Rabat – The Polisario Front has displayed its “genuine commitment” to a “peaceful and lasting solution” by demanding Morocco’s total surrender as a precondition to the peace talks. Despite years of political momentum in Morocco’s favor, and towards a peace settlement of the conflict, the rebel group shows little appetite for peace in the region.
The Polisario’s press agency published a September 6 press release to welcome the appointment of the UN Secretary General’s new Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura. Polisario’s benefactor, Algeria, echoed this sentiment in its state media in a piece titled “Polisario: the peace process will only be possible if Morocco ends the occupation.”
Both pieces stated the military group “has demonstrated through concrete actions its genuine commitment to the peaceful and lasting solution.”
Those statements were directly contradicted with their commitment to remain at war until Morocco withdrew completely. These remarks contradict years of diplomacy and a growing global consensus that Morocco’s Autonomy Plan is the only feasible and mutually acceptable path to peace.
‘Act of aggression’
This coming week, UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, is set to report to the UN Security Council on last year’s events regarding Western Sahara.
Morocco World News has access to an advanced copy of the report, which details that the Polisario militia deployed military units to the Guerguerat border crossing, alongside civilians, to blockade the vital trade route with Mauritania. The report highlights the UN’s request that the group withdraw its heavily armed trucks, which the Polisario ignored.
Only after repeated requests to the UN to help lift the blockade did Morocco intervene, with limited force that restored the broder’s freedom of movement without any casualties or injuries.
Meanwhile, the report highlights that the UN is free to patrol and monitor the region west of the sand berm that keeps the Polisario at bay. On the eastern side however, the UN has been unable to monitor or inspect Polisario activity.
The UN report reveals that the breach of the ceasefire was orchestrated by Polisario. The group appeared to have been desperate after years of Morocco-oriented diplomatic gains, and aimed to restart the conflict to regain the world’s attention.
One-sided war
Ever since, the Polisario has fought a unilateral “war” that has consisted mostly of sporadic attacks on Morocco’s defensive positions. The UN reports that 80% of all attacks happened near Mahbes, the Moroccan location closest to the Tindouf camps, and Algeria’s protective borders.
Yet Polisario’s unilateral and ineffective war is set to continue, unless Morocco spontaneously withdraws its vastly superior military forces and abandons the billions of dollars in local development, as well as the hundreds of thousands of its own citizens, damning them to become part of a militia-controlled new fragile Sahel state.
This of course will never happen, and Polisario knows this. Demanding for a total surrender as a precondition to peace talks is nothing but an admission of the group’s lack of interest in peace or improving living conditions for local people.
Instead the group’s statements indicate it wants to continue regional instability and continue profiting from the suffering of thousands of refugees in the Tindouf camps in a “forever war” that has no end. As long as the conflict continues, Algerian arms will continue to flow to the group and its leadership can continue what the European Anti-Fraud Office calls the “large-scale embezzlement” of humanitarian aid.
Such a response seems incomprehensible from a self-described “liberation movement,” that has any concern regarding the living conditions of the people it claims to represent. However, it is not a surprising statement when considering the group as an Algerian-controlled militia that serves no purpose but to undermine Morocco as part of its Eastern neighbor’s foreign policy.
