Polisario Official Says Self-Proclaimed SADR Is ‘Not A State,’ Calls for Realism

Rabat – Mustapha Sidi El Bachir, a self-styled minister in the Polisario Front-run camps in Tindouf, angered separatists after he acknowledged that Polisario’s self-proclaimed Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) is not a state.

The Polisario official made the comments during a meeting that took place on December19 in Mantes-La-Jolie, a commune in north-central France.

As El Bachir discussed the state of the Sahara conflict and the future of the region amid successive failed attempts at a political settlement, Polisario supporters and sympathizers who attended the event most likely expected the Polisario official to speak in support of the separatist front’s statehood aspirations.

However, the self-styled “Minister of Sahrawi Diaspora” shocked his audience when he said in his remarks that he is not a minister.

“I am registered as a refugee” in the camps,” El Bachir stated, adding: “You have to be realistic and I will not lie to you, I am not a minister. Our Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ould Salek, is in Algiers, Our Prime Minister, Bouchrya Beyoun is not a head of government.”

The Polisario member continued his speech by emphasizing that even the leader of the separatist group Brahim Ghali is a refugee legally registered as “Ghali Sid El Mustapha.”

“There is no Brahim. He is not considered by the refugee agency as president of a state or a senior official. All Sahrawis are refugees who live thanks to aid from Algeria,” he added.

Without Algeria, the Polisario Front could not survive one day, El Bachir acknowledged. He then went on to concede that despite the Algerian aid to separatist claims over Western Sahara, the Polisario Front does not meet the conditions of a state.

“We have to be realistic. We don’t know where to go,” he said.

El Bachir’s remarks come amid consistent reports that Polisario’s self-determination dreams are not realistic or achievable. The latest expression of the growing irrelevance of Polisario’s self-determination appeal has been the separatist front’s perceptible frustration with the UN-led political process in Western Sahara.

In October, the UN Secretary General Report on Western Sahara also emphasized that Polisario has no legal standing in the UN.

The Polisario Front frequently refers to its representatives as ambassadors or envoys within the UN.

The UN report, however, simply describes them as “representatives” of the Polisario in New York.

In recent months and years, several reports have revealed the eagerness of many Sahrawis to leave the Polisario-run camps in Tindouf to join Morocco, or travel abroad to escape the dire conditions in the camps.

Yet Algeria and the Polisario Front continue to hide escape attempts either by persistently opposing a census in the region or by imprisoning dissidents and would-be escapees on trumped-up charges of “betrayal.”

In Resolution 2602, adopted in October, the UN Security Council urged Algeria and Polisario to allow a census in the Tindouf camps.

However, both continue to turn a deaf ear despite the challenges related to health care access, sanitation, energy and food insecurity the Tindouf population are facing.

Former Polisario members have long argued that Algeria’s and Polisario reluctance to allow a census in the camps is because the region has only under 20% Sahrawis.

Hamada El Bidi, a former senior Polisario official, has said that over 80% of the population in the camps include people from Tuareg heritage and others who came from countries across the Sahara desert, including Rguiba, Niger, Chad, Mali, Algeria, and Libya.

Another former Polisario oficial turned critic, Mustafa Salma Ould Sidi Mouloud, has made similar remarks in recent years.

For most watchers of the Sahara conflict, meanwhile, Polisario’s recent rejection of the “realism” and “compromise” spirit of Resolution 2602 signaled the group’s realization that the UN-led process no longer considers a self-determination referendum as a workable alternative to end the Sahara dispute.