Panama suspends relations with the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic

Panama has suspended diplomatic relations with the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), as confirmed by the Panamanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in an official statement.

The Government of the Republic of Panama has officially announced the suspension of diplomatic relations with the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) ‘within the framework of the applicable rules of international law’.

According to the official statement: ‘The Republic of Panama, placing the national interest first and faithful to the fundamental principles of its foreign policy, reaffirms its conviction with the purposes and values that guide multilateralism and reiterates its willingness to continue supporting the efforts promoted by the Secretary-General and the international community, within the framework of the United Nations, with a view to achieving a peaceful, just, lasting and acceptable solution for the parties involved in the question of Western Sahara, including the self-determination of its people’. 

Panama has thus reaffirmed its ‘tradition of being a mediating country’, as indicated by the Panamanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, reaffirming ‘its commitment to dialogue and multilateral cooperation, in full observance of a constructive foreign policy aimed at strengthening international peace and security’.

In this way, Panama is committed to dialogue and negotiation within the framework of the United Nations (UN) with a view to resolving the Sahrawi dispute, and therefore dissociates itself from the link with SADR, an entity that is not recognised as a state as such by a large number of countries on the international scene and which, together with its related organisation, the Polisario Front, advocates the holding of a referendum on independence for the Sahrawi population. A referendum that Panama does not rule out, but which should be agreed by all parties involved in the Western Sahara issue. 

This withdrawal of Panamanian support for SADR is a serious blow for SADR and for the pro-independence thesis on Western Sahara. Especially since Panama was the first nation to recognise SADR, and the country that hosted what was supposedly the first embassy of the so-called pseudo-state in Latin America (in 1980). SADR thus loses what was its first and longest-standing support in Latin America.

This political move benefits Morocco, which considers Western Sahara part of its southern provinces and values the sovereignty of the area highly in defence of its territorial integrity. 

Morocco is proposing an Autonomy Plan for Western Sahara that would give the Sahrawi authorities ample room for manoeuvre, leaving the territory under Moroccan sovereignty, while respecting UN resolutions, with the aim of maximising the Sahara's development in all areas and closing the Sahrawi dispute, which has lasted almost five decades since Spain's departure from the area as a colonial power.

This Moroccan proposal has received the backing of more than 100 countries, including powers such as the United States, France, the United Arab Emirates, Israel, Germany and Spain, which consider it to be the most serious, credible and realistic way of resolving the Sahrawi territorial problem. 

In view of this, SADR and the Polisario Front advocate the holding of an electoral consultation among the Sahrawi population to decide on their sovereignty, something that is difficult to achieve due to problems such as the drawing up of an electoral census, given that there is a large Sahrawi community living in the so-called southern provinces of Morocco and another smaller part in refugee camps in neighbouring Algeria, where they suffer difficult living conditions, as various analysts have pointed out.