West Sahara and the Arab Spring

On 10 November 2010 a protest camp in the Western Sahara was brutally dismantled by the Moroccan Government, representing the start of the real Arab Spring. One year on, despite huge media coverage of the Arab Spring, almost no attention has been given to the Western Sahara and its thirty-six year illegal occupation.

Previously a Spanish Colony, the Western Sahara is a country in the North of Africa bordered by Morocco, Algeria and Mauritania. When the Spanish withdrew in 1975 the country was invaded by Morocco and Mauritania. The International Court of Justice rejected the sovereignty claim of these two countries. Mauritania later withdrew from the Western Sahara but Morocco has remained ever since. Over thirty-five years later, the country is split in two by a 1,500 mile wall, and over 100,000 of its citizens are living as refugees in Algeria.

The United Nations has been active in the country since 1991, attempting to hold a referendum of Saharawi self-determination. Although there is a large body of evidence showing human rights violations from organisations such as Human Rights Watch, the UN mission has no mandate to monitor human rights. This is the only UN peace- keeping mission for over 20 years that has had no mechanism by which to monitor human rights. An appeal to extend the UN mandate to allow such monitoring has been put forward to the UN Security Council multiple times; each time it has been vetoed by France.

Prior to the uprising in Tunisia in December of last year, the Saharawi people formed a camp protesting against ongoing discrimination, poverty and human rights abuses, as well as a call for Western Saharan independence. Noam Chomsky has stated that this protest camp marked the start of the Arab Spring. The month long peaceful protest was eventually dismantled by Moroccan police, resulting in multiple deaths, hundreds of injuries and over one hundred arrests.

A year has passed since the violent halting of these protests and yet little has changed for the Western Sahara. Despite global support towards many uprisings throughout the Arab world, the Saharawi people have been largely ignored by the international community; a common theme in their thirty-six year struggle for independence. Surely now, with increasing pressure on Syria and new aspiring democracies forming in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, is the time to recognise the true beginning of this movement and give them the recognition and support they deserve.