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History
This area is ethnically part of the Maghrib, the Arab-Berber
north west Africa. Geographically it is part of the extremely
dry Sahara. The early Spanish and Portuguese explorers gave it
the name Rio de Oro - Gold River - because they believed it might
be the source of the gold Europe had been importing from Africa
since at least early medieval times. (The gold actually came
from Ghana and Guinea).
From 1884 it was a colony of Spain. In 1975 before Spain left
the territory the Spanish government, still controlled by General
Franco, made an agreement with Morocco and Mauritania by which
the territory was to be split between Morocco and Mauritania.
Morocco had long claimed both territories. Spain left in 1976.
The local people were not consulted. Some of them wanted independence
of both the neighbors. They formed the POLISARIO - a liberation
front - in 1970 which was supported by Algeria. Thus the war
between Polisario and Morocco was to some extent a proxy war
between Algeria and Morocco.
Mauritania gave up in 1979 and transferred its share of Western
Sahara to POLISARIO but Morocco occupied the land almost at once.
The main economic cause of the war is the presence of large deposits
of phosphate needed for world agriculture (though world prices
have been depressed in recent years).
In practice Morocco seems to be well in possession and despite
POLISARIO's recognition by the OAU as the Saharan Democratic
Republic it seems unlikely to eject the Moroccans. In 1992-3
the UN tried to organize a referendum. Morocco is encouraging
people to move there so that if the referendum takes place Moroccan
citizens will swamp the locals and vote for incorporation into
Morocco. In this case it is quite likely that POLISARIO would
not accept the result and thus the war would continue.
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