In November 2020, the Moroccan government its military to the Guerguerat area, a buffer zone between the territory claimed by the Kingdom of Morocco and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).
The Guerguerat border post is at the very southern edge of Western Sahara along the road that goes to Mauritania. The of Moroccan troops 鈥渋n the Buffer Strip in the Guerguerat area鈥 violated the 1991 ceasefire agreed upon by the Moroccan monarchy and the Polisario Front of the Sahrawi. That ceasefire deal was crafted with the assumption that the United Nations would hold a referendum in Western Sahara to decide on its fate; no such referendum has been held, and the region has existed in stasis for three decades now.
In mid-January, the UN its Personal Envoy for Western Sahara Staffan de Mistura to Morocco, Algeria, and Mauritania to a new dialogue 鈥渢oward a constructive resumption of the political process on Western Sahara鈥. De Mistura was previously to solve the crises of US wars in Afghanistan, Iraq聽and Syria; none of his missions have ended well and have mostly been lost causes.
The UN has appointed personal envoys for Western Sahara so far 鈥 including de Mistura 鈥 with former US Secretary of State James Baker, who served from 1997 to 2004. De Mistura, meanwhile, former German President Horst K枚hler, who resigned in 2019. K枚hler鈥檚 main was to bring the four main parties 鈥 Morocco, the Polisario Front, Algeria, and Mauritania 鈥 to a first roundtable in Geneva in December 2018: this roundtable process resulted in a few gains, where all participants agreed on 鈥渃ooperation and regional integration鈥, but no further progress seems to have been made to resolve the issues in the region since then.
When the UN put forward de Mistura鈥檚 nomination to this post, Morocco resisted his appointment, but under pressure from the West, Morocco finally accepted it in October 2021, with Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita him to Rabat on January 14. De Mistura also the Polisario Front representative to the UN in New York on November 6, 2021, before other representatives in Tindouf, Algeria, at Sahrawi refugee camps in January. There is very little expectation that these meetings will result in any productive solution in the region.
Abraham accords
In August 2020, the United States government engineered a major diplomatic feat called the . The US secured a deal with Morocco and the United Arab Emirates to agree to a rapprochement with Israel in return for US arms sales to these countries as well as the US legitimising Morocco鈥檚 annexation of Western Sahara.
The arms deals were of considerable amounts 鈥 US$23 billion worth of to the UAE and $1 billion worth of and munitions to Morocco. For Morocco, the main prize was that the US 鈥 breaking decades of precedent 鈥 decided to back its claim to the vast territory of Western Sahara. The US is now the only Western country to recognise Morocco鈥檚 claim to sovereignty over Western Sahara.
When President Joe Biden took office in January 2021, it was expected that he might review parts of the Abraham Accords. However, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken made it during his meeting with Bourita in November 2021 that the US government would continue to maintain the position taken by the previous Donald Trump administration that Morocco has sovereignty over Western Sahara. The US, meanwhile, has with its arms sales to Morocco but has weapons sales to the UAE.
Phosphates
By the end of November 2021, the government of Morocco that it had earned $6.45 billion from the export of phosphate from the kingdom and from the occupied territory of Western Sahara.
If you add up the phosphate reserves in this entire region, it to 72% of the entire phosphate reserves in the world (the second-highest of these reserves is in China, which has around 6%). Phosphate, along with nitrogen, makes synthetic fertiliser, a key element in modern food production. While nitrogen is recoverable from the air, phosphates, found in the soil, are a finite reserve. This gives Morocco a tight grip over world food production. There is no doubt that the occupation of Western Sahara is not merely about national pride, but it is largely about the presence of a vast number of resources 鈥 especially phosphates 鈥 that can be found in the territory.
In 1975, a UN delegation that visited Western Sahara that 鈥渆ventually the territory will be among the largest exporters of phosphate in the world鈥. While Western Sahara鈥檚 phosphate reserves are less than those of Morocco, the Moroccan state-owned firm OCP SA has been mining in Western Sahara and manufacturing phosphate fertiliser for great profit.
The most mine in Western Sahara is in Bou Craa, from which 10% of OCP SA鈥檚 profits come; Bou Craa, which is as 鈥渢he world鈥檚 longest conveyor belt system鈥, carries the phosphate rock more than 100 kilometres to the port at El Aai煤n. In 2002, then-UN Under-Secretary General for Legal Affairs聽Hans Corell聽 in a letter to the president of the UN Security Council that 鈥渋f further exploration and exploitation activities were to proceed in disregard of the interests and wishes of the people of Western Sahara, they would be in violation of the principles of international law applicable to mineral resource activities in Non-Self-Governing Territories鈥.
An international campaign to the extraction of the 鈥渃onflict phosphate鈥 from Western Sahara by Morocco has led many firms around the world to stop buying phosphate from OCP SA. Nutrien, the largest fertiliser manufacturer in the US using Moroccan phosphates, to stop imports from Morocco in 2018. That same year, a South African court the right of ships carrying phosphate from the region to dock in their ports, ruling that 鈥渢he Moroccan shippers of the product had no legal right to it鈥.
Only continue to buy conflict phosphate mined in Western Sahara: (Ballance Agri-Nutrients Limited and Ravensdown) and one from India (Paradeep Phosphates Limited).
Human rights
After the 1991 ceasefire, the UN set up a Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (). This is the only UN peacekeeping force that does not have a mandate to report on human rights. The UN made this concession to appease Morocco. The Moroccan government has tried to intervene several times when the UN team in Western Sahara attempted to make the slightest noise about the human rights violations in the region. In March 2016, the kingdom MINURSO staff because the then-UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to the Moroccan presence in Western Sahara as an 鈥渙ccupation鈥.
Pressure from the US is going to ensure that the only realistic outcome of negotiations is for continued Moroccan control of Western Sahara. All parties involved in the conflict are readying for battle. Far from peace, the Abraham Accords are going to accelerate a return to war in this part of Africa.
[This article was produced by . Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor, journalist and the director of .]