ANALYSIS: Tension in Sahara creates new obstacles for peace

By Sinikka Tarvainen Nov 11, 2010, 15:59 GMT

Madrid/Rabat, Morocco - A tense calm reigned Thursday in the Moroccan-ruled Western Sahara, with Spanish media reporting a heavy presence of security forces in the capital Laayoune.

Reports said police and soldiers continued making arrests following several days of clashes in the area. The violence pitting security forces against protestors demanding social improvements or independence was the most serious in recent years.

The streets of Laayoune are practically empty and the city of 200,000 residents has been left without running water, reports said.

Representatives of the independence movement Polisario, meanwhile, say it may resume its earlier, 16-year guerrilla war against Morocco.

Observers said such threats are unlikely to be carried out in the short run, but that they nevertheless reflect an increase of tension that will make it more difficult to break the deadlock in one of the United Nations' longest-running conflicts.

The trouble started a month ago, when Saharan protesters demanding jobs and housing set up a tent camp near Laayoune. It grew to draw an estimated 20,000 people - one of the biggest such protests since the colonial power Spain withdrew from Western Sahara in 1975.

The camp dwellers did not openly back Polisario's campaign for independence, and the Moroccan government initially promised them social benefits.

But this week, Rabat accused Polisario and its backer Algeria of infiltrating the camp. Police were sent to break it up with rubber bullets, tear gas and water cannons, according to witnesses.

Rioting later moved to Laayoune, where protesters confronted Moroccan armoured vehicles with stones and sticks.

Rabat says 10 members of the security forces and one civilian were killed at the camp and in Laayoune, while Polisario maintains that at least 19 civilians were killed.

Fatalities included a Saharan with Spanish nationality, who was ordered to descend from a bus and then hit deliberately by a Moroccan police vehicle, the daily El Mundo said on its website.

Morocco has claimed Western Sahara as its own since Spain pulled out of the territory and more than 300,000 unarmed Moroccans staged the so-called Green March into the territory in 1975.

Polisario fought for independence until the UN brokered a ceasefire in 1991. But a planned referendum on independence was never put into practice by Rabat, which is now offering Western Sahara autonomy instead.

Morocco considers the desert region - rich in phosphates, fisheries and possibly even oil - a part of its historical territory, while Polisario sees it as having an independent cultural identity.

Morocco's claim over Western Sahara is one of the cornerstones of its nationalism. It is practically never questioned by Moroccan politicians or commentators, who back the government's crackdowns in the region.

This week's violence was raging just as Rabat and Polisario were resuming their UN-sponsored talks in New York. That was no coincidence, Polisario claimed, accusing Morocco of deliberately derailing the negotiations in an attempt to gain time.

Several years of talks have produced hardly any concrete results. Polisario continues demanding a referendum on independence, while Rabat has won growing support for its autonomy plan from an international community tired of the deadlock.

However, the Moroccan raid on the protest camp was bound to make Western Saharans even more reluctant to accept Rabat's autonomy proposal, Spanish Morocco expert Bernabe Lopez Garcia said.

This week's clashes also deepened the gulf between indigenous Saharans and Moroccans, whom Rabat has encouraged to settle in the territory by giving some of them well-paid government jobs. Sahara residents also enjoy tax benefits and food subsidies.

Moroccan settlers now make up the majority of Western Sahara's population of about 500,000. They played a key role in this week's rioting, looting homes and shops of indigenous Saharans, Spanish media reported.

Tens of thousands of Western Saharan refugees, meanwhile, continue languishing in Algerian refugee camps, where an entire generation has grown up.

The Western Sahara conflict has a high cost not only for Morocco, which pours billions of dollars annually into the territory, but for all of North Africa, where the tension between Algeria and Morocco hampers economic cooperation.

It has also made it difficult for the two to cooperate efficiently against al-Qaeda, which has stepped up its activities in the region.