More countries appear to be backing Morocco’s plan for ‘autonomy’ rather than independence, but will that be enough?

The Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), or Western Sahara, appears to be gradually but steadily losing ground in its long battle for independence from Morocco.

In 1991, Rabat accepted a United Nations (UN) peace plan that included a referendum among the people of Western Sahara to decide if they wanted to remain part of Morocco or secede.

But in 2007, Morocco began pushing instead for Western Sahara to be granted limited autonomy – while remaining under its sovereign authority. This was an alternative to the full independence claimed by SADR’s Polisario Front and recognised by the African Union, many African countries, and others beyond the continent.

But the SADR’s support is slipping in Africa. Around 22 states now recognise it, and several more have withdrawn recognition in recent years or frozen it, pending resolution of the dispute. Morocco meanwhile, also lists 22 African countries that have opened consulates in what it calls its ‘Southern Provinces’, implying recognition of its claim. So quite a few nations are sitting on the fence.

Internationally, the SADR is also losing ground. But the biggest blow has been the recognition of Rabat’s autonomy plan by three big players.

The first major power to move in this direction was the United States (US) in 2020. Donald Trump, then president, officially recognised Morocco’s claim in exchange for Rabat signing onto the Abraham Accords. The US had brokered the accords to help normalise relations between Israel and several Arab states. That provoked Polisario into resuming its armed struggle.

Spain backed Morocco’s claim in 2022. But the potential game changer, which other nations might follow, was the recent letter from French President Emmanuel Macron to Moroccan King Mohammed VI. In it, Macron backed Rabat’s autonomy plan as the ‘only basis’ for resolving the conflict. ‘France intends to act consistently with this position at both national and international level,’ Foreign Policy magazine reported.

Algeria recalled its ambassador from Paris in protest and also began refusing to accept its citizens deported from France. Algeria and South Africa have been the SADR’s staunchest supporters. The issue has poisoned their relations with Morocco for many years, even though Pretoria took a pragmatic decision after Morocco was readmitted to the AU in 2017 to restore diplomatic ties to full ambassadorial level.

Nonetheless, even some South African government officials are losing heart. They perceive an erosion of support for the SADR and a steady growth in support for Morocco’s claim to sovereignty. One official told ISS Today that the Polisario Front had not mobilised anything like the grassroots international support that the African National Congress (ANC) had done against the apartheid government.

This grassroots support, including mass protests in London, had been strong enough to force even conservative anti-ANC Western leaders like US president Ronald Reagan and British prime minister Margaret Thatcher to back down. The official also felt Polisario had not mustered the same global sympathy as the Palestinians in Gaza.

Rabat has also been strategic in keeping the issue at the UN, where the SADR is not a member – and away from the AU, where countries like South Africa and Algeria have influence and where the SADR is a member.

Liesl Louw-Vaudran, AU Senior Adviser at the International Crisis Group, says, ‘It has been noteworthy how Morocco has kept the Western Sahara issue completely off the AU agenda.’ She says it is never discussed in the AU Assembly, Peace and Security Council (of which Morocco is a member) or the AU’s political affairs department. ‘It’s as if it does not exist.’

But Mohamed Beisat, the SADR’s ambassador to South Africa, dismisses all speculation that his country’s independence cause is losing ground, calling it ‘Moroccan propaganda.’

He told ISS Today that the apparent recognition by the US, France and Spain of Morocco’s claim were individual decisions of Trump, Macron and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez – not official decisions of their governments.

‘And if Morocco is right that more than half of AU members support Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara, why are we still members of the AU? And if over 110 countries internationally support their claim, why haven’t they adopted a resolution at the UN?’ he said.

Beisat acknowledges that his organisation hasn’t mobilised the mass international support that the ANC did to end apartheid in South Africa and the Palestinians did for their cause. But he asks, rhetorically, whether the global support for Palestine has changed Israel’s behaviour at all. He insists that the only opinion that counts is that of the people of Western Sahara. ‘If they started supporting Morocco’s claim to Western Sahara, then I would be worried.’

That brings us full circle to the UN’s official position: Western Sahara’s status should be determined by the territory’s people themselves, in a referendum. This is also still the position of the European Union, despite France and Spain’s departures. The UN stance seems likely to be the conclusion reached when the UN Security Council next discusses the issue in October.

‘Should France and the US seek to have the UN Security Council adopt Morocco’s autonomy proposal as the only way forward, they are likely to provoke resistance from China and, more importantly, Russia,’ writes Jacob Mundy, Associate Professor and Chair of Peace and Conflict Studies at Colgate University.

Algeria currently holding a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council makes it even more likely that the council won’t back Morocco’s plan. This suggests, as Mundy says, ‘Little will actually change on the ground in Western Sahara.’

Written by Peter Fabricius, Consultant, ISS Pretoria