Ahmed Barack Allah: “La negociación sobre el Sáhara debe incorporar a más protagonistas”
In the latest edition of 'De cara al mundo', on Onda Madrid, we talk to Ahmed Barack Allah, secretary general of the Sahrawi Movement for Peace. Allah explains how the step taken by the government of Pedro Sánchez in support of the Moroccan sovereignty plan for the Sahara affects the Saharawi peace process. On the other hand, the secretary general of the Saharawi Movement for Peace explained that in order to reach a lasting peace agreement, all the affected actors must be involved and even open the negotiating table to the intervention of influential countries. Finally, Ahmed Barack Allah pointed out that in recent talks with Staffan de Mistura, they have asked him to be patient and not to throw in the towel, because the Saharawis deserve to put an end to a situation that has been going on since 1971.
What is the Sahrawi Peace Movement?
Our movement has emerged as a voice and a critical current against the Polisario that reflects a large part of Saharawi sentiment after fifty years of war that has caused this people to suffer greatly.
You are one of many people who had to flee the Polisario Front because you got into big trouble for expressing your opinion because you did not agree with the single regime.
Indeed, I was the first Polisario representative in Spain after the 1985 break-up and I was in charge of relations with Spain until 1996, then I went to Latin America as ambassador and later held the post of minister several times. In 2014, after putting forward our point of view, critical of the need for an open internal debate to solve the problems, I threw in the towel and thought that the right way forward was to create organised opinions in the format of a political party, and this is what led us to create the Sahrawi Movement for Peace in April 2020. We tried to set up an internal political current that could not take off due to the nature of the Polisario Front, a single party with a totalitarian system with a command axis that has been at the head of the Polisario since the 1970s, which emerged in a Cold War context and we are still where we are.
What is needed after so many years is a solution to the precarious and undignified situation of thousands of people in the Tindouf camps...
Indeed, the concern of the Movement and of all the people who have joined it is that no more opportunities for peace are lost and that a formula is found to put an end to the situation of permanent exile in which the Sahrawi population suffers unspeakably. This obviously implies having the courage to look at reality with common sense and not to cling to romantic Spartan legends and continue chasing fantasies; if a war is impossible, the right thing to do is to negotiate a peaceful solution in time. These are the opportunities that the Polisario has been missing since the peace process began in 1991, and this is one of the reasons why our movement has arisen, to intervene so that opportunities for peace are no longer lost.
Is autonomy for the Sahara under Moroccan sovereignty a good opportunity?
I have faith in the magic of politics and I am convinced, as I said before, that if war is impossible, what we must seek is peace, and for that we must explore the paths of an agreement. Indeed, we believe that in order to reach a peaceful solution, certain concessions must be made on certain points. We cannot cling to idealised ideas that are not backed up by an adequate correlation of forces to be able to dream of reaching them, so what common sense dictates is to seek a compromise solution. From this perspective, the Sahrawi Peace Movement has seen the Moroccan proposal for autonomy, although dating from 2007, as a basis on which to begin to build towards a satisfactory solution. It is true that the Moroccan proposal needs to be more detailed, explaining many aspects of it and pointing out what international guarantees could be provided, but it is true that we consider that it opens up a path that should be explored and we in the Saharawi Movement for Peace encourage you to go down that path, where we believe that an agreement can be reached. In 2020, Morocco, for reasons of democratic solvency, has the opportunity to demonstrate to what extent it is capable of assuming a situation of self-government that allows the Saharawis to have their own identity, sharing the interests that correspond to this situation.
After the step taken by the major European powers together with the US, do you think that the United Nations can bring Morocco, the Polisario, Algeria and Mauritania back to the negotiating table in Geneva to reach a definitive solution?
The conditions are ripe for progress to be made towards a compromise zone. My fear is that in the end the international community will get tired and throw in the towel on this issue, a scenario that would leave thousands of Saharawis abandoned in a situation in which they have been for more than fifty years. This is a justified concern, as we should remember that the United Nations has spent more than 30 years dedicating efforts and millions of dollars to achieve a peace process. The format followed by the United Nations, which involves four protagonists, two main ones and two that emerge from the commission of observers, such as Algeria and Mauritania, has not been effective. After two years without a mediator, Mr Staffan de Mistura has just been appointed and we have high hopes for him, and in the latest contacts we have had with Mr de Mistura we have asked him to be patient and not to throw in the towel easily. This movement in the positions of several countries is a positive element because it at least induces the responsible parties to think that the best way to achieve peace is through negotiation. The peace process and the intervention of the United Nations is the best platform for exploring this possible agreement, not that I am very optimistic, but I don't want us to be blinded by pessimism either.
What do you think is missing for this format to succeed?
The current format needs to be opened up more so that more actors and protagonists can join in, at this stage of the world it is impossible to claim a unique representation of anything or anyone. Therefore, opening up the space for other actors, including influential countries such as Spain, would be the best way to reach an agreement. We believe that Spain's new position, unlike that of the Polisario Front, is very positive; it is an act of courage and bravery to step out of the position of spectator, as all Spanish governments have been doing since 1975. The fact that the government of Pedro Sánchez has decided to roll up its sleeves to try to contribute to a peaceful solution to the problem is a great success and can help to achieve a solution to the tunnel in which the Saharawis have found themselves since 1971.