Western Sahara: A people denied their rights |
The recent article “The War Both Morocco and Algeria Fear to Win” presents a provocative argument: that the Polisario Front survives because both Morocco and Algeria need the conflict to justify their political systems.
As a Sahrawi who has lived the reality of this conflict, I believe the analysis misses the most important element: the people themselves.
Western Sahara is not a geopolitical puzzle maintained by rival regimes. It is an unfinished decolonization process, recognized as such by international law.
The Sahrawi people are not a prop, nor a political invention. We are a nation whose right to self-determination has been reaffirmed repeatedly: UN General Assembly Resolution 1514 (1960): independence for all colonized peoples. International Court of Justice (1975 Advisory Opinion): no sovereignty ties linking Morocco to Western Sahara. Court of Justice of the European Union (2016, 2018, 2021, 2024): Western Sahara and Morocco are “separate and distinct territories,” and no agreement may include the territory without the consent of the Sahrawi people.
These are not political interpretations. They are binding legal facts.
1. The original article’s fundamental mistake: it erases the Sahrawi people
The article argues that Morocco cannot end the conflict because doing so would weaken the monarchy, while Algeria cannot end it because it would expose its own political vulnerabilities.
But this framing turns the conflict into a psychological drama between two regimes.
This narrative is not only incorrect — it is historically misleading.
The conflict did........