The Position of the European Union on the Western Sahara Conflict
The Western Sahara conflict has been embedded in a regional struggle with international implications, involving most of the key regional actors, as well as outside powers seeking to balance their interests with all parties concerned. Thus, the Western Sahara is at the centre of any foreign policy towards the Maghreb region, and this is the case for the European Union, with France and Spain as central actors. For Europe, the historical links with and the proximity of the continent to one of the most unstable regions in the world (the Arab and Muslim worlds) require the closest attention and a strong independent foreign policy. The EU has important strategic and economic interests but also political concerns in the North Africa region. This paper focuses on the evolution of EU policy towards the conflict and the actions taken by the Member States under the influence of the key actors in this issue: France and Spain. It also aims to lay the emphasis upon the limited role of the EU due to a complex policy making-process, as well as the existence of many participants. As will be demonstrated, the weaknesses of the EU foreign policy are not only due to the structure of the Union but also as a result of each state having to defend its own interests and preserve them bilaterally. It will be argued that the conflict resolution, if conducted to its conclusion within the UN framework, would provide the EU with a capacity to resolve conflicts within the international system and an opportunity to affirm its intrinsic external policy, when its overall foreign policy appears scattered if not atomised by the different influences pursued by its member states. Considering the Maghreb's geographical proximity to Europe and the general approach to solving issues at the EU level, this could constitute a breakthrough for an external policy in the making, contrasting with the negligible influence of the EU regarding the Middle East peace process.
Introduction: Towards a Multilevel Analysis of the Western Sahara Conflict and the Effects of its Protractedness
This chapter puts forward a multilevel analytical framework for the study of the Western Sahara conflict and the effects of its protractedness and intractability. The book brings together four levels of analysis—global, regional, state/national and local—with the aim of disentangling the dynamic interplay between them and searching for cross-level interactions over the last two decades, when an “inward turn” has brought the centre of gravity of the conflict back to the interior of the disputed territory where it originated in the 1970s. A call is made to localize research into these changes, in keeping with the “local turn” and “critical localism” recently advocated in conflict and peace studies. A review of the sparse academic literature on Western Sahara reveals trends such as the inclination towards exceptionalism in accounts of the conflict and the predominance of normative and legalistic approaches over empirical socio-political analyses. The difficulty and political implications of defining the nature and classifying this conflict are also discussed highlighting inconsistencies in international conflict databases.
A Battlefield Transformed: From Guerilla Resistance to Mass Nonviolent Struggle in the Western Sahara
INTRODUCTION In late May 2005, a popular uprising against foreign domination rocked the Maghreb region of North Africa. With scenes reminiscent of the recent unarmed insurrections against unpopular governments in Georgia (2003), Ukraine (2004-05), and Lebanon (2005), thousands of ethnic Sahrawis from the Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony that has been under strict military control by the Kingdom of Morocco since the latter invaded and occupied the territory in 1975, took to the streets en masse demanding the withdrawal of Moroccan troops and independence for Africa’s last remaining colony. Sahrawis are calling their sustained defiance against foreign rule an Intifada, or “shaking off”. The desert uprising represents a dramatic turning point in the Sahrawi people’s struggle for national self-determination for three main reasons. First: the scope, intensity, and mass civilian involvement in the nationalist uprising took Moroccan occupation forces by surprise. Moroccan police, soldiers, and intelligence agents, who