks. But it at least seeks to restore a timetable, which has essentially been on hold during the period of deadlock.

But, it is only fair to note, not only has every previous schedule slipped and ultimately been abandoned, but the Secretary General’s report seems to contain within itself the seeds of further delay. He emphasizes that “only if the parties cooperate unreservedly in the implementation of the proposed programme and if the Security Council provides MINURSO in good time with the necessary administrative, financial and human resources” can the new, proposed calendar be adhered to. That may be a tall order.

In addition, Annan says that “the texts which I have submitted to [Morocco, the POLISARIO, Algeria and Mauritania] for their consideration will have to be finally accepted within the next few days, including the outstanding draft status-of-forces agreements and the protocols on the identification of applicants from tribal groupings H41, H61 and J51/52 who wish to present themselves, and concerning the appeals process and preparations for the repatriation of refugees and other Sahrawis. I therefore expect all these documents to be initialed by the time I next travel to the region.”

Annan is due to visit North Africa, including all the participant states and Tunisia, beginning November 7. Elsewhere, however, he stated that “mid-November” was the deadline for agreement to the proposed protocols. It seems likely that he will still be seeking agreement during his travels.

The uncertainties may be affecting the Security Council members as well. MINURSO has been more or less routinely renewed every six months; but more recently the renewals have been briefer. In September it was only extended for a month, to the end of October. In his October report, issued October 26 (only five days before the expiration of MINURSO’s mandate and funding), Annan recommended a six-month extension, to April 30, 1999, in order to facilitate the process. Instead, however, the Security Council on October 30 unanimously approved a six-week extension rather than six months, authorizing MINURSO only until December 17. This is apparently intended to help put pressure on the parties to move forward with approving the necessary protocols, as well as to retain for the Security Council a close oversight of the process. The costs of MINURSO, now funded for over seven years and with the referendum still at least a year away, have provoked some criticism given the lack of perceived results. The year-plus still remaining before the earliest date now envisaged for the referendum is longer than was envisaged for the whole MINURSO stay in the original peace plan, which called for a ceasefire in September of 1991 and a referendum in January  of 1992.

Although the UN had been reluctant to officially say so until the recent proposal to aim for October 1999, it has long been evident that the obstacles to the referendum were still considerable, despite the Baker efforts. Will that change now? Will the approach of the millennium somehow speed the process along for December 1999?

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