The conflict in Western Sahara is experiencing its worst moment since the two parties signed the ceasefire on September 6, 1991. Here are some essential points to analyze the situation:
What has been the trigger for the breaking of the ceasefire by the Polisario Front?
On Friday, November 13, the Moroccan Army entered the demilitarized zone of El Guerguerat - in southern Western Sahara, on the border with Mauritania - to expel some 50 Sahrawi civilians who had kept the access road to Mauritania blocked since October 21. .
The Polisario Front intervened and both forces exchanged shots, although no injuries were recorded.
In the days that followed, the Front claimed to have attacked various Moroccan military bases and caused fatalities.
Moroccan official sources consulted by this newspaper deny having suffered any casualties.
The Polisario has broken the ceasefire and declared a state of war.
Why did the Sahrawi civilians block the El Guerguerat road?
To demand the convening of a self-determination referendum, as established by the UN at the signing of the ceasefire in 1991. However, Morocco is only willing to grant an autonomous regime to Western Sahara.
The Polisario believes that the UN does not adequately exercise its mediation work by allowing Morocco to maintain and increase its commercial transactions in a disputed territory.
For the Polisario Front, this trade translates into "plundering the natural resources" of the Sahara.
When did the conflict begin?
In 1973 the armed group Frente Popular de Liberación de Saguia al-Hamra y Río de Oro (Polisario Front) was born to claim the independence of Western Sahara from Spain, which had administered the territory as a colony since 1883.
On November 6, 1975, King Hassan II (1961-1999) promoted the so-called Green March towards the Sahara, in which he mobilized 350,000 Moroccan civilians.
After that operation, Spain ceded the north and center of Western Sahara to Rabat and the south to Mauritania.
Since then, November 6 has been declared a public holiday in Morocco.
Millions of Moroccans grew up listening to the stories of their parents on that march in which they managed to recover a land that, under the prism of most Moroccans, should always have belonged to Morocco.
In 1976 the Polisario proclaimed the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) and went to war with Morocco and Mauritania.
He had the support of Algeria and also Cuba and South Africa, his historical allies.
Tens of thousands of Sahrawis went into exile in camps near the Algerian town of Tindouf, in the middle of the desert.
The children of those families, now in their thirties, grew up with the idea that one day they would recover a land that, according to these Sahrawis, should never have been “colonized” by Morocco.
The Front signed peace with Mauritania in 1979. But with Morocco it plunged into a war in which it took 16 years to emerge, until the 1991 ceasefire, when the United Nations Mission was created for the referendum in Western Sahara, known as Minurso.
When did the UN stop mentioning the self-determination referendum?
In 2001, Mohamed VI had only been on the throne of Morocco for two years.
The Security Council resolution approved in June of that year showed its "full support" for the agreements adopted by the parties for the "holding of a free, fair and impartial referendum on the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara."
From then on, the United Nations-led peace plan went into paralysis.
To get out of it, the UN in 2006 encouraged the parties to enter into direct talks without preconditions.
In 2007 both parties presented their proposals to the UN.
The Polisario continued to propose a self-determination referendum.
And Morocco mentioned for the first time the granting of autonomy for the territory.
In this proposal, the Moroccan State would have exclusive jurisdiction in religious, constitutional matters and those related to the figure of the king, national security, foreign relations and the judiciary.
The Polisario considered that that offer was even worse than the autonomy plan presented by the Spanish State in 1974.
Since then, UN resolutions have made no mention of autonomy, but year after year they include a phrase that Moroccan diplomacy assumes as a victory every time someone uses it: “The serious and credible efforts of Morocco to advance the process towards a solution ”.
What are the main riches of Western Sahara?
In this territory of 266,000 square kilometers, equivalent to half of Spain, there are just over half a million inhabitants.
Western Sahara has a 1,100-kilometer-long coastline facing the Atlantic.
That already implies great geostrategic value in itself.
In addition, it has large fishing grounds - which Spain and the European Union benefit from through contracts signed with Morocco - and its phosphate mines, a basic element in the production of fertilizers.
Since 1975, Morocco has been investing in the infrastructure of what it considers to be its "southern provinces".
At present it manages and controls 80% of the territory.
How has Morocco been gaining strength in the diplomatic field?
The Polisario Front has never succeeded in getting the MINURSO to examine the question of human rights in Western Sahara.
Among the 16 UN peacekeeping missions, only the one in Western Sahara, the MINURSO, lacks the powers to assess this situation.
In 2018, the Polisario Front managed to get the Luxembourg Court to rule that the fishing agreement between the European Union and Morocco does not apply to Western Sahara because that territory "is not part of Morocco."
But in 2019 the European Parliament approved the fisheries agreement with Morocco that includes Western Sahara.
Meanwhile, Morocco has been weaving an economic, diplomatic and religious network in Africa.
He decided in 2017 to return to the African Union, the only international organization that recognizes the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic as a State.
Hassan II had abandoned it in 1984, when it was called the Organization for African Unity (OAU).
And his son, Mohamed VI, returned in order to expel the SADR.
"When a body is sick, it is better to cure it inside the body than outside," said the monarch.
In the last year, Morocco has dedicated itself to attracting consulates from allied countries in Africa to Western Sahara.
In total, it has added 16 in the last year, with the star incorporation of the first Arab country, the United Arab Emirates.
In this chess game that lasts three decades, Morocco's main ally has been France.
Also the Spanish Administration, with a more discreet profile, has played in the corridors of the European Union and the UN in favor of Rabat.
And so has Donald Trump's America.
As for the Polisario Front, its main ally and protector is Algeria.
And it also has South Africa and Russia.